Build Introduction
This guide is a collaboration between GhazzyTV and community member Garm Z. This build will turn your 
Bone Spear into a Shadow Skill, which we double down on in terms of scaling from all sources, such as Paragon Board, Skill-Tree, and Legendary Aspects.
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Strengths and Weaknesses
- Fast and comfortable with proper gear
- High survivability with massive barrier generation
- Average damage output compared to other Necromancer builds
Build Requirements
Deathless Visage
Indira’s Memory
Zan + 
Xan is mandatory for the build to function!
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
Reap
Bone Prison
DecomposeBone Spear
Corpse Tendrils
Bone StormFollow the points allocated in the Skill Tree above for the complete 71-point build. The additional skill points are completed using the Renown system.
Necromancer Class Mechanic – Book of the Dead
We will be sacrificing all our minions. Below you’ll find the details covering all aspects of how we utilize the Book of the Dead for the Bone Spear Necromancer.
- Melee Skeletons: Reaper [Sacrifice] – Increased Shadow Damage.
- Mage Skeletons: Cold [Sacrifice] – Increased Vulnerable damage.
- Golem: Iron [Sacrifice] – Increased Critical Strike Damage.
Gear, Stats, Gems, and Runes
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! Other recommendations for Legendary Aspect farming would be to do the Seasonal mechanic and to some extent you can farm them in Helltides as well.
| Gear Slot | Gems | Aspect / Unique | Legendary Aspect / Unique Power |
|---|---|---|---|
| Helm |  Royal Topaz | Deathless Visage | Bone Spears deal x% more Critical Strike Damage and forms echoes that bursts for X Physical Damage, increased by x5% for every 25% of your total Critical Strike Damage bonus. |
| Chest |  Igni +  Wat or  Cir +  Lum |  Aspect of Hardened Bonesor  Aspect of the Cursed Aura | You gain 15-20% increased Damage Reduction. |
| Gloves | n/a |  Sacrificial Aspect | Your Sacrifice bonuses are increased by #%. |
| Pants | Royal Topaz | Indira’s Memory |  Blood Wave is additionally a Bone Skill. It spawns a Bone Prison at its end point and increases your Blood Skill damage by 40%[x] [20 – 40]% for 8 seconds when Cast.All Bone Spear are additionally Blood Skills. Your Bone Spear consume a Corpse to launch another Bone Spear and drain 10% of your Maximum Life. |
| Boots | n/a |  Path of Trag’Oul | Makes your Bone Prison trap enemies in a larger area and fires X Bone Splinters at enemies trapped within. It also increase your Maximum Essence by 2 for 10 seconds each time these Bone Splinters hit an enemy. |
| Weapon 2H (Mace) | Zan + Xan | Aspect of Grasping Veins | Gain + [5 – 25%] increased Critical Strike Chance for 6 seconds when you cast Corpse Corpse Tendrils. You deal x [10 – 50%] bonus Critical Strike Damage to enemies damaged by Corpse Tendrils for 6 seconds. |
| Amulet (50% Scaling) |  Royal Skull |  Aspect of the Dark Dance | Every 5 seconds, your next Core Skill costs 23 [23 – 93] Life instead of Primary Resource. Will only occur if you have at least 60% of your Maximum Life. Skills that consume Life deal 120%[x] [120]% increased damage. |
| Ring | Royal Skull | Aspect of Decaying Humerus | Your Bone Skills now deal Shadow damage instead of Physical. Enemies take x#% increased Shadow damage after being hit with a Bone Skill. |
| Ring | Royal Skull | Aspect of the Damned | You deal x#% increased Shadow damage to enemies afflicted by any Curse. |
In Season 10, we’ll have access to Chaos Armor to further push the limits of the build!
Curious how this build compares to other endgame options? Take a look at our Endgame Build Tier List.
