Build Introduction
This 
Blood Wave build taps into the highest damage multipliers available to Necromancer across the Shadow, Blood, Overpower and Ultimate tags, securing its place in class meta. While quite expensive to gear and a bit annoying to play, its performance makes it worth the effort. The current iteration focuses on setting up Overpowering triple-strikes with the combination of 
Rathma’s Vigor, 
Tidal Aspect, and Blood Orb collecting.
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Curious how this build fares in various content types? Take a look at our build tier lists.
Strengths and Weaknesses
- Excels at most of the content
- High survivability
- High burst damage
- Not the fastest build
- Skill rotation includes collecting Blood Orbs
- Very gear sensitive
Build Requirements
Kessime’s Legacy
Fastblood AspectTidal Aspect- Cooldown Reduction effects (the more, the better), see Gear Suggestions.
Quick Navigation
Want to skip ahead? Use the table below to jump to the sections you are looking for.
Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points
Corpse Tendrils
Corpse Explosion
BlightBlood Wave
Reap
DecomposeFollow the points allocated in the Skill Tree above for the complete 71-point build. 12 skill points are locked behind the Season Rank System.
Lowest priority skills to skip, until extra skill points acquired:
Class Mechanic – Book of the Dead
This build is sacrificing all minions for 
Stand Alone and Book of the Dead buffs.
- if Critical Strike Chance < ~60%
- then
Skeletal Warriors: Skirmishers [Sacrifice] – Increased Critical Strike Chance.
- else Skeletal Warriors: Reapers [Sacrifice] – Increased Shadow Damage.
- then
- Skeletal Mages: Bone [Sacrifice] – Increased Overpower Damage.
Golem: Iron [Sacrifice] – Increased Critical Strike Damage.
Gear, Gems, Elixirs, and Stats
The following sections cover the important systems that are essential to improving the power of your character in the endgame of Diablo 4.
Legendary Aspects
Each aspect is listed with its matching gear slot. Do your best to keep each aspect in the assigned slot. Aspects placement is planned with potential Unique and Mythic Unique gear upgrades in mind for easiest and cheapest transition. Obol gambling is a great way to try to obtain specific slot Legendary Aspects and even Uniques early. For exact Runewords suggestions, see here.
| Gear Slot | Gems | Aspect / Unique | Legendary Aspect / Unique Power |
|---|---|---|---|
| Helm |   |  Aspect of the Cursed Aura | A dark aura surrounds you, inflicting  Decrepify and  Iron Maiden on enemies who touch it. Curses inflicted this way spread to surrounding targets every X seconds and last 4 seconds outside the aura. |
| Chest | |  Aspect of Hardened Bones | You gain 30% [10 – 30]% increased Damage Reduction. (Necromancer Only) |
| Gloves | n/a | Sacrificial Aspect | Your Sacrifice bonuses are increased by 55% [35 – 55]%. (Necromancer Only) |
| Pants | | Kessime’s Legacy | Blood Wave now forms a wave on each side of you. Both waves converge at your feet, Pulling In all surrounding enemies and exploding for 975 damage. |
| Boots | n/a |  Aspect of Metamorphosis | When you Evade you turn in to a cloud of bats, becoming Unstoppable for 2.5 seconds. Enemies along your path take X Physical damage and are inflicted with Vampiric Curse. Evade’s Cooldown is increased by x seconds. |
| Weapon 2H (Sword) | | Tidal Aspect | Blood Wave fires two additional waves, each dealing 200% of normal damage, but you can no longer recast it until the last wave ends. |
| Amulet (50% Scaling) | | Aspect of Grasping Veins | Gain 38%[+] increased Critical Strike Chance for 6 seconds when you cast Corpse Tendrils. You deal 75%[x] bonus Critical Strike Damage to enemies for 6 seconds after they are damaged by Corpse Tendrils. |
| Ring |  | Fastblood Aspect | Blood Orbs reduce your Ultimate Cooldown by 3.00 [1.00 – 3.00] seconds. (Necromancer Only) |
| Ring |  | Aspect of Ultimate Shadow |  Bone Storm and Blood Wave are also Darkness Skills, deal Shadow damage, and gain additional effects:Enemies damaged by Bone Storm take 2,223 [635 – 2,223] Corrupting damage over 2 seconds.Blood Wave creates Desecrated Ground as it travels, dealing 35,571 [10,163 – 35,571] Corrupting damage over 4 seconds (Necromancer Only) |
Affixes and Tempering Priority
- Affixes on gear are sorted in priority descending order.
- Bolded affixes are the most important targets for Masterworking upgrade. If multiple affixes marked – any selected is acceptable for case by case gear.
- Affixes marked by multiple “*” – indicate desirability of obtaining them as Greater Affix originally or with lucky Tempering.
