To find out more general information about leveling as a Necromancer in Diablo 4, you can check out our main Necromancer Leveling guide. Or you can go to our Necromancer Builds page for a list of other leveling and endgame Necromancer builds for you to choose from.
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Build Introduction
The 
Blood Surge Necromancer leveling build is a high damaging build that brings high consistency to the battlefield, ensuring the damage output is kept high even when you’re building up your Essence to continue casting Blood Surge. This makes it an incredibly smooth build to level your Necromancer with!
Due to the high damage output, this build will take you from the start of the game all the way through the campaign with ease, as well as being capable of soloing the Cathedral of Light Capstone dungeon.
Solo play can be fun and playing with friends can be great, if you have the right spec! The high damage output makes the build very attractive to have in a party with friends. Most importantly the build is designed to be extremely resilient making yourself become more than a high damage dealer, but also a front-lining tank.
Season of the Construct
Season 3 Patch Updates
The following list details the changes in the Season 3 Update (1.3.0) that are specific to this build. Check the Changelog for all the other guide updates.
Patch 1.3.0
- Slight nerfs to the additive damage bonus coming from Overpowering hits whilst they fixed the Fortitude flask to now scale your life a lot higher to the point of being able to reach 60, 70 maybe even 80,000 life!
Seneschal Construct Companion Powers
The Season 3 theme introduces a Seneschal Construct Companion that can deal damage or provide support to complement your character. Equip the Seneschal with 2 Governing Stones to activate their abilities, and then link them to 3 Tuning Stones each to augment the abilities. There are 12 different Governing Stones and 27 different Tuning Stones that can be found in Vaults scattered across Sanctuary. Fuse together duplicate stones to level them up, increasing the potency of Governing Stones or adding augments to Tuning Stones.
Listed below are the recommended Governing Stones and their linked Tuning Stones for the Blood Surge Necromancer, ranked by importance. The actual damage and stat values of these stones were not provided in the season preview, so the rankings will be updated as the season is play-tested.
- Resource Support: This is to make our construct generate essence to us on a consistent basis.
When it comes to the active skills for the Construct it truly does not matter for this build so whichever ability provides the fastest or most reliable hits on enemies will the 2 choices we go for.
Skill Tree Points and Skill Bar
Important to point out that for this build we are using both 
Decrepify and 
Iron Maiden, but only one will be on your action-bar. The idea here is to use Iron Maiden for generic clearing and only switch it for the Decrepify curse when fighting harder bosses such as World-Bosses and/or Capstone Dungeon bosses.
Blood Surge 
Corpse Tendrils 
Summoning Skill 
Blood Mist Decrepify 
Hemorrhage 
Mechanics and Playstyle
The build starts off with casting Blood Surge as your main source of damage output coupled with Hemorrhage. Combined with the blood passive nodes from your skill-tree, the build stacks Life Leech and inherit defenses, turning your Necromancer into a proper tank with higher damage output, but most importantly high area coverage with your damage.
When fighting bosses you essentially want to dump all your Essence by casting Blood Surge. Thanks to Hemorrhage combined with Acolyte’s Hemorrhage, we can quickly build our Essence back up to continue casting Blood Surge, creating an easy to play build. Utility wise, we do have access to corpses via 
Hewed Flesh, which will be used with our Corpse Tendrils.
It’s important to keep in mind that this build uses both Decrepify as well as Iron Maiden. The Maiden curse will be used when clearing packs of enemies and we will only switch that curse to Decrepify when fighting endgame, Capstone or World bosses!
Book of the Dead
Necromancer’s class specific ability is the Book of the Dead, which provides three different type of minions that unlock by leveling up. This build thrives of using skeletons when leveling whilst the golem will be sacrificed for better attack speed.
- Melee Skeletons – Reaper will be our choice as they will be generating corpses for our Corpse Tendrils and make us Fortified.
- Mage Skeletons – Cold Essence generating skeletons will help sustain our essence pool.
- Golem – Bone sacrifice provides us with increased attack speed.
Legendary Item Aspects
To unlock Aspects in the Codex of Power, you must complete the corresponding Dungeon where the specific Aspect drops. Visit the Occultist to imprint this Aspect onto an item. Aspects from the Codex of Power can be used often on weapons.
There is really only one Legendary Aspect that is truly powerful and worth mentioning for this build, which is the 
Blood-bathed Aspect , unlocked by completing the Hoarfrost Demise dungeon in Act 1, Fractured Peaks.
This Aspect allows us to have our Blood Surge echo hitting twice, increasing our clear time as well as boosting our single target damage output.
Aspects found on dropped Legendary Items have stronger effects than those applied from the Codex of Power. Additionally, it is important to know that certain Aspects can only be obtained by finding them on a Legendary Item, and are not accessible through the Codex of Power. Extract Aspects from unusable Legendary Items to imprint them onto well-rolled Rare Items. Avoid imprinting valuable extracted Aspects onto weapons, because weapons get replaced often while leveling. We recommend strongly that you apply this to one of your rings; this will allow you to have more free room to equip upgrades (in case of a great ring drop, you can replace the ring without the Aspect) without wasting precious materials re-applying the Aspect every time you find an upgrade.
We have a dedicated in-depth Aspect and Codex of Power guide that you can check out for more information.
Gear Choice and Stat Priority while Leveling
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%!
Outside of this, you’ll be on the look out for the following modifiers, in no particular order:
- Life
- Armor
- Attack Speed
- + Ranks of Blood Surge
Gems
Listed below are the best Gems to socket into gear for each slot type.
- Weapon:
Ruby for increased overpower damage output. - 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 any major town, 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.
Return to the Alchemist again when you reach Level 20 and 30 to upgrade your potion. The extra healing is essential to survival.
Changelog
- January 22nd, 2024: Guide updated for Season 3 Season of the Construct.
- October 28th, 2023: Improved Vampiric Power decisions and clarified the double-curse decision.
- October 16th, 2023: Optimized the build.
- October 15th, 2023: Build made ready for Season 2 Patch 1.2.0
- August 5th, 2023: Build added.
