Summoner Endgame Necromancer Build for Diablo 4 (Season 3)

Build Introduction

The beloved playstyle of having an army of Skeletal Minions destroying everything for you is the main focus of this build guide. It is important to point out that Minion-focused Necromancer currently has severe issues with general clear-speed, as well as issues with both damage output and survival until you hit Level 50+. It is not recommended to switch to this build until you have started progressing the Paragon Boards to provide layers of defenses, as well as offense, for your army.

That said, the build will require certain Legendary Powers to be a performing character, which is covered in this guide. Outside of letting our minions do our damage, we will be Cursing enemies with Decrepify and Slowing them down on top of consistent damage output via Bone Spear.

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 has no mandatory items or Aspects to function, meaning you can play it right from the start!

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 Summoner Necromancer:

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

• Minions being able to walk through Bone Prison is a nice quality of life buff.
• Skeletal Priest healing was buffed significantly.
• Golems got a variety of quality of life buffs including area of effect on their strikes as well as target change on the golems ability use.

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 Summoner Necromancer.

Skill Tree Points

Recommended

Suggested Skill Bar

Bone Spear Summoning Skill Summoning Skill Blood Mist Decrepify Corpse Tendrils

The following tables show the full allocation of Skill Points for the Summoner 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 & Skill Tree Passives	Cluster
Bone Splinters, Enhanced Bone Splinters	Basic Skill
Bone Spear Level 5, Enhanced Bone Spear, Paranormal Bone Spear Hewed Flesh Level 3	Core Skill
Blood Mist, Enhanced Blood Mist, Ghastly Blood Mist Grim Harvest Level 3, Fueled by Death Level 3, Skeletal Warrior Mastery Level 3, Corpse Tendrils, Enhanced Corpse Tendrils, Plagued Corpse Tendrils	Corpse & Macabre Skill
Decrepify, Enhanced Decrepify, Abhorrent Decrepify, Death’s Embrace Level 3, Skeletal Mage Mastery Level 3, Death’s Reach Level 3	Curse Skill
Bonded in Essence Level 3, Inspiring Leader Level 3, Death’s Defense Level 2	Ultimate Skill
Kalan’s Edict	Key Passives

Remaining Renown Points	Cluster
Amplify Damage Level 3	Curse Skill
Hellbent Commander Level 3, Golem Mastery Level 3, Death’s Defense Level 3	Ultimate Skill

Book of the Dead

Since we are focusing on dealing damage with our minions, we will be keeping all our minions alive for this build, and not sacrificing any of them.

• Melee Skeletons; Skirmisher Skeletons We grab the +1 extra skeleton upgrade.
• Mage Skeletons; Cold Skeletons will provide insane amounts of Essence per hit with the first option.
• Golem; Bone Golem provides extra layers of defense by being able to taunt enemies for us and shed corpses upon taking 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 reduction for your Minions, Minion damage and Attack Speed, 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 will be focused on picking getting to the socket slot, and we will want the Mage Glyph. Depending on the level and radius, you should pick up the extra Intelligence Nodes if you can enable the Additional Bonus for it. Then, we proceed by pathing upward for our next board, Flesh-Eater, by taking all Magic Nodes and the Rare Node on the left side.

Flesh-Eater

Flesh-Eater should be rushed through by taking the socket and the Legendary Node. Pick up the Rare and Magic nodes, when you reach the socket, you’ll want to use the Warrior Glyph. Similarly to our starting board, if the radius is big enough to get the bonus modifier, you should take the extra Intelligence. Once done, we’ll path out to the north side for our third board, Cult Leader.

Cult Leader

Similarly to our previous board, we’ll be rushing towards the Legendary Node and picking up the Rare and Magic Nodes as shown in the image above on the way. Once you reach the socket, you’ll slot in the Deadraiser Glyph and the extra Nodes around for damage mitigation for our minions. Make sure you grab the displayed Rare and Magic nodes before you move upward to the fourth board, Hulking Monstrosity.

Hulking Monstrosity

For Hulking Monstrosity, we will rotate to get the socket slot first, in which we want to use the Corporeal Glyph. Similarly to our previous boards, we’ll take the extra attributes if the radius allows for us to benefit from the bonus modifier. After this, we will finish our progression by getting the remaining Rare and Magic nodes. After this we move out to our last board, Scent of Death.

