Diablo 4: Best Necromancer Builds [Top 4]

The Necromancer Class in Diablo 4 relies on reviving Corpses and dealing insane amounts of magic damage. In this guide, we go over four key Diablo 4 Necromancer builds and their respective active and passive Skills, Aspects, Book of the Dead builds, and strategies.

A summary table for all the Active Skills is provided below:

No.	Build	Skill	Upgrades	Legendary Aspect
1	Necromancer Leveling Build	Bone Spear	Enhanced Bone Spear, Supernatural Bone Spear	Band of Torment
2	Necromancer Leveling Build	Blood Surge	Enhanced Blood Surge, Paranormal Blood Surge	Blood-Bathed Sovereign Vambraces
3	Necromancer Leveling Build	Hemorrhage	Enhanced Hemorrhage, Initiate's Hemorrhage	N/A
4	Necromancer Leveling Build	Blood Mist	Enhanced Blood Mist, Dreadful Blood Mist	N/A
5	Necromancer Leveling Build	Blood Wave	Prime Blood Wave, Supreme Blood Wave,	N/A
6	Necromancer Blight Summoner Build	Blight	Enhanced Blight, Supernatural Blight	N/A
7	Necromancer Blight Summoner Build	Corpse Explosion	Blighted Corpse Explosion	N/A
8	Necromancer Blight Summoner Build	Decompose	Enhanced Decompose, Acolyte's Decompose	Flesh-Rending Loop, Rotting Aspect
9	Necromancer Blight Summoner Build	Raise Skeleton	N/A	N/A
10	Necromancer Blight Summoner Build	Army of the Dead	Prime Army of the Dead	N/A
11	Corpse Explosion Necromancer Build	Bone Spear	Enhanced Bone Spear, Supernatural Bone Spear	Band of Torment
12	Corpse Explosion Necromancer Build	Corpse Explosion	Plagued Corpse Explosion	N/A
13	Corpse Explosion Necromancer Build	Decompose	Enhanced Decompose, Acolyte's Decompose	Flesh-Rending Aspect
14	Corpse Explosion Necromancer Build	Iron Maiden	Enhanced Iron Maiden, Abhorrent Iron Maiden	N/A
15	Corpse Explosion Necromancer Build	Army of the Dead	Supreme Army of the Dead	N/A
16	Corpse Explosion Necromancer Build	Corpse Tendrils	Enhanced Corpse Tendrils, Plagued Corpse Tendrils	N/A
17	Corpse Explosion Necromancer Build	Bone Spirit	Enhanced Bone Spirit, Ghastly Bone Spirit	N/A
18	Shadowmancer Build	Reap	Enhanced Reap, Acolyte's Reap	N/A
19	Shadowmancer Build	Corpse Explosion	Enhanced Corpse Explosion, Blighted Corpse Explosion	N/A
20	Shadowmancer Build	Blood Mist	Enhanced Decompose, Acolyte's Decompose	N/A
21	Shadowmancer Build	Sever	Enhanced Sever, Paranormal Sever	N/A
22	Shadowmancer Build	Blight	Enhanced Blight, Supernatural Blight	N/A
23	Shadowmancer Build	Decrepify	Enhanced Decrepify	N/A

And here is the summary table for Passive Skills:

Necromancer Leveling Build	Necromancer Blight Summoner Build	Corpse Explosion Necromancer Build	Shadowmancer Build
-Unliving Energy -Imperfectly Balanced -Coalesced Blood -Transfusion -Tides of Blood -Skeletal Warrior Mastery	-Unliving Energy -Imperfectly Balanced -Grim Harvest -Necrotic Carapace -Skeletal Mage Mastery	-Hewed Flesh -Fueled by Death -Grim Harvest -Necrotic Carapace -Ossified Essence -Evulsion -Serration	-Hewed Flesh -Fueled by Death -Grim Harvest -Necrotic Carapace -Reaper's Pursuit -Crippling Darkness -Terror -Gloom -Stand Alone -Shadowblight -Memento Mori

Necromancer Leveling Build

The first build is the Necromancer leveling build. This is a great beginner’s build for quickly leveling up and clearing multiple enemies and bosses.

