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Diablo 4 encourages players to experiment with various skills and abilities, but spending those hard-earned skill points willy-nilly can only get you so far. That’s where builds come in. Basing your playstyle around a proper build will make the game more enjoyable while also allowing you to play more efficiently. This applies to all classes, including the Necromancer.
Necromancers are masters of undeath and have the ability to summon a variety of minions to help them in combat. However, this class isn’t a one-trick pony. While most Necromancer builds do rely on minions to a greater or lesser extent, it’s still important to also take into consideration things like spells, Aspects, gems, Paragon Nodes, and more.
Necromancer Specializations
Diablo 4 forces you to mix and match skills early on, but once you reach the mid-game you can start putting together builds that revolve around specific themes and skill groups. In the case of the Necromancer, you have six of these themes to choose from. Namely, Bone, Blood, Summoning, Darkness, and Corruption. There aren’t enough spells in any of these categories to completely fill your skills bar, so any build will have to incorporate at least two of them.
The first build we’re going to cover in this guide goes by the name of Bonegrinder. This build focuses primarily on strengthening minions while also incorporating a fair amount of Bone skills. Bonegrinder is a straightforward build centered around critical strikes that relies on very few gimmicks to get the job done. As such, this is a great build for players who are new to the Necromancer class.
The second build we’re going to show you is called Bloodseeker, and this one is a bit more advanced. Just as its name suggests, this build mostly revolves around Blood skills and turns the Necromancer into a vampire of sorts. Bloodseeker makes Necromancers extremely difficult to kill while also giving them all the tools they’ll need to heal and Fortify themselves using the life force of their enemies.
Bonegrinder Necromancer Best Skills
This build uses almost every available Bone skill except for Bone Prison. Bone Prison is a must-have in CC builds that incorporate Curses and Darkness skills, but isn’t particularly viable in this particular build and should be skipped. Bonegrinder uses the Bone Storm Ultimate, but Army of the Dead is a good choice as well, especially if you’re struggling to generate corpses.
Since this build revolves heavily around critical strikes, it's important to grab the Acolyte's Bone Splinters and Paranormal Bone Spear upgrades for your first two spells. The build also plays around with Essence a lot, hence why it incorporates both Unliving Energy and Imperfectly Balanced. You can grab Imperfectly Balanced Rank 3 and stick with Hewed Flesh Rank 2 once you've increased your maximum Essence. If you do it before that, you'll run out of Essence faster than you can blink.
Hewed Flesh is only here to help with corpse generation and can be skipped if you're not having issues with that particular aspect. Bonegrinder does provide other means of generating corpses, but you may want to keep Hewed Flesh anyway, just until you've got used to the build. Once you've become familiar with it, we recommend skipping Hewed Flesh and dumping the three skill points into Imperfectly Balanced Rank 3 and Bonded In Essence Rank 3.
Bonegrinder skips the Corpse & Macabre and Corruption skill groups almost entirely, however, you do want to grab the Minion Mastery passives at Rank 3. As mentioned earlier, minions play a key role in this build.
|
Skill Type |
Recommended Skills |
Upgrades |
Passives |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Basic |
Bone Splinters 5/5 |
|
- |
|
Core |
Bone Spear 5/5 |
|
|
|
Corpse & Macabre |
- |
- |
Skeletal Warrior Mastery 3/3 |
|
Corruption |
- |
- |
Skeletal Mage Mastery 3/3 |
|
Summoning |
Bone Spirit |
|
|
|
Ultimate |
Bone Storm |
|
|
|
Key Passive |
Ossified Essence |
- |
- |
Once you reach the Summoning skill group, you'll want to focus once again on critical strikes and Essence. Feel free to replace Ghastly Bone Spirit with Dreadful Bone Spirit if you wish since they're both very solid upgrades. We recommend sticking with the Dreadful upgrade whenever you're having issues with Essence generation and switching to Ghastly when you're trying to focus heavily on big damage and critical strikes. All the passives found in this skill group are self-explanatory, but we do need to stress the importance of skipping Evulsion. Unless you're planning to pick the alternative upgrades for Bone Splinters and Bone Spear, this upgrade won't be of much help.
Most of the remaining skills and passives are centered around improving DPS and making the Necromancer's minions even stronger. Bonded In Essence isn't mandatory but dumping at least one point into it will come in handy since this build uses Bone Mages, which are notoriously squishy. Ossified Essence seems like a no-brainer for a Bone-themed build, but Kalan's Edict wouldn't be a bad choice either, especially if you plan on increasing the maximum number of active minions.
