Best Necromancer builds for Diablo 4 Season 5

In Diablo 4 Season 5, Necromancers haven’t received as much attention as Rogues or Sorcerers, so they’ve fallen down the ranks slightly. However, with the right build, you can still dominate endgame content easily. 

When creating a build for the Necromancer, you have a few options available. You can either raise an army of the undead to do your bidding, or you can sacrifice them and fight the enemy yourself.

Either way, this class offers a fun playstyle with a slight learning curve, so here are the best Diablo 4 Necromancer builds for leveling up and the endgame.

Best Necromancer build for leveling up in Diablo 4

Level	Skill
2	Reap
3	Decompose
4	Blood Surge
5	Enhanced Blood Surge
6	Paranormal Blood Surge
7	Blood Surge
8	Blood Mist
9	Blood Surge
10	Blood Surge
11	Blood Surge
12	Iron Maiden
13	Enhanced Iron Maiden
14	Grim Harvest
15	Corpse Tendrils
16	Enhanced Corpse Tendrils
17	Amplify Damage
18	Amplify Damage
19	Amplify Damage
20	Plagued Corpse Tendrils
21	Fueled by Death
22	Death’s Approach
23	Death’s Approach
24	Death’s Approach
25	Bone Storm
26	Prime Bone Storm
27	Supreme Bone Storm
28	Gruesome Mending
29	Coalesced Blood
30	Tides of Blood
31	Tides of Blood
32	Tides of Blood
33	Inspiring Leader
34	Rathma’s Vigor
35	Inspiring Leader
36	Inspiring Leader
37	Unliving Energy
38	Imperfectly Balanced
39	Imperfectly Balanced
40	Imperfectly Balanced
41	Hewed Flesh
42	Hewed Flesh
43	Hewed Flesh
44	Skeletal Mage Mastery
45	Necrotic Carapace
46	Grim Harvest
47	Grim Harvest
48	Fueled by Death
49	Fueled by Death
50	Fueled by Death
1 – Renown	Death’s Embrace
2 – Renown	Death’s Embrace
3 – Renown	Death’s Embrace
4 – Renown	Coalesced Blood
5 – Renown	Coalesced Blood
6 – Renown	Drain Vitality
7 – Renown	Drain Vitality
8 – Renown	Drain Vitality
9 – Renown	Necrotic Carapace
10 – Renown	Necrotic Carapace

Blood of Surge is the best leveling build for Necromancers in Season of the Infernal Hordes. Not only does this build have a high AoE potential, but it’s also tanky which will help you survive during the early stages of the game, and will let you get the hang of how the class works. 

Book of the Dead setup for Blood Surge Necromancer build

The Book of the Dead allows you to raise minions to help you in battle. Here are the options that you need to select: 

• Skeleton Warriors: Skirmishers. These skeletons wield a sword and deal 30% increased damage but have 15% reduced health. 
• Mage Skeletons: After reaching Level 18, use Skeletal Mages-Cold, and upgrade them so each time they deal damage with their primary attack, you gain Essence.
• Golem: At Level 25, get the Bone Golem to render your enemies Vulnerable. At Level 32, switch to the Iron Golem.

How to play the Blood Surge Necromancer

While the Blood Surge Necromancer has multiple damage sources, it lacks mobility skills and has very low single-target damage. So it’s best to keep your distance from the enemy to prevent being stunned. 

You should also raise your undead army as frequently as you can so that they can tank the incoming damage for you. Here’s the best gameplay loop for this build: 

Iron Maiden – Blood Surge – Raise Skeleton – Corpse Tendrils – Blood Surge – Iron Maiden 

With Iron Maiden, you curse an area, and enemies in that area take 30% more damage and deal 10% less damage for 10 seconds. Use your Blood Surge to kill enemies and create corpses. Then use Raise Skeleton on those corpses to create your army. 

Use Corpse Tendrils on any remaining corpses to pull other enemies close to you, and then use Blood Surge again to defeat them. Then cast Iron Maiden again and repeat the loop. 

If you’re taking a lot of damage, you can immediately cast Blood Mist to go immune for three seconds and reposition yourself on the battlefield. 

Bone Storm is your ultimate here, so save it for times when you’re facing a large group of enemies or facing a boss. 

Best Legendary Aspects for Blood Surge Necromancer

Aspect	Location
Aspect of the Protector	Lost Archives in Fractured Peaks
Aspect of Disobedience	Halls of the Damned in Kehjistan
Blood-bathed Aspect	Hoarfrost Demise in Fractured Peaks
Aspect of Might	Dark Ravine in Dry Steppes
Aspect of Reanimation	Aldurwood in Scosglen

This build should easily carry you through the leveling stages through to level 60-65. Once you’re there and you’ve unlocked a fair number of Paragon Points, you’ll slowly need to start working on your new Necromancer endgame build in Diablo 4 Season 5.

