The Necromancer, the scions of Rathma, have a novel approach to fighting demons: utilize magics so dark and vile that even the forces of hell will take pause. While the class has had a wide history, with its iconic skeleton horde in Diablo 2, with it evolving since, we are now at the point the Necromancer dabbles with a variety of undead, bone and blood magic. In fact, one of the stronger builds in Diablo 4 is the Necromancer’s Bone Spear build, which is both a Necromancer leveling build, and a build that scales to level 100, throwing huge burst at targets with bone splitting and cracking goodness. Here’s everything you need to know about the Diablo 4 Bone Spear Necromancer Build, featuring Paragon, Legendary & Unique gar, and more.

Diablo 4 Bone Spear Necromancer Build¶

The Necromancer is, frankly, a powerhouse. The core idea is simple enough - Gain Essence, throw bones, watch them crit and splinter, and say goodbye to both bosses, elites, and packs of enemies alike. To support the build, you want to use Corpse Tendrils, and Blood Wave, especially if you run across some legendary gear that buffs them. You also want Bone Storm as your ultimate skill, thanks to its crit ramping legendary effects, and Bone Prison for some additional Essence Generation.

Diablo 4 Necromancer Bone Spear + Corpse Explosion Build - Best Skills¶

• Bone Splinters (Enhanced Bone Splinters, Acolyte Bone Splinters}: The summary of this skill is that you want to use Bone Splinters for additional AOE damage, with the cleave potential while above 50% Essence, and for the crit chance ramping when hitting teh same target several times. The latter allows you get really good crit chance while you fight Champion, Elites, or Boss enemies, since packs will likely die unless they have some really strong Bonus Health or Damage Resistance Aura activated.

• Bone Spear x5 (Enhanced Bone Spear, Paranormal Bone Spear): The purpose of this skill built this way is to enable even more built in crit chance, and to also provide additional mob clearing via its splintering effect. You also get built in mobbing potentially thank to its enhanced effect. So, you should see lots of splinters that help deal more damage to your mobs and bosses whether you crit or don’t crit.

• Corpse Tendril (Enhanced Corpse Tendril, Blighted Corpse Tendrils): This skill is interesting as it bunches enemies up, deals damage, runs solely off a cooldown (it needs a corpse, but doesn’t consume it). When you come to getting the final node, we recommend using the Plagues for some early Vuln,. but you can swap it to Blighted when you get Exploit on your Paragon board, as that serves well enough for some Vuln application. The benefit to switching to Blighted also grants Blood Orbs, a handy tool for survivability as you start pushing Nightmare dungeons. But, it is preferential.

• Blood Wave: Blood Wave is an incredibly effective tool for surviving, especially as you climb higher and higher the nightmare tiers, go for capstone dungeons, or do anything remotely challenging in the game. The reason why is because the skill is incredibly powerful, granting one of the only invulnerability skills in the game. You can use this to cheat death, mechanic skip the echo of Lilith harder moments, and more. Its by far the best defensive in the game.

• Bone Prison: Bone Prison is a tool you use for utility, to clump enemies together in a tight space, particularly after using Corpse tendrils to clump them together. When doing so, you can get Essence bonuses via the the enhanced part of the build, and the Dreadful part granting Fortify for each enemy pulled in. The result is you get more tanky, and the enemy cant touch you. Enjoy the free Bone Spear line ups and watch as you splinter them down.

• Bone Storm: When you get access to the ultimate skill, Bone Storm is the only option. The Bone Storm skill allows the user to get an additional 20% crit chance when its activated, while also boosting your defensiveness .Pair it with the Aspect of Shielding Storm, and you can become very tanky whenever you press that ultimate skill. Its also offers a very strong nuke window thanks to even more crits to benefit your Bone Spear build’s splinter procs.

Bone Spear Build: Passives¶

Core Skill Passive:

• Unliving Energy x3: Your Max essence increased by 9
• Imperfectly Balanced x3: Your Core Skills cost 9% more, but deal 15% increased damage.
• Hewed Flesh x3: Lucky Hit: Your damage has up to a 12% chance to create a Corpse at a target’s location. This chance is doubled against bosses.

Cure Skill Passives:

• Death’s Embrace x3: Close enemies take 6% more damage from you and deal 9% less damage to you. You’re mainly using this as a defensive tool against swarming melee enemies.
• Death’s Reach: You deal 8% increased damage to Distant enemies.

Macabre Passives:

• Necrotic Carapace x3: When a Corpse is formed from your Skills or your Minions, Fortify for 6% Base Life. - Another defensive skill that synergizes with Hewed Flesh passive in the core skill section.
• Serration x3: Your Bone Skills have 0.9% increased Crit Strike Chance for each 10 essence you have upon cast.
• Compound Fracture: After Critically Striking 10 times with Bone Skills, your Bone Skills deal 15% increased damage for 5 seconds.
• Evulsion x3: Your Bone Skills deal 18% increased Critical Strike Damage to Vulnerable enemies.
• Rapid Ossification: Every 100 Essence you spend reduces the cooldown of your Bone Skills by 1.5 seconds.

Ultimate Passives:

• Stand Alone x3: Increased Damage Reduction by 18% reduced by 2% for each active Minion. - You don’t use minions, so its a flat 18% damage reduction, on top of the close range damage reduction, and other effects from Bone Storm.
• Memento Mori x3: Sacrificing both Skeletal Warriors, and Mages increase sacrifice bonuses by 60%.

