The Diablo 4 best Necromancer builds follow a certain trend: minions laying waste to foes. From there, we can think of various ideas depending on certain skill sets, such as Blood or Bone. Here’s our guide to help you with the best Necromancer builds in Diablo 4.
Diablo 4 best Necromancer builds guide
Related Necromancer class guides
Before we discuss the Diablo 4 best Necromancer builds, do take note that we also have several guides that focus on everyone’s favorite undead-raising, corpse-exploding class, as well as related topics:
The Necro class itself tends to be one of the most powerful and beginner-friendly, primarily due to healing sources and having nearly a dozen minions at your beck and call. However, when considering Diablo 4 best Necromancer builds, it’s worth adding that you’re hampered by a limited selection of active skills, since your Raise Skeleton and Summon Golem abilities already take up two out of the six default slots.
Leveling build
Our Necromancer leveling build comes from the early access beta, where only Act 1 was playable and you can only reach level 25. The build relies on a select few Blood abilities, such as Hemorrhage and Blood Surge. Corpse Explosion, Decrepify, and Army of the Dead are also there for additional AoE damage, AoE debuffs, and long-cooldown nuking, respectively.
Active skills
- Hemorrhage: Enhanced – Initiate’s
- Blood Surge (5): Enhanced – Paranormal
- Corpse Explosion: Enhanced – Plagued
- Decrepify: Enhanced – Horrid
- Army of the Dead: Prime – Supreme
Passive skills
- Hewed Flesh
- Skeletal Warrior Mastery
- Amplify Damage
Book of the Dead
- Skeletal Warriors: Reapers
- Skeletal Mages: Cold
- Golem: Bone
Hemo/Blood Nova Necromancer
We feel that one of the best Necromancer builds in Diablo 4 follows the template from our earlier leveling build, though with some changes, thanks to additional skill points.
In any case, the Hemo/Blood Nova Necromancer build goes all-in on Blood skills. Hemo tends to be spammed, given its Fortify proc and Blood Orb generation. These will give you health boosts/replenishment, and a higher Overpower coefficient when using Blood Surge (aka. Blood Nova).
Meanwhile, your undead minions do a lot of heavy lifting. Not only do they chip away at the HP of hostiles, but they’ll also manage to distract some of them, leaving you free to cast and blast. It’s a bit like standing around and holding the A button until you get bored. However, bear in mind that further enhancing your capabilities depends on acquiring certain Legendary Aspects. Examples include those that boost Skeletal Warriors and Cold Skeletal Mages (via legendary item extraction), Blood-Bathed Aspect (an additional Blood Surge nova explosion), and Blood Mist’s damage-over-time (also via legendary item extraction).
Gallery
Active skills
- Hemorrhage (5/5): Enhanced – Initiate’s
- Blood Surge (2/5): Enhanced – Paranormal
- Blood Mist (1/5): Enhanced – Ghastly (corpse generation) or Dreadful (extra Fortify)
- Army of the Dead (1/1): Prime – Supreme
Passive skills
- Unliving Energy (1/3)
- Perfectly Imbalanced (3/3)
- Skeletal Warrior Mastery (3/3)
- Skeletal Mage Mastery (3/3)
- Death’s Embrace (3/3)
- Death’s Reach (3/3)
- Gruesome Mending (1/3)
- Transfusion (3/3)
- Coalesced Blood (3/3)
- Tides of Blood (3/3)
- Drain Vitality (3/3)
- Golem Mastery (3/3)
- Bonded in Essence (1/3)
- Death’s Defense (3/3)
- Inspiring Leader (3/3)
- Hellbent Commander (3/3)
- Kalan’s Edict (1/1)
Book of the Dead
- Skeletal Warriors: Defenders – Choose the first option for general utility, and pick the second if you have a lot of Thorns.
- Skeletal Mages: Cold – The second perk makes frozen enemies vulnerable, which is an exceptional choice once you have the Legendary Aspect that gives +2 Skeletal Mages and Cold Mages that cast Blizzard.
- Golem: Blood – The second perk is ideal due to how tanky the Blood Golem is, especially when you can regularly keep it in tip-top shape. That leads to consistent uptime for the buff.
Bone Spear Necromancer
Another one of the best Necromancer builds in Diablo 4 relies more on Bone Spear to deal damage. This means replacing some of the previous Blood-based options. However, we’ll retain the minion-heavy skills and passives because they’re just that good.
A key different to take note of is that you’ll want extra essence, too. That’s because of a passive that buffs the damage of Bone skills the more essence you have when they’re cast.
Active skills
- Bone Splinters (1/5): Enhanced – Acolyte’s
- Bone Spear (5/5): Enhanced – Paranormal
- Decrepify (1/5): Enhanced – Horrid
- Army of the Dead (1/1): Prime – Supreme
Passive skills
- Unliving Energy (1/3)
- Imperfectly Balanced (3/3)
- Skeletal Warrior Mastery (3/3)
- Skeletal Mage Mastery (3/3)
- Amplify Damage (3/3)
- Death’s Embrace (3/3)
- Death’s Reach (3/3)
- Serration (3/3)
- Compound Fracture (3/3)
- Evulsion (3/3)
- Golem Mastery (3/3)
- Bonded in Essence (3/3)
- Death’s Defense (3/3)
- Inspiring Leader (3/3)
- Hellbent Commander (3/3)
- Kalan’s Edict (1/1)
Book of the Dead
- Skeletal Warriors: Defenders
- Skeletal Mages: Cold
- Golem: Blood
We’re still going with the same selections from the Blood Nova Necromancer build. In any case, these are some of the Diablo 4 best Necromancer builds that we’ve tried during the beta and review stages of the game. We’ll definitely add more as we continue to grind, loot, and progress once the game has officially launched.
Diablo 4 has numerous classes, mechanics, and activities. For more about the game, you can visit our D4 guides hub.
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