Bone Spirit Endgame Necromancer Build for Diablo 4 (Season 5)

Build Introduction

Bone Spirit Necromancer is among the best, if not exclusively the most efficient boss-killing, Necromancer build available in the current patch! With lots of Crowd Control, the ability to generate insane amounts of Essence, and doing respectable damage for the sake of clearing, this build just takes you to a whole new level of playing the class.

This build is a variant of the Bone Spear Endgame Necromancer. To access the original version of the build, click the button below:

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Strengths and Weaknesses

To see how this build compares to the other builds on our site, you can check out our build tier lists.

Build Requirements

This build thrives on the unique item combination of Path of Trag’Oul, Banished Lord’s Talisman and Blood Moon Breeches. It’s theoretically possible to play without them but won’t perform as well.

The goal is to be able to cast Bone Spirit on demand without worrying about your Essence pool. It is not recommended to play this without the correct aspect powers and modifiers on your gear listed in this guide.

Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

Recommended

Suggested Skill Bar

Bone Spirit Bone Prison Blood Mist Decrepify Corpse Tendrils Summoning Skill

Follow the points allocated in the Skill Tree above for the complete 58-point build. The additional 10 skill points are completed using the Renown system.

Book of the Dead

We will only be using the Reaper skeletons for fortification and corpse generation, rest are sacrificed!

• Melee Skeletons; Reaper upgrade #2 will allow them to consistently generate corpses for us whilst fortifying our life.
• Mage Skeletons; Bone Mages sacrificed provide extra damage for our overpowers.
• Golem; Iron Golem sacrificed provides tons of extra Critical Strike Damage.

Paragon Board

The Paragon progression system unlocks at Level 50 and provides a vast amount of character power. On the Paragon Board, bonuses range from minor stats on Magic Nodes to more powerful Rare Glyphs and Legendary Nodes.

As you path towards Glyph Sockets and Legendary Nodes, you should prioritize Damage, Intelligence, Resistance, and Life for Normal and Magic Nodes. Glyph radius increases as you level them up. Therefore, if you cannot fulfill Additional Bonus requirements early on, skip allocating extra Nodes for now. It’s also important to point out that you might not have the Glyph you want when you reach your first socket; if that is the case, simply slot in any Glyph providing any beneficial stats for you until you get the correct one.

Listed below are images of the pathing you should take along with the locations of the Glyphs and order you should choose your Paragon Boards past the initial Starting Board.

1. Starting Board

For the Starter Board, we will path along the right side to get the Amplify Glyph to scale our damage. If you are able to collect enough Intelligence within radius, depending on the level of your Glyph, you should. Once done with the board, we will head on north and attach Bone Graft.

2. Bone Graft

Bone Graft should be rotated once to have the Legendary Node easily accessible on the right-hand side. We begin the route by rushing that Node and picking up both Rare and Magic Nodes, as we do a diagonal push to the top left corner moving in to the socket slot. Optimally we want the Corporeal Glyph slotted in here, and only pick up extra Intelligence Nodes within radius if the Glyph level has enough within radius. The next step from here is to path to the left for our third board, Flesh-Eater. We will come back to this board to path out on the top side once the third board is finished.

3. Flesh-Eater

Flesh-Eater will need to be rotated once so you have the Legendary Node located as far from your starting point as possible as we will be rushing the socket node before we pick it up. Finally, finish the pathing with the socket slot in which we will use the Gravekeeper Glyph. Similar to previous boards, we will only be going out of our way to pick up extra attributes enabling the bonus modifier if we can, based of the Glyph level. Once done we’ll grab all Rare and Magic. Now we head back to our previous board and head out on the north side for the 4th board Bloodbath.

4. Bloodbath

Bloodbath needs 3 rotations to be positioned so the Socket Node is again located as close to our starting point as possible. The socket slot here is what we want and it will be used for the Essence Glyph. You should take the extra surrounding intelligence nodes to reach the bonus modifier from this when you can. Before leaving this board in the south you’ll want the Legendary node. Now we return to the Flesh-Eater board and exit on the south from that one.

5. Cult Leader

Cult Leader will be rotated 3 times so we can grab the Socket node as it’s the only purpose of this board. In here we’ll use the Deadraiser and as the previous Glyphs, we’ll take the needed attributes to enable the bonus modifier as soon as possible. Now we’ll head back to our Bloodbath board to head out on the right side of it to grab our last one!

6. Scent of Death

Scent of Death needs to be rotated once. Our final board and we are only looking to get the Legendary node and the Socket node and slot in the Dominate.

Paragon board images courtesy of d4builds.gg.

Gear, Gems, Elixirs, and Stats

Season 5, Infernal Hordes, brings a lot of tweaks to itemization across the board in the game. These changes are reflected in the updates made to this guide down below.

Legendary Aspects

Each aspect is listed with its matching gear slot. Do your best to keep each aspect in the assigned slot. Additionally, if you are trying to farm a specific item, we recommend using your Obols to target farm them!

