Best Necromancer Leveling Builds in Diablo 4 Season 6

As summoners who master the dark arts of blood, blight, and bone, Necromancers continue to be a formidable class in Diablo 4. Their essence remains rooted in previous iterations, offering a familiar yet fresh gameplay experience for both newcomers and seasoned veterans of the series.

During the initial stages of Diablo 4, players often find the game’s difficulty quite manageable, allowing them to experiment with various abilities and builds freely. However, as players approach Level 35, the game’s challenge begins to ramp up, demanding more strategic build choices to effectively handle tougher enemies and survive longer battles.

This guide presents three tailored builds for Necromancers who are progressing towards Level 50. These builds are specifically designed to optimize survival and damage output without requiring extensive resources, making them ideal for players still accumulating their arsenal in Season 6.

Necromancer Minion Build

In Diablo 4’s Season of Loot Reborn, minions, particularly skeletons, have emerged as a formidable force despite a series of nerfs and buffs throughout development. With skeletons finding a solid role post-launch, players venturing into the early stages of the game can leverage this Minion Build for effective progression.

Core Skills for the Minion Build:

• Active Skills:
• Acolyte’s Decompose (1/5): Generates corpses and applies vulnerability, setting up for potent combos.
• Supernatural Blight (5/5): Enhances minion damage and provides utility.
• Blighted Corpse Explosion (1/5): Utilizes corpses for high area damage.
• Horrid Iron Maiden (1/5): Augments minion damage against cursed targets.
• Raise Skeleton and Golem: Serves as the primary source of sustained damage and frontline defense.
• Important Passive Skills:
• Skeletal Warrior and Mage Mastery (3/3 each): Boosts the effectiveness of skeletal summons.
• Amplify Damage and Gloom (3/3 each): Increases damage output and survivability.
• Reaper’s Pursuit and Inspiring Leader (1/3 and 3/3): Enhances mobility and buffs minion groups.
• Golem Mastery and Death’s Defense (3/3 each): Strengthens golems and enhances Necromancer defenses.
• Hellbent Commander and Kalan’s Edict (3/3 each): Maximizes command over undead forces and improves passive benefits.
• Book of the Dead Upgrades:
• Skeletal Skirmishers: Allows an additional Skirmisher Warrior, enhancing frontline capabilities.
• Shadow Mages: Increases Shadow bolt frequency, significantly boosting DPS.
• Iron Golem: Adds a shockwave effect to every second attack, increasing AoE damage.

Strategic Playstyle Tips:
Utilize Decompose to continuously generate corpses and maintain the application of vulnerability on targets, empowering your minions’ attacks. Deploy your Iron Maiden and Corpse Explosion strategically to maximize area damage, particularly in densely packed enemy groups. Rely on your Shadow Mages for their high DPS in the early game and position your Skeletal Defenders and Iron Golem to manage aggro, switching to Bone Golem for additional crowd control when necessary.

This build guide offers a robust framework for Necromancers looking to harness the power of minions effectively. With the right skills and tactical play, ascending through Diablo 4’s early challenges becomes a much smoother experience.

Main Aspects

Optimizing gear is crucial for enhancing the performance of your minions in Diablo 4. Here are the key Aspects that should be integral to any minion-centric build, particularly for boosting the efficacy of your skeletal warriors and mages:

• Frenzied Dead (Two-Handed Weapon): This aspect accelerates your minions’ attack speed each time they hit an enemy, with the effect stacking up to three times. This rapid increase in attack rate significantly boosts overall DPS.
• Reanimation (Ring): Enhances minion damage incrementally the longer they remain alive, reaching maximum potency at 10 seconds. This rewards strategic placement and preservation of minions in battle.
• Occult Domination (Amulet): Increases the number of Skeletal Warriors and Mages you can summon, allowing for greater battlefield control and damage output.
• Damned (Ring): Boosts Shadow Damage dealt to enemies suffering from any curse, synergizing well with your minions’ attacks to tear through cursed foes with increased efficiency.