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. The main priority for Greater Affixes are marked with a “*”, secondary would be anything providing Intelligence or Life. Be sure to check our Tempering and Masterworking guides for more details about these topics.
| Slot | Targeted Gear Affixes | Tempering Affixes |
|---|---|---|
| Helmet | Deathless Visage * 1. Chance for Bone Spear Projectiles to Cast Twice 2. + Ranks to Bone Spear | n/a |
| Chest | * 1. Intelligence 2. Essence per Second 3. Maximum Life 4. All Resistance |  Worldly Endurance #% Total ArmorProfane Innovation #% Corpse Tendril Size |
| Gloves | * 1. Attack Speed 2. + Ranks to Bone Spear 3. Critical Strike Chance | Blood Finesse #% Overpower Damage Profane Innovation #% Corpse Tendril Size |
| Pants |  Blood Moon Breeches* 1. + Ranks to Tides of Blood 2. Maximum Life | n/a |
| Boots | Path of Trag’Oul * 1. + Ranks to Bone Skills 2. Bone Prison Cooldown Note: It’s important that the aspect roll needs to be high for it to be effective. | n/a |
| Amulet | * 1. + Ranks to Evulsion 2. + Ranks to Compound Fracture 3. Intelligence Note if you don’t have an amulet with 2 different passive skills you can instead run the following modifiers: Attack Speed or Critical Strike Chance. | Blood Finesse #% Overpower Damage Necromancer Invigoration Ultimate Skill Restores X Primary Resource |
| Ring | * 1. Attack Speed 2. Resource Cost Reduction 3. Intelligence | Blood Finesse #% Overpower Damage Necromancer Invigoration Ultimate Skill Restores X Primary Resource |
| Ring | * 1. Attack Speed 2. Resource Cost Reduction 3. Intelligence | Blood Finesse #% Overpower Damage Necromancer Invigoration Ultimate Skill Restores X Primary Resource Necromancer Efficiency + Ranks to Rapid Ossification |
| 2H-Weapon (Mace) | * 1. Intelligence 2. Maximum Life 3. Resource Cost Reduction | Blood Finesse #% Overpower DamageDreadful Augments + Ranks to Finality |
Keep in mind that the maximum Resistance is 70% by default for each element and can be increased to 85% by various sources.
Make sure to achieve and maintain armor cap of 1,000 as soon as possible! For that purpose, helm or chest temporary tempering can be Total Armor %.
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
- Deathless Visage – Provides better Critical Strike Damage and echoes your Bone Spears to deal extra damage. You can target farm this from Lord Varshan.
- Path of Trag’Oul – (Only used in early game) Firstly it gives us + to all bone skills allowing us to get Bone Prison without having a point in it on our skill-tree. It then turns our Bone Prison into an powerhouse of scaling by dealing extra damage and increases our Max Essence for even more damage output. You can target farm this from Grigoire’s Lair.
- Indira’s Memory – Cornerstone of the build converting your Bone Spear into Blood Spears.
Mythic Uniques
Shroud of False Death – This can straight up replace your current body armor and would scale your damage significantly. Greater Affix and Masterworking priority on this item will be All Stats.
Ring of Starless Skies – Can replace your Accelerating Aspect ring straight up. Greater Affix and Masterworking priority on this item will be Attack Speed.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Recommended Runewords listed below. | Recommended Runewords then Royal Topaz For increased Intelligence. | Royal Skull For increased Armor.  Royal Diamond Can be used to help resistance if your armor has reached the cap. |
- Make sure to convert not used gem-fragments to Skull fragments to obtain 3xRoyal Skull as early as possible.
The following Runewords are recommended to be used for this build.
| Runeword Combination | Effect |
| Without Aspect of the Cursed AuraIgni + Wat | Gain 25 Offering. Stores offering every 0.3 seconds. Cast a non-Basic Skill to gain the stored offering. For 100 Offering you can Overflow increasing duration with a 1 second cooldown to invoke the Necromancer’s Horrid Decrepify, Slowing enemies, reducing their damage, and letting you Execute them. |
| Without Aspect of the Cursed AuraCir + Lum | Gain 300 Offering. Cast 5 Skills then become exhausted for 3 seconds. For 5 Offering. (Overflow: Increased Resource Restored). Cooldown 1 second. Restore 3.5 Primary Resource. |
| Zan + Xan | Gain 150 Offering. Cast an Ultimate Skill. For 300 Offering. (Overflow: Increase Duration). Cooldown 1 second. Your next attack will cause your hits to be a guaranteed Critical Strike and Overpower for 0.35 seconds. |
Paragon board
Below, you’ll find the entire end-game paragon board setup for this build in detail!
Season of Infernal Chaos (Season 10)
In Season 10, we get access to Chaos Perks as well as Chaos Armor. Below, you’ll find a list of our recommended items to look out for.
