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 to clear packs of enemies and for 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 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.
Video Guide
Please note that the video guide is meant to illustrate gameplay and general build mechanics rather than act as a precise build guide. This written guide is always the most up-to-date and accurate version, since updating the video with new information is not possible.
Strengths and Weaknesses
- Very tanky
- Super high Overpower damage numbers
- Consistent performance
- Slightly lower single-target damage compared to Blood Lance
- Early game requires a lot of usage from your basic skill
- Uber Lilith will require some investments
To see how this build compares to the other builds on our site, you can check out our build tier list.
Season of Blood
Season 2 Patch Updates
The following list details the changes in the Season 2 Patch Update that are specific to this build. Check the Changelog for all the other guide updates.
Patch 1.2
- Major rework of how damage is calculated by capping Critical Strike Multiplier at 50% and Vulnerable multiplicative damage scaling at 20% making the modifiers providing scaling for these stats additive.
- Increased the cap of item power to 925 allowing for much higher Armor gain, as well as more damage from our weapon.
- Armor no longer reduces Elemental damage taken, only Physical.
- Complete rework of resistances. They now scale additively to a cap of 70%, which can then be brought up to 85% from other modifiers and/or Elixirs. This makes us actually want resistances on our gear.
Aspect of Disobedience got significantly buffed, as it only mitigates Physical damage taken.- Armor providing modifiers on gear was significantly buffed.
- Death’s Defense skill-tree node is now baseline making all minions unable to take more than 30% of their life from a single instance of damage.
- Increased damage output by our Golem, Skirmishers and Defenders.
- Major rework of how Overpower is calculated.
Vampiric Powers
Season 2 introduces Vampiric Powers that provide build-altering bonuses. We start by spending Potent Blood, which is acquired from vampiric enemies, to unlock and upgrade your Vampiric Powers. Make sure your equipped chest armor, pants, gloves, boots, and helm contain the appropriate Vampiric Pacts (Ferocity, Divinity, and Eternity) that match the activation costs needed to unlock a Vampiric Power.
A Vampiric Curse status effect has been added to complement the new powers: killing an enemy affected by your Vampiric Curses will store their soul. Casting a Defensive skill will unleash your stored souls to attack nearby enemies. You can store up to 8 souls total.
Listed below is the tier list for Vampiric Powers, ranked by importance to this build. Stat values displayed reflect a maximum Level 3 Vampiric Power. Also, please note the list below is our theory-crafted recommendations.
- Prey on the Weak: Increased damage to Vulnerable enemies.
- Metamorphosis: Makes your evades faster and turns you Unstoppable for 4 seconds as well as applying Vampiric Curse on enemies passed.
- Sanguine Brace: When you kill an enemy, Fortify for 6% of your Base Life. While you have more Fortify than half of your Maximum Life, you gain 8% Critical Strike Chance.
- Undying: Casting Skills heals you for 3% Life. Double this bonus while below 50% Life.
- Hemomancy: Your attacks deal 80% of your Maximum Life as Physical damage to nearby enemies. This can only occur once every 4 seconds. You also heal for 1% of your Maximum Life for each enemy damaged this way.
Skill Tree Points
Blood Surge Hemorrhage 
Blood Mist Decrepify 
Corpse Tendrils 
Bone Storm 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 Enhanced Hemorrhage, Initiate’s Hemorrhage |  Basic Skill |
| Blood Surge Level 5, Enhanced Blood Surge, Paranormal Blood Surge |  Core Skill |
| Blood Mist, Enhanced Blood Mist, Ghastly Blood Mist |  Corpse & Macabre Skill |
Decrepify Level 3, Enhanced Decrepify, Abhorrent Decrepify,  Death’s Embrace Level 3,  Amplify Damage Level 3 |  Curse Skill |
 Gruesome Mending Level 3,  Coalesced Blood Level 3,  Tides of Blood Level 3,  Drain Vitality Level 3, Corpse Tendrils, Enhanced Corpse Tendrils, Plagued Corpse Tendrils |  Summoning Skill |
Bone Storm, Prime Bone Storm, Supreme Bone Storm,  Inspiring Leader Level 3 |  Ultimate Skill |
 Rathma’s Vigor |  Key Passives |
| Remaining Renown Points | Cluster |
|---|---|
 Stand Alone Level 3,  Memento Mori Level 3 | Ultimate Skill |
 Unliving Energy,  Imperfectly Balanced Level 3 | Core Skill |
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; Blood Golem will also be sacrificed, as this buff provides a massive increase of Life. You could also choose to sacrifice the Bone Golem for higher attack speed, which can in many cases be a preferred choice.
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.
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’ll place the 
Sacrificial 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, Blood Begets Blood
Blood Begets Blood (2nd Board)
Blood Begets Blood will act as a crossroads, as we will be coming back to this one to head out on all sides in the end. We’ll start by rushing up on the left-hand side of the board and grab the socket, in which we use the 
Amplify 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, Scent of Death.
