Necromancer is an extremely fun class inDiablo 4, but if you’re just getting into it, you’ll definitely want to know the best early game Necromancer build. I play Necromancer and have tried out several builds to determine this as the best early game Necromancer build available. You canrefund your abilitiesand experiment with different abilities, passives, andSkeletal Warriorsto find your groove, but here is the best early game Necromancer build inDiablo 4.
Note:If you want to take a break andpet the dogs inDiablo 4, you may. Just a friendly FYI.
BestDiablo 4Necromancer early game build — Pros, cons, and playstyle
In my opinion,the Blood Surge Necromancer build is the best early game Necromancer buildinDiablo 4. In this guide, I’ll tell you the best abilities to rely on and how to craft the perfect Blood Surge Necromancer up to level 25, which is when you get your ultimate. First, here are the general pros and cons of this build.
Blood Surge Necromancer playstyle, explained
The Blood Surge Necromancer playstyle works like this:dash into a group of enemies and use Surge. Retreat behind your skeleton army anduse Hemorrhage to deal ranged damagefrom a safe distance. When enemies close in on you,use Surge and rotate away, always making sure tobuff the health and damage of your skeletonsby using Raise Skeleton on corpses.
As you perform this playstyle, there’ll be tons of corpses to use to strengthen your undead army and tons of Blood Orbs to heal you and buff your next attacks. Plus, all your Blood attacks are healing you, which means you’ll never die. I love this build, and the only times I’ve died so far are when a boss does a high amount of damage at a rapid rate. If you watch out for that, this best early game Necromancer build isgreat for every level of player since it’s both fun and effective.
AllDiablo 4best early game Necromancer abilities, explained
We know we are relying on Blood Surge and Hemorrhage for our main DPS, butwhat other abilities and passives should the best early game Blood Surge Necromancer have— including what Book of the Dead specialty options should we pick?
Blood Surge Necromancer abilities and passives, explained
In chronological order,here is how you should spend your skill pointsto build the Blood Surge Necromancer.
Hemorrhageis used for your main ranged attack.Enhanced HemorrhageandInitiate’s Hemorrhageallow you to deal splash damage after picking up a Blood Orb and fortify yourself with each hit.Blood Surgeis your main AoE attack.Enhanced Blood Surgeheals you after drawing blood from surrounding enemies andSupernatural Blood Surgefortifies you and increases Blood Surge damage by 20% when at 50% fortified.
Unliving Energyincreases your max Essence by three andImperfectly Balancedincreases the Essence required to cast abilities, but it increases their damage by 15%.Blood Mistis a useful ability to use when you want to escape as it allows you to be immune to all attacks, walk around, and heal.
Three stacks ofSkeletal Warrior Masteryincrease the damage and health of Skeletal Warriors by 45%.Gruesome Mendinggrants you a 10% increase to all healing sources when under 50% health.Coalesced Blood,Drain Vitality, andTides of Bloodare great synergized Blood passives that increase Blood skill damage by 12% when above 80% health, grants a 25% chance to fortify for 5% health on every blood attack, and deal a 10% increase to Blood overpower damage.
Blood Waveis the ultimate ability that conjures a tidal wave of blood that deals 90% damage and knocks enemies back. Lastly,Stand Aloneincreases your damage reduction by 6% and an additional 2% for every minion on the field.
All of these skills combined will make younigh unkillablethanks to all the healing and fortifying. You’ll also be dealingtons of damage thanks to the amazing damage buffsto your Blood skills. Lastly, yourSkeleton Warriors will be incredibly powerand useful in crowd control.
Blood Surge Necromancer Book of the Dead specialties, explained
With the abilities explained, here aremy recommendations for the Book of the Dead specialties.
With Defenders, Bone Mages, and a Blood Golem, you’ll have a large army of undead to fight for you and protect you.The Defenderswill stay alive and work together as a shield.The Bone Magesattack, hurting themselves in the process, but that’s okay because we need more corpses and more fortify never hurts.The Blood Golemwill be used to deal some good single target damage.
Best early game Necromancer Aspects, explained
The two early game Necromancer Aspects I recommend getting areAspect of the ProtectorandBlood Seeker’s Aspect. I recommend these two because they are both really great with the Blood Surge Necromancer andtheir associated Dungeons are very close to Kyovashad.
Aspect of the Protector grants youa 10-second barrier that can absorb up to 210 damage that’s granted after defeating an elite enemy, and this effect can happen every 30 seconds. This is found in the Lost Achieves Dungeon, which is just west of the starting area.
Blood Seeker’s Aspectincreases the damage of Blood Lance by 15%. Blood Lance isn’t an ability I recommended in this build, but you can easily slot it in and experiment with it, especially if you pair it with Blood Seeker’s Aspect, which is found in the Mercy’s Reach Dungeon just northwest of Menestad (which also happens to bethe best place to farm Crushed Beast Bones).
Other early game Necromancer build options
Though I recommend the Blood Surge Necromancer for grinding the early game, there are two other early game builds that are worth mentioning. The first isthe Bone Spear Necromancerand the second isthe Shadow Sever Necromancer.
Bone Spear Necromancer
The Bone Spear Necromancer is arguably the best build for endgame, but it’s not great for early game. The objective with the Bone Spear Necromancer build is to spec intoBone Splinters and Bone Spear for our main DPSwhich has a high critical strike chance,Corpse Explosion and Corpse Tendrils for AoE damage,Blood Mist for evasion, andBone Storm to delete everything on the screen.
While this build is good, it’s not ideal for early game because you need toconstantly sacrifice your summonswhich leaves you without your undead army for protection. Bone Spear Necromancer isleft vulnerable very often, which is what makes it a challenging early build but great build for high single target damage in the endgame.
Shadow Sever Necromancer
The Shadow Sever Necromancer build is an okay early game build, but this build is the weakest Necromancer build in general. This build relies onSever and Reap as the two DPS abilities, which are both solid ranged attacks that keep you safe.Corpse Explosion and Corpse Tendrils are used for AoEandBlood Mist is used to get out of trouble.
When paired with the right synergy, the Shadow Sever Necromancer build isn’t bad, butit doesn’t have the instant healing and fun playstyle that the Blood Surge Necromancer build has. Because of that, you need to rely on your army, potions, and Blood Mist to stay alive which is a stressful feeling when you’re getting into the game and trying to grind levels.
Noah Nelson
From his early days of blog-style music, movie, and game reviews to working as the Esports Writer at Coastline Community College, Noah Nelson now works fulltime as a Staff Writer for Attack of the Fanboy and PC Invasion. He has been helping gamers everywhere with Destiny 2 god rolls, Warzone 2 DMZ missions, and collectibles in any indie game for over a year and a half. His Bachelor’s Degree in English Rhetoric and Composition with a minor in Journalism from CSULB has shaped him to be a strong writer and editor. His fondest gaming memory is playing Sly Cooper 2 after begging his mom (for hours) to play it before his birthday and he still cries myself to sleep remembering the time he accidentally saved over his 99% completion save file in Kingdom Hearts 2.
