Sever Affliction – Necromancer Leveling Build for Diablo 4 (Season 10)

Build Introduction

This guide is a collaboration between GhazzyTV and community member Garm Z. The Sever Affliction is a well-rounded, minion-less, and high-performing leveling build. The build keeps minions only until the signature Reaping Lotus’ Aspect, Affliction, and Aspect of the Cursed Aura are discovered.

Quick Navigation

Allocation of Skill Points

Order	Skill	Cluster
1	Reap	Basic Skill
2	Enhanced Reap	Basic Skill
3	Sever	Core Skill
4	Enhanced Sever	Core Skill
5	Paranormal Sever	Basic Skill
6	Acolyte’s Reap	Basic Skill
7	Skeletal Warrior Mastery	Corpse & Macabre Passive
8	Skeletal Warrior Mastery Rank 2	Corpse & Macabre Passive
9	Skeletal Warrior Mastery Rank 3	Corpse & Macabre Passive
10	Sever Rank 2	Core Skill
11	Blood Mist	Corpse & Macabre Skill
12	Iron Maiden	Curse Skill
13	Enhanced Iron Maiden	Curse Skill
14	Reap Rank 2	Basic Skill
15	Reap Rank 3	Basic Skill
16	Reap Rank 4	Basic Skill
17	Reap Rank 5	Basic Skill
18	Corpse Tendrils	Corpse & Macabre Skill
19	Enhanced Corpse Tendrils	Corpse & Macabre Skill
20	Blighted Corpse Tendrils	Corpse & Macabre Skill
21	Sever Rank 3	Core Skill
22	Sever Rank 4	Core Skill
23	Sever Rank 5	Core Skill
24	Inspiring Leader	Ultimate Passive
25	Hellbent Commander	Ultimate Passive
26	Hellbent Commander Rank 2	Ultimate Passive
27	Hellbent Commander Rank 3	Ultimate Passive
28	Soulrift	Ultimate Skill
29	Supreme Soulrift	Ultimate Skill
30	Prime Soulrift	Ultimate Skill
31	Soulrift Rank 2	Ultimate Skill
32	Soulrift Rank 3	Ultimate Skill
33	Soulrift Rank 4	Ultimate Skill
34	Rathma’s Vigor	Key Passive
35	Soulrift Rank 5	Ultimate Skill
36	Reaper’s Pursuit	Corpse & Macabre Passive
37	Gloom	Corpse & Macabre Passive
38	Gloom Rank 2	Corpse & Macabre Passive
39	Gloom Rank 3	Corpse & Macabre Passive
40	Terror	Corpse & Macabre Passive
41	Terror Rank 2	Corpse & Macabre Passive
42	Terror Rank 3	Corpse & Macabre Passive
43	Decrepify	Curse Skill
44	Enhanced Decrepify	Curse Skill
45	Abhorrent Decrepify	Curse Skill
46	Death’s Approach	Curse Passive
47	Death’s Approach Rank 2	Curse Passive
48	Death’s Approach Rank 3	Curse Passive
49	Hewed Flesh	Core Passive
50	Death’s Embrace	Curse Passive
51	Death’s Embrace Rank 2	Curse Passive
52	Death’s Embrace Rank 3	Curse Passive
53	Hewed Flesh Rank 2	Core Passive
54	Hewed Flesh Rank 3	Core Passive
55	Necrotic Carapace	Corpse & Macabre Passive
56	Amplify Damage	Curse Passive
57	Amplify Damage Rank 2	Curse Passive
58	Amplify Damage Rank 3	Curse Passive
59	Inspiring Leader Rank 2	Ultimate Passive
60	Inspiring Leader Rank 3	Ultimate Passive
61	Reaper’s Pursuit Rank 2	Corpse & Macabre Passive
62	Reaper’s Pursuit Rank 3	Corpse & Macabre Passive
63	Enhanced Blood Mist	Corpse & Macabre Skill
64	Ghastly Blood Mist	Corpse & Macabre Skill
65	Titan’s Fall	Corpse & Macabre Passive
66	Coalesced Blood	Corpse & Macabre Passive
67	Coalesced Blood Rank 2	Corpse & Macabre Passive
68	Coalesced Blood Rank 3	Corpse & Macabre Passive
69	Blight	Core Skill
70	Enhanced Blight	Core Skill
71	Supernatural Blight	Core Skill

Removing Minions

It’s recommended to switch away from minions as soon as you get access to Affliction and Aspect of the Cursed Aura.