Bonegrinder Necromancer Best Aspects
The Necromancer has plenty of great Aspects to choose from, many of which happen to work really well with this build. Ideally, you’ll want to incorporate at least a couple of unique items into this build in the form of Deathless Visage and the Ring of Mendeln. These two items grant unique Aspects that work well with this build and can’t be acquired through other means. But since it’s not exactly easy to get your hands on those items, we made sure to include Aspects that are easier to acquire in the table below.
As a rule of thumb, any Aspect that improves your Bone skills or empowers your minions is worth considering. Items with the Vicious Aspect and the Blood Getter Aspect are a must for Necromancers who prefer large armies with lots of minions. Same goes for the Requiem Aspect, the Aspect of Hardened Bones, and other Aspects that provide bonuses for having more minions in your army.
Alternatively, if you don’t want to rely too much on minions, you should focus your efforts exclusively on acquiring Aspects that benefit Bone skills. For the purposes of this particular build, we recommend going with a mix of both.
|
Gear Slot |
Aspect |
Aspect Effect |
|---|---|---|
|
Helm |
Aspect of Hardened Bones |
While you have 7 or more Minions, your Minions gain [15-20%] increased Damage Reduction. |
|
Chest |
Vicious Aspect |
Your Maximum number of Skeletal Mages is increased by 2. |
|
Gloves |
Aspect of Serration |
The Ossified Essence Key Passive increases the Critical Strike Damage of your Bone skills by 1% per Essence, up to [30-40%]. |
|
Pants |
Aspect of Shielding Storm |
Each time that Bone Storm damages an enemy, gain a Barrier equal to [2-5%] of your Base Life for 10 seconds. |
|
Boots |
Blood Getter's Aspect |
Your Maximum number of Skeletal Warriors is increased by 2. |
|
Weapon |
Osseous Gale Aspect |
Bone Storm consumes up to 8 corpses to increase its duration by up to [X] seconds. |
|
Amulet |
Aspect of Swelling Curse |
Bone Spirit deals increased damage based on distance traveled, up to [15-25%]. |
|
Ring 1 |
Aspect of Torment |
Critical Strikes with Bone skills increase your Essence regeneration by [20-30%] for 4 seconds. |
|
Ring 2 |
Requiem Aspect |
You gain [3.0-5.0] Maximum Essence per active Minion. |
Bonegrinder Necromancer Best Gear & Gems
Right off the bat, you'll want to go after Deathless Visage and the Ring of Mendeln, two unique Necromancer items that provide significant benefits to this build. In addition, other unique items like The Grandfather. Melted Heart of Selig, and the Ring of Starless Skies are also worth considering if you can get your hands on them, though they're not nearly as important as the other two items.
|
Item |
Slot |
Attributes |
|---|---|---|
|
Deathless Visage |
Helm |
|
|
Ring of Mendeln |
Ring |
|
|
The Grandfather |
Weapon |
|
|
Melted Heart of Selig |
Amulet |
|
|
Ring of Starless Skies |
Ring |
|
When it comes to gems, there are a couple of ways you could go about making the most out of them. The weapon gem will be the most important one for this build, and you should consider going with Diamond if you don't plan on making any changes to it. Sapphire is another great choice but only if you incorporate Bone Prison or some other form of Crowd Control into the build. Armor and jewelry gems won't have a huge impact on this build, so feel free to go with whatever feels best. We recommend Diamond for jewelry and either Diamond or Ruby for armor.
|
Gear |
Gem |
Effect |
|---|---|---|
|
Weapon (One or the other) |
|
|
|
Armor (Mix and match across all slots) |
|
|
|
Jewelry (All slots) |
|
|
Bonegrinder Necromancer Best Paragon Nodes
The Paragon Board features a number of Nodes that will help make this build even better. Once you reach level 50, your first order of business will be to make your way through the Starting Board as fast as possible and unlock the Bone Graft Board. This is where you’ll find the Nodes that enhance your Bone skills. Once you’ve grabbed the most important ones, you’ll want to start working towards unlocking the Cult Leader Board, which will allow you to also enhance your minions.