Active Skills

Skill	Effect	Upgrades	Legendary Aspect
Bone Spear	Penetrates foes, dealing 85% damage.	Enhanced Bone Spear, Supernatural Bone Spear	Band of Torment
Blood Surge	Drains the foe's HP while also dealing damage in an area.	Enhanced Blood Surge, Paranormal Blood Surge	Blood-Bathed Sovereign Vambraces
Hemorrhage	Deals damage and may form a Blood Orb. Also generates Essence.	Enhanced Hemorrhage, Initiate's Hemorrhage	N/A
Blood Mist	Grants immunity for three seconds at the cost of Movement Speed. Deals minor damge and heals minor health.	Enhanced Blood Mist, Dreadful Blood Mist	N/A
Blood Wave	Deals AoE damage while knocking back enemies.	Prime Blood Wave, Supreme Blood Wave,	N/A

Passive Skills

Skill	Effect
Unliving Energy	Increases Maximum Essence by 3.
Imperfectly Balanced	Core Skills cost more Essence but deal more damage.
Coalesced Blood	Blood Skills deal more damage when Healthy.
Transfusion	Minions receive Heal from Blood Orbs.
Tides of Blood	Blood Skills deal more Overpowered damage, with the effect doubling when you're Healthy.
Skeletal Warrior Mastery	Grants a Life and damage boost to Skeletal Warriors.

Book Of The Dead

At level 15, you can unlock the Book of the Dead, which enables you to summon corpses and minions to aid you in battle. Here’s the best Book of the Dead configuration for this build:

• Skeletal Warriors: Select the second notch in the Reapers section. This lets the Warrior form Corpses (15% chance), which can be used with the Raise Skeleton Skill.
• Skeletal Mages: Select the first notch in the Cold section. Cold Mages regenerate Essence whenever they deal damage with their primary attacks. Additionally, they may Freeze enemies.
• Golem: Select the third notch in the Blood section. You won’t be able to summon Golems but will increase your Max HP by 10%.

Legendary Aspects

• Band of Torment: Increases Essence Regeneration by 20% for every Bone Skill Critical Strike. Improves Poison and Cold Resistance as well as Damage to Distant and Crowd Controlled Enemies. Boosts Overpower Damage.
• Blood-Bathed Sovereign Vambraces: Makes the nova of Blood Surge echo. Also boosts Blood Lance Ranks, Willpower, and Intelligence.
• Blood Getter’s Aspect: Increases the max number of Skeletal Warriors. Grants Amulets a 50% Power boost.
• Vicious Aspect: Increases max number of Skeletal Mages. Grants Amulets a 50% Power boost.
• Blood-Soaked Aspect: Makes Blood Mist leave a damaging trail that inflicts Shadow damage. Additionally, it removes the Movement Speed debuff when using Blood Mist. Also grants Amulets a Power boost of 50%.
• Splintering Aspect: Makes Bone Spear deals damage to enemies past the first Vulnerable. Additionally, it deals extra damage to enemies made Vulnerable by Bone Shards from Bone Spears. Has a 100% Power boost with Two-Handed Weapons and a 50% boost with Amulets.

Strategy

This is one of the best Diablo 4 Necromancer builds for beginners that relies on quickly leveling up and using Blood Spear and Blood Surge as your two core skills. Blood Spear deals massive damage and pierces enemies, which is great for horde encounters. Blood Surge, on the other hand, lends sustainability in battle.

The best strategy is to alternate between the two, upgrading whenever feasible. Additionally, this build requires you to use Hemorrhage to regenerate any Essence lost through your two core skills.

For larger hordes of enemies or bosses, it’s highly suggested to use Blood Wave to clear them quickly.

Weapons that boost your Critical Strike Chance and Critical Hit are best with this type of build. We also recommend using Reaper Skeletal Warriors and Blood Golems to improve sustainability and get through enemies faster.

Necromancer Blight Summoner Build

The next build relies on Blight and Corpse Explosion. With this build, you’ll deal massive amounts of damage in a puddle of Blight and also detonate Corpses to take down bosses.

