Sever Shadowmancer Endgame Necromancer Build for Diablo 4 (Season 4)

Build Introduction

The Shadowmancer is designed entirely around Shadowblight by using Sever and Blighted Corpse Explosion to consistently deal Shadow damage to enemies while ramping up big layers of defense and crowd control. This results in an effective, high-damage dealing and safe Necromancer build, capable of dealing with the Capstone dungeon with ease.

Since Shadowblight has the ability to ramp up in longer single-target boss fights, Necromancer can reach crazy damage output when fighting world bosses or harder boss encounters in general. The endgame Legendary Aspects will further scale this mechanic as well!

Thanks to making enemies Vulnerable and providing effective crowd control in the form of both Slowed and Stunned enemies, this build is effective in solo play as well as in party with your friends.

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 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 Sever Shadowmancer Necromancer:

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

Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul

The build functions very well without the ring but works significantly better with it!

Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

Recommended

Suggested Skill Bar

Sever Bone Storm Corpse Tendrils Blood Mist Decrepify Summoning Skill

Book of the Dead

The Shadowmancer is mainly focused on damage-over-time effects, this can be scaled by using Mage Skeletons so we’ll have that which makes Melee Skeletons a free choice to provide a layer of defense for us whilst we sacrifice the golem.

• Melee Skeletons; Defenders The upgrade choice is to make them take 99% reduced damage turning them in to extremely reliable tanks.
• Mage Skeletons; Shadow will increase our Shadow damage by x3% per active Shadow Mage we have.
• Golem; Iron will be sacrificed to give us more Critical Strike Damage.

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 starter board. Note that each Rare Glyph’s information and radius listed below is for the Level 21 version.

1. Starting Board

The Starting Board is very straightforward; we rush on the right-hand side skipping one of the Magic Nodes, then we get the Socket node in which we use the Darkness Glyph. If the radius of the glyph allows for the Additional Bonus to be met, you should get the extra Intelligence nodes. After this, we will head out north to our second board, Bloodbath.

2. Bloodbath

Rotate the board 3 times to fit the image above. Socket node will be rushed for the Territorial Glyph, only grab extra attributes to enable the bonus modifier if available in radius. Before heading to the Magic and Rare nodes up north we will first exist on the right to our 3rd board; Bone Graft.

3. Bone Graft

No rotations will be needed. Socket Node is our first priority to get the Essence Glyph, as per usual, we only take the extra attributes if the Glyph level allows for the needed attributes to be within radius. We will ignore the south route for now and come back to this board later. Grab the Magic and Rare nodes up top then we go back to the Bloodbath board and grab the remaining Magic and Rare on the north side there and exit up top to enable Flesh-Eater.

4. Flesh-Eater

You’ll need to rotate the board once. Flesh-Eater is a Legendary Node we’ll want to get but first we pick up the Socket Node for the Amplify Glyph and the Magic and Rare as shown in the image. Then we grab the Flesh-eater before we head out on the right side to our 5th board!

5. Cult Leader

2 Rotations will be needed on this board. Just like our previous board we’ll rush the Socket Node for the Mage Glyph and pick up the surrounding Magic and Rare as shown in the image before we go diagonally to the top right corner for the Legendary Node Cult Leader. Now we head back to our 3rd Board (Bone Graft) and follow the path out on the south side towards our 6th board.

6. Wither

1 Rotation is required to fit the image above. We’ll rush the Socket Node for the Abyssal Glyph and take the surrounding Magic and Rare nodes before we exit on the right-hand side for our last board!

7. Scent of Death

Rotate the board twice to fit the image above. Just like previous boards we are yet again rushing the Socket Node for the Control Glyph and taking the surrounding Magic and Rare nodes as we travel up north for the Legendary Node Scent of Death.

Paragon Board images courtesy of d4builds.gg.

Gear, Gems, Elixirs, and Stats

The Season of Loot Reborn brings us an incredible shift in how gear and itemization are done. It is a major and will affect the game beyond Season 4’s confines. For further details, make sure to read our Tempering and Masterworking section below.

Legendary Aspects

Each aspect is listed with its matching gear slot. Do your best to keep each aspect in the assigned slot. Additionally, if you are trying to farm a specific item, we recommend using your Obols to target farm them!

