Bone Spirit – Necromancer Build for Diablo 4

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 SpiritBone PrisonBlood MistDecrepifyCorpse TendrilsRaise Skeleton

Follow the points allocated in the Skill Tree above for the complete 71-point build. The additional 12 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.

Mercenary

Aldkin is a great choice with crowd-controlling features but the comfortability of using Subo, who brings the ability of revealing enemies and materials in the area, makes him a natural preferential decision. The mercenaries are a nice addition to the game and whichever you chose to run is up to you. The recommendation for this build will be to run Subo.

Skill-tree wise we’ll grab the left-hand side first for Wire Trap to provide stuns with the following node is up to you. Trip Mines is the next big notable to grab, taken for safety reasons. We finish that tree with Mastermind.

For the reinforcement, stick with Raheir, utilizing his Bastion skill being cast when the player becomes injured.

Paragon board

Below you’ll find the entire end-game paragon board set-up for this build in detail!

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. 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	Grand Topaz	Juggernaut’s Aspect	Gain X Armor, but your Evade has 100% increased Cooldown.
Chest	Lith + Ceh	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	Yul + Ohm	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 and Runewords

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.	Grand Topaz For increased Intelligence.	Royal AmethystRoyal SapphireRoyal Ruby

The following Runewords are recommend to be used for this build.

Runeword Combination	Effect
Yul + Ohm	Gain 50 Offering when casting a skill with a cooldown 500 Offering will trigger the Barbarians Enhanced War Cry increasing your movement speed and damage dealt.
Lith + Ceh	Standing still gives you 25 Offering every 0.3 seconds 100 Offering will summon multiple wolves which will attack enemies for 8 seconds.

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. Be sure to check our Tempering and Masterworking guides 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 to lock enemies in place, 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 dealing critical damage. 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 6: Vessel of Hatred

The following list details the changes in the Season 6 Update that may pertain to the Summoner Necromancer build. Check the Changelog for all the other guide updates.

• No direct changes, but obviously affected by the Paragon Board rework and general itemization changes in the core game.

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

Having multiple tools to pull enemies together allows for easy damage application of Bone Spirit. 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 playstyle with extreme bursts of damage is the offensive toolkit this build brings to the table. Pull enemies together with Corpse Tendrils or lock them in place with Bone Prison then follow up by unloading Bone Spirits and watch them crumble.

Without proper end-game gear, you will have to be careful not to spam your abilities too much and make sure to group up enemies for this playstyle. With better end-game gear this will become much smoother and easier to sustain resource wise, allowing you to use the build’s abilities significantly more often.

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

• October 12th, 2024: New Paragon tool.
• October 9th, 2024: Paragon board added.
• October 2nd, 2024: Guide updated for Season 6.
• 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.