Figuring out how to optimize the Necromancer can be a bit of a pain if you’re new to Diablo 4. This class is extremely gear-dependent, to the point where the Necromancer’s gear dictates not only their own stats, but also those of their Golem and Skeletal minions. Weapons are particularly important for a Necromancer and should always take priority over other pieces of gear.
The vast majority of weapons you’ll come across in Diablo 4 are randomly generated and won't necessarily be scaled to your level, so it’s not exactly easy to find the perfect one for your ideal build. However, that doesn’t mean you’re completely at the mercy of RNG while playing the game. Diablo 4 does feature a number of unique items that can drop during specific encounters. In addition, you can use enchants and Aspects to customize random drops and create the weapon of your dreams.
Updated by Shane Black on August 13th, 2023: This guide was updated to add more links to relevant guides and articles to provide more information.
10 Weapon With Sacrificial Aspect
Necromancers don’t have access to a lot of unique weapons, so you’ll have to rely on Aspects a bit more than other classes. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though, because Necromancers have a lot of offensive Aspects that can turn even underwhelming weapons into powerful items. The Sacrificial Aspect, which can be acquired by clearing the Ruins of Eridu in Hawezar, is one of them.
The Sacrificial Aspect increases the Necromancer’s Sacrifice bonuses by anywhere between 15% and 25%. Naturally, this only comes in handy if you’re running a build that doesn’t use minions, such as our Necromancer Bloodseeker build. If you’re using a build like that, the Sacrificial Aspect is not only recommended, it’s downright mandatory. On the flip side, the Aspect doesn’t provide any benefits to Necromancers who don’t sacrifice their minions, so it’s definitely very situational.
9 Weapon With Aspect Of Grasping Veins
Weapons imprinted with the Aspect of Grasping Veins are also very useful, especially for Necromancers who run Corpse builds. Corpse Tendrils is a staple of those builds and this is one of the best Aspects for enhancing the skill. The Aspect of Grasping Veins gives the Necromancer a 10-20% increased Critical Strike Chance for 6 seconds whenever they cast Corpse Tendrils. The Aspect can be acquired by clearing the Corrupted Grotto in Kehjistan.
As an added bonus, the Aspect of Grasping Veins also allows the Necromancer to deal anywhere between 30 and 60% bonus Critical Strike Damage to enemies damaged by Corpse Tendrils. Imprint this on a scythe or magic sword that already has a good amount of Critical Strike Chance or Damage, and you’ll have a very powerful weapon on your hands. Even better, combine it with the Plagued Corpse Tendrils upgrade to unleash some truly insane damage against all targets affected by the spell.
8 The Grandfather
The Grandfather is a unique two-handed sword that can be equipped by other classes besides the Necromancer. But even though the weapon wasn’t specifically designed for Necromancers, it just so happens that The Grandfather is a nice addition to a couple of popular Necro builds. The weapon works particularly well with builds that rely heavily on Bone skills since, generally speaking, those tend to benefit the most from the massive Critical Strike Damage bonus, which can reach as high as 100%.
The Grandfather’s other stats are not to be overlooked either. This is a well-rounded weapon that directly increases the user’s maximum life and raw damage output while also ignoring durability loss. That may sound like a small thing, but it can actually be very useful during difficult boss encounters where you end up dying a lot. Another interesting feature of this weapon is that some of its proprieties can roll higher than normal. You can get your hands on The Grandfather by defeating enemies, opening chests, and breaking objects in the world in World Tier IV.
7 Weapon With Aspect Of Untimely Death
If The Grandfather is an ideal weapon for Bone builds, weapons imprinted with the Aspect of Untimely Death are undoubtedly most suitable for Blood builds. The Aspect of Untimely Death can’t be found in the Necromancer Codex of Power so you’ll need to extract it yourself if you want to imprint it onto a specific weapon. Aspects like these can also be imprinted on your off-hand item, meaning you can still use a unique weapon in your main hand.
The Aspect of Untimely Death grants the Necromancer a significant bonus to their Overpowering attacks that can range anywhere between 20 and 60%. Just in case you’re not familiar with how Overpower damage works, you always have a 3% chance of triggering the effect, however, you can increase its damage with certain skills and items. And, with certain builds, you can occasionally get guaranteed Overpowering attacks. The only caveat of this Aspect is that it requires the Necromancer to heal beyond 100% of their Maximum Life, hence why this works best with Blood builds.
6 Weapon With Aspect Of Rathma’s Chosen
Speaking of Blood builds, pretty much all of them incorporate Rathma’s Vigor, a Key Passive ability that guarantees you’ll get an Overpowering attack every 15 seconds as long as you manage to maintain your health at 80% or higher. The ability is already very strong as is, but you can make it even better by using a weapon imprinted with the Aspect of Rathma’s Chosen. This is another Aspect that can’t be found in the Codex of Power through extracting it from a Legendary item.
