Diablo 4 Necromancer best build, skills, aspects, gear and gems

On this page:

How to Play as a Necromancer in Diablo 4

It’s quite easy to realize that the Necromancer class, when examined and compared to all other classes, such as Sorcerer and Barbarian, is easy to play and comes with a lot of useful tools for your Diablo 4 journey. In this build, we’ve focused on three major aspects of the Necromancer kit.

First, the Minions. The Necromancer has the ability to raise skeletal minions from corpses which can be formed after killing enemies. There is more than one type – Warriors, Mages and Golems – and their role is to be one of your main sources of damage. For this reason, always try to keep the maximum number of Minions active and remember that you can use the lift skill on a corpse to improve them after reaching the ceiling of Minions lifted.

When using this build, corpses on the ground are as important as the minions you raise from them due to the Necromancer’s skill Corpse Explosion. With it, the battlefield becomes full of landmines since you can cast this skill and blast a corpse dealing damage to enemies. Through certain passives and upgrades, Exploding Corpses buff and strengthen you.

The third aspect of this build focuses on this class ability to mitigate damage. In this build, we’re not going to be looking for skills that heal you, so increasing survivability by reducing damage is an important tool.

Now that these three pillars of this build have been explained, we can start talking about the practical side of it. When running this build you still want to have your skeletons active and use Collect to trigger its passive which reduces the damage you take and forms corpses. Another skill you should always use when available is Decrypt.

Once you start generating Essence Points, your top priority is to use Burn on enemies to improve your attacks against them. When the field begins to fill with corpses, then it’s time to use Corpse Explosion. Keep in mind that you should only use this skill if your Minions look healthy. Otherwise, prioritize breeding a new Minion instead of blowing up the corpse.

your ultimate army of the dead is also an excellent source of damage and must be used as soon as it is available against several enemies or a boss.

Best Diablo 4 Necromancer Skills

As explained, this version of Diablo 4 focuses on the Necromancer’s ability to deal damage as well as receive damage buffs from consuming corpses and using certain skills. At the same time, another important aspect of this class – and therefore this build – are the minions you can summon. For this version, it is important that you choose Skeleton Mages as soon as you unlock them and select the Cold position for them, choosing the first effect that generates Essence whenever mages hit an enemy with their main attack.

Now back to skills!

Basic node

• Collect: As a basic attack, Reap allows you to deal a good amount of damage to one or more targets. On top of that, it increases your damage reduction, helping you mitigate damage. Improved Harvest briefly increases your attack speed when an enemy dies for this skill, and the The Acolyte’s Harvest the upgrade forms a corpse from time to time.

central node

• Burn : When used, you fire a concentrated flail that deals damage and spreads around enemies and also deals damage over time. It is important to get the Improved burn right after to add Blight’s effect slowing down enemies. Your next step is to improve this skill to supernatural plague which increases the damage you and your minions deal to enemies affected by Blight.
• Carved flesh: One of this node’s passives, Hewed Flesh increases the chances of spawning corpses, which is fundamental to this build.

Corpse and Macabre Knot

• Corpse Explosion: To cast this skill, you must have a trained corpse on the ground. If so, you can explode it to deal damage to enemies around it. While Improved Corpse Explosion increases the radius of the explosion, the Plague Corpse Explosion the upgrade improves explosion damage to slowed, stunned, or vulnerable enemies.
• Sinister Harvest: This passive prevents you from running out of Essence since it generates a few points when a Corpse is consumed.
• Fueled by death: To take advantage of the fact that you constantly want to explode corpses, you should pick up this passive that increases your damage for a period of time after consuming a corpse.

curse knot

• Decrepify: Places a curse on the ground, slowing enemies in the area and decreasing their damage. By unlocking Improved decrepification, you have the ability to stun enemies affected by the curse. THE odious decay Upgrading gives you the option to have your active cooldown reduced by a few seconds when enemies with the curse are hit.
• Skeleton Mage Mastery: Because we prioritize Skeletal Mages as minions, this passive is quite important as it increases their damage and health!

Corpse and Macabre Knot

• Necrotic Shell: This is another passive that helps you capitalize on corpses. Whenever a corpse is formed, whether as a result of one of your skills or those of minions, you are fortified for a certain percentage of your base life.

ultimate knot

• Army of the Dead: When used, this skill summons skeletons that explode dealing damage to enemies. With its first update, First Army of the Dead, you increase your chances of forming corpses. The latest update called supreme army of the dead adds to the skill the effect of also raising your Skeleton Warriors and Skeleton Mages.
• Autonomous : This passive increases your survivability by increasing damage reduction based on the number of active minions.

Key passive nodes

• Edict of Kalan: Given how important your minions are to your damage, this passive becomes extremely important, as it increases their attack speed after you spend a brief time dodging damage.

Diablo 4 Necromancer best gear

When it comes to choosing the best pieces of armor, jewelry, and weapons for this necromancer build, there are a few things you should be looking for in Diablo 4. Damage to slow enemies, damage over time, and damage to nearby enemies are extremely useful for this build, synergizing well with Reap and Blight. Then we have less specific affixes, such as Basic Skill Damagewhich is a solid option.

Now, if you are in doubt about the main attribute you should be looking for in your pieces of gear, then you should focus on Intelligence And Will to increase skill damage and resource generation.

Diablo 4 Necromancer Best Aspects

Aspects are a great system in Diablo 4 and they can exponentially improve your damage, survivability, and crowd control ability. Because Blight plays a key role in this version of Necromancer, the Aspect of the Void is great because it adds the effect of pulling enemies into the affected area to the skill. Another good aspect that goes well with this build is the Aspect of the Frenzied Dead which increases the attack speed of Minions when they damage an enemy.

A few solid options that work for you, in general, are the Appearance of hardened bones which increases minion damage reduction, and the Coldbringer Aspect which gives your Skeletal Mages the ability to cast Blizzard which inflicts cold damage as well as chills to enemies.

Diablo 4 Necromancer’s Best Gems

Among all the types of gems that can be found in Diablo 4, there are some good options for this version of Necromancer. Sapphire, when used in a weapon, increases critical hit damage to crowd-controlled enemies. Another good option for weapons is the Amethyst which increases damage over time.

Now for the armor pieces, Sapphire is also great because it increases damage reduction when fortified. A second option is Ruby which increases your maximum lifespan when used in a piece of armor.

Have fun playing Diablo 4 now!

To view this content, please enable targeting cookies.

Manage cookie settings