Chaos Perks
| Power | Description |
 Alter the Balance | Your base Core Skills are now empowered as Ultimate Skills, cost no Essence, but have a 20 second Cooldown. Your base Ultimate Skills are now altered to also be Core Skills and have no Cooldown, but cost 50 Essence. |
 Alternating Alterations | Casting a Core Skill empowers your next Non-Channeled Cast of a different Core Skill, refunding 50% of its Resource cost and increasing its damage by 40%[x]. |
 Accelerating Chaos | Lucky Hit: Damaging an enemy has up to a 10% chance to trigger a Chaotic Burst on the enemy, dealing 3,176 damage. Your Chaotic Bursts that hit an enemy reduce a random active Cooldown by 0.5 seconds. |
 Crazy Brew | Your Healing Potion is infused with the power of Chaos, granting you 100% Resource Cost Reduction, 80%[+] increased Attack Speed and 80%[+] increased Movement Speed for 4 seconds. Your Healing Potion has a 10 second Cooldown and you can drink it while at full Life. |
Chaos Armor
Chaos Armor is seasonal corrupted unique gear that can take the form and slots of other armor pieces. An amulet can become boots or a helmet, a shield can become gloves, and so on. Chaos pieces carry their original implicit affixes, like All Resistances from Jewelry or weapon damage multiplier from the shield, regardless of the form they take. They always have increased AND top roll unique aspect value.
- Deathless Visage – (Highest priority) Any slot except Chest/Pants. Improves echoes multiplier and Bone Spear itself.
Fists of Fate – Any slot except Chest/Pants. Massive multiplier with useful stats.
Lidless Wall – Any slot except Pants. Base weapon damage multiplier combined with useful stats.
Banished Lord’s Talisman – Any slot except Chest/Pants. Big Overpower damage multiplier and perfect stats for the build.
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, and Aldkin as a Reinforcement once you reach endgame.
For the reinforcement, stick with Aldkin, utilizing his Flame Surgeskill being cast when the player casts Bone Spear.
Build Mechanics
Rotation and Playstyle
Group enemies with Corpse Tendrils followed with Bone Prison. We then cast 2x Bone Storm to trigger Xan rune and instantly cast a few Bone Spear for guaranteed Critical and Overpower damage! Then repeat Bone Storm twice to activate Xan Rune again followed by more Bone Spear!
Make sure to use your healing potion to activate Crazy Brew for increased cast speed and free casts right before you unleash your damage!
The other darkness skills on your action bar is only there to scale the 
Reaper’s Pursuit scaling.
Zan + Xan will constantly ramp up Offering which will guarantee Critical Strikes and Overpowers for our damage.Igni + Wat Will consistently apply your 
Decrepify curse to help scale our damage, defenses and cooldown reduction. If you chose to run Aspect of the Cursed Aura you could swap this runeword to help Essence sustain in early gearing with Cir + Lum.
Which Elixirs Should You Use?
Visit the Alchemist and craft an Elixir providing any Resistance you need most, or the 
Elixir of Advantage II for more attack speed. If you are struggling with Essence, you can always use 
Elixir of Resourcefulness II to help. Some Elixirs cannot be crafted and only drop from things like Helltides or Nightmare Dungeons. Additionally, make sure to keep your health potion upgraded!
Season 10 Updates
For a complete overview of Season 10, mechanics and theme, new leveling activity, and other changes coming, please take a look at our comprehensive season hub here. For Necromancer:
- Nothing big to point out besides the new seasonal mechanic additions to the game.
Obol Gambling
Obol gambling is a great way to potentially find item upgrades or items missing from your build. Check out the new tool guide from Icy Veins for gambling Obols in the link below:
Changelog
- September 19th, 2025: Guide updated for Season 10. Major rework + added new seasonal-specific items and powers.
- June 29th, 2025: Guide updated for Season 9.
- May 18th, 2025: Glove aspect changed.
- May 5th, 2025: Optimized and updated post launch Season 8.
- April 26th, 2025: Guide updated for Season 8.
- February 12th, 2025: Minor adjustments and clarifications.
- January 19th, 2025: Guide updated for Season 7.
- October 12th, 2024: New Paragon tool added.
- October 7th, 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: Updated guide for the 1.2 patch.
- August 7th, 2023: Minor updates for the 1.1.1 patch.
- August 5th, 2023: Guide updated for patch 1.1.1 (launches on August 8th).
- July 26th, 2023: Optimized gear affix list.
- July 19th, 2023: Guide updated for Season 1 including Malignant Hearts.
