Build Introduction
Bone Spear Necromancer is one of the smoothest builds to level a Necromancer with; It performs just as well in the endgame content by providing high critical hits with 
Bone Spear in combination with an insane amount of corpses being generated. We can easily regain our Essence at the same time as we are dealing respectable damage using 
Corpse Explosion, making the Bone Spear Necromancer a very consistent and reliable build. A very important note here is that the Blighted Corpse Explosion deals damage twice per second helping us generate an insane amount of corpses via 
Hewed Flesh, which is how we sustain the build.
In the endgame we will gain access to more legendary powers that takes this build to a whole new level. Since our biggest source of damage comes from Bone Spears, we can provide legendary powers to help sustain more or less only casting the Bone Spears!
Besides being reliable and consistent, this build guarantees the Vulnerable effect on enemies, making it a great option for group play. On top of this, you’re able to chose whether or not you want to run with Melee Skeletons, as having minions tank enemies for you and/or your friends can be very helpful. You also have the option to simply sacrifice them and use 
Bone Storm to provide more damage output.
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
Check out our video guide for this build, to see it in action.
Skill Tree Points
The following tables show the full allocation of Skill Points for the Bone Spear 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 |
|---|---|
 Bone Splinters Level 1, Enhanced Bone Splinters |  Basic Skill |
Bone Spear Level 5, Enhanced Bone Spear, Paranormal Bone Spear, Hewed Flesh Level 3,  Unliving Energy Level 3,  Imperfectly Balanced Level 3 |  Core Skill |
Corpse Explosion Level 5, Enhanced Corpse Explosion, Blighted Corpse Explosion,  Grim Harvest,  Skeletal Warrior Mastery Level 3,  Blood Mist Level 2 |  Corpse & Macabre Skill |
 Serration Level 3,  Compound Fracture Level 3,  Evulsion Level 3,  Necrotic Carapace Level 3,  Corpse Tendrils Level 1, Enhanced Corpse Explosion |  Summoning Skill |
 Ossified Essence |  Capstone Skill |
| Remaining Renown Points | Cluster |
|---|---|
 Death’s Embrace Level 3 |  Curse Skill |
| Corpse Tendrils Level 5 | Summoning Skill |
 Fueled by Death Level 3 |  Ultimate Skill |
Book of the Dead
We will be sacrificing both our Mage Skeletons and our Golem. The decision to sacrifice the Melee Skeletons, however, comes down to personal preference and how their survival looks at higher endgame content. Playing in a party can impact this decision as well. Below you’ll find the details covering all aspects of how we utilize the Book of the Dead for the Bone Spear Necromancer.
- Melee Skeletons; we have two choices when it comes to the Melee skeletons:
- If we decide to sacrifice them, we’ll want to do so with the Skirmishers, as we gain increased Critical Strike chance. We will also have to adjust our skill-points in the tree if we sacrifice them, by removing all three points from the Skeletal Warrior Mastery and putting two of those points in Corpse Tendrils, alongside one point in Enhanced Corpse Explosion. This also provides us with the option to use the
Aspect of Grasping Veins, making our Corpse Tendrils increase our Critical Strike Chance and damage. The Aspect can be collected by finishing the Corrupted Grotto dungeon in Kehjistan.
- If we decide to keep the Skeletons, we will want to use the Reapers and have them generate corpses by hitting enemies. This combination with the build creates an absurd amount of corpses very fast which not only offers easy access to gain Essence and/or re-summon Skeletons, but also offers consistent damage output when we run out of Essence after spamming Bone Spear.
- If we decide to sacrifice them, we’ll want to do so with the Skirmishers, as we gain increased Critical Strike chance. We will also have to adjust our skill-points in the tree if we sacrifice them, by removing all three points from the
- Mage Skeletons; sacrificing the Cold Mages grants us increased damage to Vulnerable enemies. The build reliably making enemies Vulnerable makes this the best choice.
- Golem; the goal for this build is to deliver high spikes of damage in the form of Bone Spear. We want to make sure we deal Critical Strikes and also increase the Critical Strike Damage, and by sacrificing the Iron Golem we gain just that.
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 is 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 Starter Board, we will path along the right side, skipping only two of the Magic nodes as we grab three Rare nodes and the socket slot to get the Exploit Glyph to scale damage against Vulnerable enemies. If you are able to collect enough Dexterity within radius, depending on the level of your Glyph, you should. Once done with the board, we will head on north.
The second board should be the Bone Graft board, which should be rotated to have the Legendary node easily accessible on the left-hand side. We begin the route by rushing that node and picking up both Rare and Magic nodes, as we do a diagonal push to the top right corner moving in to the socket slot. Optimally we want the Essence Glyph slotted in here, and only pick up extra Dexterity nodes within radius if the Glyph level has enough within radius. The next step from here is to path up north for our third board; we will come back to this board to path to the right side once the third board is finished.