Gear Slot	Gems	Aspect / Unique	Legendary Aspect / Unique Power
Helm	Royal Ruby	Juggernaut’s Aspect	Gain X Armor, but your Evade has 100% increased Cooldown.
Chest	Royal Ruby	Aspect of Hardened Bones	You and your Minions gain 15-20% increased Damage Reduction.
Gloves	n/a	Aspect of Grasping Veins	Gain x% increased Critical Strike Chance for 6 seconds when you cast Corpse Tendrils. You deal 30-75% bonus Critical Strike Damage to enemies damaged by Corpse Tendrils.
Pants	Royal Ruby	Blood Moon Breeches	You’ll deal significantly higher overpower damage hits with this.
Boots	n/a	Path of Trag’Oul	Makes our Bone Prison larger and shoot bone splinters.
Weapon 1H	Royal Ruby	Aspect of Serration	The Ossified Essence Key Passive also increases the Critical Strike Damage of your Bone Skills by x1% per Essence above 50, up to x80%.
Off-hand (Focus)	Royal Ruby	Imprisoned Spirit’s Aspect	When Bone Spirit explodes inside a Bone Prison, it explodes an additional time, dealing x% of normal damage. Bone Spirit now prioritizes enemies inside a Bone Prison.
Amulet (50% Scaling)	Any Resistance Jewel	Banished Lord’s Talisman	Guarantees Overpowers for our Bone Spirits and makes our crits do more damage.
Ring	Any Resistance Jewel	Requiem Aspect	You gain X Maximum Essence per active Minion.
Ring	Any Resistance Jewel	Aspect of Torment	Critical Strikes with Bone Skills increase your Essence Regeneration by X% for 4 seconds.

Gems

See below for a more detailed explanation of the best Gems to socket into your gear for each category.

Weapon Gems	Armor Gems	Jewelry Gems
Royal Ruby For higher Overpower hits.	Royal Ruby For increased Maximum Life.	Royal AmethystRoyal SapphireRoyal Ruby

Which Elixirs Should You Use?

Visit the Alchemist and craft an Elixir providing any Resistance you need most, or the Elixir of Precision to increase Attack Speed. Some Elixirs cannot be crafted and only drop from things like Helltides or Nightmare Dungeons. Additionally, make sure to keep your health potion upgraded!

Stat Priority and Tempering Affixes

Below are the affixes to prioritize on gear. Each line of affixes is listed in order of importance. Tempering Manuals and their recommended affixes are provided in the second column, and the bolded affixes are the most important targets for Masterworking upgrades. To masterwork, you will need rare materials that only drop from The Pit. Be sure to check our Tempering guide, our Masterworking guide, as well as our guide about The Pit for more details about these topics.

Slot	Targeted Gear Affixes	Tempering Affixes
Helm	1. Essence per Second 2. Cooldown Reduction 3. Intelligence	Worldly Endurance # Maximum Life Profane Innovation #% Corpse Tendril Size
Chest	1. Ranks to Macabre Skills 2. Maximum Life 3. Essence per Second	Worldly Endurance #% Total Armor Profane Innovation #% Corpse Tendril Size
Gloves	1. Ranks to Core Skills 2. Critical Strike Chance 3. Intelligence	Bone Finesse #% Bone Spirit Damage Profane Innovation #% Corpse Tendril Size
Rings	1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Attack Speed 3. Intelligence	Necromancer Invigoration Casting Macabre Skills Restores x Primary Resource Bone Finesse #% Bone Spirit Damage
1H	1. Overpower Damage 2. Intelligence 3. Maximum Life	Bone Finesse #% Bone Spirit Damage Bone Augments #% Chance for Bone Splinters Projectiles to cast twice
Off-hand (Focus)	1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Maximum Resource 3. Critical Strike Chance	Bone Finesse #% Bone Spirit Damage Bone Augments #% Chance for Bone Splinters Projectiles to cast twice

Keep in mind that the maximum Resistance is 70% by default for each element and can be increased to 85% by various sources.

Rotation and Playstyle

You’ll want to always make sure that the enemies are cursed with Decrepify. After this you’ll utilize Bone Prison upon which you can unload crazy damage via Bone Spirit. You also have the option to help pull enemies together with Corpse Tendrils which will also increase your chances of critting and deal more damage. The Blood Mist is our panic button should it be needed.

Make sure to check out the advanced Build Mechanics section for a more in-depth description of how the build works, what synergies exist, and what to look out for.

Uniques and Uber Uniques

Below you will find information on Uniques and Uber Uniques that are useful for this build. Moreover, if you are interested in target farming Uber Uniques, check out our How to Farm Uber Uniques guide.

Uniques

The build thrives on the following unique items and should be of high priority to get.

• Blood Moon Breeches – Big Overpower damage hits
• Path of Trag’Oul – Makes your Bone Prison shoot bone splinters
• Banished Lord’s Talisman – Guarantees critical strikes and gives you more damage for your overpowers.
• Harlequin Crest – This is a massive damage boost for the build but you’ll need 9200 armor without Juggernaut’s Aspect to do this switch!

