Diablo 4 Necromancer Build Guide – Blood Surge In this Diablo 4 Beginner Necromancer Build Guide, I’ll show you how to play a Blood Burst Necromancer, which is a burst DPS Diablo 4 Build that thrives in bathing in the blood of enemies thanks to Blood Surge and Hemorrhage. If you’ve been looking for a Diablo 4 Beginner Necromancer Build that is aimed at World Tiers 1 & 2, and one that steals their Health in addition to making them explode left and right, then this guide is for you!

• The Level 50 version of this build evolves into the Vampire Build.

Also, be sure to check out our Diablo 4 Wiki and Interactive Map if you need help finding specific Altars of Lilith, Dungeons, or Side Quests!

Diablo 4 Necromancer Build – Blood Surge

The general strategy for this Diablo IV Beginner Build is to start off by attacking enemies with Bone Spear and then alternating with Blood Surge. This may seem counterintuitive, especially since both of these are Core Skills that make use of Essence. However, this is the best combination when it comes to dealing massive single-target and AoE burst damage. 

With Blood Surge, you’ll be able to deal huge explosive damage and drain the target’s blood to increase your Health. Doing so will consistently keep you alive in combat regardless of the type of target you face. Next, you’ll be activating Hemorrhage to reduce the damage you take. But more importantly, it’ll let you generate a decent amount of Essence and form Blood Orbs to restore HP.  

For Elites and Bosses, you’ll be triggering your Blood Wave Ultimate Skill to deal some decent burst damage and relying on your Skeletons. Again, you’re not going to take the standard route where the Golem taunts enemies on your behalf. Instead, the Skeletons will generate enough Essence and help deal considerable damage.

Diablo 4 Blood Burst Beginner Necromancer Build Guide – Skill Distribution

Each Diablo 4 Necromancer Build comprises the 6 Active Skills they have equipped and changing these Skills can drastically alter the way the Necromancer Class in Diablo IV plays. In this section, we’ll take a look at what Skills you should slot for the Blood Burst Necromancer Diablo 4 Beginner Build. There are 25 points in total that you’ll get upon reaching Level 25. 1 point comes from earning enough Renown in Fractured Peaks. So your Skill distribution should look something like this:

LEVEL 25 NECROMANCER SKILLS
Skill	Points Spent
Hemorrhage	1
Enhanced Hemorrhage	1
Initiate’s Hemorrhage	1
Blood Surge	5
Enhanced Blood Surge	1
Paranormal Blood Surge	1
Bone Spear	5
Enhanced Bone Spear	1
Supernatural Bone Spear	1
Unliving Energy	1
Imperfectly Balanced	2
Blood Mist	1
Enhanced Blood Mist	1
Dreadful Blood Mist	1
Blood Wave	1
Prime Blood Wave	1

The above list gives you the general order to invest in Skills, but keep in mind that you should prioritize picking up new Active Skills over investing in passives, so pick up passives later if you can get new Active Skills when you level up.

How to Handle Packs of Enemies

So there are really several different strategies to employ in this Diablo IV Build for the Blood Burst Necromancer, and these change depending on whether or not you’re facing a large group of enemies or a Boss. Let’s start with a group of enemies first, and we’ll cover how to handle Bosses in the next section.

Bone Spear

Bone Spear is a very useful Core Skill due to the huge amount of damage you deal against multiple enemies in combination with Enhanced Bone Spear. The spear not only pierces through targets from any distance but deals additional damage when its shrapnel breaks. Since you’re going to need a reliable source of single-target damage, you’re better off investing all 5 points into Bone Spear for this D4 Necro Build compared to Sever. Although you’re going to consume less Essence with Sever, the damage you deal with Bone Spear will be considerably bigger, allowing you to slay enemies in a matter of seconds. 

For the other modifier, you’ll want to unlock Supernatural Bone Spear, which lets you apply Vulnerable against the first enemy you hit. This is especially effective against Bosses as making them Vulnerable amplifies the damage you and your Minions deal by +20%.