It’s important at this point to apply Vulnerable to enemies from casting Sever and high up-time of Soulrift. Make sure Essence management is solved through Essence per Second modifiers on gear and/or by utilizing the Cir + Lum Runeword. We do recommend looking at the Recommended Legendary Aspect list for more information on powers.

The skill tree will change slightly when you sacrifice your minions. This means we remove all 3 points from both Skeletal Warrior Mastery as well as Hellbent Commander. We also remove 1 point from Acolyte’s Reap, Rathma’s Vigor and 4 points from Reap, granting us a total of 12 free points.

These 11 points will then be spent in the following:

• 2p Titan’s Fall
• 3p Stand Alone
• 3p Memento Mori
• 3p Necrotic Fortitude
• 1p Affliction

↑ Back to Navigation Table

Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

Recommended

Suggested Skill Bar

Blood MistSeverCorpse TendrilsSoulriftReapBlight

To prepare yourself for what happens after level 60 when you get access to your Paragon Board, head over to our Necromancer Builds page and choose your weapon!

↑ Back to Navigation Table

Necromancer Class Mechanic – Book of the Dead

Necromancer’s class-specific ability is the Book of the Dead, which provides three different types of minions that unlock by leveling up. This build is designed around using all of your minions from this system during the early stage of leveling. However, during your progression, we will be sacrificing them all.

Before you sacrifice your minions, we’ll use the following:

• Melee Skeletons: Defenders [Upgrade #2] – This makes our melee minions insanely resilient. If resistances are capped.
• Mage Skeletons: Cold Mages [Sacrifice] Increases our Vulnerable damage.
• Golem: Iron [Sacrifice] – Provides increased Critical Strike Damage.

It’s recommended to switch away from minions as soon as you get access to Affliction and Aspect of the Cursed Aura. Your Book of the Dead will then look like this:

• Melee Skeletons: Reapers [Sacrifice] – Increased Shadow Damage. If you struggle with resistances you can sacrifice Defenders for increased resistances.
• Mage Skeletons: Cold Mages [Sacrifice] Increases our Vulnerable damage.
• Golem: Iron [Sacrifice] – Provides increased Critical Strike Damage.

↑ Back to Navigation Table

Gear, Stats, Gems, and Runes

Prioritize a higher total damage output when it comes to your weapon, as the higher it is, the better. Important to point out that we always want to be wielding a 2H weapon with this build. Make sure you check the aspects listed below to have a smooth leveling experience.

In Season 10, we’ll have access to Chaos Armor to further push the limits of the build!

Legendary Item Aspects

To unlock Aspects for your build, you will either need to complete specific Dungeons (which add the Aspect to your Codex of Power) or get them as random drops. Once unlocked, visit the Occultist to imprint an Aspect onto your gear. Codex Aspects can be reused, and you should often refresh the one on your weapon. You will also want to farm Veiled Crystals from Helltides and by salvaging items, since these are required for upgrading gear and applying Aspects.

For this build in particular, three Aspects are important:

• Aspect of the Damned – Unlocked from Uldur’s Cave in Kehjistan. This is the only Dungeon Aspect that meaningfully boosts the build.
  
• Reaping Lotus’ Aspect – Considered the strongest option, but only obtainable as a random drop.
  
• Aspect of the Cursed Aura – Another drop-only Aspect, and helps pushing the build’s full potential.