Gear Slot	Gems	Aspect / Unique	Legendary Aspect / Unique Power
Helm	Royal Ruby	Aspect of Hardened Bones	You and your Minions gain 10-25% increased Damage Reduction.
Chest	Royal Ruby	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.
Gloves	N/A	Aspect of Ultimate Shadow	Bone Storm is now a Darkness Skill, dealing Shadow damage and makes enemies take X Shadow Damage over 2 seconds.
Pants	Royal Ruby	Aspect of Occult Dominion	Your maximum number of Skeletal Warriors and Skeletal Mages is increased by 2.
Boots	N/A	Aspect of Slaughter	You gain 20% Movement Speed. Lose this bonus for 2.5-5 seconds after taking damage.
Weapon 1H (sword)	Royal Emerald	Aspect of the Damned	You deal x35-50% increased Shadow damage to enemies afflicted by any Curse.
Off-hand (Focus)	Royal Emerald	Aspect of Empowering Reaper	Damaging enemies with Sever has a 10-25% chance to spawn a pool of Blight under the target that deals x40-100% bonus damage. This effect can only happen once every 3 seconds.
Amulet (50% Scaling)	Any Resistance Jewel	Aspect of Grasping Veins	Gain 15-38% increased Critical Strike Chance for 6 seconds when you cast Corpse Tendrils. You deal x30-75% bonus Critical Strike Damage to enemies damaged by Corpse Tendrils.
Ring	Any Resistance Jewel	Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul	You automatically active the following equipped Skills on Corpses around you: Raise Skeleton every 2-1 seconds Corpse Explosion every 2-1 seconds Corpse Tendrils every 16-8 seconds
Ring	Any Resistance Jewel	Blighted Aspect	You deal x60-120% increased damage for 6 seconds after the Shadowblight Key Passive damages enemies 10 times.

Gems

See below for a more detailed explanation of the best Gems to socket into your gear for each category.

Weapon Gems	Armor Gems	Jewelry Gems
Royal Emerald For Crit Damage.	Royal Ruby For increased Maximum Life.	Royal Amethyst Royal Sapphire Royal Ruby Royal Skull

Which Elixirs Should You Use?

Visit the Alchemist and craft an Elixir providing any Resistance you need most, or the Elixir of Advantage to increase Attack Speed. Some Elixirs cannot be crafted and only drop from things like Helltides or Nightmare Dungeons. Additionally, make sure to keep your health potion upgraded!

Stat Priority and Tempering Affixes

Affixes on the same line are considered to be equally important. Bolded affixes are the most important targets for Masterworking upgrades.

Slot	Targeted Gear Affixes	Tempering Affixes
Helm	1. Maximum Life 2. Essence per Second 3. Armor	Profane Innovation #% Decrepify Size Worldly Endurance # Maximum Life
Chest	1. Maximum Life 2. Armor 3. Damage Reduction	Worldly Endurance # Maximum Life Profane Innovation #% Corpse Tendrils Size
Gloves	1. Attack Speed 2. Ranks to Sever 3. Critical Strike Chance	Profane Finesse #% Damage to Cursed Enemies Profane Innovation #% Corpse Tendrils Size
Pants	1. Maximum Life 2. Intelligence 3. All resistance	Worldly Endurance # Maximum Life Worldly Fortune Lucky Hit: #% Chance to Stun for 2 seconds
Boots	1. Essence per Second 2. Movement Speed 3. Maximum Life	Necromancer Motion #% Movement Speed Natural Schemes #% Crowd Control Duration
Amulet	1. Ranks to Gloom 2. Attack Speed 3. Cooldown Reduction	Profane Finesse #% Damage to Cursed Enemies Necromancer Efficiency #% Ultimate Cooldown Reduction
Ring	1. Attack Speed 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Intelligence	Profane Finesse #% Damage to Cursed Enemies Necromancer Efficiency #% Ultimate Cooldown Reduction
1h Weapon (Sword)	1. Intelligence 2. Attack Speed 3. Critical Strike Damage	Shadow Augments — Execution #% Chance for Sever Projectiles to Cast Twice Profane Finesse #% Damage to Cursed Enemies
Off-hand (Focus)	1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Critical Strike Chance 3. Attack Speed	Shadow Augments — Execution #% Chance for Sever Projectiles to Cast Twice Profane Finesse #% Damage to Cursed Enemies

Keep in mind that the maximum Resistance is 70% by default for each element and can be increased to 85% by various sources.

Rotation and Playstyle

Playstyle is very comfortable with your Defender Melee Skeletons running up and tanking enemies without the risk of dying whilst you and your Mage Skeletons are bombarding the enemies from a safe distance.

