So you want to summon the undead and use blood magic? Understandable. Necromancers are very fun in Diablo 4, here is a guide for anyone who is considering the class.
We're thoroughly enjoying Diablo 4 (which is why we gave it a 26/10 in our review). One of the classes we instantly fell in love with was the Necromancer. This is a self-sustaining class that is both easy to use and very strong, which is why we rate it so highly for solo-play in particular.
Now, it does fall off a bit compared to other classes in the endgame, but we can still 100% recommend giving the Necromancer a go.
In this Diablo 4 Necromancer guide you can find all the key details you need to start using the class effectively. We hope you find it helpful.
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Diablo 4 Necromancer: Class Overview
We'll start with a very brief intro to the Necromancer.
Necromancer Tips
Necromancers have loads of awesome things going for them, but you should also be aware of their shortcomings:
- Necromancers have decent survivability but they aren't Barbarians and they don't have any evasion skills. So when you come up against harder content as a Necromancer, don't be fooled by the false sense of security your skeleboys provide. These summons will die, rarely at first but far more easily as you get deeper into the game.
- In group-play you can be most useful to your party if you focus on the mobs. You can let beefy characters aggro the boss, and the Rogue can dish out single-target damage.
- Skills that require corpses, like Corpse Explosion, are great in the earlygame, but you want to move away from them as you get deeper into the game. Even by the midgame you will require a lot of corpses for resummoning undead minions, so don't waste them!
We're hoping they buff the undead minions in an upcoming patch.
The Best Gear For Necromancers
You can use the following gear as a Necromancer: One-Handed Swords, Daggers, Wands, Focuses, Shields, and Scythes. The type of weapon doesn't really matter, what matters is that you use weapons with these affixes (and in this order of priority):
- + Damage
- + Rank to Willpower / Intelligence
- + Minion Attack Speed
- + Essence Cost Reduction
- + Maximum Essence
- + Crit Strike Damage
Psst, don't be embarrassed if you haven't worked out how to switch weapons yet:
The Best Aspects For Necromancers
If you haven't really worked out what Aspects are yet, maybe start by reading this guide to Aspects in Diablo 4. But assuming you do already how to unlock and use Artifacts, here are the best ones for a Necromancer:
Aspect | Dungeon | Description |
Aspect of Torment | Black Asylum | Critical Strikes with Bone Skills increased your Essence Regeneration by 20% for 4 seconds. |
Blood-bathed Aspect | Hoarfrost Demise | Blood Surge's nova echoes again after a short delay, dealing 70% less damage. |
Aspect of Plunging Darkness | Rimescar Cavern | Bone Prison spawns a pool of Blight that deals 50% bonus damage over 6 seconds. |
Blood Seeker's Aspect | Mercy's Reach | Blood Lance deals x15% increased damage to its primary target per lanced enemy. |
Flesh-Rending Aspect | Nostrava Deepwood | After Decompose spawns a Corpse, gain 10 Essence. |
These are the best we've found so far, but we will update this guide as soon as we discover even better Aspects for the Diablo 4 Necromancer.
Diablo 4 Necromancer: Best Levelling Build
Okay, so you now know the basics of the class, here is a great build to use while you're levelling up the Necromancer:
Level / Slot | Skill / Talent | Upgrades |
Basic Skills / Talents | Hemorrhage (5/5) | Enhanced Hemorrhage + Initiate's Hemorrhage |
Core Skills / Talents | Hewed Flesh (3/3), Unliving Energy (3/3) | None |
Cropse & Macabre Skills / Talents | Blood Mist (5/5), Corpse Explosion (5/5), Skeletal Warrior Mastery (3/3) | Enhanced Blood Mist + Ghastly Blood Mist, Enhanced Corpse Explosion + Plagued Corpse Explosion + Blighted Corpse Explosion |
Curse Skills / Talents | Skeletal Mage Mastery (3/3) | None |
Cropse & Macabre (2) Skills / Talents | Bone Spirit (5/5), Gruesome Mending (3/3) | Enhanced Blood Spirit + Ghastly Blood Spirit + Dreadful Blood Spirit, Transfusion (3/3) |
Ultimate Skills / Talents | Golem Mastery (3/3) | None |
Key Passives | Rathma's Vigor | None |
No Core Skills? Don't worry it's not a mistake, it just allows us to double up on Corpse & Macabre skills.
Right, now you know how to start playing Necromancer, the next step is to get yourself an awesome mount.
And if you're curious about the other classes: