Build Introduction
This guide is a collaboration between GhazzyTV and community member Garm Z. 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 thanks to our Cursed Aura Aspect.
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.
Strengths and Weaknesses
- Very tanky
- Consistent performance
- Struggling with super high end-game Pit tiers due to lack of damage
Build Requirements
Cruor’s Embrace
Blood Moon BreechesQuick Navigation
Want to skip ahead? Use the table below to jump to the sections you are looking for.
Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points
Blight
Bone Prison
Blood Mist
Blood Surge
Corpse Tendrils
SoulriftFollow 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
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: Defenders [Sacrifice] – Resistance to All Elements.
- Mage Skeletons: Bone [Sacrifice] – Increased Overpower damage.
- Golem: Iron [Sacrifice] – Increased Critical Strike Damage.
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! Other recommendations for Legendary Aspect farming would be to do the Seasonal mechanic and to some extent you can farm them in Helltides as well.
| Gear Slot | Gems | Aspect / Unique | Legendary Aspect / Unique Power |
|---|---|---|---|
| Helm |  Neo +  Xan |  Aspect of the Embalmer | Consuming a Corpse has a 15-35% to spawn a Blood Orb. |
| Chest |  Igni +  Xal | Aspect of Hardened Bones | You gain 15-20% increased Damage Reduction. |
| Gloves | N/A | Cruor’s Embrace | Pushes the whole focus of the build to the Blood Surge efficiency. Priority would be the Drain Count on these gloves. |
| Pants |  Royal Topaz | Blood Moon Breeches | You deal x20-50% increased Critical Strike Damage to enemies affected by your Curses. |
| Boots | N/A |  Aspect of the Cursed Aura | You automatically Curse enemies around you with Decrepify and Iron Maiden. Curses inflicted this way spread to surrounding targets every x seconds and last 4 seconds outside of the aura. |
| Weapon 1H (Mace) |  Royal Ruby |  Cadaverous Aspect | Consuming a Corpse increases the damage of your Core and Ultimate Skills by #% for 5 seconds, up to x35%. |
| Off-hand (Focus) | Royal Ruby | Blood-bathed Aspect | Blood Surge’s nova echoes again after a short delay, dealing x% less damage. |
| Amulet (50% Scaling) |  Royal Skull | Aspect of the Great Feast | Each minion drains 1 Essence per second but deals x% bonus damage. With no minions, this bonus applies to you and drains 5 Essence per second. |
| Ring | Royal Skull | Sacrificial Aspect | Your Sacrifice bonuses are increased by 10-25% |
| Ring | Royal Skull | Aspect of Rathma’s Chosen | Whenever your Blood Skills Overpower you gain 35-55% Attack Speed for 4 seconds. |
Curious how this build compares to other endgame options? Take a look at our Endgame Build Tier List.
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 Masterworking upgrades. The main priority for Greater Affixes are marked with a “*”, secondary would be anything providing Intelligence or Life. Be sure to check our Tempering guide, and our Masterworking guide, for more details about these topics.
| Slot | Targeted Gear Affixes | Tempering Affixes |
|---|---|---|
| Helm | * 1. Maximum Life 2. Essence per second 3. Intelligence |  Decay Innovation % Soulrift DurationNecromancer Wall + Ranks to Drain Vitality |
| Chest | * 1. Maximum Life 2. Essence per Second 3. Intelligence | Decay Innovation % Soulrift DurationWorldly Endurance #% Total Armor |
| Gloves | Cruor’s Embrace * 1. Blood Surge Drains + X Times from Elites | n/a |
| Pants | Blood Moon Breeches * 1. Critical Strike Chance | n/a |
| Boots | * 1. Armor 2. Essence per Second 3. Movement Speed | Necromancer Motion #% Movement SpeedBlood Innovation #% Blood Surge Nova Size |
| Amulet | * 1. Ranks to Tides of Blood 2. % Intelligence 3. Attack Speed Note: With higher end gear you should replace Attack Speed with + Ranks to Coalesced Blood. | Blood Finesse #% Blood Attack SpeedNecromancer Efficiency % Ultimate Cooldown Reduction |
| Rings (2x) | * 1. Attack Speed 2. Maximum Life 3. Intelligence | Blood Finesse #% Blood Attack SpeedNecromancer Efficiency #% Ultimate Cooldown Reduction |
| 1H-Weapon (Mace) | * 1. Maximum Life 2. Intelligence 3. Lucky Hit: #% Chance to Restore Primary Resource | Blood Finesse #% Blood Attack SpeedBlood Augments #% Blood Surge Double Damage |
| Off-hand (Focus) | * 1. Maximum Life 2. Cooldown Reduction 3. Intelligence | Blood Finesse #% Blood Attack SpeedBlood Augments #% Blood Surge Double Damage |
Keep in mind that the maximum Resistance is 70% by default for each element and can be increased to 85% by various sources. Furthermore, Unique items cannot be tempered, only masterworked!
