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

Build Introduction

The Blood Surge Necromancer build, also known as the “Bloodmancer”, provides a sturdy, resilient and high damage dealing character for you to start your adventures in Diablo 4. Thanks to the massive amount of Life and Fortify we have on this build, the damage dealt by Overpower on our skills skyrockets.

This build is entirely designed around Blood Surge, both for clearing packs of enemies and single-target. Our defensive layers come in the form of Fortifying our massive Life pool, stealing health from enemies, and having access to Blood Orbs which will heal us. Enemies should be cursed by Decrepify to lower their damage dealt, and through the use of Hemorrhage we can recover Essence very smoothly during generic clearing of Nightmare Dungeons.

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 Surge 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 list.

Build Requirements

Required Uniques

Blood Moon Breeches

Skill Tree Points

Recommended

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

Blood Surge 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 Surge 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 Surge 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, this scales our Critical Strike Damage.

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 the socket on this initial board, in which we will 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, Bone Graft.

2. Bone Graft

You’ll need to rotate the board 3 times to fit the image above. Bone Graft board is mainly here to give us the extra life modifiers on the left and the Socket node. We’ll start by rushing up on the left-hand side of the board and grab the Life nodes. Then we rush the socket node for the Essence 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. Head out on the right-hand side for our third board, Bloodbath.

3. Bloodbath

2 Rotations of this board is required to fit the image. Start by rushing to the Glyph socket in which we’ll use the Control Glyph. The legendary node Bloodbath is next and the Rare and Magic Nodes on the way to the right side will be picked up as we head out on the right for the next board; Flesh-Eater.

4. Flesh-Eater

Start by rotating the board twice. This is a straight forward board. Rush the socket node and use the Sacrificial 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 will, yet again, go back to Bloodbath (3rd board) and this time head out on the north side.

5. Scent of Death

No rotation of this board is needed. Therefore, 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 Legendary Node Scent of Death as well as the Rare and Magic Nodes on the early right side. Exit up north for the 6th Board Blood Begets Blood.

6. Blood Begets Blood

No rotation is needed here either! Blood Begets Blood is a straight forward board where we get the Socket node and use the Amplify Glyph, and the surrounding Rare and Magic as shown in the image. On the way out on the left side we take the remaining nodes up top as well. Next board is Cult Leader.

7. Cult Leader

You’ll need to rotate the board once for this one. Nothing special is happening here as we are exclusively getting the Socket node for the Gravekeeper Glyph and the surrounding nodes are picked up for the sake of enabling the Glyphs bonus modifier when the level of it allows for enough Dexterity in range. We head out south for the last board; Wither.

8. Wither

2 Rotations is needed on this board to fit the image above. That’s how we get easy access to life increasing nodes at the very top to finish the entire Paragon board for the build!

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	Undying Aspect	When you cast a Skill, you heal for 0.5-2% Life. Double this bonus while below 50% Life.
Chest	Royal Ruby	Aspect of Hardened Bones	You and your Minions gain 15-20% increased Damage Reduction.
Gloves	N/A	Blood-bathed Aspect	Blood Surge’s nova echoes again after a short delay, dealing 15-30% less 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 into 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 2H (Scythe)	Royal Ruby	Aspect of Rathma’s Chosen	Whenever your Blood Skills Overpower you gain 35-50% Attack Speed for 4 seconds.
Amulet (50% Scaling)	Any Resistance Jewel	Aspect of Grasping Veins	Gain 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.
Ring	Any Resistance Jewel	Aspect of Inner Calm	Deal x10% increased damage. Triple this bonus after standing still for 3 seconds.
Ring	Any Resistance Jewel	Sacrificial Aspect	Your Sacrifice bonuses are increased by 10-25%%

