The BEST Necromancer Build in Diablo 4

Necromancers have finally been released in Diablo 4, and everybody can finally start playing one of the best classes in Diablo 4. I’ve always preferred Necromancers over other classes in almost every ARPG, so this build is quite near and dear to me.

This article will cover the best Necromancer build in Diablo 4 and include the best skills to get, the best aspects for your gear, and some legendaries to look out for. Because the game just came out, I will update this build guide frequently, so check back often.

Anyway, let’s break down the best Necromancer build.

Best Necromancer Build in Diablo 4

This specific Necromancer build will focus more on summoning. Necromancers have access to a spell called Raise Skeleton, even from level one. With this spell, Necromancers can summon up to four skeleton minions that will follow you around and attack enemies for you automatically.

Also, they last indefinitely! They only go away if they take enough damage; even then, you can resummon them.

That being said, you need a corpse to summon skeletons. Corpses can be produced by defeating enemies, but you will obviously run out quickly during boss fights. To counteract this, our build focuses on creating corpses through our abilities.

Here are the skills you should level for a level ten Necromancer in Diablo 4:

1. Decompose
2. Enhanced Decompose
3. Blood Surge
4. Enhanced Blood Surge
5. Acolyte’s Decompose
6. Supernatural Blood Surge
7. Corpse Explosion
8. Enhanced Corpse Explosion
9. Plagued Corpse Explosion

Decompose is the main skill that will create plenty of usable corpses for you. The added modifiers provide extra Essence and make you and your minions do additional damage—both great additions.

Blood Surge is great for early survivability and is one of the better core skills to pick up.

Corpse Explosion is a fantastic skill that helps you do insane AOE damage to every enemy you come across. This will be one of the Necromancers’ highest DPS skills and only gets better the higher level you are and the more skills you pick up.

You do end up using corpses with Corpse Explosion, but you will have plenty from Decompose, so you won’t have to worry about losing skeletons.

Also, a quick note about summons, if you want to see how many skeletons you have at any time, just check the bottom right of your screen next to your essence. It will display your total minion count.

Here is the complete skill build for level 25 Necromancers:

Note: You only get two extra skill points once you get enough renown in Fractured Peaks (the starting area).

Once you have a fully maxed Necromancer, your Corpse Explosion starts doing crazy damage. Decrepify, Corpse Tendrils, and their upgrades make Corpse Explosion way more powerful.

Decrepify will slow enemies and cause them to do less damage. Once you are max level and can take your ultimate, swap out Decrepify for levels in Corpse Explosion.

Next, Corpse Tendrils will pull enemies into a corpse without using the corpse, which we can then explode using Corpse Explosion. Plagued Corpse Tendrils make the enemies vulnerable, increasing the damage they take from Corpse Explosion.

Obviously, our summons will be causing chaos the entire time and doing lots of damage themselves. Especially because we take several passives which boost their damage, like Skeletal Warrior/Mage Mastery.

What a full rotation looks like for Necromancers:

1. Cast Decompose on enemies to create corpses.
2. Summon Skeletal Warriors and activate the Army of the Dead Ultimate for more minions.
3. Use Blood Surge for area damage and to get back life if needed.
4. (before level 25)Then Decrepify to Curse enemies
5. Use Corpse Tendrils to group enemies up.
6. And Corpse Explosion to finish off the remaining enemies

Book of the Dead Necromancer

One of the mechanics specific to the Necromancer is the book of the dead. The book of the dead is where you level up your summons or sacrifice them to empower yourself.

If I’m being completely honest, I haven’t thoroughly tested which ones are best yet. So for right now, choose whichever looks better for you. That being said, I’m using the first circle of each right now.

Update: I started trying out Reapers with the second circle upgrade. A 15% chance of forming a Corpse from their attacks.

Once you hit level 25, you can summon a Golem. Because you are currently limited to level 25 and can’t use any of the upgraded golems (blood and iron), the golem isn’t the greatest choice.

Also, Golem takes a skill slot. That means you have to either sacrifice skeletons or another skill. For this particular build, it doesn’t seem worth it.

Best Gear & Aspects for Necromancers

Here are some of the best Necromancer aspects we know of right now:

While leveling as a Necromancer, look out for items that give you skill points in certain skill categories. These will not only boost damage with those skills but allow you to save skill points early. You’ll replace them later, but they are quite useful during the early levels.

That’s it for our best Necromancer build in Diablo 4. As I said, I’ll update this as I have more time with the class and Diablo 4 in general.

If you have any comments or questions, leave them below!