Active Skills

Skill	Effect	Upgrades	Legendary Aspect
Blight	Deals damage and creates an AoE damage area on the ground for 6 seconds.	Enhanced Blight, Supernatural Blight	N/A
Corpse Explosion	Makes a Corpse explode, dealing AoE damage.	Blighted Corpse Explosion	N/A
Decompose	Deals damage, forming Corpses every few seconds and also regenerating Essence.	Enhanced Decompose, Acolyte's Decompose	Flesh-Rending Loop, Rotting Aspect
Raise Skeleton	Creates a Skeleton from a Corpse that will fight for you. If you have summoned all of your skeletons, this skill will create a Skeletal Priest that will boost your Skeleton's damage and heal them.	N/A	N/A
Army of the Dead	Summons Volatile Skeletons for the next 7 seconds. These deal explosive AoE damage to enemies.	Prime Army of the Dead	N/A

Passive Skills

Skill	Effect
Unliving Energy	Increases Maximum Essence by 3.
Imperfectly Balanced	Core Skills cost more Essence but deal more damage.
Grim Harvest	Generates Essence on consuming Corpses.
Necrotic Carapace	Recieve Fortification equal to 2% of your Base HP whenever a new Corpse is formed.
Skeletal Mage Mastery	Grants a Life and damage boost to Skeletal Mages.

Book Of The Dead

Here’s how you should unlock the minions in the Book of the Dead:

• Skeletal Warriors: Select the first notch of the Skirmishers section. This lets you summon another Skirmisher onto the battlefield.
• Skeletal Mages: Select the first notch of the Cold section. Each point of damage dealt by Cold Mages via their primary attack will regenerate 2 Essence.
• Golem: Select the first notch of the Bone section. The Golem will drop a Corpse every time it takes damage worth 20% of its Maximum HP.

Legendary Aspects

• Demonblade of Reanimation: Increases the damage that Skeletons deal along with your Intelligence, Vulnerable Damage, Damage per Hit, Attacks per Second, Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies, and Critical Strike Damage.
• Blood-Getter’s Aspect: Increases the maximum number of Skeletal Warriors you can summon. Has a 50% Power boost when used with Amulets.
• Vicious Aspect: Increases the maximum number of Skeletal Mages you can summon. Grants a 50% Power boost to Amulets.
• Aspect of the Void: Makes Blight pull in your enemies toward the center of the AoE puddle. Also has a 50% Power boost when used with Amulets.
• Aspect of the Protector: Creates a Barrier after every few seconds.
• Flesh-Rending Loop: Regenerates HP whenever a Corpse is created by Decompose. Also boosts Cold and Shadow Resistance, Cold Damage, Critical Strike Chance, and Maximum Essence.
• Rotting Aspect: Decompose will now chain a higher number of targets. Whenever Decompose forms a Corpse, it also has a chance to form a Corpse under each target afflicted by Decompose. Has a 100% Power boost on two-handed weapons and a 50% Power boost on Amulets.

Strategy

This is one of the Diablo 4 Necromancer builds that rely on Blight and Corpse Explosion to deal massive amounts of damage in an area. Your basic skill is Decompose, which regenerates Essence and spawns a Corpse every 2.5 seconds. This works great when used with Rotting Aspect and Flesh-Rending Loop.

The two core skills are Blight and Corpse Explosion. Blight has high power and creates a puddle where the enemies receive constant AoE damage. Corpse Explosion, on the other hand, detonates Corpses, dealing constant damage to all enemies in the vicinity.

Coupled with Decompose and Blight, Corpse Explosion is perfect for taking down enemy hordes and major bosses. Its upgrade, Blighted Corpse Explosion, converts your damage to Shadow Damage and deals damage over time instead of in a burst.

Besides that, you also rely on your Skeletal Warriors as the Skirmishers can spawn in packs of 2. Your Cold Skeletal Mages will regenerate Essence for you, allowing your Blight to never run out. The Raise Skeleton Skill further adds to your army of Skeletons, having great synergy with Decompose.

Finally, there’s the Ultimate Skill, the Army of the Dead. This skill raises Volatile Skeletons that explode and deal burst damage to all targets in the area. Upgrade it to Prime Army of the Dead, and the exploding Volatile Skeletons will have a chance to drop Corpses.

Corpse Explosion Necromancer Build

The Corpse Explosion Necromancer build relies on detonating Corpses to hit enemies in an area. The primary goal of this build is to generate as many Corpses as possible as well as regenerate Essence and land powerful hits.

