Diablo 4 Necromancer Official Artwork

Bone Spear – Necromancer Build for Diablo 4 (Season 8)

Build Introduction

This build is a collaboration guide made between content creators GhazzyTV and the blood God Garm. It performs just as well in the endgame content, providing high critical hits with Bone SpearBone Spear in combination with setting enemies up inside a Bone PrisonBone Prison to guarantee Overpowering hits. We assist bringing them inside this set-up with the use of Corpse TendrilsCorpse Tendrils. The build is also called “Blood Spear” as we are using Indira's MemoryIndira’s Memory which will turn your Bone Spears into a Blood Skill!

In the endgame we will gain access to more legendary powers that takes this build to a whole new level. Since our biggest source of damage comes from Bone SpearBone Spear, we can provide legendary powers to help sustain resources, eventually resulting in only casting the Bone Spears!

Besides being reliable and consistent, this build guarantees the Vulnerable effect on enemies, making it a great option for group play.

You are able to level with this build, however, we would strongly recommend checking out the Necromancer Leveling guide for the smoothest experience going through the campaign before switching to this build.

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Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths
  • Incredible damage output
  • Fast and comfortable with proper gear
Weaknesses
  • Requires specific gear and aspect powers to fully self-sustain without corpse consumption
  • Can feel a bit clunky and slow until you get better gear

Build Requirements

Required Uniques

Quick Navigation

Want to skip ahead? Use the table below to jump to the sections you are looking for.

BiS Gear, Gems, and RunesParagon Board
Rotation and PlaystyleSeason Updates

Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

Suggested Skill Bar
BlightBlightBone PrisonBone PrisonBlood MistBlood MistBone SpearBone SpearCorpse TendrilsCorpse TendrilsSoulriftSoulrift

Follow 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: Defenders – Provides % increased all resistances.
  • Mage Skeletons: Bone Mages – Vastly increases Overpower damage output.
  • Golem: Iron – is sacrificed for extra critical strike damage.

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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!

Gear SlotGemsAspect / UniqueLegendary Aspect / Unique Power
HelmTamTam + WatWatDeathless VisageDeathless VisageBone 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.
ChestRoyal TopazRoyal TopazAspect of Hardened BonesAspect of Hardened BonesYou gain 15-20% increased Damage Reduction.
GlovesN/AAspect of SerrationAspect of SerrationThe Ossified Essence Key Passive also increase the Critical Strike Damage of your Bone Skills by 1%x per Essence above 50, up to 38-60%x.
PantsGrand TopazGrand TopazIndira's MemoryIndira’s MemoryTurns your Bone Spears into Blood Spears by consuming a corpse and draining 10% of your Maximum Life on hit.
Bootsn/aPath of Trag'OulPath of Trag’OulMakes 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)CirCir + VexVexAspect of Grasping VeinsAspect of Grasping VeinsGain 10-20% increased Critical Strike Chance for 6 seconds when you cast Corpse Tendrils. You deal 20-40% bonus Critical Strike Damage to enemies damaged by Corpse Tendrils.
Amulet (50% Scaling)Any Resistance JewelAspect of the Dark DanceAspect of the Dark DanceEvery 5 seconds, your next Core Skill costs X Life instead of Primary Resource. Will only occur if you have at least 60% of your Maximum Life.
RingAny Resistance JewelBone Duster's AspectBone Duster’s AspectBone Spear is guaranteed to Overpower enemies within Bone Prison and deals x#% increased damage to them.
RingAny Resistance JewelSacrificial AspectSacrificial AspectYour Sacrifice bonuses are increased by #%.

Curious how this build compares to other endgame options? Take a look at our Endgame Build Tier List.

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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 Greater Affix and/or Masterworking upgrades. Be sure to check our Tempering and Masterworking guides for more details about these topics.

