Blood Lance Endgame Necromancer Build for Diablo 4 (Season 4)

Build Introduction

The Blood Lance Necromancer build, also known as a “Bloodmancer”, is a collaboration guide made between content creators GhazzyTV and Garm. It provides an extremely sturdy, resilient, and high damage dealing character for you to start your adventures in Diablo 4 with. Thanks to the massive amount of Life and Fortify we have on this build, the damage dealt by Overpower on our skills skyrockets, as Overpower provides bonus damage based on the sum of your current Life and Fortify.

This build is entirely designed around Blood Lance, for both clearing packs of enemies and single-target. It’s crucial to point out that this build performs extremely well at killing bosses, while the Blood Surge version of a Bloodmancer is better at clearing. Our defensive layers come in the form of Fortifying our massive Life pool and having access to Blood Orbs, which will heal us when picked up. Enemies should be cursed with Decrepify to lower their damage dealt. Through Hemorrhage we can recover Essence very smoothly while clearing Nightmare Dungeons.

It is important to point out that for this build to feel the best you will want to get a Aspect of Gore Quills equipped as soon as you find one. It’s a drop-only aspect, so keep your eyes open!

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.

Build Variants

A build variant is a modified version of an existing build that changes some aspects of it, such as the damage type, specific skills or passives, and even certain items like different Uniques or Legendary Aspects.

Below you will find any variant that relates to the Blood Lance Endgame Necromancer.

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

Blood Moon Breeches

Mutilator Plate

The build functions without these unique items but it is strongly recommended to equip them as soon as you gain access to them!

Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

Recommended

Blood Lance Necromancer Recommended Skill Bar (order does not matter)

Blood Lance Hemorrhage Blood Mist Decrepify Corpse Tendrils Bone Storm

Follow the points allocated in the Skill Tree above for the complete 58-point build. The additional 10 skill points are completed using the Renown system.

Book of the Dead

The Blood Lance Necromancer is designed to be able to take hits from enemies consistently. Using minions with this playstyle is a waste and can cause problems when you want to use Blood Lance if enemies are scattered across your screen, hitting your minions rather than moving towards you. Therefore, we will be sacrificing all of them.

• Melee Skeletons: sacrifice the Defenders, as this provides us with increased resistances.
• Mage Skeletons: Bone Mages will be sacrificed in the name of Lilith to provide a huge increase to Overpower Damage.
• Golem: Iron Golem will also be sacrificed, as this buff provides a massive Critical Strike Damage benefit.

Paragon Board

The Paragon progression system unlocks at Level 50 and provides a vast amount of character power. On the Paragon Board, bonuses range from minor stats on Magic Nodes to more powerful Rare Glyphs and Legendary Nodes.

As you path towards Glyph Sockets and Legendary Nodes, you should prioritize Damage, Intelligence, Resistance, and Life for Normal and Magic Nodes. Glyph radius increases as you level them up. Therefore, if you cannot fulfill Additional Bonus requirements early on, skip allocating extra nodes for now. It’s also important to point out that you might not have the Glyph you want when you reach your first socket; if that’s the case, simply slot in any Glyph providing any beneficial stats for you until you get the correct one.

Listed below are images of the pathing you should take along with the locations of the Glyphs and order you should choose your Paragon Boards past the initial Starting board. Note that each Rare Glyph’s information and radius listed below is for the Level 21 version.

1. Starting Board

We will be focusing on picking up a lot of Rare and Magic Nodes that provide Life. Start with rushing to the socket on this initial board, in which we’ll place the Corporeal Glyph. Only take the extra attributes within range of the Glyph which will increase when you level the Glyph up via Nightmare Dungeons. Once done, we’ll grab the Rare and Magic Nodes, then move out north to our second board, Bloodbath.

2. Bloodbath

Bloodbath will need to be rotated three times. We’ll start by rushing up on the right-hand side of the board and grab the socket, in which we use the Control Glyph. Similar to our Starting board, we only take the attributes within radius if the Glyph level allows us to enable the bonus modifier from it. Next we’ll grab the very first rare node on the left side and head straight out to the right for our third board Flesh-Eater. Once we are done with that board we will come back to this one, pick up the remaining Magic and Rare nodes before heading out north for the fourth board Bone Graft.

3. Flesh-Eater

Start by rotating the board twice to match the image above. Then we rush the socket in which we’ll use the Sacrificial Glyph. We want to level this Glyph first and pick up all Intelligence nodes within radius to enable the bonus modifier. The Rare and Magic Nodes should also be picked up on this board as shown in the image. Once this is done, we’ll circle back to Bloodbath (second board) and head out on the north side.