Active Skills

Skill	Effect	Upgrades	Legendary Aspect
Bone Spear	Penetrates foes, dealing 85% damage.	Enhanced Bone Spear, Supernatural Bone Spear	Band of Torment
Corpse Explosion	Makes a Corpse explode, dealing AoE damage.	Plagued Corpse Explosion	N/A
Decompose	Deals damage, forming Corpses every few seconds and also regenerating Essence.	Enhanced Decompose, Acolyte's Decompose	Flesh-Rending Aspect
Iron Maiden	Applies a curse on an area, making enemies that deal damage while standing in this area take damage themselves.	Enhanced Iron Maiden, Abhorrent Iron Maiden	N/A
Army of the Dead	Summons Volatile Skeletons for the next 7 seconds. These deal explosive AoE damage to enemies.	Supreme Army of the Dead	N/A
Corpse Tendrils	Corpses pull in enemies while stunning them. This skill consumes no Essence and also deals damage.	Enhanced Corpse Tendrils, Plagued Corpse Tendrils	N/A
Bone Spirit	Creates a bone spirit from all remaining Essence that chases enemies and explodes, dealing damage in an area. The damage is increased proportional to the amount of Essence consumed.	Enhanced Bone Spirit, Ghastly Bone Spirit	N/A

Passive Skills

Skill	Effect
Hewed Flesh	Your hits have a probability to make a Corpse, with the odds doubling during boss fights.
Fueled by Death	After using up a Corpse, you deal more damage.
Grim Harvest	Generates Essence on consuming Corpses.
Necrotic Carapace	Recieve Fortification equal to 2% of your Base HP whenever a new Corpse is formed.
Ossified Essence	For every Essence above 50 that you have, Bone Skills will deal more damage.
Evulsion	Vulnerable enemies take more Critical Strike Damage from Bone Skills.
Serration	For every 10 Essence that you have available, Bone Skills have a higher Critical Strike Chance.

Book Of The Dead

Here’s how you should build the Book of the Dead:

• Skeletal Warriors: Select the second notch of the Reapers section. This gives the Reapers a 15% chance to create a Corpse from fallen enemies.
• Skeletal Mages: Select the second notch of the Bone section. When a Bone Mage dies from its moves, they Fortify you for 11% of your Base HP and leave behind a Corpse.
• Golem: Select the first notch of the Bone section. When your Bone Golem takes 20% of its HP in damage, it will create a Corpse.

Legendary Aspects

• Splintering Aspect: This makes your Bone Spear pierce several enemies behind a Vulnerable one. Additionally, Bone Shards created by your Bone Spear will deal more damage to Vulnerable enemies while also passing through them. Has a 100% Power boost with two-handed weapons and a 50% boost with Amulets.
• Aspect of Torment: Briefly boosts Essence Regeneration with every Critical Strike acquired through your Bone Skills. Grants Amulets a 50% Power increment.
• Hulking Aspect: Golems have a chance to create a Corpse whenever they hit enemies and may decrease their active Cooldown. Amulets gain a 50% Power raise with this Aspect.
• Flesh-Rending Aspect: Regenerates HP whenever Decompose creates a Corpse. Also boosts Cold and Shadow Resistance, Cold Damage, Critical Strike Chance, and Maximum Essence.

Strategy

The Diablo 4 Necromancer Corpse Explosion build heavily relies on creating Corpses and exploding them to deal massive amounts of AoE damage. This build has two core Skills: Decompose and Corpse Explosion. Decompose creates Corpses while Corpse Explosion detonates them, creating an undeniable synergy.

For your base attack, use Bone Spear and upgrade it to Supernatural Bone Spear. You should also upgrade your Corpse Explosion to Plagued Corpse Explosion. This makes it so that Corpse explosions deal more damage to Stunned, Slowed, or Vulnerable enemies, with the effect being stackable.

As for the Book of the Dead, you’ll be going for maximum Corpse creation. Some useful Legendary Aspects included in this build are the Flesh-Rending Aspect and Splintering Aspect.

The Flesh-Rending Aspect is crucial to HP regeneration and sustaining in battle with Decompose. Meanwhile, the Splintering Aspect enhances your basic attack and makes Bone Spear penetrate further when targets are vulnerable. This is one of the best Diablo 4 Necromancer builds for detonating Corpses and dealing explosive bursts of damage.

Shadowmancer Build

Finally, we have the Shadowmancer build, one of the best late-game Diablo 4 Necromancer builds. This build utilizes Shadow damage, with Sever and Shadowbklight being its key Skills. You should aim for this build when you’re near levels 50-70.

