Mendeln Summoner – Necromancer Build for Diablo 4

Build Introduction

This is the Mendeln version of original Summoner Necromancer build which requires the unique Ring of Mendeln, as the entire build is designed around it! By not scaling our multipliers via Shadow damage we provide a significantly smoother play-style at the cost of high-end DPS output in the latest end-game content while providing better performance in the early stage of end-game!

The Mendeln Necromancer is able to run high tier Nightmare Dungeons, as well as defeat the Echo of Lilith. The build is by far one of the most enjoyable Necromancer builds you can possibly play. It’s fast and brings out high damage numbers making it capable of killing challenging content and bosses well before you reach level 60!

As previously mentioned, this build is a variant of the Shadow Summoner Endgame Necromancer and can be played as a variant of the Bone Spear Endgame Necromancer as well. To access the original version of the build, click the button below.

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

Required Uniques

Ring of Mendeln

Since the build is entirely designed around Ring of Mendeln, you’ll need that Unique Ring before you can follow this guide to its full efficiency.

Skill Tree Points and Skill Bar

Recommended

Suggested Skill Bar

Corpse TendrilsSoulriftRaise SkeletonBlood MistDecrepifyBlight

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

This build is all about having our minions attack fast to trigger the unique ring, this means a heavy focus of attack speed.

• Melee Skeletons: Skirmisher – Adding the extra minion here will help increase our damage output significantly.
• Mage Skeletons: Shadow – We can get x3% multiplicative damage scaling PER Shadow Mage with the first option here.
• Golem: Iron – We sacrifice the golem to gain more critical strike damage.

Mercenary

Mercenaries provide a nice extra layer of power to your character and mostly comes down to preferential decision. Below you’ll see the set-up I personally would run for this build which is having Subo as the Mercenary and for reinforcement I’d use Varyana!

Subo Skill Tree choices:

• Wire Trap
• Ready At Hand
• Trip Mines
• Mastermind

Varyana Reinforcement choices:

• Opportunity Skill: Skill Cast – Whenever the player casts any skill in combat.
• Reinforcement Skill: Bloodthirst

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	Aspect of Disobedience	You gain 0.4-0.8% increased armor for 4 seconds when you deal any form of damage, stacking up to 25-40%
Chest	Bac + Mot	Blood Getter’s Aspect	Your Skeletal Priests also empower you at 55-75% effectiveness.
Gloves	N/A	Aspect of Reanimation	Your Minions gain increased damage while alive, up to x25-40% after 10 seconds.
Pants	Cem + Gar	Aspect of Hardened Bones	You and your Minions gain 15-20% increased Damage Reduction.
Boots	N/A	Aspect of the Cursed Aura	Makes your Decrepify a passive aura!
Weapon 2H (Scythe)	Royal Emerald	Aspect of the Great Feast	Your Minions deal 30-45% increased damage, but each one drains 1 Essence from you per second.
Amulet (50% Scaling)	Any Resistance Jewel	Aspect of Occult Dominion	Your maximum number of Skeletal Warriors and Skeletal Mages is increased by 2.
Ring	Any Resistance Jewel	Ring of Mendeln	Every 6th attack from each Minion is empowered, exploding for X Physical damage.
Ring	Any Resistance Jewel	Aspect of Frenzied Dead	Each time one of your Summoning Minions damages an enemy, they gain 10-14% Attack Speed for 3 seconds, up to 30-42%.

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 Emerald For Crit Damage.	Grand Topaz For increased Intelligence.	Royal Amethyst Royal Sapphire Royal Ruby Grand Skull

Below you’ll see the recommended list of Runewords for this build.

Runeword Combination	Effect
Cem + Gar	Gain 75 Offering by evading. Every 25 Offering you gain stacks of increased critical strike rating.
Bac + Mot	Gain 50 Offering by traveling 5 meters. For 150 Offering you gain a stackable stack of Dark Shroud providing damage reduction.

Which Elixirs Should You Use?

Visit the Alchemist and craft an Elixir providing any Resistance you need most, or the Elixir of Advantage 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 guide, and our Masterworking guide, for more details about these topics.