SlotTargeted Gear AffixesTempering Affixes
Chest1. Essence per Second
2. Maximum Life
3. Intelligence
Decay InnovationDecay Innovation #% Soulrift Duration
Profane CageProfane Cage #% Blight Chill Potency
Gloves1. Ranks to Bone Spear
2. Critical Strike Chance
3. Maximum Life
Blood FinesseBlood Finesse #% Blood Attack Speed
Profane InnovationProfane Innovation #% Corpse Tendril Size
Amulet1. Tides of Blood
2. Intelligence
3. Critical Strike Chance
Note: With high endgame gear you can replace Critical Strike Chance for + Ranks to Coalesced Blood.
Blood FinesseBlood Finesse #% Blood Attack Speed
Necromancer EfficiencyNecromancer Efficiency #% Ultimate Cooldown Reduction
Ring1. Attack Speed
2. Maximum Life
3. Intelligence
Blood FinesseBlood Finesse #% Blood Attack Speed
Necromancer EfficiencyNecromancer Efficiency #% Ultimate Cooldown Reduction
Ring1. Attack Speed
2. Maximum Life
3. Intelligence
Blood FinesseBlood Finesse #% Blood Attack Speed
Necromancer EfficiencyNecromancer Efficiency + Ranks to Rapid Ossification
2H-Weapon (Mace)1. Maximum Life
2. Intelligence
3. Lucky Hit: Up to a 15% Chance to Restore +#% Primary Resource
Bone AugmentsBone Augments #% Chance for Bone Spear Projectiles to Cast Twice
Blood FinesseBlood Finesse #% Blood Attack Speed

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 reach the Armor Cap of 1,000.

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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 VisageDeathless Visage – Provides better Critical Strike Damage and echoes your Bone Spears to deal extra damage.
  • Indira's MemoryIndira’s Memory – Turns your Bone Spears in to Blood Spears allowing us to scale the build to crazy levels.
  • Path of Trag'OulPath of Trag’Oul – Turns our Bone Prison in to an powerhouse of scaling by dealing extra damage and increases our Max Essence for even more damage output.

Mythic Uniques

  • Shroud of False DeathShroud of False Death – This can straight up replace your current body armor and would scale your damage significantly.

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Gems and Runewords

See below for a more detailed explanation of the best Gems to socket into your gear for each category.

Weapon GemsArmor GemsJewelry Gems
CirCir + VexVexGrand TopazGrand Topaz
For increased Intelligence.
Royal AmethystRoyal Amethyst
Royal SapphireRoyal Sapphire
Royal RubyRoyal Ruby
Grand SkullGrand Skull

The following Runewords are recommended to be used for this build.

Runeword CombinationEffect
TamTam + WatWatGain 25 Offering by casting a non-Channeled Core Skill.
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.
CirCir + VexVexGain 300 Offering from casting 5 Skills then become exhausted for 3 seconds.
For 100 Offering you can Overflow for more skills up to 3 with a 5 second cooldown, gain +1 to Skills for 10 seconds.

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Paragon board

Below, you’ll find the entire end-game paragon board set-up for this build in detail!

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Boss Powers (Season 8)

The newly added seasonal mechanic lets us power our builds up by using abilities from endgame bosses themselves! Below you’ll find the recommended list for this build.

Main Boss Power:

Modifier Boss Powers:


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 Varyana as a Reinforcement once you reach endgame.

For the reinforcement, stick with Varyana, utilizing her Bloodthirst skill being cast when the player casts Bone Spear.

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Build Mechanics

Rotation and Playstyle

The build features a very straight forward play-style with a focus on casting Bone SpearBone Spear as your main source of damage. We optimize this by making sure we get 100% chance to Overpower our spears by having enemies inside a Bone PrisonBone Prison. To help boost your damage and efficiency, keep up the DecrepifyDecrepify curse as it will lower the cooldown of our Prison and Bone StormBone Storm. Blood MistBlood Mist will be used as a panic button and Corpse TendrilsCorpse Tendrils is utilized to group enemies together for easier bursting of enemy packs.

Should you find yourself lacking a corpse to group enemies up you can always resort to using Blood MistBlood Mist to help create that before setting up for your big damage output.

An important note about this builds playstyle is that it’s VERY crucial that you make sure you attack things inside the Bone Prison and simply not just spam Bone Spears mindlessly!

Which Elixirs Should You Use?

Visit the Alchemist and craft an Elixir providing any Resistance you need most, or the Elixir of AdvantageElixir 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!

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Season 8 Updates

For a full overview of what is new in Season 8, please take a look at our comprehensive season hub.

Here is a quick overview of seasonal changes relevant to this build:

  • Major bug fixes with Indira's MemoryIndira’s Memory making it more comfortable to use.
  • Minor bug fixes and buffs but nothing major outside of the Indira’s Memory fix.

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:

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Changelog

  • 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.

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