Be sure to check our Tempering and Masterworking guides for more details about these topics.
| Slot | Affixes | Tempering Affixes |
|---|---|---|
Helmet Heir of Perdition | * 1. Critical Strike Chance * 2. Lucky Hit Chance | n/a |
| Helmet | * 1. Maximum Life * 2. Intelligence 3. Cooldown Reduction 4. Armor / Resistance to All Elements 5. Essence per Second (once) |  Worldly Endurance # Maximum Life |
Chest Shroud of False Death | * 1. All Stats * 2. Maximum Life | n/a |
| Chest | ** 1. Maximum Life * 2. Intelligence 3. Armor / Resistance to All Elements 4. Essence per Second (once) | Profane Innovation #% Corpse Tendrils Size |
| Gloves | 1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Critical Strike Chance * 3. Intelligence * 4. Maximum Life 5. Overpower Damage | Blood Finesse #% Blood Overpower Damage |
| PantsKessime’s Legacy | *** 1. Chance for Blood Wave to Deal Double Damage * 2. Blood Wave Cooldown Reduction | n/a |
| Pants | * 1. Maximum Life * 2. Intelligence 3. Armor / Resistance to All Elements 4. Essence per Second (once) | Worldly Endurance # Maximum Life |
| Boots | * 1. Movement Speed * 2. Maximum Life * 3. Intelligence 4. Armor / Resistance to All Elements 5. Essence per Second (once) | Profane Innovation #% Corpse Tendrils SizeNatural Motion #% Evade Cooldown Reduction |
| Amulet | *** 1. +Ranks to Tides of Blood *** 2. +Ranks to Gloom * 3. Critical Strike Chance * 4. Cooldown Reduction ** 5. +Ranks to Coalesced Blood ** 6. +Ranks to Terror 7. Intelligence | Necromancer Efficiency #% Ultimate Cooldown Reduction |
| Ring | 1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Critical Strike Chance * 3. Intelligence * 4. Maximum Life 5. Overpower Damage | Necromancer Efficiency #% Ultimate Cooldown Reduction |
| Weapon 2H (Mace) | * 1. Maximum Life * 2. Intelligence 3. Overpower Damage 4. Lucky Hit: Up to a #% Chance to Make Enemies Vulnerable for 2 Seconds | Blood Augments #% Chance for Blood Wave to Deal Double Damage ** Dreadful Augments # to  Titan’s Fall |
For the dedicated page on Gear Systems and Itemization Overview, check the guide here.
Ancestral and Mythic Uniques
See below for information on useful Uniques and how to integrate them into this build:
Kessime’s Legacy [Required]
Extremely potent gear piece, contributing chance of double damage, bulk of additive damage and significant Cooldown Reduction for Blood Wave. Straightforward Pants slot replacement.
Heir of Perdition [Best in Slot]
Best in slot Mythic Unique Helmet for most Necromancer builds. Provides significant damage multiplier, massive amount of Critical Strike Chance, Lucky Hit to improve Cooldown Reduction engine and extra mobility. Requires to switch from Aspect of the Cursed Aura to Igni 
Wat runeword to maintain auto-curse, see here how. Unless Sanctified Aspect of the Cursed Aura or Aspect of Metamorphosis obtained and another one is applied to the Boots.
If you are interested in target farming Mythic Uniques, check out our How to Farm Mythic Uniques guide.
Shroud of False Death [Best in Slot]
Best in slot Mythic Unique Chest for most Necromancer builds. It provides significant effective damage multiplier and utility improvements all across the board, via +1 All Passives bonus. Sizeable All Stats affix makes Rare Paragon Node bonus requirements easier to fulfill. Straightforward Chest slot replacement.
If you are interested in target farming Mythic Uniques, check out our How to Farm Mythic Uniques guide.
Gems and Runewords
See below for a more detailed explanation of the best Gems and Runewords to socket into your gear.
| Weapon Gems | Armor Gems | Jewelry Gems |
|---|---|---|
 Royal Emerald | Runeword | Royal Diamond |
| – | Royal Diamond | Royal Topaz |
| – | Royal Topaz | Royal Ruby |
| Increased damage. | Increased All Stats or Intelligence. | Resistances against buffed Lightning and Fire Elite Affixes. |
| Runeword Combination | Effect |
 Ahu  Qax | Gain: 15 Offering. Lucky Hit: Up to a 100% chance against non-Healthy enemies Requires: 400 Offering. Cooldown 1 second. Casting a Skill other than a Basic or Defensive spends all your Primary Resource to increase your damage up to 100% for 1 second. (Overflow: Further Increased Damage). |
| Occasionaly consumes all essence to double the damage against non-Healthy enemies | |
Igni  Thul | Gain: 25 Offering. Stores Offering every 0.3 seconds. Cast a Non-Basic Skill to gain the stored Offering. (Up to 500 Offering). Requires: 300 Offering. Invoke the Sorcerer’s Mystical Frost Nova Skill, inflicting Freeze and Vulnerable onto enemies. (Overflow: Up to 100% Increased Size) |
| Provides occasional damage multiplier, Crowd Control and Vulnerable application. | |
| Igni Wat | Gain: 25 Offering. Stores Offering every 0.3 seconds. Cast a Non-Basic Skill to gain the stored Offering. (Up to 500 Offering). Requires: 100 Offering. Invoke the Necromancer’s Horrid Decrepify Skill, Slowing enemies, reducing their damage, and letting you Execute them. (Overflow: Increase duration). |
| [Optional] | Replacing Igni Thul and acts as substitute for Aspect of the Cursed Aura, allowing to apply curse more reliably. |
Paragon Board
Below you’ll find the entire end-game paragon board set-up for this build in detail!