Rotation wise we’ll be making sure we keep enemies cursed by Decrepify and that our Bone Storm is up for the damage increase it provides. After this we’ll want to use Corpse Tendrils as soon as there is a corpse available for increased damage output and crowd controlling the enemies. Besides the set-up we’ll just be spamming Sever for damage output and it will also trigger Blight to make enemies take more damage thanks to our aspect powers. It’s wise to use the Summoning Skill during fights as well to heal your Mage Skeletons and make them deal more damage!

Uniques and Uber Uniques

Below you will find information on Uniques and Uber Uniques that are useful for this build. Moreover, if you are interested in target farming Uber Uniques, check out our How to Farm Uber Uniques guide.

Uniques

The Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul is the only regular unique item we care about.

Uber Uniques

Some uber unique items can bring a lot of power but they come at the cost of an aspect power. Below you’ll find a list of potentially useable uber uniques.

• Ring of Starless Skies – Replaces Aspect of Empowering Reaper and this means removing our points in Blight and putting them elsewhere.
• Harlequin Crest – Replaces Hardened Bones

Season 4: Loot Reborn

The following list details the changes in the Season 4 Update (Patch 1.4.0) that may pertain to the Summoner Necromancer build. Check the Changelog for all the other guide updates. As you can see only 1 change affected the build directly and its a good one!

• Blood Mist got the movement speed penalty removed!
• Aspect of the Damned only requires enemies to be cursed instead of having both Iron Maiden and Decrepify.

Advanced Information

Below, you will find every additional piece of information you need to know for a more in-depth look at this build.

Build Mechanics

The build stacks a ton of Shadow damage from a variety of sources both from ourselves and minions. These hits will trigger the Shadowblight Key Passive for high damage bursts. Sever itself serves the purpose of our main damage outside of that but it also pops Blight on enemies thanks to our legendary aspect powers making them take increased damage.

Only mechanic of the build that’s out of the ordinary is the way we use our Melee Skeletons. They are Defenders with the upgrade chosen that makes them take 99% reduced damage, this allows them to tank literally everything in the game without the risk of dying!

Defenses

Consistent crowd control on the field in the form of slows by keeping enemies cursed with Decrepify, multiple sources of stuns and an army of more or less immortal Melee Defender Skeletons makes the build extremely resilient. Should something get through and actually hit you despite all of that you don’t need to worry, the build offers a ton of defensive layers via the gear and legendary aspect to mitigate incoming damage. However, we can’t always be perfect, if we end up in a dangerous situation we always have trusty old Blood Mist to get us out of harms way and let our minions take over the tanking job!

Offenses

Big critical strike hits with Sever with an army of Mage Skeletons all ramping up hits for even bigger bursts of damage via the Shadowblight Key Passive is the main sources of damage output this build brings to the table.

Corpse Tendrils both stuns and pulls enemies in on top of providing you with extra critical strike chance and critical strike damage. Bone Storm further scales your Critical Strike focus!

Paragon

The recommended Paragon boards for this build are listed above, and further down below, you can find a more thorough route for allocating the Paragon points, as well as some notes on why specific nodes were chosen and why they are essential for this build.

Glyphs & Legendary Nodes	Effect
Darkness	– For every 5 Intelligence purchased within range, you deal 6,6% increased Shadow damage. – Additional Bonus is unlocked with 40 Intelligence in radius, making your Shadow damage cause the enemy to deal 2% reduced damage, up to 10% for 5 seconds.
Territorial	– For every 5 Dexterity purchased within range, you deal +10% increased damage to Close targets. – Additional Bonus is unlocked with 25 Dexterity in radius, making you gain 15% Damage Reduction against Close enemies.
Essence	– For every 5 Dexterity purchased within range, you deal +20% increased Critical Strike Damage. – Additional Bonus is unlocked with 25 Dexterity in radius, making your Critical Strikes deal x22% increased damage to enemies that are not Healthy.
Amplify	– Grants +150% bonus to all Magic Nodes within range. – Additional Bonus is unlocked with 40 intelligence in radius making enemies affected by your Curses take an additional x10% increased damage from you and your minions.
Mage	– For every 5 Intelligence purchased within range, Skeleton Mages deal +13,2% increased damage. – Additional Bonus is unlocked with 40 Intelligence in radius, giving your minions +35% increased Resistance to All Elements.
Abyssal	– Paragon nodes within range gain +75% bonus to their Non-physical damage and damage reduction modifiers. – Additional Bonus is unlocked with 25 Dexterity in radius, making you deal x10% increased Non-Physical damage.
Control	– For every 5 Intelligence purchased within range, you deal +10% increased damage to Crowd Controlled targets. – Additional Bonus is unlocked with 40 Intelligence in radius, you deal x10% increased damage to Slowed or Chilled enemies or, instead, x20% increased damage to Stunned or Frozen enemies.
Flesh-eater	Consuming 5 Corpses grants x40% increased damage for 6 seconds.
Cult Leader	Your Minions deal x30% increased damage for each x20% of Attack Speed Bonus they have, up to a maximum of 100% Attack Speed Bonus.
Scent of Death	With at least 2 Corpses Nearby, you gain 15% Damage Reduction. With no Corpses Nearby, you deal x15% increased damage.