The Aspect of Rathma’s Chosen is another must-have for Blood Necromancers since it gives them increased attack speed whenever one of their Blood skills Overpowers. As mentioned earlier, this will happen quite often thanks to Rathma’s Vigor. The attack speed buff only lasts for 4 seconds, but the bonus can reach up to a whopping 50%. Generally speaking, Basic skills like Hemorrhage are mostly used for generating Essence, but the increased attack speed allows them to do a surprising amount of damage during that 4-second window.
5 Weapon With Aspect Of Serration
The Aspect of Serration is similar to the Aspect of Rathma’s Chosen in the sense that it improves a Key Passive that’s essential to certain builds. In this case, that Key Passive is Ossified Essence, an ability that boosts the damage of Bone skills based on the Necromancer's available Essence. The passive is pretty much mandatory for all Bone-heavy builds, and so is the Aspect of Serration.
In addition to increasing the regular damage of Bone Skills, a weapon imprinted with the Aspect of Serration also increases their Critical Strike Damage. The bonus accumulates at a rate of 1% per point of Essence and can reach up to 40%. Just like the regular buff you get from Ossified Essence, the bonus Critical Strike Damage only applies if the Necromancer has at least 50 points of available Essence upon casting a Bone spell. That’s a bit of a drawback, but one that can be easily overcome by increasing your Maximum Essence, unlocking more Paragon Nodes, and investing points into skills that accelerate Essence generation. The Aspect of Serration must be extracted from another Legendary item and then put on the weapon of your choice.
4 Doombringer
Much like The Grandfather, Doombringer is a unique weapon that can be used by multiple classes. Unique items like this can only be acquired after completing the game on Tier 2 difficulty and grinding a bunch of World Bosses and Nightmare Dungeons in Tier 3 and Tier 4. It’s certainly not easy to get a weapon like Droombringer to drop, but the hassle is well worth it for the stats alone, not to mention its unique effect.
A Necromancer wielding Doombringer has a 15-25% chance to deal bonus Shadow damage to surrounding enemies and weaken them for 5 seconds. In addition, the weapon increases Core skill, Maximum Life, and can heal its wearer. Builds revolving around Shadow damage benefit the most from this weapon. Doombringer can be found by defeating enemies, opening chests, and breaking objects in the world.
3 Weapon With Blood-Bathed Aspect
The Blood-Bathed Aspect is easily one of the best Necromancer Aspects right now, especially if you’re running a Blood build. This Aspect buffs Blood Surge by allowing it to send an additional wave shortly after the first one. The echo deals less damage than the primary wave, but it’s still enough to finish off injured enemies in a lot of situations. The Blood-Bathed Aspect can be unlocked in the Codex of Power by completing Hoarfrost Demise in Fractured Peaks.
Blood Surge is a very powerful Core skill even without any upgrades and this Aspect only serves to make it stronger. The best part is that the echo doesn’t eat up any Essence and benefits from all skills and effects that affect Blood Surge. For instance, you can combine it with Paranormal Blood Surge to gain more Overpowering attacks or Supernatural Blood Surge to Fortify faster and deal more damage.
2 Bloodless Scream
Bloodless Scream is a unique two-handed scythe available exclusively to Necromancers. This is easily the best weapon in Diablo 4 for Shadow builds thanks to its ability to buff the damage of Darkness skills. Bloodless Scream also enables the Necromancer to deal bonus damage to both Chilled and Frozen enemies while also providing some Cold resistance and Life On Kill.
Stats aside, the main highlight here is the weapon’s unique effect. Bloodless Scream causes all Darkness skills to Chill enemies for up to 40% and has a chance to generate additional Essence when hitting Frozen targets. Use this in a build that incorporates Cold Mages to become the ultimate Frost Necromancer. Creating a proper frost build isn’t really possible in Diablo 4, so this is the next best thing. Bloodless Scream can be found by defeating enemies, opening chests, or breaking objects around the world in World Tiers III and IV.
1 Black River
Black River is indisputably the best Necromancer weapon at the moment. Like most weapons, though, you won’t be able to make the most out of it unless you’re running a specific build. In this case, you’ll want to go with a build that revolves around Corpse Explosion. Black River’s unique effect allows the skill to consume extra corpses and deal additional damage based on how many it consumes. In addition, the effect also increases Corpse Explosion’s radius.
In order to improve the skill even more, Black River also gives extra rank points to Corpse Explosion, as well as Fueled By Death. The latter is a passive that causes the Necromancer to deal extra damage for 6 seconds after consuming a corpse. The damage increase usually only goes up to 9%, but you can buff it even more by equipping Black River. This unique scythe has a couple of other useful stats like Intelligence and Life On Kill. And since this is a one-handed weapon, you can pair it with a shield or a focus imprinted with one of the powerful Aspects we covered earlier. Black River can be found by defeating enemies, opening chests, or breaking objects around the world.