Build Introduction
The Blood 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, as Overpower provides bonus damage based on the sum of your current Life and Fortify.
This build is entirely designed around 
Blood Surge to clear packs of enemies and we use 
Blood Lance for single-target damage. Our defensive layers comes in the form of Fortifying our massive Life pool, stealing health from enemies, and having access to Blood Orbs which will heal us. Since the build is very straight forward we have access to both 
Blood Mist which can help a lot with harder endgame bosses and 
Blood Wave to help with dicey situations. Enemies should also be cursed by 
Decrepify to lower their damage dealt.
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.
Video Guide
Skill Tree Points
The following tables show the full allocation of Skill Points for the Blood Surge Necromancer build. The first table has the most important 48 points to start the build. The second table has the remaining 10 points that are allocated once you obtain all Skill Points from Renown.
| Priority Skills | Cluster |
|---|---|
 Hemorrhage Level 5, Enhanced Hemorrhage, Acolyte’s Hemorrhage |  Basic Skill |
| Blood Surge Level 5, Enhanced Blood Surge, Paranormal Blood Surge, Blood Lance Level 5, Enhanced Blood Lance, Paranormal Blood Lance |  Core Skill |
| Blood Mist Level 1, Enhanced Blood Mist |  Corpse & Macabre Skill |
Decrepify Level 1, Enhanced Decrepify, Abhorrent Decrepify,  Death’s Embrace Level 3 |  Curse Skill |
 Gruesome Mending Level 3,  Coalesced Blood Level 3,  Tides of Blood Level 3,  Drain Vitality Level 3 |  Summoning Skill |
Blood Wave, Prime Blood Wave, Supreme Blood Wave,  Stand Alone Level 3 |  Ultimate Skill |
 Rathma’s Vigor |  Capstone Skill |
| Remaining Renown Points | Cluster |
|---|---|
| Decrepify Level 5 | Curse Skill |
 Memento Mori Level 3 | Ultimate Skill |
 Unliving Energy Level 3 | Core Skill |
Book of the Dead
The Blood 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 Skeletal Defenders, as this provides us with #% increased non-Physical resistance. Seeing as we will be tanking enemies, we want to mitigate as much damage as possible.
- Mage Skeletons; Bone Mages will be sacrificed in the name of Lilith to provide a huge increase to Overpower Damage.
- Golem; Blood Golem will also be sacrificed, as this buff provides a massive increase of Life.
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.
For the Starting board, we will take every single Rare and Magic node available and the socket slot will be used for the Undaunted Glyph, if the radius is big enough based of the Glyph level you’ll pick up the extra Willpower required to get the bonus modifier. Once done, you’ll head upward out of the board.
Up next will be the Bloodbath board, which will need to be rotated to fit the image above as we are rushing the Legendary node whilst picking up any and all Rare/Magic node as we path upwards. The same procedure continues as we move towards the socket slot, in which we’ll place the Territorial Glyph; if the radius allows you to fit the Dexterity, you will also pick the extra nodes up to gain the additional bonus modifier. After this, we head out on the right-hand side for our next board.
Blood Begets Blood is our third board, and unlike our previous board, we will focus on picking up the Rare and Magic nodes as well as the socket in which we’ll place the Dominate Glyph. As always, if the radius allows for the needed Willpower to be purchased, you should for the additional bonus. After these are picked up we’ll grab the Legendary node before heading out on the right-hand side for the last board.
The last board is the Bone Graft. We are not going to be picking up the Legendary board here, but rather having this board allows us to have another socket alongside more Rare and Magic nodes. We would recommend picking up the Magic and Rare nodes on the top side first before going to the socket in which we place the Imbiber Glyph. The additional bonus here is not worth having extra investments towards.
Paragon board images courtesy of d4builds.gg.
Mechanics and Playstyle
The rotation is not very complex; it is all about using your Blood Surge while clearing mobs, and Blood Lance against harder enemies or single-target fights. We use Hemorrhage to regenerate Essence. Since we are going to be playing mostly within close range to enemies, we will want to have them Cursed with Decrepify to lower their damage dealt and, should things get dicey, we have access to both Blood Mist and Blood Wave as panic buttons.