Let’s take it one step further and break down each of the beneficial nodes we spend our Paragon Points on.

Starting Board

1. We will consistently be rushing the Socket Node on almost all boards, starting board is no different. Never take extra attributes to unlock the Glyphs bonus modifier unless there is enough within radius as well!
2. The Magic and Rare nodes in the start on the left-hand side can wait till you reach World Tier 4.

Bloodbath

1. Socket Node rush!
2. Important to note that we are NOT taking the Magic and Rare up north next, we are first heading out to the right side for our 3rd board before we get back to this board.

Bone Graft

1. Socket Node rush!
2. Skip the path going south, instead we grab the Magic and Rare up north.
3. Now we go back to the Bloodbath board and grab the remaining Magic and Rare up north and head out for our 4th board that way.

Flesh-Eater

1. Socket Node rush!
2. Grab the Magic and Rare as shown in the image and get the Legendary Node Flesh-eater before exiting on the right.

Cult Leader

1. Socket Node rush!
2. Get the surrounding Magic and Rare in range of the Glyph then move diagonally to the top right corner for the Legendary Node Cult Leader.
3. Now we move back to our 3rd Board (Bone Graft) and path south to our 6th Board!

Wither

1. Socket Node rush!
2. Make sure to get the surrounding Magic and Rare nodes before you exit on the right.

Scent of Death

1. Socket Node rush!
2. Grab the surrounding Magic and Rare in range of the Glyph
3. Move up north to get the Legendary Node Scent of Death

Tempering and Masterworking

The Season 4 update (Patch 1.4.0) introduces a rework for itemization. Tempering and Masterworking bring the biggest change to itemization since the release of Diablo 4, so make sure you understand the new systems explained in this section.

The amount of affixes on items has been changed to reflect its rarity: Normal Items have no affixes, Magic Items have 1 affix, Rare Items have 2 affixes, Legendary Items have 3 affixes, and Unique Items have 4 affixes. Upgrading a Rare Item to a Legendary Item by imprinting a Legendary Aspect from the Codex of Power will not add a third affix. Therefore, Legendary Items are superior to lower rarity items for a min-maxed character.

Greater Affixes are a newly added mechanic that increases the value of an affix by 50%. Ancestral Legendary Items and Unique Items can now drop with up to 4 Greater Affixes! Search for items with your preferred Greater Affixes to upgrade with Tempering and Masterworking.

Tempering and Masterworking is an important system, even mandatory in the endgame, for character progression. You are able to add 2 additional affixes on any Rare Item or Legendary Item, exclusive to the Tempering System. An Ancestral Legendary Item can have up to 5 total affixes! Unfortunately, Unique Items cannot be tempered to add affixes.

Masterworking uses new crafting materials found in The Pit to further enhance the stats of an item. These upgrades can be applied on an Ancestral Legendary Item that has its Tempering Slots filled out. Unique Items can be upgraded with Masterworking right away, as tempering does not apply to them. Each item has 12 upgrade slots. On upgrade Ranks 4, 8, and 12, a random affix is increased in value by 25%. Every other upgrade Rank applies a 5% increase to all affixes on an item. Attempt to apply the bonus 25% upgrade to your preferred affix multiple times by resetting the Masterworking Ranks to repeat the process.

Obol Gambling

Obol gambling is a great way to potentially find item upgrades or items missing from your build. Check out the new tool from Icy Veins for gambling Obols in the link below:

Changelog

• May 13th, 2024: Guide updated for Season 4 Loot Reborn.
• January 22nd, 2024: Guide updated for Season 3 Season of the Construct.
• October 15th, 2023: Guide updated for Season 2 Season of Blood, Patch 1.2.
• August 7th, 2023: Guide updated for Patch 1.1.1.
• July 19th, 2023: Guide updated for Season 1 including Malignant Hearts.