|
Paragon Node |
Node Type |
Effect |
|---|---|---|
|
Bone Graft |
Legendary Node |
Hitting enemies with Bone Skills increases your damage by 1% and your Maximum Essence by 3 for 8 seconds, stacks up to 8% increased damage and 24 Maximum Essence. |
|
Calcified |
Rare Node |
Bonus: Another +15.0% Critical Strike Damage with Bone Skills if requirements met:
|
|
Entomb |
Rare Node |
Bonus: Another +2.0% Critical Strike Chance with Bone Skills if requirements met:
|
|
Reinvigorate |
Rare Node |
Bonus: Another +2.0% Critical Strike Chance with Bone Skills if requirements met:
|
|
Shaper of Bone |
Rare Node |
Bonus: Another +2.0% Critical Strike Chance with Bone Skills if requirements met:
|
|
Cult Leader |
Legendary Node |
Your Minions deal 15% increased damage for each Minion type you have active. This only applies to the Minion types: Skeletal Warrior, Skeletal Mage, and Golem. |
|
Armor-Clad |
Rare Node |
Bonus: Another +4.0% Minion Armor if requirements met:
|
|
Custody |
Rare Node |
Bonus: Another 10.0% Damage Reduction for Your Minions if requirements met:
|
|
Infused Caster |
Rare Node |
Bonus: Another +17.0% Skeletal Mages Damage if requirements met:
|
|
Infused Warrior |
Rare Node |
Bonus: Another +17.0% Skeletal Warriors Damage if requirements met:
|
|
Overlord |
Rare Node |
Bonus: Another +10.0% Minion Damage if requirements met:
|
|
Puppeteer |
Rare Node |
Bonus: Another +10.0% Minion Damage if requirements met:
|
Bonegrinder Necromancer Playstyle
Bonegrinder isn't a flashy build, but it is a highly effective one. Like most Basic skills, Bone Splinters won't do a ton of damage, so you'll use it primarily to generate Essence for Bone Spear and Bone Spirit. Bone Spirit should always take priority since its damage varies depending on how much Essence you use to cast it. Ideally, you'll want to cast it whenever your Essence is at max and then follow it up with a couple of Bone Spears while it's on cooldown.
As far as the Ultimate is concerned, the only important thing to note is that Bone Storm applies to both the Necromancer and their Golem. To get the most out of it, you'll want to cast it only when your Golem is active. As with any Necromancer build that relies on minions, you can use the two Summoning skills as often as needed, at least for the most part. You'll need to use Raise Skeleton more often than with other builds in order to heal your Bone Mages. Meanwhile, the Bone Golem's active ability is a defensive one, so there's no point in trying to use it offensively.
Bonegrinder Necromancer Book Of The Dead
Bone Mages and the Bone Golem are obvious choices for a build like this. The Bone Mages require constant healing but provide a ton of DPS in return while the Bone Golem provides you with extra corpses while also acting as a great tank. As far as the Skeletal Warriors are concerned, the humble Skirmishers are your best bet just because they're the only variant that benefits from your Critical Strikes, which proc quite often with this build. If you're not a big fan of Skirmishers, the Reapers are the next best choice.
|
Minion |
Specialization |
Upgrade |
Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Skeletal Warriors |
Skirmishers |
Second |
Each time you Critically Strike, your Skirmishers Warriors' next attack Critically Strikes and deals 50% bonus Critical Strike damage. Can only happen every 3 seconds. |
|
Skeletal Mages |
Bone |
First |
Reduces the Life cost of your Bone Mages' attacks from 15% to 10%. After being alive for 5 seconds, Bone Mages deal 40% increased damage. |
|
Golem |
Bone |
First |
Each time your Bone Golem takes up to 20% of its Maximum Life as damage, it sheds a Corpse. |
Bloodseeker Necromancer Best Skills
This build uses every available Blood skill except for Blood Lance. Blood Lance and Blood Surge are both Core skills and having two of them is a bit redundant, so we’re sticking with Blood Surge. In addition to providing our Necromancer with good AoE damage, Blood Surge also provides a good amount of healing and Overpower damage, both of which are essential to this build.
Another theme you’ll notice time and time again here is Fortification. While we’re skipping the Supernatural Blood Surge upgrade for the Paranormal variant, the build uses a number of other skills to Fortify the Necromancer. Fortification makes the Necromancer extremely resilient and counts towards our Overpower damage, so it’s a win-win situation.
The only skill that doesn’t fit the theme of the build is Corpse Explosion, however, this skill is vital since it gives us additional AoE damage along with a way of consuming corpses. You can go with Corpse Tendrils instead, but Corpse Explosion has better synergy with a few of the Aspects we're going to cover in the next section.
|
Skill Type |
Recommended Skills |
Upgrades |
Passives |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Basic |
Hemorrhage 5/5 |
|
- |
|
Core |
Blood Surge 5/5 |
|
|
|
Corpse & Macabre |
|
|
- |
|
Corruption |
- |
- |
- |
|
Summoning |
- |
- |
|
|
Ultimate |
Blood Wave |
|
|
|
Key Passive |
Rathma's Vigor |
- |
- |
Unlike the Bonegrinder build, Bloodseeker doesn’t rely heavily on minions. In fact, we’re sacrificing both Skeletal Warriors and Skeletal Mages in exchange for making the Necromancer more powerful. However, we are still using the Golem. The Blood Golem is one of the best Necromancer minions in Diablo 4 and the benefits of keeping it around are greater than the buffs we would be getting by sacrificing it.
