Diablo 4: Necromancer Leveling Guide (2024)

One of Diablo 4's easiest classes to level is the Necromancer. With multiple viable builds and a strong well-rounded toolkit, the Necromancer is a great choice for both new players and those wanting to push high-end content. The Bone Spear build is simple to learn and shines against all types of enemies, seeing you safely into Tier Three and beyond.

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This guide will teach you everything you need to know about the Bone Spear Necromancer build. It will cover the best Active, Passive, and Book of the Dead skill choices, as well as your best Stats and Aspects.

Updated July 13, 2023: We added a video version of this guide to better show you how to make those pointy bone spears.

Active Skill Priority

Bone Spear has a fairly standard build, which sees you taking the same six skills to support your Spears. You won't have to worry about summoning minions either, as you want to be sacrificing them to augment your spear damage.

Bone Splinters

The first ability you want to select is Bone Splinters. This Basic Skill fires out three small shards of bone that deal low damage and help you generate your primary resource; Essence. Nothing special here, just a standard resource generator that you'll be weaving with your Bone Spears, so expect to keep this one around for a long time.

• Bone Splinters x1> Enhanced Bone Splinters > Acolyte's Bone Splinters

Your augments are not critical but will help boost your Essence and Critical Strike by a small amount. You can delay the Acolyte's upgrade to much later in your build to pick up some stronger power gains.

Bone Spear

This is your Core Skill and the one you'll be destroying your enemies with. Your goal with this ability is to try and shatter the Spears on either an object or a wall. This will cause the Spears to shatter into multiple shards, dealing extra damage and further strengthening your damage output. This is especially useful against bosses, making the Bone Spear equally adept at tearing through multiple enemies or a single target.

• Bone Spear x5 > Enhanced Bone Spear > Supernatural Bone Spear

The Supernatural upgrade means your Bone Spear will automatically make your first target struck Vulnerable for three seconds. Try to line up your Spears with priority targets and you'll be bringing them down in no time.

Blood Mist

The next skill to pick up is your key defensive. Blood Mist gives you three seconds of immunity and heals you for a portion of the AoE damage dealt. Bear in mind that you will be slowed for the duration, so try to make sure you're not in a dangerous position once you emerge.

Corpse Explosion

This skill is a staple in multiple Necromancer builds, as it allows you to make use of Corpses for extra AoE damage. It doesn't cost any Essence, making it a great move to reliably spam once you're out of juice. It is a great way to build back your Essence, as it will deal much more damage than Bone Splinters, and

• Corpse Explosion x5 > Enhanced Corpse Explosion > Blighted Corpse Explosion

Thanks to the Blighted upgrade, Corpse Explosion can be used to trigger certain Darkness effects and will now deal its damage over time, which can stack up infinitely. Thanks to the Grim Harvest passive, you'll be generating Essence every time you consume a corpse, so prioritise your Bone Spear spending before consuming corpses.

Corpse Tendrils

Corpse Tendrils is your go-to crowd control ability. Usable on a corpse, this skill will pull enemies together and stun them for three seconds. Its low cooldown makes this spell one of Diablo 4's strongest crowd control skills, and you will be using this frequently, especially if you manage to acquire the Resource Aspect of the Umbral legendary power. This will provide Essence per enemy Crowd Controlled, allowing for a quick refill on every use.

• Corpse Tendrils x1 > Enhanced Corpse Tendrils > Plagued Corpse Tendrils

The modifiers you'll want are very powerful, as they Slow enemies before the pull in, and applies Vulnerable for three seconds upon use. Another way to apply this debuff is very welcome and this ability should be used on cooldown to help control your enemy's positioning.

Bone Storm

For your Ultimate you'll want to run Bone Storm. It causes a swirl of Bones around you for ten seconds, synergising excellently with the Defensive Aspect of Shielding Storm, which provides a Barrier for every tick of damage coming from Bone Storm.

• Bone Storm > Prime Bone Storm > Supreme Bone Storm

While the extra damage is nice, this skill is primarily taken for the buffs that its modifiers provide. A flat increase of 15 percent Damage Reduction and 20 percent Critical Strike Chance for the duration is very powerful, making Bone Storm both an offensive and defensive cooldown.

Passive Skill Priority

Necromancer has access to some very strong passives, but try to focus on picking up your Active Skills first, as they will form your core rotation. Some strong bonuses feed off other mechanics such as your Book of the Dead choices, so you can delay some of these pick-ups depending on if you feel you need some more damage or tankiness.

Book Of The Dead Priority

The Necromancer's unique mechanic is the Book of the Dead. This system allows you to customise each variety of minion, increasing their attacking output or defensive utility. As the Bone Spear build primarily relies on your own damaging spells, you'll be wanting to sacrificeall of your minions. While this renders you unable to summon your undead helpers, you will gain flat stat bonuses in return.

Your Book of the Dead talent choices are as follows:

• Sacrifice Skeletal Warriors - Skirmishers
• Sacrifice Skeletal Mages - Cold
• Sacrifice Golems - Iron

These options will reward you with extra Critical Strike chance and damage, alongside increased damage to Vulnerable targets. Both of these stats are core for the Bone Spear, so they outweigh the benefits summoning an army of minions would provide.

Stat Priority

The Bone Spear Necromancer doesn't require any special stats to be effective but can benefit greatly from certain increases. Your primary stat is Intelligence as it increases all of your skill's damage, so try to stack as much as possible during leveling.

The type of stats you want to look out for on your gear are:

• Core Skill Damage
• Vulnerable Damage
• Critical Strike Damage
• Critical Strike Damage with Bone Skills
• Damage to Distant enemies
• Damage to Crowd Controlled enemies

Due to your focus on dealing Critical Strikes, you'll be wanting to always run a Two-Handed Sword as your weapon, due to it naturally providing Crit Strike as its base stat. Always try to get the Sword with the highest Attack Power, as this will outweigh any other stat.

During leveling, you might not always be able to get your best stats on an item, so just prioritise whichever gives you an item power increase. This is especially true when it comes to Legendary items, as often their Aspect power can be much more effective than a small stat increase.

For your gem sockets, you will want to slot in three different types:

• Your Weapon will take an Emerald, which will grant you increased damage to Vulnerable targets
• For your Armor pieces, try to slot in Rubies, for the maximum life increase
• The best gem to put in your Jewelry is going to be Skulls, as they will give increased Armor.

Best Aspects

It might not be viable to get every Aspect during the leveling process but try to keep an eye out for certain ones to add to your Codex of Power, as they will significantly improve your damage and durability. Never inscribe them onto your Weapon, as you will be regularly replacing them as you level up.

Your best farmable Aspects are:

Your other key Aspects are random drops, which can make them difficult to acquire. Thankfully the build is not reliant on them to work, but these are the powers you'll want to be imprinting onto your gear when you get the chance:

• Shielding Storm
• Embalmer
• Serration
• Exposed Flesh

NEXT: Diablo 4: Cathedral Of Light Dungeon Guide