It is imperative to level up all Glyphs to level 15 first and then to level 46 to increase activation radius second time and unlock secondary damage multiplier. More about paragon glyphs and how to level them, here.
Some paragon points are locked behind the Season Rank System.
Season of Divine Intervention (Season 11)
Season 11 of Divine Intervention introduces very few very limited borrowed powers, but allows you to adjust the difficulty-to-reward ratio of certain content types and introduces new crafting mechanic, Sanctification.
Sanctification
Sanctification results are too unpredictable to be planned around, but this particular build benefits most from following:
- #%[x] Shadow Damage
- 50/25 bonus Quality on Weapon
- #% Intelligence
- Offensive Aspect with damage multiplier
- Aspect of Hardened Bones
- Aspect of Disobedience
- Aspect of the Cursed Aura
- Aspect of Metamorphosis
Divine Gifts
Corrupted gift slots grant increased specific content rewards, but increases difficulty of associated content – therefore should be activated only for target farming, when character can handle it.
Recommended Purified Divine Gifts for the build:
- Essence of Shadows – Briefly become Unstoppable when Crowd Controlled every 12 seconds.
- Essence of Screams – Gain 20%[+] increased Resistance.
- Essence of Sin – Gain 20%[+] increased Armor.
- Essence of Pain – Briefly gain maximum Barrier after becoming Injured, every 20 seconds.
Mercenaries
During the Vessel of Hatred campaign, you will unlock Mercenaries to assist you. While you can choose freely early on, we recommend Raheir as your main merc:
For the reinforcement, stick with Aldkin, utilizing his 
Flame Surge to trigger Abhorrent Decrepify when any Ability is being cast.
Rotation and Build Mechanics
This is build is designed to immediately reset cooldown of Blood Wave and trigger Rathma’s Vigor for guaranteed Overpower by picking spawned Blood Orbs.
Rotation and Playstyle
- Approach the pack to trigger Aspect of the Cursed Aura or Igni Wat runeword when Blood Wave used.
- If no Corpse available – create a Corpse with Reap and pull pack together with Blighted Corpse Tendrils.
- Throw in Blight into the pack, followed by Blood Wave.
- Collect generated Blood Orbs by Blighted Corpse Tendrils and Blood Wave until Rathma’s Vigor and Blood Wave are off cooldown.
- Use another Blood Wave and repeat.
Cooldown Reduction Engine
Cooldown Reduction engine is a set of abilities, upgrades and buffs that reduce active cooldowns by fulfilling certain conditions. This build rely on Fastblood Aspect and Blood Orb collection primarily. Secondary is Lucky Hit against cursed by Abhorrent Decrepify, which is automatically applied by Aspect of the Cursed Aura or Igni Wat runeword.
List and properties of Lucky Hit triggers used:
- Aldkin mercenary Flame Surge (damage over time, AoE)
- Blight, Blighted Corpse Explosion (damage over time, AoE)
- Blood Wave (damage over time, AoE)
- Corpse Tendrils, Reap (AoE / multi-target attacks)
Which Elixirs Should You Use?
Visit the Alchemist and craft an Elixir providing any Resistance you need most, 
Elixir of Precision II, if you lack Critical Strike Chance, or the 
Elixir of Fortitude II to increase overall Toughness. Recommended incenses are 
Reddamine Buzz, 
Soothing Spices, 
Sage’s Whisper. Make sure to keep your Health Potion upgraded!
Season 11 Updates
For a complete overview of Season 11, mechanics and theme, new leveling activity, and other changes coming, please take a look at our comprehensive season hub here.
- Minor improvement with better Cooldown Reduction availability.
Obol Gambling
Obol gambling is a great way to potentially find specific Legendary Aspects or specific slots Uniques missing from your build. Check out the new tool guide from Icy Veins for gambling Obols in the link below.
Changelog
- December 8th, 2025: Guide updated for Season 11, Divine Intervention
- September 18th, 2025: Guide updated for Season 10. Build has received a massive rework from the ground up. Main change is playstyle is moving away from the set-up play-style in to a literal Blood Wave spam-machine!
- July 3rd, 2025: Minor skill-tree optimization.
- June 29th, 2025: Guide updated for Season 9.
- May 5th, 2025: Optimized and updated post launch for Season 8.
- April 26th, 2025: Guide updated for Season 8.
- January 19th, 2025: Guide posted for Season 7.