Our third board is the Scent of Death, which will need to be rotated so you have the Legendary node located as close to your starting point as possible as we will be rushing it before we pick up any and all Rare and Magic nodes, and finally finish the pathing with the socket slot in which we will use the Sacrificial Glyph. Similar to previous boards, we will only be going out of our way to pick up extra attributes enabling the bonus modifier if we can, based of the Glyph level. Once done here, we will circle back to our second board and connect to the right-hand side to enable our fourth board.
The fourth board is Flesh-Eater, which will be positioned so the Legendary node is again located as close to our starting point as possible. We are going to be picking up the Rare node Stifle and the surrounding Magic nodes, next we actually skip the Legendary node and rush towards the remaining Rare and Magic nodes. The socket slot here will be used for the Amplify Glyph; this is only worth picking up after the surrounding Magic nodes are purchased. Same procedure here as before, only take the extra surrounding attributes if needed and possible within the Glyph radius based on its level. Finally, we exit up north for a final board to be added.
Our final board is strictly only here to pick up the socket in which we want the Undaunted Glyph. If you’re able to pick up the surrounding Willpower nodes to fulfill the additional bonus modifier within the glyph radius, do so.
Paragon board images courtesy of d4builds.gg.
Mechanics and Playstyle
Mechanically, we are aiming to maintain a rotation where the build is dealing consistent damage no matter if you have a full Essence bar or if you have just emptied it. By having a reliable source of afflicting enemies with Vulnerable, as well as multiple sources for creating Corpses, we can stay at a safe distance hitting enemies with Bone Spear. When we are out of Essence, we simply spam Corpse Explosion, dealing tons of damage while also regenerating Essence to go back to hitting hard with your Bone Spear.
Playstyle-wise, we want to stay away from enemies, which is why we have Blood Mist as a back-up option. You will be forced to tank enemies as you play, and to solve that problem we will invest 5 points to Corpse Tendrils to control the damage dealt by the enemies. Outside of the defensive details, we will be spamming Bone Spear and building our Essence back up with Corpse Explosion. In the higher endgame, we will be able to utilize Legendary aspect powers to sustain Bone Spear, thus even better minimizing the need to spam Corpse Explosions and allowing for even higher damage output.
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:
- Physical damage;
- Essence cost reduction;
- Lucky Hit Chance, which is very effective as this helps generate more corpses to keep the rotation of Bone Spear and Corpse Explosion going. It also scales very well with the Legendary Aspect Power
Aspect of Exposed Flesh; - + Level of Bone Spear or Corpse Explosion;
- Critical strike chance and/or critical strike damage;
- Damage to Vulnerable enemies.
Aspects, Powers & Uniques
The Bone Spear Necromancer is all about Bone Spear and making enemies Vulnerable. Due to this, there is only one mandatory Codex Power, namely the Splintering Aspect. Listed below are the recommended Codex Powers and Aspects found on Legendary Items that are important for the Bone Spear Necromancer build, alongside optional ones in case you have decided to run Skeletal Warriors.
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.
Most important powers for this build is the Splintering Aspect and 
Aspect of Disobedience. Make sure you have those, and all others are just additional bonuses as you progress your character.
| Gear Slot | Aspect Name | Aspect Power |
|---|---|---|
| Helm, Chest, Pants or Shield | 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. |
| Gloves or Off-hand Gloves, Off-hand, 1H Weapon, 2H Weapon (100% scaling), Ring or Amulet (50% scaling) | Aspect of Grasping Veins | Gain 10-20% increased Critical Strike Chance for 6 seconds when you cast Corpse Tendrils. You deal 30-60% bonus Critical Strike Damage to enemies damaged by Corpse Tendrils. |
| Helm, Chest, Pants, Shield or Amulet (50% scaling) | Aspect of Disobedience | You gain 0.25-0.5% increase Armor for 4 seconds when you deal any form of damage, stacking up to 25-50%. |
| Boots |  Wind Striker Aspect | Critical Strikes grant 8-16% Movement Speed for 1 second, up to 6 seconds. |
| 1H Weapon or 2H Weapon (100% scaling) | Splintering Aspect | Bone Spear‘s primary attack makes enemies hit beyond the first Vulnerable for 1.5-2.5 seconds. Bone Shards from Bone Spear deal 50-100% bonus damage to Vulnerable enemies and pierce them. |
| Amulet (50% scaling) | Aspect of Serration | The Ossified Essence Key Passive also increases the Critical Strike Damage of your Bone Skills by 1% per Essence, up to 30-40%. |
| Gloves, Off-hand, 1H Weapon, 2H Weapon (100% scaling), Ring or Amulet (50% scaling) | Accelerating Aspect | Critical Strikes with Core Skills increase your Attack Speed by 15-25% for 3 seconds. |
| Ring | Aspect of the Umbral | Restore 1-4 of your Primary Resource when you Crowd Control an enemy. |
Unique Items
The Deathless Visage is an incredible Unique item making our Bone Spear leave behind echoes as it travels, which explodes dealing massive amounts of damage. If you do not have access to this Unique item, you can simply add any Legendary effect you see fit in its place.
Gems
Listed below are the best Gems to socket into gear for each slot type.
- Weapon: Emerald for +#% Increased critical strike damage to Vulnerable enemies.
- 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.
