Bone Spear Endgame Necromancer Build for Diablo 4 (Season 2)

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 Spear, 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.

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Build Requirements

This build guide has no mandatory items or Aspects; all you have to do is follow the guide and enjoy big numbers on your screen!

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

To see how this build compares to the other builds on our site, you can check out our build tier lists.

Build Variants

A build variant is a modified version of an existing build that changes some aspects of it, such as the damage type, specific skills or passives, and even certain items like different Uniques or Legendary Aspects.

Below, you will find any variant that relates to the Bone Spear Endgame Necromancer:

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.

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 compiled without testing. Until the Season 2 is live, we cannot test the validity of these choices.

• Feed the Coven: This makes our minions lucky hits generate Essence to you.
• Coven’s Fang: Increases the damage output of your minions and makes them apply Vampiric Curse on hit.
• Metamorphosis: Makes your Evade action turn you in to a cloud of bats making you Unstoppable and inflict Vampiric Curse on enemies you pass through.
• Prey on the Weak: Increased damage to Vulnerable enemies.
• Ravenous: On lucky hit you have a chance to gain 40% increased Attack Speed of your total Movement Speed for 6 seconds.

Skill Tree Points and Skill Bar

Recommended

Suggested Skill Bar

Bone Spear Blood Mist Corpse Explosion Corpse Tendrils Summoning Skill Bone Splinters

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, Enhanced Corpse Explosion, Blighted Corpse Explosion, Grim Harvest Level 3, Skeletal Warrior Mastery Level 3, Blood Mist Level 1	Corpse & Macabre Skill
Serration Level 3, Compound Fracture Level 3, Evulsion Level 3, Necrotic Carapace Level 3, Corpse Tendrils Level 1, Enhanced Corpse Tendrils, Reaper’s Pursuit	Summoning Skill
Death’s Reach Level 3	Curse 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	Corpse & Macabre 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 taking all of the Bone Storm nodes instead for better critical strike hits as well as increased damage reduction. It’s also important to note that by removing our Reapers we also need to move our 3 points from Necrotic Carapace and place them in Rapid Ossification.
  • 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.
• 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.

Starting Board

For the Starter Board, we will path along the right side, all of the Magic nodes as we grab three Rare nodes and the socket slot to get the Control Glyph. (If you’re using the end-game version of this build the Glyph should be Amplify instead). If you are able to collect enough Intelligence within radius, depending on the level of your Glyph, you should. Once done with the board, we will head on north.

Bone Graft (2nd Board)

The second board should be the Bone Graft board, which should be rotated to have the Legendary node easily accessible on the right-hand side. We begin the route by rushing that node and picking up both Rare and Magic nodes, as we do a push to the top left corner moving in to the socket slot. Optimally we want the Exploit Glyph slotted in here, and only pick up extra Dexterity nodes within radius if the Glyph level has enough within radius. This should be the first Glyph you’ll want to level up. The next step from here is to path out on the left side for our third board.

Scent of Death (3rd Board)

Our third board is the Scent of Death, which will need to be rotated so you have the Legendary node located on the south side as we will be rushing the socket slot before we pick up all Rare and Magic nodes, and finally finish the pathing with the Legendary node. The Glyph we’ll be using here is the Corporeal 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 on the Glyph level. Once done here, we will head out north for our fourth board.

Flest-Eater (4th Board)

The fourth board is Flesh-Eater, which will be positioned so the Legendary node is again located as far from our starting point as possible. We are going to be picking up the socket first in which we slot in the Amplify Glyph. (If you’re using the end-game version of this build the Glyph should be Sacrificial instead). Same procedure here as before, only take the extra surrounding attributes if needed and possible within the Glyph radius based on its level. Next we actually skip the Legendary node and rush towards the remaining Rare and Magic nodes on the left whilst skipping the top right nodes as we are looking to get our last board finished first by leaving this board on the left side.