4. Bone Graft

The board needs to be rotated three times. This is a straight forward board. Rush the socket node and use the Essence Glyph. Yet again, we will only take the extra Nodes within radius if the level of the Glyph allows. We also want to take every single Rare and Magic Nodes as shown on the image before we leave this one. Once done we go towards our fifth board on the right.

5. Scent of Death

Start by rotating the board three times. As usual we will rush the Glyph Socket and use Dominate Glyph here. Again, only take extra attributes to help enable the bonus modifier if the level of the Glyph has increased the radius enough to allow for it. We also want to grab the Rare and Magic Nodes right of the Glyph socket on top of the legendary node Scent of Death. Now we move towards our sixth board on the right!

6. Blood Begets Blood

No rotation is needed for this board. We’ll begin by rushing to the Legendary node Blood Begets Blood then move to the socket in which we place the Amplify Glyph. Next up we take all of the shown Magic and Rare nodes before moving south for our 7th and final board!

7. Wither

This board needs to be rotated three times to fit. It has but a singular purpose and it is not to grab another Glyph socket, but to grab a few Magic nodes and one Rare nodes to ramp our Life which also makes us deal more damage!

Paragon board images courtesy of d4builds.gg.

Gear, Gems, Elixirs, and Stats

The Season of Loot Reborn brings us an incredible shift in how gear and itemization are done. It is a major and will affect the game beyond Season 4’s confines. For further details, make sure to read our Tempering and Masterworking section below.

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	Royal Ruby	Aspect of Might	Basic Skills grant 20% Damage reduction for 2-7 seconds.
Chest	Royal Ruby	Mutilator Plate	You are Blood Lanced, and when Blood Lance would deal damage to you, it instead Fortifies you for 1-2% of your Maximum Life and has a 5% chance to form a Blood Orb.
Gloves	N/A	Aspect of Hungry Blood	Each cast of Blood Lance will launch an additional Blood Lance at a Nearby enemy when it first hits an enemy that is already lanced, dealing 33-48% of normal damage.
Pants	Royal Ruby	Blood Moon Breeches	Enemies affected by at least 1 of your curses take x70% increased Overpower damage from you.
Boots	N/A	Aspect of Metamorphosis	When you Evade you turn in to a cloud of bats, becoming Unstoppable for 2.5 seconds. Enemies along your path take x Physical damage and are inflicted with Vampiric Curse. Evades cooldown is increased by 5-10 seconds.
Weapon 1H	Royal Emerald	Aspect of Gore Quills	Casting Blood Lance will consume Blood Orbs to also conjure lances from them. Each additional Blood Lance deals 20-50% of normal damage and prioritizes targeting un-lanced enemies.
Off-hand (Shield)	Royal Ruby	Exploiter’s Aspect	You have 20% increased Crowd Control Duration. While enemies are Unstoppable, you deal x40% increased damage to them.
Amulet (50% Scaling)	Any Resistance Jewel	Aspect of Grasping Veins	Gain 15-38% increased Critical Strike Chance for 6 seconds when you cast Corpse Tendrils. You deal 30-75% bonus Critical Strike Damage to enemies damaged by Corpse Tendrils.
Ring	Any Resistance Jewel	Aspect of Rathma’s Chosen	Whenever your Blood Skills Overpower you gain 35-50% Attack Speed for 4 seconds.
Ring	Any Resistance Jewel	Aspect of Potent Blood	Blood Orbs grant 10-25 Essence.

Gems

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.	Royal Ruby For increased Maximum Life.	Royal Amethyst Royal Sapphire Royal Ruby Royal Skull

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

Affixes on the same line are considered to be equally important. Bolded affixes are the most important targets for Masterworking upgrades.

Slot	Targeted Gear Affixes	Tempering Affixes
Helm	1. Maximum Life 2. Intelligence 3. Ranks to Decrepify	Profane Cage #% Corpse Tendrils Duration Profane Innovation #% Corpse Tendril Size
Gloves	1. Ranks to Core Skills 2. Critical Strike Chance 3. Ranks to Blood Lance	Blood Finesse #% Blood Attack Speed Profane Innovation #% Decrepify Size
Boots	1. Maximum Life 2. Movement Speed 3. Essence per Second	Necromancer Motion #% Movement Speed Profane Innovation #% Corpse Tendrils Size
Amulet	1. Ranks to Tides of Blood 2. Critical Strike Chance 3. Ranks to Coalesced Blood	Necromancer Motion #%Movement Speed Blood Endurance #% Chance for Hemorrhage to Form Blood Orbs
Ring	1. Maximum Life 2. Attack Speed 3. Intelligence	Worldly Stability #% Resource Cost Reduction Profane Finesse #% Damage to Cursed Enemies
Ring	1. Maximum Life 2. Attack Speed 3. Intelligence	Worldly Stability #% Resource Cost Reduction Profane Finesse #% Damage to Cursed Enemies
1H-Weapon	1. Intelligence 2. Maximum Life 3. Attack Speed	Blood Augments #% Blood Lance Duration Blood Finesse #% Blood Attack Speed
Off-hand (shield)	1. Maximum Life 2. Critical Strike Chance 3. Damage Reduction	Profane Cage #% Corpse Tendrils Duration Natural Schemes #% Crowd Control Duration