To fully exploit these aspects, prioritize equipment modifications that amplify Skeletal Mage damage. This strategic focus on enhancing your mages ensures that each summon contributes maximally to your combat effectiveness, making your minion army a formidable force against the hordes of Diablo 4.

Overpowering Blood Surge Build

The Blood Surge build emphasizes using Necromancer’s potent Overpower passives alongside Blood skills to swiftly annihilate enemies. At the core of this strategy is the Blood Surge skill, which is amplified through each component of this build to ensure high efficiency and adaptability across various combat scenarios.

Blood Surge Build Setup:

Active Skills and Key Passives:

• Acolyte’s Hemorrhage (1/5): Boosts attack speed and the formation of Blood Orbs, enhancing resource generation for sustaining Blood Surge.
• Paranormal Blood Surge (5/5): Elevates the likelihood and effect of Overpower procs, ensuring that Blood Surge triggers consistently.
• Dreadful Blood Mist (1/5): Serves as a supplementary damage source and crowd control.
• Plagued Corpse Tendrils (1/5): Extends control over the battlefield with additional damage over time.
• Horrid Iron Maiden (1/5): Provides a defensive layer by mitigating incoming damage.
• Raise Skeleton: Utilizes minions to manage enemy aggro and safeguard the caster.

Passive Skills:

• Unliving Energy, Imperfectly Balanced, Death’s Embrace, Coalesced Blood, Tides of Blood (each 3/3): These passives synergistically enhance Blood Surge’s damage output and sustain by optimizing essence management and improving overall spell potency.
• Inspiring Leader (3/3): Bolsters your minions, increasing their effectiveness and durability on the field.
• Rathma’s Vigor: Central to maximizing Blood Surge’s performance by increasing essence generation and Overpower proc consistency.

Book of the Dead Configurations:

• Skeletal Defenders: Assigned to taunt, these minions manage enemy focus, allowing you to safely cast and build resources.
• Cold Mages: Assist in essence recovery with each attack, facilitating more frequent usage of Blood Surge.
• Bone Golem with SACRIFICE: Temporarily boosts attack speed, crucial for faster essence accumulation and increased skill activation.

This build thrives on a balanced approach between offense and defense, leveraging both Blood skills and minion interventions to create a relentless assault. The strategic use of each skill and passive ensures that Blood Surge remains a devastating tool against the legions of Diablo 4, making the Necromancer a formidable force in any skirmish.

Main Aspects

To maximize the efficiency of the Blood Surge build for Necromancers in Diablo 4, consider equipping these primary Aspects, complementing them with other suitable gear pieces as needed:

• Rathma’s Chosen: This Aspect boosts your attack speed after your Blood Skills successfully Overpower, enhancing overall DPS and skill rotation speed.
• Blood-bathed Aspect: Enhances Blood Surge by causing its nova effect to echo shortly after the initial burst, inflicting additional damage albeit at a reduced rate, which effectively increases area coverage.
• Blood-boiling Aspect: Activates upon Overpowering with Core Skills, generating Volatile Blood Drops that detonate upon collection. This Aspect also ensures that every 20 seconds, your next Core Skill will Overpower, adding a strategic layer to skill usage.
• Aspect of the Expectant: Bolsters damage output significantly by increasing the damage of your next Core Skill by up to 30% after using a Basic Skill, encouraging a rhythmic casting pattern for maximum efficiency.

These Aspects are tailored to fortify both offensive and defensive capabilities of the Blood Surge build. Particularly effective in dynamic combat scenarios such as Helltides or exploring the Kurast Undercity, this setup allows Necromancers to dispatch foes swiftly while maintaining resource efficiency. By strategically utilizing these Aspects, you can transform your Necromancer into a formidable force capable of handling Diablo 4’s challenging encounters.