Diablo 4 Necromancer Build - Book of the Dead¶

From the start of the game you’ll have access to minions in the form of Skeleton Warriors. As your level increases, you’ll gain access to different types of minions, which can be customized in various ways. This is discussed in greater detail in the Book of the Dead Feature Overview page. For this Bone Spear build, you don’t want any minions, as you get some great sacrifice bonuses, which are:

• Skeleton: Sacrifice Defenders- 15% Non Physical Damage Resistance. - This gets stronger in coming patches with resistance buffs.
• Mage: Sacrifice Shadow Mages - Raise Essence by 15. That’s brings your essence to 124 when paired with Unliving Essence, meaning an additional 1.8% crit chance thanks to your Serration passive.
• Golem: Sacrifice Iron Golem - Deal %30 increased crit strike damage.

Diablo 4 Necromancer Bone Spear Build: Legendaries & Uniques¶

Here is a list of potential legendaries you can use as part of your build. We won’t give a best in slot, thanks to RNG, and whether or not you get very lucky with some of the most rare uniques in the game dropping, like The Grandfather and Harlequin Crest, for example

Uniques:

• Harlequin Crest: This is a BiS helmet, since it increase Ranks by 4. That’s a lot of damage from your Bone Spear Attack Power scalings, and better cooldowns on your skills, and potential damage too. However, it is like a 1 in 300,000 drop from level 85 creatures on world tier 4, so, dont count your lucky stars you get this item.
• The Grandfather: The Grand Father’s unqiue effect increases Crit damage from anywhere between 60-100%. Since you love crit, this is a god send for further ramping your crit damage. But, again, this item is like incredibly rare from world tier 4 on level 85+ enemies, so don’t count on getting it. But, if you do, use it, because its insanely good.
• Lidless Wall - The new Season 1 unique is good for creating multiple Bone Storms, which means more synergy with your ultimate. However, it does mean losing your big chase two handed weapon in The Grandfather.

Legendary Aspects:

• Aspect of Shielding Storm - More defensiveness in Bone Storm, which is very good for pushing harder content.
• Aspect of Disobedience - More armor while in combat.
• Splintering Aspect - More ways to apply Vulnerable status for your damager buckets
• Wind Striker Aspect - You crit very easily, so, these grant movement speed to a high crit class, which has some of the worst movement speed in the game.
• Aspect of Serration: Your Ossified Essence Key Passive increases Crit Strike Damage from Bone Skills depending on essence, so even better damage scalings with your already increased essence pool.
• Edgemaster’s Aspect - You have increased pool to do increased damage.
• Aspect of Torment - Crit Strikes with Bone Skills increase essence generation for 4 seconds.
• Osseus Gale: Increases Bone Storm Duration by consuming corpses.
• Aspect of Exposed Flesh: Essence generation when hitting Vuln enemies with Bone Skills.

Diablo 4 Necromancer Bone Spear Build - Stat Priority¶

Gear increases your stats, but the exact stats (and amount boosted) varies - the rarer the item, the more stat modifiers they’ll have. This will cover which stats are the ones you should keep an eye out for and favor.

• Vuln Damage - Best Damage Bucket in the game, so its worth grabbing it if you can.
• Crit Chance -You need to get as close to 100% crit as possible.
• Crit Damage - You want to crit with this build, so, more crit chance synergizes with crit damage.
• Essence: If you can get 6 more essence from gear you scale better with passives and certain legendary effects.
• Resource Cost - More Bone Spears the better, since they cost 15%, so this offsets it.

With Season 1, you now get access to Malignant Hearts, which offer a variety of bonuses. For the Diablo 4 Bone Spear Build, you will want at least one of the following, depending on your needs at the time:

• The Decrepit Aura - Casts Decrepify on enemies close to you when it triggers, which slows enemies, offering you a chance to peel away.
• The Great Feast - Makes your build much stronger, however, costs essence to keep them empowered. You’ll need to make sure you get plenty of Essence before committing to this.
• Tempting Fate - Huge multiplier once you get very close to that desired 100% Crit Rate.
• Revenge - Okay damage boost when you Bone Prison or Blood Mist, depending on alterations to your build if you’re fighting Uber Lilith or not.
• The Sacrilegious - niche, but can be decent for proccing Corpse Tendrils from your bar for more utility.

As for Gems, you want:

• Topaz for Armor, as it grants Damage reduction while CC impaired.
• Emerald for the Vulnerable Damage Boost on weapons.
• Skulls for Better Armor on Jewelery, as you will get swarmed easily.

Diablo 4 Bone Spear Build: Paragon & Glyphs¶

• Starter: Exploit when you get to 50, but you can swap it out later for Blood-Drinker.
• Bone Graft: Node increases damage and max essence when hitting enemies with Bone Skills. You want to get this, and then path to the glyph node by placing the legendary board at the bottom. You can now put Exploit in this node.
• Scent of Death - damage reduction with corpses around, damage increase with no corpses around: Place legendary node at the bottom, and go for the legendary node. Now path to Glyph Socket and place Sacrificial, which increases damage with no minions present.
• !Flesh Eater - Rotate the board so the Legendary node is at the top, and path to Glyph Socket. Pick up Dex for the glyphs, and get most of the magic nodes before exiting the left board.
• BloodBath - Place legendary node at the top, and head fro the Glyph slot and place Essence. Get the Magic and hormany Nodes to complete your paragon journey.

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