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

The first and most important detail is to make sure all enemies are cursed by Decrepify. We follow this up by casting Blood Lance till there is a corpse on the ground which allows us to use Corpse Tendrils. Do make sure that you try to stay somewhat close to the enemies to avoid having your Blood Lances miss their targets!

To sustain the Essence pool we will weave in casts of Hemorrhage to generate both Essence and Blood Orbs which will hit enemies in an AoE due to having consumed Blood Orbs recently. We also want to weave this in to proc our Aspect of Might legendary aspect!

In case of dangerous situations we have 2 solutions. If you are not crowd controlled we’ll simply pop our Bone Storm to help us against the pack. However, if you are crowd controlled you’ll simply use Blood Mist to get out of harms way and this will generate a corpse on the ground so you can follow it up with a Corpse Tendrils to regain control over the situation!

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

The build has 2 specific unique items and to include more would cause too much harm on the loss of legendary aspect powers. So we will simply stick to Blood Moon Breeches and Mutilator Plate!

Before you have access to the pants you can run Aspect of the Crowded Sage and before the chest you can use the Aspect of Hardened Bones for added layers of defense.

Uber Uniques

There are some uber unique items you can fit in the build, though all of them will require a lot of changes in the build ranging from shifting slots for your aspect powers to solving attribute issues in other cases. Do as you will with that information and below you’ll find a list of potential uber unique items you can use for this build:

• Ring of Starless Skies – This can replace Aspect of Potent Blood.
• Harlequin Crest – This can replace Exploiter’s Aspect.

Season 4: Loot Reborn

The following list details the changes in the Season 4 Update (Patch 1.4.0) that may pertain to the 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!

• Banished Lord’s Talisman got heavily nerfed making us step away from it entirely for the build.
• We can achieve more than twice the health pool in Season 4 compared to the past which significantly scales our defenses!
• New Blood Orb Generation rate via Hemorrhage was significantly increased to help improve the builds self-sustain thanks to the Tempering modifiers.

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

We will utilize a hybrid Essence gain approach where we can attack super fast with the basic Hemorrhage which generates Essence and Blood Orbs this combined with our passive Essence generation covers that end of the build very effectively. Since Overpower damage is based of our own life the focus of ramping that up to hilariously high values is another mechanic we are actively pursuing. The Blood Orbs themselves acts as turrets with our Legendary Aspects making our Blood Lance shoot out from them as we are delivering our damage output. The Rathma’s Vigor is triggering consistently from the consumption of these Blood Orbs much thanks to the efficiency increase provided by the Paragon Board!

Defenses

Big life pool with very high EHP maximizes efficiency of healing from consumed Blood Orbs and other means such as max hp% healing sources or % part of potions. High level of Decrepify scaling significantly boosts overall damage resistance, extremely lucrative survivability mechanic, due to the reductions applying to raw damage before damage reduction calculation for your character. Also increased slow from scaled Decrepify provides excellent means of active damage mitigation – significantly slowing enemies, allowing kiting even at close range and noticeably staggering bosses.

Offenses

Relies on mostly overpower procs of blood lance, but additive damage is normalized as much as possible without losing any power whatsoever the additive Overpower % from projected life pool of 60k reaches approximately 1500 Overpower% mitigating additive loss from losing gear affixes!

Thanks to the Legendary Aspect powers our massively generated Blood Orbs will also be shooting Blood Lance on enemies consistently for even higher DPS output!

Paragon

The recommended Paragon boards for this build are listed above, and further down below, you can find a more thorough route for allocating the Paragon points, as well as some notes on why specific nodes were chosen and why they are essential for this build.