Make sure to achieve and maintain armor cap of 1,000 as soon as possible! For that purpose helm or chest temporary tempering can be Total Armor %.
Uniques and Mythic Uniques
Below you will find information on Uniques and Mythic Uniques that are useful for this build. Moreover, if you are interested in target farming Mythic Uniques, check out our How to Farm Mythic Uniques guide.
Uniques
- Blood Moon Breeches (Required): Scales your critical strike damage and crit chance. This item can be target farmed from all Lair bosses.
- Cruor’s Embrace (Required): Makes your Blood Surge consume nearby Corpses to cause mini novas for extra damage output. This can be target farmed by hunting down Lord Zir himself!
Mythic Uniques
The following Mythic Uniques provide great power scaling to the build.
Heir of Perdition: This directly replaces your helmet but you’ll want Greater affixes and/or Masterwork on the + ranks modifier! You might need to replace your Movement Speed temper on your boots to fit this by adding % Total Armor instead.
Ring of Starless Skies: This will replace Aspect of Rathma’s Chosen. It more or less covers your sustain lowering the requirement of this on your gear and scales your damage very well. Greater Affix and Masterworking priority on this item will be Attack Speed.
Shroud of False Death: Directly replaces your current body armor and brings crazy damage scaling for you. Greater Affix and Masterworking priority on this item will be All Stats and/or Maximum Life.
Gems and Runewords
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 increased Overpower Damage. | Recommended Runewords then Royal Topaz For increased Intelligence. | Royal Skull till your armor is capped at 1000 then we use  Royal Diamond |
Runewords
The following Runewords are recommended to be used for this build.
| Runeword Combination | Effect |
| Neo + Xan | Gain: 200 Offering. Deal damage after not taking any within 2 seconds. Requires: 300 Offering (Overflow. Increase Duration). Cooldown: 1 second. Your next attack will cause your hits to be guaranteed Critical Strike and Overpower for 0.35 seconds. |
| Igni + Xal | Gain: 25 Offering every 0.3 seconds and you gain all that offering when you cast a non-Basic Skill. For each 300 Offering you Overflow gaining more maximum life with a 3 second cooldown, gain 20% Maximum Life for 6 seconds. |
Cir + 
Lum is a temporary Runeword that can help with Essence till you’re good without it, normally when you equip Ring of Starless Skies as an example and upgraded the Drain modifier on Cruor’s Embrace! This will be replacing your Igni + Xal Runeword.
Paragon Board
Below you’ll find the entire end-game paragon board set-up for this build in detail!
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:
Hatred’s Embrace’s Haste – You’ll want to switch this out if you can get Critical Strike capped without it. At that point you’ll use 
Harbinger of Hatred’s Volley instead.
Wandering Death’s Chest Beam
Lilith’s Wind of Hate
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 Blood Surge.
Build Mechanics
Rotation and Playstyle
This build offers a very straight forward and simple rotation. Start by casting Blight then Blood Surge till there is a corpse on the ground which allows us to use Corpse Tendrils, do note that you need to spam this a bit as Cruor’s Embrace will be consuming corpses consistently so make sure you spam Tendrils to get it off. You can avoid the spam requirement for Tendrils by opening a fight with your Blood Mist which will drop corpses for about 1 second then use Corpse Tendrils, followed by Blight before you cast your Blood Surge! Outside of this you’ll want to keep Soulrift up and running at all times. Once enemies are grouped together you can utilize Bone Prison for even more damage output.
If you are crowd controlled, you’ll simply use Blood Mist to get out of harms way. This will generate a corpse on the ground so you can follow it up with a Corpse Tendrils to regain control over the situation!
Which Elixirs Should You Use?
Visit the Alchemist and craft an Elixir providing any Resistance you need most, or the 
Elixir of Fortitude or 
Elixir of Resourcefulness. Some Elixirs cannot be crafted and only drop from things like Helltides or Nightmare Dungeons. Additionally, make sure to keep your health potion upgraded!
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:
- Very little has changed outside of the addition of boss powers from the seasonal content. Minor buffs on things such as our Paragon Board legendary nodes.
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:
Obol Gambling Optimization Tool GuideChangelog
- May 5th, 2025: Optimized and updated post launch for Season 8.
- April 25th, 2025: Guide updated for Season 8.
- January 24, 2025: Clarified why Indira’s Memory unique is used in the build.
- 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 6th, 2024: Guide updated for Season 5, Infernal Hordes.
- 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.