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 Ruby For more Overpower 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. Essence per Second 3. Ranks to Decrepify	Profane Cage #% Corpse Tendrils Duration Profane Innovation #% Corpse Tendril Size
Chest	1. Maximum Life 2. Armor 3. Intelligence	Profane Cage #% Corpse Tendril Duration Natural Schemes #% Crowd Control Duration
Gloves	1. Ranks to Core Skills 2. Critical Strike Chance 3. Ranks to Blood Surge	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	Blood Finesse #% Blood Attack Speed Necromancer Motion #% Movement Speed
Ring	1. Maximum Life 2. Attack Speed 3. Intelligence	Natural Finesse #% Damage to Close Enemies Worldly Stability #% Resource Cost Reduction
Ring	1. Maximum Life 2. Attack Speed 3. Intelligence	Natural Finesse #% Damage to Close Enemies Worldly Stability #% Resource Cost Reduction
2H-Weapon (Scythe)	1. Intelligence 2. Resource Cost Reduction 3. Maximum Life	Blood Augments #% Blood Surge Nova Size Profane Finesse #% Damage to Cursed Enemies

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 Surge till there is a corpse on the ground which allows us to use Corpse Tendrils. Do make sure that you try to stay close to the enemies to avoid having your Blood Surges 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 1 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!

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:

• Harlequin Crest – Can replace Undying Aspect.
• Ring of Starless Skies – Can replace Sacrificial Aspect.
• Doombringer – Will require a proper end-game shield and allows for Undying Aspect to be back in play even with a Harelquin Crest!

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!

• We can achieve more than twice the health pool in Season 4 compared to the past which significantly scales our defenses!
• Banished Lord’s Talisman got heavily nerfed making us step away from it entirely for the build.

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

Build relies on stacking maximum life to extreme values. To mitigate insufficient damage scaling multipliers with additive damage to overpower and allowing indefinite sustain to tank any threat. High attack speed Hemorrhage used as primary means for Fortify management, Might aspect trigger and partially essence gain is how this build functions.

Defenses

Huge life pool up to 200k buffed with perfectly min maxed build wielding a Doombringer! With very high EHP the build maximizes efficiency of any max life % based healing (Blood surge, Undying, % portion of potions, Blood orbs, Crowded sage) allowing to recover hundreds of thousands EHP within seconds

On top of that the build utilizes a high level of Decrepify that 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 Surge, but damage is normalized as much as possible. Additive Overpower% from projected life pool reaches approximately 1500 Overpower% per 60k max life! The Legendary power Blood-bathed Aspect echoes the Nova to make the nova hit more than once as well!

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.
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.
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.
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.
Gravekeeper	– Grants +120% bonus to all Rare nodes within range. – Additional Bonus is unlocked with 25 Dexterity in radius, making you deal x2% increased damage, up to x12% for every Close corpse.
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.

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.

Bone Graft

1. Essence is taken here first.
2. Don’t forget the Magic and Rare nodes on the left side before you move out from this board!

Bloodbath

1. Control is of massive benefit to the build and should be focused on first.
2. Before you head out on the RIGHT side you’ll want to pick up the Legendary node Bloodbath

Flesh-Eater

1. Sacrificial is the only purpose of this board in combination with the magic and rare nodes in range as seen in the image.

Scent of Death

1. Start with the Legendary node Scent of Death
2. Make sure you take the Magic and Rare nodes on the way up to the Socket slot before moving out north to the next board.

Blood Begets Blood

1. Amplify is utilized for its bonus modifier here.
2. Grab any remaining Magic and Rare nodes before you go out on the left side.

Cult Leader

1. Gravekeeper is only used for the bonus modifier before we exit down south.

Wither

1. This board is exclusively taken to reach a few Magic and 1 Rare node giving us life!

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: Minor updates for Patch 1.1.1.
• August 5th, 2023: Guide updated for Patch 1.1.1 (launches August 8th, 2023)
• July 26th, 2023: Optimized Paragon board pathing and Glyph choices.
• July 19th, 2023: Guide updated for Season 1 including Malignant Hearts.