Sacrificing all your skeletons may sound like a bad idea, but you actually get quite a few advantages by doing so. Namely, we're going to get a lot of reduction to all non-physical damage and a massive increase to our Overpower attacks. These bonuses become even more impressive once you start investing points into Stand Alone and Memento Mori. Since you're saving up 6 skill points by skipping Skeletal Masteries, you can grab both of those passives at Rank 3.
Bloodseeker Necromancer Best Aspects
Whereas Bonegrinder gives Necromancers a lot of room to mix and match Aspects, Bloodseeker is a lot more straightforward. There is a clear BiS Aspect for almost every slot along with a couple of amazing unique items like the Blood Artisan's Cuirass and the Deathspeaker's Pendant. Once again, these items are very difficult to find, so it's best to fill your slots with regular imprinted items instead of trying to plan around unique from the get-go.
Considering the theme of this build, it should come as no surprise that the most valuable Aspects are those that enhance the Necromancer's Blood skills. You won't be able to find Blood-themed Aspects for some of the slots, so you'll need to make do with a few generic Aspects as well.
|
Gear Slot |
Aspect |
Aspect Effect |
|---|---|---|
|
Helm |
Aspect of the Crowded Sage |
You Heal for [X] Life per second for each Close enemy, up to [X] Life per second. |
|
Chest |
Aspect of Explosive Mist |
Blood Mist triggers Corpse Explosion on surrounding Corpses. When Blood Mist detonates a Corpse, its Cooldown is reduced by [0.2-0.5] seconds. |
|
Gloves |
Blood-Soaked Aspect |
Blood Mist leaves a trail that lasts for 4 seconds and deals [X] Shadow damage per second to enemies who stand in it. Your Movement Speed is no longer reduced while Blood Mist is active. |
|
Pants |
Aspect of the Embalmer |
Consuming a Corpse has a [20 - 30]% chance to spawn a Blood Orb. |
|
Boots |
Exploiter's Aspect |
You have 20% increased Crowd Control Duration. While enemies are Unstoppable, you deal [20-50%] |
|
Weapon |
Blood-bathed Aspect |
Blood Surge's nova echoes again after a short delay, dealing [70-60%] less damage. |
|
Offhand |
Aspect of Untimely Death |
Each percent of your Maximum Life you Heal beyond 100% grants you 0.5 bonus Overpower damage on your next Overpowering attack, up to a [20.0-60.0]% bonus. |
|
Amulet |
Tidal Aspect |
Blood Wave fires two additional waves, each dealing [50-60]% less damage than the previous. |
|
Ring 1 |
Aspect of Ultimate Shadow |
Bone Storm and Blood Wave are also Darkness Skills, deal Shadow damage, and gain additional effects: Enemies damaged by Bone Storm take [X] Shadow damage over 2 seconds. Blood Wave desecrates the ground it travels over, dealing [X] Shadow damage over 4 seconds |
|
Ring 2 |
Sacrificial Aspect |
Your Sacrifice bonuses are increased by [15-25%] |
Bloodseeker Necromancer Best Gear & Gems
There are quite a few unique items that work well with this build, including the aforementioned Blood Artisan's Cuirass and Deathspeaker's Pendant. In addition, items like Black River and Howl From Below also work really well since they both improve Corpse Explosion. If you want to add a few more unique into the mix we recommend also keeping an eye out for Temerity, Mother's Embrace, and the Ring of Starless Skies.
|
Item |
Slot |
Attributes |
|---|---|---|
|
Blood Artisan's Cuirass |
Chest |
|
|
Howl From Below |
Gloves |
|
|
Black River |
Weapon |
|
|
Temerity |
Pants |
|
|
Ring of Starless Skies |
Ring |
|
|
Mother's Embrace |
Ring |
|
|
Deathspeaker's Pendant |
Amulet |
|
Things are pretty straightforward when it comes to gems. Bloodseeker relies heavily on Overpower so adding Ruby gems to your weapons feels like a natural fit. When it comes to the armor, you'll want Sapphire, Ruby, and Skull gems. Ideally, you'll want to mix and match them, but you can definitely focus on one more than the others. Unless you need a lot of resistance against a specific element, you can stick with Diamond gems for all your jewelry.