Since this is one of your major Skills, you’ll want to finish the Black Asylum Dungeon in Fractured Peaks to obtain the Aspect of Torment. This will significantly raise your Essence regeneration every time you land crits using Bone Spear. As such, remember to also be on the lookout for gear with the Critical Strike Chance and Critical Strike Damage Bonuses.

Blood Surge

Blood Surge is an amazing offensive and defensive Core Skill rolled into one for this Diablo 4 Build for the Necromancer. Blood Surge makes it so that you get to steal the life off of enemies while dealing explosive AoE blood nova damage. The more blood you drain, the greater the damage you’ll inflict so it’s very effective against mobs.

For the upgrades, you’ll want to invest in Enhanced Blood Surge and Paranormal Blood Surge. Enhanced Blood Surge converts the blood you’ve stolen to heal a portion of your Maximum Life. Again, using Blood Surge repeatedly will replenish more Health. 

Between the last two remaining modifiers, the better choice is Paranormal Blood Surge. This allows you to gain at most 5 stacks of Overwhelming Blood as long as enemies are damaged by Blood Surge while you’re Healthy or above 80% HP. Once you hit the 5-stack threshold, the next time Blood Surge is triggered, it becomes Overpowered so you get to deal huge damage that scales with the sum of your current Health and Fortified Life. This is huge and would often obliterate multiple enemies on the screen in a split second!

The aspect that goes exceptionally well with Blood Surge is the Blood-bathed Aspect. You can acquire this by completing the Hoarfroast Demise Dungeon in Fractured Peaks. It basically lets you deal another nova explosion for free from Blood Surge to inflict additional damage.

At Level 25, and given that you’ll heavily make use of two Core Skills, it’s best to allocate 1 point to Unliving Energy and then 2 points to the Imperfectly Balanced passive. Unliving Energy provides you with a bit of Essence but more than this, you’ll want to gain access to Imperfectly Balanced to be able to do greater damage with Bone Spear and Blood Surge. Despite the higher Essence cost, the damage you deal will be significantly increased, making Imperfectly Balanced worth it. When you have enough points, you’ll be able to maximize this passive.

Hemorrhage

Since you have two Skills that make use of Essence, you’ll need to have enough of this resource to trigger them at the right time. By default, Hermorrhage generates the highest Essence among the Basic Skills of the Necromancer in addition to dealing some damage and potentially forming a Blood Orb. These are then used to restore your Health. With Enhanced Hemorrhage, every time you pick up a Blood Orb, you gain extra Essence.

The final upgrade you’ll invest in is the Initiate’s Hemorrhage. This grants Fortify when you attack an enemy so you take lower damage. Additionally, remember that Hemorrhage is a close-range Skill so you’ll need to go head-to-head against your targets to reap its benefits.

Blood Mist

Blood Mist is your go-to Macabre Skill that will save this Diablo IV Necromancer Build from harm by immediately granting Immunity when you find yourself in precarious situations. Once activated, you won’t gain access to the rest of your Skills and your Movement Speed will be reduced but you can momentarily escape the fight to take a breather. Next, you’ll want to invest in Enhanced Blood Mist to notably reduce Blood Mist’s cooldown every time Blood Surge is used, followed by Dreadful Blood Mist to raise Fortify.

Diablo 4 Beginner Necro Build for Boss Fights

Against Bosses with this Diablo 4 Blood Burst Beginner Necromancer Build, you’ll mostly use the same strategy in terms of triggering Bone Spear, Blood Surge, and Hemorrhage with some Blood Wave and reliance on your Minions.