Optimally, you’ll be looking to use Blood Surge with four or more enemies around you, as this heals you more and costs less Essence overall to clear mobs. Kite enemies until you have four or more around you to ensure your mob clearing is more efficient.
Gear Choice and Stat Priority
Prioritize a higher total damage output when it comes to your weapon, as the higher it is, the better. It should be kept in mind that if you find a higher Item Power 1-Handed weapon that it could very well be better than a 2-Handed weapon if coupled with an Off-hand or even a Shield, as Shields scale your main-hand weapon by 80%!
Outside of this, you’ll be on the look out for the following modifiers, in no particular order:
- + Level of Blood Lance or Blood Surge;
- +#% Overpower damage;
- +# Increased Life;
- +#% Blood Skill damage;
- #% damage reduction while Fortified;
- #% Essence cost reduction.
Aspects, Powers & Uniques
We are focusing on making Blood Surge more effective for clearing, then focusing on ramping up our defensive layers so we can reliably tank endgame bosses. Listed below are the best-in-slot Aspects found on Legendary Items that are important for the Bloodmancer build.
Aspects from the Codex of Power can be used if you cannot find the proper Legendary drops, but they have weaker effects. Extract Aspects from the lower level Legendary Items and imprint them onto better Rare Items with Preferred stats. This does not require any changes to your skill-tree.
| Gear Slot | Aspect Name | Aspect Power |
|---|---|---|
| Helm, Chest, Pants, Shield or Amulet (50% scaling) |  Protecting Aspect | When hit while not Healthy, a magical bubble is summoned around you for 3-5 seconds. While standing in the bubble players are Immune. Can only occur once every 90 seconds. |
| Helm, Chest, Pants or Shield | Aspect of Might | Basic Skills grant 20% Damage Reduction for 2-6 seconds. |
| Gloves, Ring or Offhand |  Sacrificial Aspect | Your sacrifice bonuses are increased by 15-25%. |
| Helm, Chest, Pants or Shield | Aspect of Disobedience | You gain 0.25-0.5% increased armor for 4 seconds when you deal any form of damage, stacking up to 25-50%. |
| Helm, Chest, Gloves, Boots or Shield |  Eluding Aspect | Becoming injured while Crowd Controlled grants Unstoppable for 4 seconds. This effect has a 40-20 second cooldown. |
| 1H Weapon or 2H Weapon (100% scaling) | Blood Seeker’s Aspect | Blood Lance deals 15-25% increased damage to its primary target per lanced enemy. |
| Amulet (50% scaling) | Aspect of Rathma’s Chosen | Whenever your Blood Skills Overpower you gain 20-50% Attack Speed for 4 seconds. |
| Gloves, Offhand or Ring | Aspect of Untimely Death | Each percent of your Maximum Life you heal beyond 100% grants you 0.5% bonus Overpower damage on your next Overpowering attack, up to a 20-60% bonus. |
| Gloves, Offhand or Ring | Blood-bathed Aspect | Blood Surge‘s nova echoes again after a short delay, dealing 70-60% less damage. |
Unique Items
There’s only 1 very attractive Unique item, and that’s the Harlequin Crest, as it provides damage reduction but also +4 ranks to all our skills! If you don’t have access to this item you can replace it with any Legendary power you see fit.
Gems
Listed below are the best Gems to socket into gear for each slot type.
- Weapon: Ruby for +#% Increased overpower damage.
- Armor: Ruby for +#% Maximum Life.
- Jewelry: Diamond for all Resistance or any gem that provides you with the resistance type you lack the most.
Elixirs and Health Potions
To gain an edge in your adventures, head to the Alchemist in Kyovashad and craft Elixirs that enhance your stats and experience gain for 30 minutes. Remember to gather the necessary crafting materials by foraging plants. Select an Elixir that provides the resistance you need most, or try the Weak Assault Elixir to boost your Attack Speed by 7%.
Return to the Alchemist again when you reach Level 20, 30, 45, 60, 70, 80 and 90, to upgrade your potion. The extra healing is essential to survival.