|
Gear |
Gem |
Effect |
|---|---|---|
|
Weapon |
|
|
|
Armor (Mix and match across all slots) |
|
|
|
Jewelry (All slots) |
|
|
Bloodseeker Necromancer Best Paragon Nodes
As always, you'll want to make your way as fast as possible past the Starting Board, so you can start working your way toward those powerful Rare and Legendary Nodes. Once you reach the first Attachment Gate make sure to unlock the Bloodbath Board before working your way toward the Blood Begets Blood Board. It's going to take you a while to unlock all the relevant Nodes from both Boards, but once you do, you'll become unstoppable with this build.
|
Paragon Node |
Node Type |
Effect |
|---|---|---|
|
Bloodbath |
Legendary Node |
Attacks that are guaranteed to Overpower deal 50% increased Overpower damage. |
|
Guarded Advance |
Rare Node |
Bonus: Another +10.0% Damage while Fortified if requirements met:
|
|
Hardened |
Rare Node |
Bonus: Another +10.0% Damage while Fortified if requirements met:
|
|
Powerhouse |
Rare Node |
Bonus: Another +12.5% Damage while Healthy if requirements met:
|
|
Thick Hide |
Rare Node |
Bonus: Another +10.0% Damage while Fortified if requirements met:
|
|
Blood Begets Blood |
Legendary Node |
Blood Orbs grant 5% increased damage, up to 15%, for 5 seconds. |
|
Aggression |
Rare Node |
Bonus: Another +30.0% Overpower Damage if requirements met:
|
|
Blooddrinker |
Rare Node |
Bonus: Another +5.0% Blood Orb Healing if requirements met:
|
|
Blood-Empowered |
Rare Node |
Bonus: Another +400.0% Damage for 0.1 Seconds After Picking Up a Blood Orb if requirements met:
|
|
Invigorated |
Rare Node |
Bonus: Another +10.0% Damage for 4 Seconds After Picking Up a Blood Orb if requirements met:
|
|
Vampiric |
Rare Node |
Bonus: Another +5.0% Blood Orb Healing if requirements met:
|
Bloodseeker Necromancer Playstyle
Bloodseeker is a fast-paced build that allows the Necromancer to do considerable burst damage, but also requires them to be constantly on the move. Blood Surge is your bread and butter here and since it's a short-range attack, you'll want to make sure that you're always fighting your enemies up close and personal. Being constantly in melee means you'll take a lot of damage, but you'll also have plenty of opportunities to heal and Fortify yourself. Besides, Blood Mist makes you temporarily invulnerable you can always rely on your Golem friend to take some of the heat off you in most other situations. You won't have to worry too much about dying while using this build.
If you want to get the most out of Bloodseeker, it's very important to take combos into account. For instance, you can use Blood Wave to CC enemies and then follow it up with a Corpse Explosion or a couple of charges of Blood Mist. Thanks to Rathma's Vigor, you're going to get Overpowered spells at regular intervals, but it's easy to waste a lot of damage potential if you're not paying attention. Generally speaking, you'll want to only Overpower your Blood Waves and Blood Surges, as Hemorrhage is more of a filler spell while Blood Mist should be reserved for very specific situations.
Bloodseeker Necromancer Book Of The Dead
You won't be using any skeletons with this build, but that doesn't mean their sacrifices will go to waste. Sacrificing Bone Mages is a no-brainer considering the massive boost to Overpower damage you'll get in return, but things aren't quite as cut and dry when it comes to Skeletal Warriors. Defenders are arguably the best choice here, however, there is an argument to be made for sacrificing Reapers instead.
With the proper skills and gear, you can cause most of your Blood spells to deal Shadow damage instead of Physical damage. Same goes for Corpse Explosion. If you're trying to maximize your DPS, Reapers are the way to go. Meanwhile, Defenders are the better choice for players who don't plan on converting their Blood skills, as well as those who prefer some extra defense. As far as your only active minion is concerned, there's only one real choice here, and that's the Blood Golem.
|
Minion |
Specialization |
Upgrade |
Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Skeletal Warriors |
Defenders |
Sacrifice |
You gain X% Non-Physical Resistance, but you can no longer raise Skeletal Warriors. |
|
Skeletal Mages |
Bone |
Sacrifice |
Your Overpower damage is increased by X%, but you can no longer raise Skeletal Mages. |
|
Golem |
Blood |
First |
Your Blood Golem absorbs 15% of the damage you would take. |