Scent of Death

With Scent of Death, we’ll fit it so we can rush the socket, in which we use the Control Glyph which will provide a ton of extra damage against crowd controlled enemies. This board is exclusively used to get another Glyph and benefit from a lot of extra damage multipliers.

Paragon board images courtesy of d4builds.gg.

Mechanics and Playstyle

The main focus is to make sure all your minions are alive and well. Ensure to use the Raise Skeleton skill every 5 seconds, keeping the damage buff and heal up on your Minions. Outside of this, it’s important you keep enemies Cursed with Decrepify and use your Bone Spear to apply Vulnerable and deal more damage, as we will be getting tons of Essence thanks to our Mage Skeletons. Whenever you run out of Essence, spamming the Summon Skeleton skill will generate more Essence back thanks to Grim Harvest.

The last slot on the Skill Bar is for the Golem.

Bone Splinters is NOT used on the Skill Bar, and simply taken because points must be allocated in the Basic cluster.

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 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 (although bolded ones are particularly important):

Gear Slot	Important Affixes
2H Scythe	+ Critical Strike Damage + Vulnerable Damage + Damage to Close Enemies + Intelligence
Helm	+ Life + Armor + Intelligence (Or any resistances if you need to reach the 70% cap) + All Stats (Or any resistances if you need to reach the 70% cap)
Chest	+ Damage Reduction + Armor + Life + Intelligence (Or any resistances if you need to reach the 70% cap)
Gloves	+ Critical Strike Chance + Lucky Hit Chance + Lucky Hit: Up to 5% chance to restore x% of primary resource + Attack Speed
Pants	+ Damage Reduction + Armor + Life + Intelligence (Or any resistances if you need to reach the 70% cap)
Boots	+ Movement Speed + Essence Cost Reduction + Intelligence (Or any resistances if you need to reach the 70% cap) + Life
Amulet	+ Movement Speed + Minion Attack Speed + Ranks of the Hellbent Commander + Essence Cost Reduction
Ring (Rare)	+ Critical Strike Chance + Vulnerable Damage + Lucky Hit + Intelligence
Ring (Unique)	Ring of Mendeln: The higher the Unique effect is rolled, the better.

Legendary Aspects and Codex of Power

Listed below are all the suggested Aspects found in dungeons or on Legendary Items that are important for the Summoner Necromancer build. It’s important to point out that for this build to even function, you will need to make sure your minions are staying alive and have high attack speed, making Aspects such as the Aspect of Hardened Bones and Aspect of Frenzied Dead absolutely crucial.

Gear Slot	Aspect Name	Legendary Aspect Power
Helm	Aspect of Hardened Bones	While you have 7 or more Minions, your Minions gain 15-20% increased Damage Reduction.
Chest	Coldbringer’s Aspect	Every 10 seconds, your Cold Skeletal Mages cast a blizzard that deals X Cold damage and continuously Chills enemies for 8% over 6 seconds.
Gloves	Viscous Aspect	Your maximum number of Skeletal Mages is increased by 2.
Pants	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%.
Boots	Blood Getter’s Aspect	Your maximum number of Skeletal Warriors is increased by 2.
Weapon (100% Scaling)	Aspect of Reanimation	Your skeleton gain increased damage while alive, up to 20-30% after 10 seconds.
Amulet (50% Scaling)	Aspect of Frenzied Dead	Each time one of your Summoning Minions damages an enemy, they gain 10-14% Attack Speed for 3 seconds, up to 30-42%.
Ring	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.
Ring	Aspect of Exposed Flesh	Lucky Hit: Up to a 10% chance to generate 30-50 Essence when hitting a Vulnerable enemy.

Unique Item

The unique Ring of Mendeln is a great addition for this build, as the Lucky Hit will allow your Minions’ next attack to explode, dealing a significant amount of damage. This Unique will allow you to take this build to a much higher level where your damage numbers will skyrocket.

Gems

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

• Weapon: Royal Emerald to increase +#% damage dealt against Vulnerable targets.
• Armor: Royal Ruby to increase your life.
• Jewelry: Royal Diamond for increased Resistances, you could also use a specific elemental resistance gem to help get to the 70% cap for all elements.

Elixirs and Health Potions

To gain an edge in your adventures, head to the Alchemist 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

• March 5th, 2024: Guide updated for 1.3.3.
• January 22nd, 2024: Guide updated for Season 3 Season of the Construct.
• October 28th, 2023: Improved the entire Paragon Board.
• October 22nd, 2023: Minor Skill-Tree Adjustments.
• 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.