Before Sacrifice

The table below lists the important Legendary powers you should prioritize before sacrificing your minions.

Aspect Name	Legendary Aspect Power	Source
Aspect of Occult Dominion (Utility)	Your maximum number of Skeletal Warriors and Skeletal Mages is increased by 2.	Random Drop
Aspect of Hardened Bones (Defensive)	You and your Minions gain 10-30% increased Damage Reduction	Random Drop
Blood Getter’s Aspect	Your Skeletal Priests also empower you at 55-75% effectiveness.	Random Drop
Aspect of Slaughter (Mobility) or Aspect of Creeping Cadaver	You gain 20% Movement speed. Lose this bonus for 5-2 seconds after taking damage from a Close Enemy. or Consuming a Corpse increases your Movement Speed by + [20 – 40%] for 8 seconds.	Random Drop
Aspect of the Cursed Aura (Utility)	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.	Random Drop
Aspect of Frenzied Dead (Offensive)	Each time one of your Minions damages an enemy, they gain % Attack Speed for 3 seconds up to X%.	Random Drop
Reaping Lotus’ Aspect (Offensive)	Sever no longer returns and instead splits into 3 specters that expand out and back from its apex. Sever deals #% of normal damage.	Random Drop
Aspect of Reanimation (Offensive)	Your Minions gain increased damage while alive, up to x#% after 10 seconds.	Campaign in Scosglen

Changing Aspect costs Veiled Crystal, which is easily farmed in Helltides. The order of priority for what aspect to have on your weapon and amulet is listed below.

1. Aspect of Reanimation
2. Reaping Lotus’ Aspect
3. Aspect of the Damned
4. Aspect of Occult Dominion
5. Aspect of Frenzied Dead

After Sacrifice

The table below lists the important Legendary powers you should prioritize once you have sacrificed your minions.

Aspect Name	Legendary Aspect Power	Source
Aspect of the Cursed Aura (Utility)	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.	Random Drop
Reaping Lotus’ Aspect (Offensive)	Sever no longer returns and instead splits into 3 specters that expand out and back from its apex. Sever deals #% of normal damage.	Random Drop
Aspect of Slaughter (Mobility)	You gain 20% Movement speed. Lose this bonus for 5-2 seconds after taking damage from a Close Enemy.	Random Drop
Sacrificial Aspect	Your Sacrifice bonuses are increased by x35-55%.	Ruin’s of Eridu in Hawezar
Aspect of the Damned (Offensive)	You deal x#% increased Shadow damage to enemies afflicted by any Curse.	Uldur’s cave in Kehjistan
Sacrificial Aspect (Offensive)	Your Sacrifice bonuses are increased by x#%	Ruins of Eridu in Hawezar

Changing Aspect costs Veiled Crystal, which is easily farmed in Helltides. The order of priority for what aspect to have on your weapon is listed below:

1. Reaping Lotus’ Aspect
2. Aspect of the Damned
3. Sacrificial Aspect

For your amulet, the order of priority is the following:

1. Aspect of the Damned
2. Sacrificial Aspect

We have a dedicated in-depth Aspect and Codex of Power guide that you can check out for more information.

↑ Back to Navigation Table

Stat Priority and Tempering Affixes

Keep in mind that this is only possible if you’ve found Tempering Manuals as you progress through this leveling guide. There are really not many modifiers worth bothering with during the leveling stage, but the recommendation is the same as most builds, such as Life, Armor, and a bit of damage.