Blood Wave

Blood Wave is your Ultimate Skill to be used against Bosses and Elites. This not only lets you deal huge burst damage in the form of a wave but also pushes targets back. Now, what you want to make sure of is to unlock Prime Blood Wave, for now, to Slow down enemies. When you have enough points starting at Level 26 onward, you’ll be able to unlock Supreme Blood Wave to gain more Blood Orbs, which you can then use to heal yourself with. Blood Wave is a decent and straightforward Skill to tackle pesky and strong enemies.

Book of the Dead

As early as Level 15, the Necromancer will gain access to the Book of the Dead, which will allow them to raise different types of Minions.  For this D4 Necromancer Build, you’ll be making use of Skeletal Warriors and Skeletal Mages because they’re going to be more effective in the long run compared to just the Golem. Since you’ll be sacrificing the Golem, make sure to choose the 3rd node of the Blood form to further increase your Maximum Life. Since you can maintain full HP the majority of the time, this bonus will allow you to deal massive damage with Blood Surge’s Overpower.

For Skeletal Warriors, you’ll be picking the 2nd node of the Reapers form in order to create a Corpse. Even though you’re not going to use Corpse Explosion, it would still be beneficial to have Corpses on the ground to make use of the Raise Skeleton Skill in order to heal these Minions while boosting their damage. This is essential against Bosses where usually, fewer Corpses are available.

For Skeletal Mages, you’ll be selecting the 1st node of the Cold version. This lets you gain 2 Essence every time the Mages hit enemies with their primary attack. They also have a high chance to Freeze them, allowing all of you to simply swoop in for the kill.

Final Tips

For this Diablo 4 Blood Burst Beginner Necromancer Build, the other gear bonuses you’ll want as you level up are Intelligence for extra Skill damage, Core Skill Damage, +1 Rank to Bone Spear, +1 Rank to Blood Surge, Damage to Close Enemies, Damage to Distant Enemies, and Vulnerable Damage Bonus. Essence Cost Reduction will also be a huge plus to be able to trigger Bone Spear and Blood Surge more frequently.

The Blood Burst Diablo IV Necromancer Build thrives the more points you invest in their passives. So you’ll maximize Coalesced Blood, Tides of Blood, Transfusion, and Skeletal Warrior Mastery later on. More often than not, your character will remain Healthy, which is why you’ll need Coalesced Blood. Because of this, you’ll be able to deal great damage with Hemorrhage, Blood Surge, and Blood Wave.

What goes well with it is Tides of Blood since it boosts the Overpower damage dealt by Blood Surge, and even doubles it, when you maintain being Healthy. Next is Transfusion, which heals your Minions with Blood Orbs to improve their survivability. And lastly, there’s Skeletal Warrior Mastery to improve your Warrior’s damage and Life.

You’ll be swapping from one better gear to the next at a rapid pace to keep up with the types of enemies you face. It’s for this reason that you’ll want to save the Legendary Aspects you acquire from Legendary Items for the endgame. Once these are extracted from the Equipment and imprinted elsewhere, you won’t be able to reuse them in the future. So when it comes to these types of Legendary Aspects, the good ones to go for at higher levels are the Blood Getter’s Aspect, Viscous Aspect, and Blood-Soaked Aspect.

The Blood Getter’s and Viscous Aspects both increase the number of Skeleton Warriors and Mages you summon. The more of them you have on the battlefield, the faster you’ll eliminate your enemies. And then there’s the Blood-Soaked Aspect. Upon activating Blood Mist, you can move at your normal speed and leave a trail that deals Shadow damage over time.

Lastly, you’ll want to chase after the Splintering Aspect later on. This lets you apply Vulnerable to other targets to kill them quickly. Remember to slot this on a Two-Handed Weapon to increase its power by 100%. You can obtain the Splintering Aspect by progressing further in the Dry Steppes Campaign.

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Be sure to check out our Diablo 4 Wiki for any other questions you have about the game and the Builds page if you are looking for more Diablo IV Builds, as well as our Ultimate Beginner Guide and Best Class to Play Guide if you are looking for more Diablo 4 content!