Slot	Targeted Gear Affixes	Tempering Affixes
Helmet	1. Maximum Life 2. Armor 3. Intelligence	Worldly Endurance #% Total Armor Decay Innovation #% Soulrift Duration
Chest	1. Resistance to all elements 2. Maximum Life 3. Intelligence	Necromancer Wall #% Chance for your Minion Attacks to Fortify you for 3% Maximum Life Profane Innovation #% Corpse Tendril Size
Gloves	1. Ranks to Skeletal Mage Mastery 2. Maximum Life 3. Attack Speed	Summoning Finesse #% Summoning Damage Decay Innovation #% Soulrift Duration
Pants	1. Ranks to Skeletal Mage Mastery 2. Intelligence 3. Maximum Life	Worldly Endurance #% Total Armor Decay Innovation #% Soulrift Duration
Boots	1. Ranks to Skeletal Warrior 2. Maximum Life 3. Movement Speed	Natural Motion #% Movement Speed Profane Innovation #% Corpse Tendril Size
Amulet	1. Ranks to Hellbent Commander 2. Ranks to Amplify 3. #% Intelligence	Necromancer Wall #% Damage Reduction for Your Minions Summoning Finesse #% Summoning Damage
Ring	1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Intelligence 3. Maximum Life	Worldly Finesse #% Critical Strike Damage Necromancer Efficiency #% Ultimate Cooldown Reduction
2H-Weapon (Scythe)	1. Critical Strike Damage 2. Intelligence 3. Maximum Life	Worldly Finesse #% Critical Strike Damage Summoning Augments #% Chance for Skeleton Warriors to Hit 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

Your minions are doing all the heavy lifting; all you have to worry about is making sure that enemies are Cursed with Decrepify and that you have Soulrift up. After this, you’ll use Corpse Tendrils to group enemies up and increase your damage output.

An important detail outside of the generic use of the skills is that you’ll want to consume corpses regularly. Corpse Tendrils group enemies up, making them easier to hit and provide bonuses. Using your Summon Skeleton ability will make them stronger and heal them as well!

Uniques and Mythic Uniques

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

Uniques

The following list details the changes in the Season 6 Update that may pertain to the Mendeln 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!

• Ring of Mendeln – Build requirement, without it the build will deal significantly less damage.
• The Grandfather – Without a doubt the best weapon you can use for this build. You’ll have to move the Great Feast Aspect to your amulet and move your Occult Dominion to your boots and replace the Cursed Aura aspect to use this weapon.
• Heir of Perdition – Amazing end-game item and will just straight up replace the Disobedience Aspect.

Season 6: Vessel of Hatred

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

• Wolves from the Runeword greatly improved performance.
• Ring of Mendeln now directly scales with minions damage significantly improving this build.

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

The mechanic that separates this build from the ordinary Summoner such as the Shadow Minion build or regular lazy-style minion builds is that we will utilize our Ring of Mendeln to further scale damage output. Every sixth attack will trigger the Mendeln and the rest of our damage is from the pure power of the minion army.

Defenses

Besides the obvious resistance and armor cap being covered, we gain a lot of damage reduction via aspect powers and the fact that we run a massive minion army covering you from enemy projectiles and just generally acting as living shields, taking enemy agro off us. In the event we to take damage ourselves, a Barrier covering the life pool will help mitigate damage, provided through aspect powers.

Offenses

The Unique ring, Ring of Mendeln, will provide brutal damage output, further emphasized with extreme investments into attack speed for our minions. This ring causes every sixth attack dealt by our minions to trigger a big explosion of damage, which is why the build scales so hard into attack speed. It also weaves perfectly into the Cult Leader Paragon board legendary node Cult Leader!

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: Major guide changes due to an in-game bug.
• October 7th, 2024: Paragon board updated.
• October 2nd, 2024: Guide updated for Season 6.
• August 5th, 2024: Guide updated for Season 5, Infernal Hordes.
• May 16th, 2024: Complete rework of the guide due to undocumented changes in the patch notes demanding heavy improvements on the guide.
• May 15th, 2024: Tempering gear updates.
• May 11th, 2024: Guide updated for Season 4 Loot Reborn.
• January 22nd, 2024: Guide updated for Season 3 Season of the Construct.
• October 22nd, 2023: Minor Skill-Tree Adjustments.
• October 21st, 2023: Paragon Board updated.
• October 15th, 2023: Guide updated for Season 2 Season of Blood, Patch 1.2.
• August 7th, 2023: Guide updated for Patch 1.1.1.
• July 26th, 2023: Big rework on the structure of the guide.
  • Changes entire Paragon Board, Aspects, skill tree.
  • Finalized decision of the Season 1 Heart choices.