Not all heroes fight for the living. Command a skeleton army and wreak havoc on anyone crazy enough to get in your way. If using blood magic and the forbidden arts sounds like a good time for you, then choose the Necromancer and start decimating your foes with these best builds in Diablo IV.
Still undecided on which character class to choose? Check out our ranking on all the classes in Diablo IV.
Key Takeaways for Necromancer Builds:
- The Corpse Bomber takes advantage of Blood Mist and Corpse Explosion.
- Explosive Mist Legendary Aspect pairs well with the Corpse Bomber
- The Blood Buster uses Hemorrhage and Bone Spear to tank.
- The Bone Destroyer focuses on Bone Splinters and Bone Prison with less help from minions.
- Post your own Necromancer build on the Z League app for others to see.
The Corpse Bomber
This build is all about Blood Mist and Corpse Explosion. The idea is to become immune temporarily with Blood Mist and pop as many corpses as possible while regaining Essence. Start by unlocking the Blood Mist skill and upgrading it as you see fit. Grab the Decompose skill which will damage enemies over time and also forms another corpse for your army. Upgrade the skill to Enhanced Decompose which will allow you to receive Essence when an enemy dies that is being decomposed. Initiate’s Decompose will also come in handy since it makes decomposed enemies slower. Since Blood Mist slows you down, it’s also nice to slow down the enemies as well. Snag Corpse Explosion will detonate a corpse and deal damage to surrounding enemies; this is a crucial skill for the build. Upgrade your Blood Mist to Ghastly Blood Mist which leaves behind a corpse at a given interval. Enhanced Blood Mist is a good idea since it allows cooldown reduction of Blood Mist when you cast a skill that overpowers. Adding a Legendary Aspect like Explosive Mist makes this build OP since it will trigger Corpse Explosion on all surrounding corpses, annihilating anything on the battlefield. To add insult to injury, you can select Army of the Dead as your Ultimate skill and watch as hordes of skeletons emerge and explode as they approach enemies.
The Blood Buster
This build focuses on Hemorrhage as the main skill along with Bone Spear allowing the Necromancer to become more of a tank. Start by investing in Hemorrhage which will burst an enemy’s blood and deal damage while also having a chance to form a Blood Orb, which heals the Necromancer. When you upgrade it to Enhanced Hemorrhage, the Blood Orb will make your next Hemorrhage deal damage to enemies around the target and will grant 2 additional Essences per enemy hit. Initiate’s Hemorrhage will allocate a percentage of your base Life to Fortify (you take decreased damage) each time it hits an enemy and has a percentage chance per enemy hit to Fortify you for a percentage of your base Life. It sounds confusing, but basically, the skill will allow you to take less damage when enemies are hit with Hemorrhage, allowing you to tank more efficiently. Combine these skills with Bone Spear that conjures a spear made of bones and deals damage and pierces foes. Upgrade this to Paranormal Bone Spear that has a percentage-based critical strike chance and if successful it will fire 2 additional bone shards upon being destroyed. Some other good skills to grab would be Corpse Explosion, Skeletal Warrior Mastery, and Skeletal Mage Mastery for increased minion damage. Grim Harvest won’t steer you wrong since consuming a corpse will generate 3 Essence for MP regeneration. Death’s Embrace has great synergy since close enemies will take a percentage more damage from you and deal a percentage less damage to you. Stand Alone is the last skill we will mention, and it increases the damage reduction by a certain percentage for each active minion. Your Necromancer will have nothing to fear with this incredibly potent build.
The Bone Destroyer
The idea for this build is to rely more on the capabilities of the Necromancer without the use of minions. Some people may love minions, but others may want to build a Necromancer that can solo the battlefield alone. If that’s you then read on to find out how it’s done!
Start by investing in Bone Splinters that fire off 3 splinters that deal damage. Each subsequent time an enemy is hit by the same cast of bone splinters, you will gain 1 Essence. When you upgrade to Enhanced Bone Splinters you will get a percentage chance to fire 2 additional projectiles if you cast it while you have a certain amount of Essence left. Acolyte’s Bone Splinters will grant critical strikes when you hit the same enemy at least a certain number of times with the Bone Splinters skill. You can easily combine Bone Splinters with Bone Spear to pack on the damage. Supernatural Bone Spear will make the first enemy hit Vulnerable for several seconds. Adding on Blood Mist can’t hurt and Bone Prison, which unearths a prison of bone that surrounds the target area for several seconds. Enhanced Bone Prison will allow the Necromancer to gain Essence for each trapped enemy plus a fixed amount. Ghastly Bone Prison will create Vulnerable enemies inside the prison. Decrepify is also a solid skill since it curses the target area, slows enemies, and reduces the damage they deal. You can also pick up Amplify Damage which deals a percentage of increased damage to Cursed enemies. Death’s Reach deals increased damage to distant foes, which is great for your Bone Splinters. Compound Fracture ups the damage for your bone skills, and Evulsion allows your bone skills to deal critical strikes to vulnerable enemies. Finish it all off with Bone Storm, which creates a storm of bones around you and your Golem that deals damage to surrounding enemies. The order of operations should look something like this: Bone Prison to trap enemies, Decrepify to curse and slow them down, Bone Spear and Splinters for damage, Blood Mist for immunity, and cap it all off with Bone Storm.
Be sure to check out our other build guides for the Barbarian, Sorceress, Rogue, and Druid.