Season 5: Infernal Hordes

The following list details the changes in the Season 5 Update (Patch 1.5.0) that may pertain to the Summoner Necromancer build. Check the Changelog for all the other guide updates. As you can see only 1 change affected the build directly and its a good one!

• Imprisoned Spirit’s Aspect newly added power making this build insanely good.

Advanced Information

Below, you will find every additional piece of information you need to know for a more in-depth look at this build.

Build Mechanics

By having multiple tools to pull enemies together in to a condensed pack of them makes the damage application of Bone Spirit function extremely well. We solve the Essence spending by massive sources of Essence recovery from both gear and our skills.

Defenses

Consistent crowd-control via Corpse Tendrils and Bone Prison combined with fortification from our skeleton Reapers.

Offenses

Proper set-up play-style with extreme bursts of damage is the offensive toolkit this build brings to the table. Pull them with Corpse Tendrils and/or Bone Prison thanks to the Void aspect/Blight then unload Bone Spirits and watch the enemies crumble.

Paragon

The recommended Paragon boards for this build are listed above, and further down below, you can find a more thorough route for allocating the Paragon points, as well as some notes on why specific nodes were chosen and why they are essential for this build.

Glyphs & Legendary Nodes	Effect
Amplify	– Grants +150% bonus to all Magic Nodes within range. – Additional Bonus is unlocked with 40 intelligence in radius making enemies affected by your Curses take an additional x10% increased damage from you and your minions.
Corporeal	– Grants +150% bonus to all Magic Nodes within range. – Additional Bonus is unlocked with 40 Intelligence in radius, you and your minions deal x10% increased Physical damage and you gain 1% movement speed for each active minion.
Gravekeeper
Essence	– For every 5 Dexterity purchased within range, you deal +20% increased Critical Strike Damage. – Additional Bonus is unlocked with 25 Dexterity in radius, Critical Strikes deal x22% increased damage to enemies that are not Healthy.
Deadraiser	– Grants 100% increased bonus to minion damage and minion damage reduction modifiers. – Additional Bonus is unlocked with 40 intelligence in radius making your minions make enemies take increased damage up to 15%.
Dominate	– For ever 5 Willpower purchased within range, you deal #% increased Overpower damage. – Additional Bonus is unlocked with 25 Willpower in radius making your Overpower hits make enemies take increased damage from you and your minions.
Bloodbath	Deal X% increased Overpower damage.
Flesh-eater	With at least 2 Corpses nearby, you gain 15% Damage Reduction. With no corpses nearby, you deal x15% increased damage.
Bone Graft	Hitting enemies with Bone Skills increases your damage byx1% and your Maximum Essence by 2 for 8 seconds, stacks up to x8% increased damage and 16 Maximum Essence.
Scent of Death	With at least 2 Corpses Nearby, you gain 15% Damage Reduction. With no Corpses Nearby, you deal x15% increased damage.

Let’s take it one step further and break down each of the beneficial nodes we spend our Paragon Points on.

Starting Board

1. Progression here should be to rush the Socket node for the Amplify.
2. The defensive nodes on the left side can be skipped during early progression and picked up later when you need more resistances.

Bone Graft

1. Socket node should be rushed to slot in Amplify.
2. Ignore the left side from here and rush to the top-right-corner for the legendary node Bone Graft
3. Now we’ll take the remaining magic and rare nodes before heading out to the left.

Bloodbath

1. Continue with the strategy of rushing the socket node, in here we grab Corporeal.
2. Pick up the rare and magic nodes south of the socket node before heading out north

Flesh-Eater

1. Simple board where we only rush the socket node for Gravekeeper.

Bloodbath

1. Start by taking the Legendary node Bloodbath.
2. Ignore the Magic and Rare nodes in the start of this board and move to the Socket for Essence
3. Now we can pick up the remaining Magic and Rare nodes on the board.

Cult Leader

1. We rush the socket for Deadraiser and only grab the remaining Magic and Rare nodes in radius when the Glyph is covering it with its radius.

Scent of Death

1. Rush the legendary node Scent of Death.
2. Grab the socket and use Dominate.

Obol Gambling

Obol gambling is a great way to potentially find item upgrades or items missing from your build. Check out the new tool from Icy Veins for gambling Obols in the link below:

Changelog

• August 5th, 2024: Guide updated for Season 5, Infernal Hordes.
• May 23rd, 2024: Finalized tempering modifiers.
• May 16th, 2024: Gem updates.
• May 10th, 2024: Guide updated for Season 4 Loot Reborn.
• January 22nd, 2024: Guide updated for Season 3 Season of the Construct.
• October 15th, 2023: Guide updated for Season of Blood Patch 1.2.
• August 7th, 2023: Guide updated for Patch 1.1.1.
• July 19th, 2023: Guide updated for Season 1 including Malignant Hearts.