Bloodbath (5th Board)

Our final board is called Bloodbath, we are only here to grab the socket. Rotate the board to match the image above and in here we’ll rush the socket & slot in the Essence Glyph. Needless to say we are picking up the surrounding Dexterity if the Glyph level allows for it. Once this board is finished we’ll circle back for the remaining Rare and Magic nodes on our fourth board. After this point you’re either finished or you have spare attributes to pick up within radius of your Glyphs as they level up.

Paragon board images courtesy of d4builds.gg.

Mechanics and Playstyle

Mechanically, we are aiming to maintain a rotation where we deal 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, dealing damage by slamming 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%!

Listed below are the affixes to prioritize on gear for Bone Spear 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.

Legendary Aspects and 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	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.
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.
Chest	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.
Gloves	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.
Pants	Aspect of Might	Basic Skills grant 20% Damage Reduction for 2-6 seconds.
2H Sword (100% 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%.
Ring	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. These echoes explode, dealing massive amounts of damage in their wake. Most importantly, it provides Critical Strike Damage for your Bone Skills & increased Maximum Essence. If you do not have access to this Unique item, you can simply add the Legendary effect listed above.

Getting your hands on the Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul is amazing and would mainly be used for this builds end-game version seen below and it replaces the Osseous Gale Aspect aspect.

End-Game Notes

Once you find the Aspect of Exposed Flesh (this will replace your Aspect of the Umbral) and have a proper pair of gloves you’ll want to make sure you reach 50% increased Critical Strike Chance in your tooltip, as the remaining 50% is coming from your Aspect of Grasping Veins and Supreme Bone Storm. This allows for absurd end-game damage output and the gear allows you to more or less never cast anything but Bone Spear. To reach this state of the build you’ll need proper gearing as displayed in this guide. You’ll also change your Accelerating Aspect to Osseous Gale Aspect as well as Aspect of Might for Aspect of Shielding Storm.

When it comes to the current seasonal vampiric powers we’ll be replacing both minion related powers with Anticipation and Undying.

The important part here besides the small Aspect changes is that you’re able to change your skill tree around a bit for better optimization, at which point we strongly recommend changing it to the tree table shown below. Our Control Glyph in the first Paragon Board is also changed to the Amplify Glyph. Should you find yourself struggling with sustaining your Essence, it means you are simply not geared enough to handle it and should revert back to the original plan this guide is showing.

Priority Skills	Cluster
Bone Splinters, 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
Blood Mist	Corpse & Macabre Skill
Decrepify, Enhanced Decrepify, Abhorrent Decrepify, Amplify Damage Level 3, Death’s Reach Level 3, Death’s Embrace Level 3	Summoning Skill
Corpse Tendrils, Enhanced Corpse Tendrils, Serration Level 3, Compound Fracture Level 3, Evulsion Level 3, Rapid Ossification Level 3	Curse Skill
Inspiring Leader Level 3, Stand Alone Level 3, Memento Mori Level 3, Bone Storm, Prime Bone Storm, Supreme Bone Storm	Ultimate Skill
Ossified Essence	Capstone Skill

The Book of the Dead remains the same with all 3 minions sacrificed.

Gems

Listed below are the best Gems to socket into gear for each slot type.

• Weapon: Royal Emerald for +#% Increased critical strike damage to Vulnerable enemies.
• Armor: Royal Ruby for +#% Maximum Life.
• Jewelry: Royal Skull to increase our armor.

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, 30, 45, 60, 70, 80 and 90, to upgrade your potion. The extra healing is essential to survival.

Changelog

• October 15th, 2023: Updated guide for the 1.2 patch.
• August 7th, 2023: Minor updates for the 1.1.1 patch.
• August 5th, 2023: Guide updated for patch 1.1.1 (launches on August 8th).
• July 26th, 2023: Optimized gear affix list.
• July 19th, 2023: Guide updated for Season 1 including Malignant Hearts.