When it comes to modifiers on your gear as you progress this build, you’ll be looking for the following stats:

Slot	Gear Affixes	Tempering Affixes
2H Weapon (Sword preferably)	1. Vulnerable Damage 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Resource Cost Reduction, Intelligence, Maximum Life	Shadow Augments — Decay #% Affliction to deal Double Damage Worldly Finesse #% Vulnerable Damage or #% Critical Strike Damage
Helm	1. Essence per Second 2. + Ranks to Skeletal Warrior Mastery (If you have minions) 3. Resistance to all Elements 4. Maximum Life, Armor	Worldly Endurance #% Total Armor Profane Innovation #% Corpse Tendril Size
Chest	1. Essence per Second 2. Resistance to all Elements 3. Maximum Life, Armor	Worldly Endurance #% Total Armor Profane Innovation #% Corpse Tendril Size
Gloves	1. Attack Speed 2. Critical Strike Damage, Vulnerable Damage 3. + Ranks to Sever or Core Skills	Worldly Finesse #% Vulnerable Damage or Critical Strike Damage Decay Innovation #% Soulrift Duration
Pants	1. Essence per Second 2. Resistance to all Elements 3. + Ranks to Reap or Basic Skills 4. Maximum Life, Armor	Worldly Endurance #% Total Armor Decay Innovation #% Soulrift Duration
Boots	1. Movement Speed 2. Essence per Second 3. + Ranks to Skeletal Warrior Mastery (If you have minions) 4. Resistance to all Elements 5. Maximum Life, Armor	Necromancer Motion #% Movement Speed Decay Innovation #% Soulrift Duration
Amulet	1. + Ranks to Terror, Gloom, Coalesced Blood or Amplify 2. Movement Speed 3. Critical Strike Chance, Resistance to All Elements, Maximum Life, Attack Speed	Worldly Finesse #% Vulnerable Damage or #% Critical Strike Damage Necromancer Efficiency #% Ultimate Cooldown Reduction
Rings	1. Attack Speed 2. Vulnerable Damage, Critical Strike Damage, Chance to make enemies Vulnerable on hit 3. Maximum Life, Resistance to All Elements, Critical Strike Chance	Worldly Finesse #% Vulnerable Damage or #% Critical Strike Damage Necromancer Efficiency #% Ultimate Cooldown Reduction

↑ Back to Navigation Table

Gems and Runewords

Listed below are the best Gems and Runes to socket into gear for each item type.

Gems

Below, you’ll use the following recommended gems:

• Weapon: We don’t recommend socketing anything in the weapon due to material cost and the fact that you’ll be switching your weapon so frequently during your level progression. If a socket exist on the item you could slot in a Emerald for increased Critical Strike Damage.
• Armor: Topaz for increased Intelligence.
• Jewelry: Skull to help reach the armor cap.

Runewords

When it comes to Runewords, there are a couple that this build could utilize well. The most attractive combination is: Cir + Lum, this is extremely helpful with your Essence management. Other options are useful as well.

• Yax + Lum – Every time you drink a potion you’ll also recover Essence.
• Feo + Ner – If you become Injured or Crowd Controlled you invoke the Rogue’s Countering Concealment – gain Dodge Chance, Movement Speed, Unstoppable and Stealth.

Make sure you place these in your Pants or Chest, as you’ll want to keep your weapon slot open to be replaced should you find one with higher item power.

↑ Back to Navigation Table

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

Chaos Perks are supplementary power boons to your character upon which you can use one Unique perk from Torment 1 Infernal Hordes content, and three non-unique perks which you obtain via the Seasonal reputation system. Below you’ll find the suggested list for this build:

Before Minions are sacrificed

Power	Description
Unstable Power	Chaotic magics erupt from your Basic Skills, making them guaranteed to Critically Strike and Overpower for 100% increased damage, but the power is unstable, giving them a 3 second Cooldown.
Grim Reapers	Your Skeleton Warriors’ attacks have a 25% chance to use Reap dealing 150% of normal damage instead of their regular attacks.
Accelerating Chaos	Lucky Hit: Damaging an enemy has up to a 10% chance to trigger a Chaotic Burst on the enemy, dealing 400% damage.