Best endgame build for Necromancer in Diablo 4 Season 5

• Bone Splinter (2/5) 
• Unliving Energy (3/3)
• Imperfectly Balanced (3/3)
• Hewed Flesh (3/3)
• Blood Mist (1/5)
  • Enhanced Blood Mist
    • Ghastly Blood Mist
• Bone Prison (1/5)
  • Enhanced Bone Prison
    • Ghastly Bone Prison
• Spiked Armor (1/3)
• Grim Harvest (1/3)
• Fueled by Death (3/3)
• Decrepify (1/5)
  • Enhanced Decrepify
    • Abhorrent Decrepify 
• Death’s Embrace (3/3)
• Amplify Damage (3/3)
• Corpse Tendrils (1/5)
  • Enhanced Corpse Tendrils
    • Plagued Corpse Tendrils
• Bone Spirit (5/5)
  • Enhanced Bone Spirit
    • Dreadful Bone Spirit
• Necrotic Carapace (3/3) 
• Serration (1/3)
• Compound Fracture (3/3)
• Evulsion (3/3)
• Rapid Ossification (3/3)
• Inspiring Leader (3/3)
• Ossified Essence (Key Passive) 

This build will only come into play after you’ve crossed level 50, so there’s no specific skill unlock order. 

Book of the Dead setup for Bone Spirit Necromancer build

• Skeletal Warrior: Reaper. Choose the upgrade where they have a 15% chance to carve the flesh of enemies, forming a corpse.
• Skeletal Mages: Bone. Sacrifice them to increase your Overpower Damage by 30%. 
• Golem: Iron. Sacrifice them to get increased Critical Strike damage. 

How to play the Bone Spirit Necromancer

Unlike the Blood Surge build, the Bone Spirit build is an all-around damage dealer. It has excellent single-target damage and performs well in the Artificer’s Pit.

However, it’s slightly difficult to master because you’ll need to juggle too many cooldowns simultaneously. The gameplay loop for this build is as follows: 

Blood Surge – Raise Skeleton – Corpse Tendrils – Decrepify – Bone Prison – Bone Spirit

Blood Surge is your key skill and not only will it let you close the gap between you and the enemy, it’ll also help you create corpses to raise skeletons. 

From the corpses that your skeletons create, you need to use Corpse Tendrils on them and pull them all together. Then hit them with Decrepify to proc the Lucky Hit crowd control bonus and trigger Bone Prison to make them vulnerable. Finally, hit them with the Bone Spirit to obliterate everything in one shot. 

Although this gameplay loop is slightly hard to master, it yields one of the highest damages in the game in Season 5. You can squeeze out more damage if you sacrifice your Skeleton Warriors, but that opens up a riskier gameplay style.

Best Legendary Aspects

Aspect	Location
Swelling Curse	Hive in Scosglen
Torment	Black Asylum in Fractured Peaks
Grasping Veins	Corrupted Grotto in Kehjistan
Might	Dark Ravine in Dry Steppes
Disobedience	Halls of the Damned in Kehjistan
Edgemasters	Oldstones in Scosglen
Requiem	Vault of the Forsaken in Scosglen
Windstriker	Shiva Ruins in Kehjistan

The following Uniques are also important for this build to work: 

• Harlequin Crest: It’s the best in slot helmet for this build because it gives damage reduction and +4 to all skills. 
• Banished Lord’s Talisman: This Unique forms the core of this build because it’ll ensure that all your skills will overpower once you’ve spent 275 Essence. 
• Blood Moon Breaches: This works in tandem with the Banished Lord’s Talisman and gives you damage multipliers when you overpower the enemy. 

Best Paragon Boards

Paragon Board	Nodes	Glyph
Start Board		Amplify
Bone Graft	Erudite, Shaper of Bone, Tenacity, Entomb, Bone Graft	Corporeal
Flesh Eater	Targeted, Flesh Eater	Gravekeeper
Bloodbath	Bloodbath, Thick Hide	Essence
Cult Leader	Overlord	Deadraiser
Scent of Death	Shadow Resilience, Scent of Death	Dominate

Best Necromancer build for PvP in Diablo 4

Considering that you can’t actively switch loadouts, and there’s no dedicated PvP activity, the Bone Spirit Necromancer build can be used for PvP too. 

Since there are a lot of PvE activities available in the Bloodmarked areas on the map, this build can act as a hybrid to serve both purposes. 

Best attributes for Necromancer

Intelligence and Willpower are the two most important attributes for the Necromancer in Diablo 4. While Intelligence boosts all skill damage, Willpower helps in energy regeneration which will help you cast Blight frequently.

Best Gems for Necromancer

You can use the following gems to build the best Necromancer in Diablo 4:

• Place Amethysts in weapons to increase your damage over time. This is useful with several abilities like Blight, Decompose, and Corpse Explosion.
• Place Rubies in armor to boost the survivability of your character. Necromancers are generally weak and you can make them slightly tankier with this gem.
• Sapphires are also great to use in weapons, since they increase Critical Strike Damage to Crowd Controlled enemies.
• Diamonds or Skulls can be placed in Jewelry slots to increase your resistance to elemental and physical damage. Yet again, the goal is to increase the life of your Necromancer.

With this build, you can easily head into activities like the Infernal Hordes, the newest endgame activity. Alternatively, if you’re looking for a challenge, you can take on Tormented Andariel or Tormented Duriel for a shot at powerful loot.