Best Necromancer builds in Diablo 4 season 5 (2024)

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 5.

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.

In this Diablo 4 guide, we’ve gathered and simplified the best Diablo 4 Necromancer builds for season 5. 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 5

Image: Blizzard Entertainment

This build is based off Chronikz’s Necromancer leveling guide at maxroll.gg, and is purely for leveling: i.e., allocating your 58 skill points between levels 1 and 50. 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

Necromancer leveling guides focus on minion core skills like Raise Skeleton and Golem. In this build, you’ll also use Blood Surge, Corpse Tendrils, Blood Mist, 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.

1. Reap
2. Decompose
3. Blood Surge (rank 1-2) / Enhanced Blood Surge / Paranormal Blood Surge / Blood Surge (rank 3-4)
4. Skeletal Warrior Mastery (rank 1-3)
5. Iron Maiden / Enhanced Iron Maiden
6. Blood Surge (rank 5)
7. Death’s Approach (rank 1-2)
8. Corpse Tendrils / Enhanced Corpse Tendrils / Plagued Corpse Tendrils
9. Grim Harvest
10. Death’s Embrace
11. Amplify Damage (rank 1-2)
12. Death’s Approach (rank 1-3)
13. Skeletal Mage Mastery (rank 1-3)
14. Inspiring Leader (rank 1-3)
15. Hellbent Commander (rank 1-3)
16. Kalan’s Edict
17. Unliving Energy
18. Imperfectly Balanced (rank 1-3)
19. Hewed Flesh (rank 1-3)
20. Blood Mist / Enhanced Blood Mist / Ghastly Blood Mist
21. Spiked Armor (rank 1-2)
22. Fueled by Death (rank 1-3)
23. Death’s Embrace (rank 2-3)
24. Amplify Damage (rank 3)
25. Necrotic Carapace (rank 1-3)
26. Golem Mastery (rank 1-3)

Best Book of the Dead setup for leveling

Here are the minions you should use for this build:

• Skeletal Warriors – Reapers
• Skeletal Mages – Cold
• Golem – Blood

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.

• Aspect of Reanimation (Aldurwood, Scosglen)
• Aspect of Grasping Veins (Corrupted Grotto, Kehjistan)
• Unyielding Commander’s Aspect (Faceless Shrine, Hawezar)
• Blood-Bathed Aspect (Hoarfrost Demise, Fractured Peaks)
• Aspect of Disobedience (Halls of the Damned, Kehjistan)
• Juggernaut’s Aspect (random drop)
• Aspect of Hardened Bones (random drop)
• Aspect of Occult Dominion (random drop)
• Blood Getter’s Aspect (random drop)

Best Necromancer endgame build for season 4 — Minions

Note: This build was designed for season 4, Loot Reborn, and doesn’t take into account any of the upgrades to Uniques that came in season 5. However, this build is still viable if you’re looking to transition out of the leveling build above. We’ll update this section with a season 5 build once the dust settles on the new Diablo 4 update.

This build is based off of Chronikz’s Necromancer endgame guide at MaxRoll.gg, and is a general endgame guide capable of finding success in all activities. This guide assumes that you’re over level 50, have access to all 58 skill points, and are making progress on your Paragon Boards. If you want more detailed information about the item affixes you want to look for on your gear, or why these Legendary powers are great for your build, check out the original MaxRoll guide.

Best skill points for Necromancer Minion build for endgame

This build utilizes Raise Skeleton as its core skill and main means of dealing damage. It also utilizes Golem, Decrepify, Bone Prison, Corpse Tendrils, and Army of the Dead.

Since you need all 58 points for this build, the order you select these skills in doesn’t matter as long as you have the pre-requisite points in the earlier skill tree tiers. Here is how you should spend your skill points for this build:

• Reap / Enhanced Reap
• Blight / Enhanced Blight / Supernatural Blight
• Hewed Flesh (rank 1-3)
• Bone Prison / Enhanced Bone Prison / Dreadful Bone Prison
• Skeletal Warrior Mastery (rank 1-3)
• Grim Harvest
• Fueled by Death (rank 1-3)
• Decrepify (rank 1-5) / Enhanced Decrepify / Abhorrent Decrepify
• Death’s Embrace (rank 1-3)
• Amplify Damage (rank 1-3)
• Death’s Approach (rank 1-3)
• Skeletal Mage Mastery (rank 1-3)
• Corpse Tendrils / Enhanced Corpse Tendrils / Blighted Corpse Tendrils
• Reaper’s Pursuit (rank 1-3)
• Necrotic Carapace (rank 1-2)
• Army of the Dead / Prime Army of the Dead / Supreme Army of the Dead
• Golem Mastery (rank 1-3)
• Inspiring Leader (rank 1-3)
• Hellbent Commander (rank 1-3)
• Kalan’s Edict

Book of the Dead setup for Necromancer Minion build

For this build, do not sacrifice your minions. Here are the specializations you want to pick for all three minions in your Book of the Dead:

• Defenders
• Cold
• Iron

Legendary Powers and Uniques for Necromancer Minion build

To make this build work, you’re going to need powerful Legendary Powers and Unique items to augment your build.

Chronikz recommends these Aspects:

• Helm: Juggernaut’s Aspect
• Chest: Aspect of Occult Dominion
• Gloves: Aspect of Plunging Darkness (dungeon drop)
• Pants: Blood Getter’s Aspect
• Boots: Aspect of Slaughter
• Two-handed scythe: Aspect of Reanimation (dungeon drop)
• Amulet: Aspect of Hardened Bones
• Ring 1: Fastblood Aspect (dungeon drop)
• Ring 2: Unyielding Commander’s Aspect (dungeon drop)

If you want to get into the nitty gritty of stat priorities, refer to Chronikz’s original guide.

Paragon Boards for Necromancer Minion build

The Paragon Board system is very complex, and you’ll want to carefully pair your Glyphs with specific boards for your class:

1. Starter Board / Amplify Glyph
2. Cult Leader / Deadraiser Glyph
3. Hulking Monstrosity / Golem Glyph
4. Bone Graft / Essence Glyph
5. Flesh-eater / Corporeal Glyph
6. Scent of Death / Exploit Glyph
7. Wither / Territorial Glyph

You should level your Glyphs to 15 in this specific order:

1. Golem
2. Corporeal
3. Exploit
4. Territorial
5. Essence
6. Deadraiser
7. Amplify

You can path your own way through the Paragon Boards following these basic guidelines. However, for the best results, follow Chronikz’s path exactly.

How to make a great Necromancer build

Image: Blizzard/Activision via Polygon

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 Sorcerer, Rogue, Druid, and Barbarian classes.