Scent of Death (3rd Board)
Start by rushing to the Glyph socket in which we’ll use the 
Dominate Glyph. We want to level this Glyph first and pick up all Willpower nodes within radius to enable the bonus modifier. The legendary node and the Rare and Magic Nodes on the right side can be ignored at this stage and picked up in your final levels towards level 100. Once this is done, we’ll circle back to Blood Begets Blood (2nd board) and rush up on the north side.
Bone Graft (4th Board)
This is a straight forward board. Rush the socket node and use the 
Territorial 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 Blood Begets Blood (2nd board) and this time head out on the left-hand side, picking any missed Rare and Magic Nodes according to the image for that board as seen further up in this guide.
Bloodbath (5th Board)
We are closing in on the highest levels the game has to offer as we enter this board. Therefore, we will rush the Glyph Socket and use Control 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 left of the Glyph socket before we finalize the build by taking a quick detour north to get a few extra nodes from a 6th Board.
Wither (6th Board)
The Wither board is only here to throw us some extra Life Nodes. Once these nodes are picked up, we grab any extra attributes within radius of our Glyphs when they level up, and continue progression of our previous board by taking the nodes we’ve skipped up until now.
Paragon board images courtesy of d4builds.gg.
Mechanics and Playstyle
The rotation is not very complex; it is all about using your Blood Surge for both clearing mobs and single-target. When you run out of Essence, spam the Hemorrhage to recover quickly which also helps sustain our Fortify buff. We will want to have the enemies Cursed with Decrepify to lower their damage dealt.
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, 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%!
Listed below are the affixes to prioritize on gear for Blood Surge Necromancers. Affixes for each gear slot are listed in order of importance. Bolded stats are the most important and sometimes vital for the build to function properly.
| Gear Slot | Important Affixes |
|---|---|
| Helm | + Life + Armor + Basic Skill Attack Speed + Attributes (Or any resistances if you need to reach the 70% cap) |
| Chest | + Life + Armor + Damage Reduction + Damage Reduction from Close Enemies |
| Gloves | + Overpower Damage + Ranks of Blood Surge + Attack Speed + Critical Strike Chance |
| Pants | + Life + Armor + Damage Reduction + Damage Reduction from Close Enemies |
| Boots | + Movement Speed + Essence Cost Reduction + Damage Reduction While Injured + Attributes (Or any resistances if you need to reach the 70% cap) |
| Amulet | + Essence Cost Reduction + Ranks of Tides of Blood + Damage Reduction + Movement Speed |
| Rings | + Life + Overpower Damage + Critical Strike Chance + Resource Generation |
| 1H Wand | + Overpower Damage + All Stats + Core Skill Damage + Intelligence |
| Off-hand (Focus) | + Critical Strike Chance + Basic Skill Attack Speed + Resource Generation + Essence Cost Reduction |
Aspects, Powers and 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 | Aspect of Might | Basic Skills grant 20% Damage Reduction for 2-6 seconds. |
| Chest | Aspect of Disobedience | You gain 0.25-0.5% increased armor for 4 seconds when you deal any form of damage, stacking up to 15-66%. |
| Gloves |  Blood-bathed Aspect | Blood Surge‘s nova echoes again after a short delay, dealing 60-50% less damage. |
| Pants | Aspect of Shielding Storm | Each time that Bone Storm damages an enemy, gain a Barrier equal to 2-5% of your Base Life for 10 seconds. |
| Boots |  Ghostwalker Aspect | While Unstoppable and for 4 seconds after, you gain 10-25% increased Movement Speed and can move freely through enemies. |
| 1H Weapon | 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. |
| Offhand (Shield) |  Aspect of Shared Misery | Lucky Hit: When you hit a Crowd Controlled enemy, there is up to a 30-50% chance for that Crowd Control effect to spread to another unaffected enemy. |
| Amulet (50% Scaling) | Aspect of Rathma’s Chosen | Whenever your Blood Skills Overpower you gain 20-50% Attack Speed for 4 seconds. |
| Ring | Sacrificial Aspect | Your sacrifice bonuses are increased by 15-25%. |
| Ring |  Aspect of the Umbral | Restore 1-4 of your Primary Resource when you Crowd Control an enemy. |
Unique Items
The Protecting Aspect on our pants can easily be replaced by the common Unique Item 
Temerity, but using a Legendary pair of pants is more than fine till you get the unique. In the late-game stage, you’ll want the unique pants 
Blood Moon Breeches as it scales your Overpower damage significantly. 
Penitent Greaves works wonders early on with the combination of Aspect of the Umbral and Aspect of Shared Misery if that’s the route you want to try!
If you’re able to find a 
Banished Lord’s Talisman you’ll remove the Aspect of the Umbral and put your Aspect of Rathma’s Chosen on one of your rings instead. This is an incredible amulet and fits perfectly well in the optimized end-game version of this build that demands it.
Another item that is a great addition is the 
Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul which would simply replace the Aspect of Untimely Death power.