Glyphs & Legendary Nodes	Effect
Corporeal	– Grants +150% bonus to all Magic nodes within range. – Additional Bonus is unlocked with 40 Intelligence in radius, you and your minions deal x10% increased Physical damage and you gain 1% Movement Speed for each active Minion.
Control	– For every 5 Intelligence purchased within range, you deal +10% increased damage to Crowd Controlled targets. – Additional Bonus is unlocked with 40 Intelligence in radius, you deal x10% increased damage to Slowed or Chilled enemies or, instead, x20% increased damage to Stunned or Frozen enemies.
Sacrificial	– Grants +150% bonus to all Magic nodes within range. – Additional Bonus is unlocked with 40 Intelligence in radius, you deal x10% increased damage while you have no active minions.
Essence	– For every 5 Dexterity purchased within range, you deal +20% increased Critical Strike Damage. – Additional Bonus is unlocked with 25 Dexterity in radius, Critical Strikes deal x22% increased damage to enemies that are not Healthy.
Dominate	– For every 5 Willpower purchased within range, you deal +39,45% increased Overpower damage. – Additional Bonus is unlocked with 25 Willpower in radius, making it so when you Overpower an enemy, all damage they take from you and your minions is increased by x12% for 5 seconds.
Amplify	– Grants +150% bonus to all Magic Nodes within range. – Additional Bonus is unlocked with 40 intelligence in radius making enemies affected by your Curses take an additional x10% increased damage from you and your minions.
Bloodbath	Deal x35% Increased Overpower damage.
Scent of Death	With at least 2 Corpses Nearby, you gain 15% Damage Reduction. With no Corpses Nearby, you deal x15% increased damage.
Blood Begets Blood	Blood Orbs grant x5% increased damage, up to x15% for 5 seconds.

Let’s take it one step further and break down each of the beneficial nodes we spend our Paragon Points on.

Starting Board

1. Corporeal is utilized here due to the ease of access to enable the bonus modifier.
2. Make sure you take the life providing Magic and Rare nodes on the left before you exit this board.

Bloodbath

1. Control is a natural choice as we are focusing a lot on keeping enemies under control with this build.
2. After the socket you want to grab the Rare node on the left as well as the Legendary node Bloodbath before you head to the next board.

Flesh-Eater

1. Sacrificial will help scale our damage against elites and give us an easy time to enable the bonus modifier.

Bone Graft

1. Rush the socket and get Essence which we are only using to get the bonus modifier unlocked at first and later we grab the surrounding Dexterity nodes.
2. Before leaving this board make sure you get the Rare node on the left hand side!

Scent of Death

1. Dominate Similar to previous boards we have this Glyph here as it’s easy to unlock the bonus modifier.
2. Scent of Death is on the way to our next board, don’t miss it.

Blood Begets Blood

1. Amplify will scale the Magic nodes in radius which helps us improve the value of Overpower scaling modifiers on the board!
2. Blood Begets Blood is insanely strong for the build, grab this before you go to the last board.

Wither

1. This board has 1 purpose and it is a couple of life providing Magic nodes and 1 Rare nodes.

Tempering and Masterworking

The Season 4 update (Patch 1.4.0) introduces a rework for itemization. Tempering and Masterworking bring the biggest change to itemization since the release of Diablo 4, so make sure you understand the new systems explained in this section.

The amount of affixes on items has been changed to reflect its rarity: Normal Items have no affixes, Magic Items have 1 affix, Rare Items have 2 affixes, Legendary Items have 3 affixes, and Unique Items have 4 affixes. Upgrading a Rare Item to a Legendary Item by imprinting a Legendary Aspect from the Codex of Power will not add a third affix. Therefore, Legendary Items are superior to lower rarity items for a min-maxed character.

Greater Affixes are a newly added mechanic that increases the value of an affix by 50%. Ancestral Legendary Items and Unique Items can now drop with up to 4 Greater Affixes! Search for items with your preferred Greater Affixes to upgrade with Tempering and Masterworking.

Tempering and Masterworking is an important system, even mandatory in the endgame, for character progression. You are able to add 2 additional affixes on any Rare Item or Legendary Item, exclusive to the Tempering System. An Ancestral Legendary Item can have up to 5 total affixes! Unfortunately, Unique Items cannot be tempered to add affixes.

Masterworking uses new crafting materials found in The Pit to further enhance the stats of an item. These upgrades can be applied on an Ancestral Legendary Item that has its Tempering Slots filled out. Unique Items can be upgraded with Masterworking right away, as tempering does not apply to them. Each item has 12 upgrade slots. On upgrade Ranks 4, 8, and 12, a random affix is increased in value by 25%. Every other upgrade Rank applies a 5% increase to all affixes on an item. Attempt to apply the bonus 25% upgrade to your preferred affix multiple times by resetting the Masterworking Ranks to repeat the process.

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

• May 12th, 2024: Guide updated for Season 4 Loot Reborn.
• January 22nd, 2024: Guide updated for Season 3 Season of the Construct.
• November 3rd, 2023: Optimized Paragon Board and added end-game version.
• October 15th, 2023: Guide updated for Season 2 Season of Blood, Patch 1.2.
• August 7th, 2023: Guide added.