Infinimist / Exploding Shadow Mist Necromancer Endgame Build for Diablo 4 (Season 3)

Build Introduction

The first build to finish Tier 100 Nightmare Dungeons in the game just got better! This build guide will take you through the optimized version of the Exploding Shadow Mist Necromancer, also known as “Infinimist” or “Shadowblight Stacker”.

Keep in mind that this build is gear-sensitive and therefore has a small list of mandatory items to function properly. This build requires the Howl from Below Unique gloves, Black River and a combination of Cooldown Reduction modifiers on your Amulet, Helmet, and Focus, together with % Increased Lucky Hit Chance on every single piece you can get it on.

Playing the build without the Unique gloves is theoretically possible, but it causes a lot of frustrating moments, as we will be using Corpse Explosion and this requires corpses to be underneath your enemies, and the gloves allows us to blow up corpses further away that will then run to your target and explode on top of them instead. The weapon will provide you with a crazy amount of damage scaling to handle bosses so it is not recommended to switch to this build without these 2 items.

If you do not have access to this type of gearing, or the Howl from Below gloves, we would strongly recommend checking out the Blight Shadowmancer Necromancer build, which lets you work your way up towards playing this build.

This build is a variant of both, the Sever and Blight Shadowmancer Necromancer. To access the original versions of those builds, click the button below:

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Video Guide

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 Requirements

Required Uniques

Howl from Below

Black River

This build requires Howl from Below Unique Gloves to work properly. Despite the great efficiency the build brings to the table, it does lack a bit of single-target damage output, and the unique weapon will fix that problem. The weapon you’ll need is Black River, it is possible to play this build without the weapon but you will have significantly lowered damage output.

While you could try to improvise with a set of Rare gloves/weapon, it is not something we can really recommend.

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

• Corpse explosion got a hit damage nerf whilst the DoT component got buffed.
• The removal of Abbatoir of Zir for endgame content allows you to focus more on offensive scaling modifiers on gear over defensive ones.

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 two Governing Stones to activate their abilities, and then link them to three 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 Lance Necromancer, ranked by importance. The Governing stones you want to use for this build will be Lightning Bolt, and Tempest.

• Resource Support: The Construct will generate Essence for us on a consistent basis.
• Evernight: Grants +4 to all skills for a very short duration. You will want this on both skills the Construct uses to optimize uptime to increase damage output.
• Safeguard: Provides extra Damage Reduction.
• Duration: Extends the duration of the skill which is best combined with Lightning Bolt and the use of both Resource and Safeguard.
• Breaking: Instantly destroys Barrier effects and makes enemies vulnerable.
• Arcing: Makes the ability hit 10 additional enemies. Best combined with Breaking to make the effect hit more enemies.
• Efficiency: Provides extra Critical Strike Chance.

When it comes to the active skills for the Construct, it truly does not matter for this build. Whichever ability provides the fastest or most reliable hits on enemies will the best choices for Exploding Shadowmist.

Skill Tree Points

Recommended

Suggested Skill Bar

Blood Mist Blight Decrepify Corpse Tendrils Bone Storm Corpse Explosion

Priority Skills & Skill Tree Passives	Cluster
Reap, Enhanced Reap	Basic Skill
Blight, Enhanced Blight, Paranormal Blight, Hewed Flesh Level 3	Core Skill
Corpse Explosion, Enhanced Corpse Explosion, Blighted Corpse Explosion, Blood Mist Level 2, Enhanced Blood Mist, Ghastly Blood Mist, Grim Harvest, Fueled by Death Level 3	Corpse & Macabre Skill
Death’s Embrace Level 3, Amplify Damage Level 3, Decrepify, Enhanced Decrepify, Abhorrent Decrepify	Curse Skill
Corpse Tendrils, Enhanced Corpse Tendrils, Plagued Corpse Tendrils, Reaper’s Pursuit Level 3, Crippling Darkness, Gloom Level 3, Terror Level 3	Summoning Skill
Bone Storm, Prime Bone Storm, Stand Alone Level 3, Memento Mori	Ultimate Skill
Shadowblight	Key Passives

Remaining Renown Points	Cluster
Corpse Explosion Level 5, Blood Mist Level 4, Necrotic Carapace Level 2	Corpse & Macabre Skill
Memento Mori Level 3	Ultimate Skill

Book of the Dead

Since we are focusing entirely on dealing brutal damage with our shadow skills, we have no interest in bothering with using our minions, so they will all be sacrificed in the name of Lilith.

