Necromancers are the summoners of Diablo 4, but that’s not their entire identity. Like much of Diablo 4, Necromancers are far more complex than you’d initially imagine. So when you can summon minions to do your bidding or sacrifice them for major stat bonuses, how do you know what to do? That’s where we come in, with our suggestions of the best Necromancer builds for Diablo 4 season 6.
Necromancers are able to summon Skeletons and Golems. But they’re also able to cast Sorcerer-like spells dealing in the creepier sides of magic. They can sling bones and drain blood from foes. They can even project poison blight on the ground. And, yes, they can sacrifice minions for incredible bonuses with the Book of the Dead. Not to your taste? We also have builds for the Sorcerer, Rogue, Druid, Spiritborn, and Barbarian classes.
In this Diablo 4 guide, we’ve gathered and simplified the best Diablo 4 Necromancer builds for season 6. If you need even more information on item affixes or other more complex ideas, we’ve been sure to link out to the more detailed versions of these builds, as well as where to find their original creators.
Best Necromancer leveling build in Diablo 4 season 6 and Vessel of Hatred
This build is based off Chronikz’s Necromancer leveling guide at maxroll.gg, and is purely for leveling (i.e., allocating your 71 skill points between levels 1 and 60) and early stages of the Torment I difficulty. If you want more detailed information about the item affixes you want to look for on your gear, or which other Legendary powers are great for your build, check out the original maxroll.gg guide.
Best skills for leveling
This Necromancer leveling guides focuses Blood Surge. In this build, you’ll also use Raise Skeleton, Soulrift, Blood Mist, Corpse Tendrils, and Iron Maiden.
Here are the best skills for a Necromancer leveling build, organized by the exact order you should purchase them in — bearing in mind that some skills require you to allocate a number of skill points in the tree in order to unlock them. As such, you’ll need to unlock new skills before enhancing existing ones.
- Reap / Enhanced Reap
- Blood Surge (rank 1-4)
- Blood Mist
- Blood Surge (rank 5) / Enhanced Blood Surge / Paranormal Blood Surge
- Grim Harvest
- Iron Maiden / Enhanced Iron Maiden
- Skeletal Warrior Mastery (rank 1-3)
- Corpse Tendrils / Enhanced Corpse Tendrils / Plagued Corpse Tendrils
- Fueled By Death (rank 1-3)
- Amplify Damage
- Soulrift (rank 1-5) / Supreme Soulrift / Prime Soulrift
- Inspiring Leader (rank 1-3)
- Affliction
- Imperfectly Balanced (rank 1-3)
- Hewed Flesh (rank 1-2)
- Subtract 1 rank from Skeletal Warrior Mastery
- Titan’s Fall (rank 1-3)
- Death’s Embrace (rank 1-3)
- Amplify Damage (rank 2-3)
- Precision Decay (rank 1-3)
- Skeletal Mage Mastery (rank 1-3)
- Coalesced Blood (rank 1-3)
- Drain Vitality (rank 1-2)
- Transfusion (rank 1-2)
- Tides of Blood (rank 1-3)
- Necrotic Carapace (rank 1-3)
- Memento Mori (rank 1-3)
- Stand Alone (rank 1-3)
Best Book of the Dead setup for leveling
Here are the minions you should use for this build:
- Skeletal Warriors – Skirmishers
- Skeletal Mages – Cold
- Golem – Bone (Sacrifice)
Best Legendary Aspect for Necromancer leveling build
When you first start your new character, complete these five dungeons first in order to collect their Aspects. Then place them on a piece of gear (ideally jewelry and never weapons). The random drop Aspects are all nice to add to your Codex and your gear if you’re lucky enough to find them on your leveling journey.
- Blood-Bathed (Hoarfrost Demise, Fractured Peaks)
- Voracious Rage (Hallowed Ossuary, Fractured Peaks)
- Grasping Veins (Corrupted Grotto, Kehjistan)
- Disobedience (Halls of the Damned, Kehjistan)
Best Necromancer endgame build for season 6
Note: We’ll update this guide with a more up-to-date Necromancer build designed for the new expansion once the dust settles, so check back soon. The leveling guide above should get you most of the way through Torment I, so stick there in the meantime.
How to make a great Necromancer build
Necromancer’s are Diablo 4’s main summoning class — although Druids, ironically, had better summons during the game’s launch window. But aside from their army of minions, Necromancers also act as a darker caster, sharing a lot of playstyle DNA with the Sorcerer.
Like all classes, most Necromancer builds boil down to a few Key Passives:
- Bone
- Blood/Health
- Shadow
- Minion
Bone skills — like Bone Spear — hit extremely hard for Necromancers, and are great for chunking down enemies. The Ossified Essence Key Passive modifies that damage even further for players that successfully pool their Essence. Blood builds utilize Blood skills to both keep the Necromancer healthy while dealing big damage. These builds typically end with the Rathma’s Vigor Key Passive.
Shadow builds use Shadow skills to poison enemies with dark essence. Interestingly, the Shadowblight Key Passive not only benefits the Necromancer, but also their minions, making it a more diverse build path. Minion builds are Necromancer’s main bread and butter, but are entirely dependent on how good minions are in the current meta. When they’re useful, these builds end with the Kalan’s Edict Key Passive.
Like all classes, Necromancer builds have other identities to them — like Thorns — but most will converge on one of the four identities highlighted above. What really determines build viability on Necromancer is how you use your minions and the Book of the Dead. If you want to make your own build, decide early on if you want to sacrifice your minions or use them in battle. This will not only determine which skills you’ll want to use, but which of the four Key Passives you want to angle toward.
Looking for other Diablo 4 builds? We have explainers on the Spiritborn, Sorcerer, Rogue, Druid, and Barbarian classes.