After Minions are sacrificed

Power	Description
Accelerating Chaos	Lucky Hit: Damaging an enemy has up to a 10% chance to trigger a Chaotic Burst on the enemy, dealing 400% damage. Your Chaotic Bursts that hit an enemy reduce a random active Cooldown by 0.5 seconds.
Invigorating Attacks	Every 5 seconds, your next Basic Skill generates an additional 100% of your Maximum Primary Resource when Cast, but your Basic Skills deal 30% reduced damage.
Erupting Chaos	Chaotic Bursts randomly erupt around you, dealing 400% damage of your highest damage type. Your Chaotic Bursts additionally deal 100% of their initial damage over 4 seconds.

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.

Below you’ll find a list of unique items that would do very well for this build as a Chaos Armor:

• Bloodless Scream – Huge multiplier for darkness skills and AoE crowd control.
• Lidless Wall – Massive base damage multiplier, which even works for 2 handed weapons.
• Mother’s Embrace – Resource management against big packs of enemies on top of other good affixes.
• Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul – Helps with Essence sustain and auto-casts Corpse Tendrils as well as providing movement speed.
• Paingorger’s Gauntlets – Only when you have minions. Provides massive multiplier and AoE for all damaged by your Core Skills.

Mercenaries

Raheir is a great choice with increased resistances for you. The mercenaries are a nice addition to the game, and whichever one you choose to run is up to you. The recommendation for this build will be to run Raheir. We also recommend using the Reinforcement slot to level up all your mercenaries to get access to the caches for extra loot.

Below you’ll find the recommended skill set-up for Raheir.

• Ground Slam
• Raheir’s Aegis
• Bastion
• Inspiration

↑ Back to Navigation Table

Build Mechanics

Rotation and Playstyle

Prior to sacrificing your Raise Skeleton, they pretty much will do all the work. You do have to keep the Soulrift and Raise Skeleton buff up consistently. Group up enemies with Corpse Tendrils for Skeletons Reap to hit more enemies. You can apply Blight on grouped enemies for faster Cooldown reduction on Soulrift and deal slightly more damage.

After you sacrifice your minions your rotation will look like this:

Our main source of damage comes from casting Sever and Affliction procs. We group up enemies with Corpse Tendrils as soon as a corpse is available and apply Blight if Essence is available. Now we have to keep Vulnerable debuff on enemies via Sever spam or Soulrift. Our curses are automated by Aspect of the Cursed Aura so just make sure you’re standing in range to start Affliction procs. At this point you just keep grouping enemies with Corpse Tendrils and spam Sever.

Blood Mist can be used to as a panic button, stop poison damage or offensively to generate a corpse to be used for Corpse Tendrils.

Which Elixirs Should You Use?

To gain an edge in your adventures, head to the Alchemist in any major town, and craft Elixirs that enhance your stats and experience gain for 30 minutes. Remember to gather the necessary crafting materials by foraging plants. Select any Elixir as that provides extra experience gain, or if you have Elixir of Advantage to help with attack speed. Elixir of Iron Barbs can help early game with reaching the 1000 armor cap as well.

Return to the Alchemist again around every 10 levels to upgrade your potion. The extra healing is essential to survival.

↑ Back to Navigation Table

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.

The seasonal powers have inconsequential impact on this leveling build. Besides there are some minor aspects changes compared to last season, most notably buffed Reaping Lotus’ Aspect and Aspect of the Great Feast not being sustainable during leveling anymore.

Difficulty and Endgame

This guide is designed to get you to level 60 in a smooth and enjoyable way. Once there, you’ll want to look at a proper endgame-designed build guide. Make sure you pick one of our recommended ones!

↑ Back to Navigation Table

Changelog

• October 5th, 2025: General visual improvements on the guide.
• September 30th, 2025: Guide updated – Skill-tree and stat modifiers changed.
• September 18th, 2025: Guide updated for Season 10.
• July 3rd, 2025: Optimizations across the board in the guide.
• June 29th, 2025: Guide updated for Season 9.
• May 5th, 2025: Optimized and updated post launch for Season 8.
• April 29th, 2025: Guide updated for Season 8.