End-Game Notes
As you progress through the game in World Tier 4 you’ll want to aim to kill end-game bosses such as Uber Lilith, Duriel, or Grigoire to name a few. Besides Uber Lilith, the other bosses merely demand resistances to be at the 70% cap (or higher via Elixirs) and having all your aspect powers on gear, following the modifier priority listed earlier in this guide. However, Uber Lilith can be very challenging, with some builds having an easier time than others. This end-game version will completely obliterate her and any other end-game boss you’ll encounter.
To make the switch to this hybrid build using both 
Blood Lance and 
Blood Surge you’ll first want to make sure you have all the gear and aspect powers for it. The important part here is that we will use the same action-bar as the original build and simply switch Blood Lance in for big end-game bosses and switch it back Blood Surge when running anything else. Besides the action-bar switch, you also want to have 2 gear pieces in your inventory with proper aspect powers and gear modifiers to fulfill this switch. The Surge style will require the use of a shield for Aspect of Shielding Storm and when you switch to Lance you’ll want a Focus off-hand instead with Aspect of Hungry Blood or Aspect of Gore Quills . The other item you’ll switch is a pair of gloves, for surge that would include the modifier + Ranks of Blood Surge having the Blood-bathed Aspect and when you switch to Blood Lance the modifier should instead be + Ranks of Blood Lance and the aspect will be either Aspect of Hungry Blood or Aspect of Gore Quills . The off-hand relic modifier priority should be including: Critical Strike Chance, Basic Skill Attack Speed, Essence Cost Reduction and the last modifier can be anything from Damage Reduction to Resource Generation.
Unique items, such as Banished Lord’s Talisman and Blood Moon Breeches, are incredibly powerful for this build. Prior to picking these up, you’re able to freely chose what powers you’ll put on your Amulet and what extra powers to add in their stead.
| Gear Slot | Aspect Name | Aspect Power |
|---|---|---|
| Helm | Aspect of Might | Basic Skills grant 20% Damage Reduction for 2-6 seconds. |
| Chest | Aspect of Disobedience | You gain 0.6-1.1% increased Armor for 4 seconds when you deal any form of damage, stacking up to 36-66% |
| Gloves (Blood Surge Clearing) | Blood-bathed Aspect | Blood Surge’s nova echoes again after a short delay, dealing 60-50% less damage. |
| Gloves (Blood Lance Bossing) | 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 38-48% of normal damage. |
| Boots | Ghostwalker Aspect | While Unstoppable and for 4 seconds after, you gain 10-25% increased Movement Speed and can move freely through enemies. |
| 1H Weapon (Wand) | 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 | Aspect of Rathma’s Chosen | Whenever your Blood Skills Overpower you gain 20-50% Attack Speed for 4 seconds. |
| 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. |
| Off-hand (Shield) | Aspect of Shielding Storm | Each time that Bone Storm damages an enemy, gain a Barrier equal to 2-5% of your base Life for 10 seconds. |
| Priority Skills | Cluster |
|---|---|
| Hemorrhage, Enhanced Hemorrhage, Acolyte’s Hemorrhage | Basic Skill |
 Blood Lance Level 5, Enhanced Blood Lance, Supernatural Blood Lance, Blood Surge Level 5, Enhanced Blood Surge, Paranormal Blood Surge,  Unliving Energy,  Imperfectly Balanced Level 3 | Core Skill |
| Blood Mist, Enhanced Blood Mist, Ghastly Blood Mist | Curse Skill |
Decrepify, Enhanced Decrepify, Abhorrent Decrepify, Amplify Damage Level 3,  Death’s Embrace Level 3 | Summoning Skill |
Corpse Tendrils, Enhanced Corpse Tendrils,  Plagued Corpse Tendrils, Gruesome Mending, Coalesced Blood Level 3, Tides of Blood Level 3, Drain Vitality Level 2 | Corpse & Macabre Skill |
Inspiring Leader Level 3, Stand Alone Level 3, Memento Mori Level 3,  Bone Storm, Prime Bone Storm, Supreme Bone Storm | Ultimate Skill |
| Rathma’s Vigor | Key Passives |
When it comes to the Book of the Dead, we keep the same approach as the original guide here. We can still sacrifice our Melee Skeletons for extra resistances, but once your gear covers that, we want the Critical Strike Chance instead from the Skirmishers!
Gems
Listed below are the best Gems to socket into gear for each slot type.
- Weapon:
Royal Ruby for +#% Increased Overpower damage. - Armor: Royal Ruby for +#% Maximum Life.
- Jewelry:
Royal Diamond or any other gem that gives +% to a specific resistance to help you get to the 70% cap.
Elixirs and Health Potions
To gain an edge in your adventures, head to the Alchemist 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 
Assault Elixir to boost your Attack Speed. Other Elixirs can do very well, especially one that provides Critical Strike Chance, such as the 
Crushing Elixir, to get yourself 100% chance to crit!
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.
Changelog
- 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.