• Melee Skeletons: Reapers; these are sacrificed for a great amount of extra Shadow damage dealt.
• Mage Skeletons: Cold Mages; this provides increased damage against Vulnerable targets.
• Golem: Blood; this gives us more Life.

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

The Starting Board is very straight forward: You’ll want to focus on picking up the Rare nodes and only taking the extra pathing to fulfill the desired attributes required to benefit from the Additional Bonus modifier of the Amplify Glyph when it’s high enough level to achieve that. Any extra attribute nodes should be ignored unless they serve the purpose of that.

Wither

Make sure to rotate Wither to fit the image above. The first thing we’ll want to do here is grab the Wither Legendary Node then rush the socket and put in the Exhumation Glyph. Similar to our Starting Board, we’ll only take the extra attributes if they are within radius and can fulfill the Additional Bonus requirement of the Glyph. After this we will ignore the north exit till later and focus on heading out on the right-hand side to Flesh-Eater.

Flesh-Eater

For Flesh-Eater we want to rush the Legendary Node. You will head towards the socket on your way to the node and use the Territorial Glyph. Same story as per usual, don’t take the extra attributes unless the Glyph level is high enough to cover the required attributes within range! Next up we skip the Rare and Magic Nodes on the right side and instead save them for our last Paragon Points, as it is more important to head down south and connect Scent of Death.

Scent of Death

Scent of Death is just as straight forward as our previous boards. We will first want to rush the Legendary Node, then grab the socket and put in a Sacrificial Glyph and as per usual only take the extra attributes if the Glyph level allows for it within its radius. Once this is completed, we will head back to Wither, as we want to head out north from that one and connect Cult Leader.

Cult Leader

Cult Leader is here to serve but one purpose: another Glyph. So we will therefor rush the socket and use the Control Glyph and grab the surrounding nodes required to enable the bonus modifier from the Glyph itself. Once done we’ll head back to our Flesh-Eater Board as we are now heading out on the right side from that board.

Bloodbath

Our final board is the Bloodbath Board. Similar to our previous board in this guide we are strictly here to make use of yet another Glyph to further scale our damage efficiency. We’ll rush the socket in which we use the Scourge Glyph and as per usual; grab any required attributes within range if the level of the Glyph allows for it to be done within the radius. After this you’ll simply fill out any extra nodes you’ve skipped in any of the previous boards as you progress to level 100. Happy hunting!

Paragon board images courtesy of d4builds.gg.

Mechanics and Playstyle

This build is all about Lucky Hits. Depending on the tier of content and what level you are and the gear you are, using you’ll play the build a bit differently, so let’s start with the initial end-game approach.

When enemies are not straight up just 1-shotting you (around Tier 50-60 Nightmare dungeons being the highest where this is expected to work smoothly), you will follow the priority list below in your rotation:

1. Use Decrepify
2. Are you forced to use Blood Mist, because you are taking too much damage?
   • If yes, use it.
   • If no, use the following abilities in this order: Bone Storm > Blight > Corpse Tendrils (if there is a corpse available).
3. Use Blood Mist

The rotation displayed above is used for bigger packs of enemies. If you encounter smaller packs that you do not need to kill to progress your dungeon, you just want to bring them with you to the next pack and only kill if they pose a direct threat to you. This build is not a great for single-target, but rather a speed-clearing god and does so with ease and grace.

For single-target the rotation gets much easier, you are essentially doing the exact same thing but instead of always diving in to Blood Mist you can weave in manually casted Corpse Explosion and simply run around the target until it is dead.

