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Best Diablo 4 Necromancer builds: recommended skills, passives, and gear

Jesse Lennox
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Why should all those corpses you create in Diablo 4 go to waste? You’ll be ripping through swaths of demons, monsters, and other evils all across Sanctuary during your adventure, and if you’re not playing in a group, you might feel a little lonely. Thankfully, the Necromancer is here to turn those former foes into brand-new friends. Sure, Necromancers have typically been seen as the villains, but you’re free to flip the script and show the world they can be heroes too. Becoming a master of the dead isn’t so simple, so we’ve come up with two of the best Necromancer builds to test out in Diablo 4.

Necromancer overview

The Necromancer is a very interesting class in Diablo 4. Not only can it serve as a high-damage, single-target class, but it also has some strong area of effect options. Of course, the thing that really makes this class stand out is the ability to summon up minions to fight on your behalf, keeping you from being overwhelmed by enemies. How and why you summon those minions is where the diversity comes in, so let’s take a look at some build options.

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Bone Spirit build

A necromancer summoning a big demonic seal.
Activision Blizzard

If you want to hit as hard as possible, then this Bone Spirit build will certainly do the trick. By focusing on maximizing crit chances, you’ll be able to crush even the tankiest of foes in just a few hits. This does take a good bit of mechanical skill, but once you’ve gotten the hang of it, you’ll basically be unstoppable.

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Must-have skills

Reap: This one is basic, but you need your normal scythe swipe to fall back on. Mainly, you’ll just use this as a corpse creator for other skills.

Bone Spirit: This is the skill your build will be based on. This one skill costs all your Essence to create a spirit bone that homes in on enemies. When it hits, it explodes to deal a high percentage of its damage to all enemies nearby. That damage is buffed for every point of Essence used, so spending it with a full bar will result in the biggest payout. Work toward getting the Dreadful Bone Spirit to kick-start your Essence regeneration after it hits.

Corpse Explosion: Turn any corpse into a powerful tool! When used, any corpse on the field will erupt into an area of effect. Buff it up to the Blighted Corpse Explosion to make it deal even more Shadow damage over time.

Blood Mist: Just for safety, Blood Mist is your get-out-of-jail-free card. When used, you turn into a red mist that can’t be damaged. You won’t be able to move very fast while in this form, but you do deal a small amount of damage while regenerating health.

Bone Storm: The Ultimate skill has to be Bone Storm, if only for the name. What it does is create a tornado of bones around you that deals high damage to anything close over time. Add in Supreme Bone Storm and you increase your crit chance by a massive 20% to make your next Bone Spirit really pack a punch.

Must-have passives

Serration: To keep up with the crit-focus, this passive buffs your crit chance for every Essence you use casting a skill.

Death’s Embrace: Enemies brave enough to get close will not only take more damage from you, but also deal less with this passive.

Spiked Armor: Nothing fancy here — it just adds passive Thorns, which is always nice.

Gear suggestions

Grab a two-handed sword on this build and focus on buffing your critical strike damage with Bone skills and Int stats.

Your helm can be any elemental resistance and some more Int.

For Armor, the best buff will be to increase your minion’s max HP.

Gloves are another chance to add more crit chance and damage.

Pants have the option to add Blood Mist Skill Ranks and more minion HP.

Boots are just going to be for movement speed.

Bone Spear build

A necromancer and army of dead fighting on a beach.
Activision Blizzard

The Bone Spear build is slightly more single-target focused, with a few area of effect options, but it also utilizes Vulnerable more than crits.

Must-have skills

Bone Splinters: This skill is perfect for a base skill to easily take out trash mobs and build up your Essence as needed. It shoots three bones that are fairly weak, but hitting an enemy more than once regains Essence. Do yourself a favor and upgrade it to Initiate’s Bone Splinters to give each shot a 20% chance of inflicting Vulnerable.

Bone Spear: Here we have the namesake again. On the face of it, it is a simple attack that shoots a piercing bone spear. The first upgrade for it, Enhanced Bone Spear, makes it break into three after breaking for more damage. Supernatural Bone Spear will cause the first enemy hit to be Vulnerable.

Corpse Explosion: This skill is just too good to not include in any Necromancer build.

Blood Mist: Same as above. Who can deny complete invincibility?

Corpse Tendrils: You’ll need some area of effect power, and Corpse Tendrils is here to fill that need. This causes veins to erupt from a corpse that pull in enemies,  then stuns and damages them. Buff it up to Plagued Corpse Tendrils to add on even more Vulnerable to really complete the package.

Must-have passives

Unfortunately, there are really no passives that specifically help Vulnerable damage, so the same ones as the Bone Spirit build will still be the best here.

Gear suggestions

For gear, you can focus on most of the same stats and buffs as with Bone Spirit, but whenever you can swap out critical bonuses for Vulnerable, do so.

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Jesse Lennox
Jesse Lennox
Jesse Lennox loves writing, games, and complaining about not having time to write and play games. He knows the names of more…
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