Getting wrecked in Dragon's Spine.

[Shax84]

Not at all, just saying there is the alternative, and that spell happen to have the highest base spell damage of all the spells available to the Necromancer, except PB + Chill which is marginally higher. I don't know the coefficient though.

It has its uses though they are few. Mostly trash mobs, but at Thoth and corpses too. Your build is perfect, and there is not enough points to take Plague Swarm if you intend to use Reapers or Blood Arcanists.

[Yawgmoth-VDN]

of course there are alternatives, i don't pretend that my build is the best, i'm just saying that it works pretty fine and that plague swarm is not a "must have" and trying to explain why...
after all, i leveled up my necro using a pure nightfall build, with dts x7 and one melee pet, and it was effective too...