When you start pushing the super high-end Tiers of Nightmare dungeons at Level 60-100, the rotation becomes very easy but still tricky to pull off as enemies are now posing a huge direct threat. Kiting smaller packs of enemies into a big one is not as easy, if doable at all in some cases.

Your main priority is to always make sure your Decrepify is up and then jump straight in to Blood Mist as often as you possibly can.

Gear Choice and Stat Priority

Since we are strictly looking for as much Lucky Hit Chance as possible combined with Cooldown Reduction modifiers there is a handful of unique items we can utilize and the list below are the recommended slots and below you’ll find a list of suggested powers to use in place of the unique items recommended.

Listed below are the affixes to prioritize on gear for the Exploding Shadow Mist Necromancer. 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

Listed below are all the recommended Legendary Aspects, whether from the Codex of Power or found on Legendary Items, that are important for the Exploding Shadow Mist Necromancer build. Aspects from the Codex of Power can be used if you cannot find the proper Legendary drops, but they have weaker effects.

Gear Slot	Aspect Name	Aspect Power
Helm	Aspect of Explosive Mist	Blood Mist triggers Corpse Explosion on surrounding Corpses. When Blood Mist detonates a Corpse, its Cooldown is reduced by 0.2-0.5 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%
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.
Amulet (50% scaling)	Blighted Aspect	You deal 50-120% increased damage for 6 seconds after the Shadowblight Key Passive damages enemies 10 times.
Ring	Blood-soaked Aspect	Blood Mist leaves a trail that lasts for 4 seconds and deals X Shadow damage per second to enemies who stand in it. Your Movement Speed is no longer reduced while Blood Mist is active.
Ring	Osseous Gale Aspect	Bone Storm consumes up to 8 Corpses to increase its duration by up to 5-10 seconds.
Offhand	Aspect of Ultimate Shadow	Bone Storm and Blood Wave are also Darkness Skills, deal Shadow damage, and gain additional effects: Enemies damaged by Bone Storm take X Shadow Damage over 2 seconds. Blood Wave creates Desecrated Ground as it travels dealing X Shadow damage over 4 seconds.

Unique Items

While perhaps not strictly mandatory, we firmly believe that without Howl from Below gloves you will have an inferior experience with this specific version of the build. There’s a handful of other options that do VERY well for this build and would even be considered “Best in Slot”. Below you’ll find a list of these items:

• Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul amazing ring for this build and simply replaces the Osseous Gale Aspect power.
• Black River: very effective damage increase for your build, however a Rare wand would do just as well and some would say even better. It comes down to a preferential decision. Do keep in mind that a Rare wand offers the possibility of another Aspect Power.
• Greaves of the Empty Tomb: a Rare pair of boots is the best option for speed-clearing Nightmare dungeons below Tier 60, however if you’re looking to push the higher tiers, these Unique boots will provide tons of extra Lucky Hit Chance, making them a great choice for that purpose.
• Godslayer Crown is extremely effective for the higher end-game for this build. (To use this you will simply move your Explosive Mist aspect to your boots and remove the current boots aspect from your set-up).

Gems

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

• Weapon: Royal Amethyst for +#% Increased damage over time.
• Armor: Royal Ruby for +#% Maximum Life.
• Jewelry: Royal Diamond to help increase our Resistances for more damage mitigation, you can also use elemental specific gems to help get to the 70% cap.

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 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.

For the endgame, it’s important to make sure you have the highest level health potion as well as an active elixir as it provides increased experience gained and can either compensate low resistances or increase your damage output in the form of attack speed.

Changelog

• January 22nd, 2024: Guide updated for Season 3 Season of the Construct.
• October 28th, 2023: Big rework of both skill-tree, gear and paragon board to optimize performance.
• October 21st, 2023: Updated Paragon Boards.
• October 15th, 2023: Guide updated for Season 2 Season of Blood, Patch 1.2.
• August 7th, 2023: Guide updated for Patch 1.1.1.
• August 3rd, 2023: Updated Season 1 Heart list for better performance.
• July 19th, 2023: Guide updated for Season 1 including Malignant Hearts.