Active Skills

Skill	Effect	Upgrades	Legendary Aspect
Reap	Deals 12% damage to enemies while also reducing your damage taken for by 15% for 4 seconds. Also generates 4 Essence per hit.	Enhanced Reap, Acolyte's Reap	N/A
Corpse Explosion	Makes a Corpse explode, dealing AoE damage.	Enhanced Corpse Explosion, Blighted Corpse Explosion	N/A
Blood Mist	Grants immunity for three seconds at the cost of Movement Speed. Deals minor damge and heals minor health.	Enhanced Decompose, Acolyte's Decompose	N/A
Sever	Creates a specter that charges into enemies and deals damage, then comes back to you and deals some more damage.	Enhanced Sever, Paranormal Sever	N/A
Blight	Deals damage and creates an AoE damage area on the ground for 6 seconds.	Enhanced Blight, Supernatural Blight	N/A
Decrepify	Applies a Curse on an area, slowing enemies and reducing their damage output for a few seconds.	Enhanced Decrepify	N/A

Passive Skills

Skill	Effect
Hewed Flesh	Your hits have a probability to make a Corpse, with the odds doubling during boss fights.
Fueled by Death	After using up a Corpse, you deal more damage.
Grim Harvest	Generates Essence on consuming Corpses.
Necrotic Carapace	Recieve Fortification equal to 2% of your Base HP whenever a new Corpse is formed.
Reaper's Pursuit	Darkness Skills grant a Movement Speed boost upon hitting an enemy.
Crippling Darkness	Darkness Skills may Stun enemies (15% base chance).
Terror	Darkness Skills deal extra damage to Stunned, Immobilized, and Slowed enemies. This also applies to damage dealt by Minions and can be stacked.
Gloom	Dealing damage with Darkness Skills increases you and your minion's damage output. This effect can stack.
Stand Alone	Reduces damage taken by 6%, along with a 2% damage reduction for every Minion alive.
Shadowblight	Shadow Damage will also apply Shadowblight to enemies. This increases you and your minions' damage output and also applies 20% extra Shadow Damage for every 10th time that an enemy receives Shadow Damage with Shadowblight from you or your minions.
Memento Mori	If you sacrifice both Skeletal Mages and Warriors, their respective bonuses receive a 20% bonus.

Book Of The Dead

For the Book of the Dead, you’ll want to build the following minions:

• Skeletal Warriors: Select the third notch of the Reaper section. You will sacrifice your Warriors to deal additional (base 15%) Shadow Damage.
• Skeletal Mages: Select the third notch of the Cold section. This sacrifices your Skeletal Mages for a 15% increase in damage to Vulnerable enemies.
• Golem: Select the third notch of the Blood section. You’ll receive a 10% boost in Maximum Life at the expense of being unable to raise Golems. You can also select the third notch of the Bone section to get a 40% boost in your Overpower damage.

Legendary Aspects

• Aspect of Disobedience: Grants a 20% damage reduction on Basic Skills.
• Aspect of Might: Dealing damage to enemies will grant a small boost in armor that can stack, for a maximum of 50% armor. Has a 50% boost with Amulets.
• Eluding Aspect: Become Unstoppable whenever you get Injured during the Crowd Control state. Amulets receive a 50% Power increment.
• Aspect of Empowering Reaper: Sever’s Critical Strikes give you a 10-20% probability of creating a small puddle of Blight below your foe. This deals additional damage and has 100% Power scaling with two-handed weapons and 50% scaling with Amulets.
• Blighted Aspect: After Shadowblight damages enemies 10 times in a row, you will receive a massive power boost, from 50% to 120%.

Strategy

When you play this build, your primary focus should be on slowing enemies. This build relies on dealing Shadow Damage with Sever and then using Shadowblight to insanely boost your Shadow Damage further.

Use Decrepify to Curse our enemies and then use Blight to slow them down. These two Skills have great synergy and are perfect for bosses and enemies that move too fast or try to run away.

For dealing burst damage to bosses and minibosses, you’ll want to use Reap followed by Corpse Explosion. Reap will create Corpses for Corpse Explosion to detonate and deal burst damage in an area.

Alternate between Blight and Sever to quickly finish off hordes of enemies. Sever should be used in conjunction with Shadowblight if you’re against enemies that take longer to defeat.

Finally, there’s Blood Mist in case you need a quick getaway or need to buy some time.

Final Thoughts

Necromancers provide extreme resourcefulness in battle, especially against hordes and bosses that move a lot. In this guide, we went over the top four best Diablo 4 Necromancer builds.

To recap, Necromancers rely a lot on reviving and exploding Corpses. Corpse Explosion is a core skill in almost all builds. And without Bone Spear or Splinter, Necromancers would be incomplete.

If you want to know how to get through the Secret of the Spring side quest, check out our guide on the same.

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