Sever Build

This adaptation of the Minion build shifts focus towards a more engaging playstyle, leveraging the Sever Core Skill for amplified damage across expanded areas, ensuring the player’s active involvement in combat scenarios.

Sever Build Skills

Active Skills:

• Acolyte’s Reap (1/5): Provides a basic damage input and helps in resource generation.
• Supernatural Sever (5/5): Enhances Sever’s area of effect and damage, turning it into a formidable weapon against clusters of enemies.
• Horrid Iron Maiden (1/5): Converts Iron Maiden into an area-of-effect attack that synergizes with afflictions to boost damage.
• Plagued Corpse Tendrils (1/5): Spreads additional damage and crowd control.
• Raise Skeleton and Golem: These staples provide consistent damage and tanking capabilities.

Important Passive Skills:

• Unliving Energy (1/3) and Imperfectly Balanced (3/3): Enhance energy management and damage output under specific conditions.
• Mastery Skills (Skeletal Warrior, Skeletal Mage, Golem Mastery - all at 3/3): Strengthen your minions’ effectiveness on the battlefield.
• Amplify Damage and Reaper’s Pursuit (both maxed): Increase your damage against debilitated foes and improve your movement and attack speed after defeating enemies.
• Gloom and Terror (both at 3/3): Boost defensive and offensive capabilities through fear and damage resistance.
• Inspiring Leader (3/3): Bolsters group effectiveness, making this build ideal for cooperative play.

Book of the Dead Upgrades:

• Skeletal Skirmishers: Adds an extra Skirmisher Warrior, increasing your minion count.
• Cold Mages: Their attacks now apply Vulnerable, enhancing group damage output.
• Iron Golem: Its slam attacks gain an additional crowd-pulling effect, enhancing control over battlefield positioning.

Strategic Implementation:
The Sever build is designed for players who enjoy a balanced approach between direct combat and strategic minion management. By utilizing Sever alongside enhanced minions and targeted passive skills, this build allows for a dynamic combat experience that keeps you at the heart of the action. Manage your resources effectively and synchronize your skills to maximize the potential of every encounter in Diablo 4’s challenging environments.

Main Aspects

Enhance your Sever build by integrating these critical Aspects, each designed to amplify your combat effectiveness and synergy with minions:

Core Aspects:

• Reaping Lotus (Two-Handed Weapon): Transforms Sever into a more dynamic skill by eliminating its return path and creating three spectral branches that extend and retract, increasing area coverage and damage potential.
• Damned (Amulet): Boosts both your and your minions’ damage output against cursed enemies, reinforcing your role as a formidable force against debuffed foes.
• Occult Domination (Ring): Increases your summoning capabilities, allowing for more Skeletal Warriors and Mages on the field to overwhelm your adversaries.
• Grasping Veins (Ring): Enhances your critical hit capabilities post-Corpse Tendrils usage, providing a significant boost to critical strike chance and damage against tethered enemies.

These Aspects are pivotal in transforming the Sever Build into a powerhouse capable of tackling dense mobs and formidable bosses with ease. By leveraging these enhancements, you effectively create a battlefield where your minions dominate and your Sever skill becomes a relentless force of nature. Utilize these Aspects to tailor your Necromancer’s abilities for maximum impact in Diablo 4’s diverse combat scenarios.

Conclusion

Mastering the Necromancer in Diablo 4: Season 6 involves selecting the right builds to enhance your leveling journey. Whether you opt for the Minion Build, which capitalizes on the strength and utility of your undead allies, the Overpowering Blood Surge Build that leverages the devastating potential of blood magic, or the dynamic Sever Build that allows for more active engagement in combat, each strategy offers unique advantages for pre-Level 50 gameplay. By understanding and applying these builds effectively, you can navigate the challenges of Diablo 4 with greater ease and enjoyment, ensuring a powerful progression through the game’s early to mid levels. These builds not only provide a solid foundation for new players but also offer seasoned veterans of the franchise ways to optimize their playstyle and experience the game’s complex mechanics in new, exciting ways.