Best Diablo 4 Necromancer build: Cast bones and explode corpses

The best Diablo 4 Necromancer build is all about blowing up corpses. Sure, there are builds that may be more optimal in the endgame, but there's nothing quite as fun as Corpse Explosion for Necromancer—it's hard to beat the joy of turning your enemy's bodies against their former comrades. The more you kill, the more corpses you create to then blow up or consume to summon fresh minions. Nice.

While Corpse Explosion isn't quite strong enough on its own, once you enhance it with some key passives, and throw in abilities that help you apply vulnerable, increasing its damage, it can be a surprisingly strong ability, especially as it's free, instant, and has no cooldown. This build will also help make your minions strong for extra survivability. That said, if you don't particularly like Corpse Explosion, I've also included a very good Bone Spear build lower down the page.

Corpse Explosion Necromancer build

The Corpse Explosion build is a simple one: you make corpses and explode them, while also debuffing enemies with Corpse Tendrils and Iron Golem slam to take more damage from said explosions. While all this is happening, a combo of your minions and passives lets you generate corpses, essence, and Fortify, while your Bone Storm ultimate grants survivability in tough spots. 

Skills

Here are the six skills you need to equip for this build:

• Bone Spear: This core skill is a good investment, letting you apply vulnerable at will for better explosion damage. It can also be made better with the Splintering Aspect and the Unique Deathless Visage helm in the late game.
• Plagued Corpse Explosion: A key component of this build; this ability deals a stacking damage bonus to stunned, slowed, and vulnerable enemies, but can also generate essence with the Grim Harvest passive.
• Plagued Corpse Tendrils: This ability slows, stuns, and makes enemies vulnerable, plus groups them up for more effective explosion damage.
• Iron Golem Slam: This is your Iron Golem's core ability that stuns enemies in an AoE and makes them vulnerable
• Raise Dead: Your classic way to re-recruit fallen minions.
• Bone Storm: This ultimate provides great survivability for the Necro, especially once you get the Aspect of the Shielding Storm that allows it to create a barrier.

You'll also need to unlock a basic skill, so I recommend Decompose, which serves as a great way to create corpses and generate essence in the early game, before you unlock reapers, as well as essence and corpse generating passives.

Passives and Book of the Dead

The most important passives for this build are Hewed Flesh, Grim Harvest, Fueled by Death, and Necrotic Carapace. The first gives any attack a chance at creating a corpse, the second gives you essence when you explode one, the third gives a damage bonus for exploding a corpse, and the last gives you Fortify whenever a corpse is created, which is great for early game survivability. 

In terms of other passives, Skeletal Warrior Mastery, Skeletal Mage Mastery, Golem Mastery, Kalan's Edict, Bonded in Essence, Inspiring Leader, and Death's Defence are all about buffing your minions, whether in terms of health, healing, or attack speed. After all, your minions are vital for producing corpses, slamming enemies, and freezing foes in the case of your mages.

Reaper Skeletal Warriors second node gives them a chance to create corpses when attacking, Cold Skeletal Mages can either produce essence or make frozen enemies vulnerable for more explosions, while your Iron Golem's second node that makes slammed enemies vulnerable is vital.

Aspects

There are six aspects that I consider core to this build:

While I'd say those above are optimal, this build will benefit from any crowd control or stun related aspect, such as Aspect of Retribution or Exploiter's Aspect. For example, Aspect of the Umbral grants essence when you crowd control enemies, so works very well with Corpse Tendrils. I personally also love Aspect of Shared Misery; you hit a crowd controlled enemy, and there's a chance for that debuff to spread. This works very well using Corpse Explosion on a group of enemies who have been crowd controlled by Corpse Tendrils, slammed by your golem, or chilled and frozen by your mages.

The two best aspects for this build come from Unique items, namely; Deathless Visage helm, and the Black River scythe. The first greatly enhances the power of your Bone Spears, while the second supercharges Corpse Explosion, letting it consume up to four extra corpses for more damage and radius, making it far more viable in the endgame.

Gems and Affix Priority

Now for the nitty gritty; I'd recommend damage bonuses against slowed, stunned, crowd controlled, and vulnerable enemies. The good thing about this build is that you're applying so many different debuffs that no matter what you have it's bound to give your damage a boost. I'd also suggest improved crit rate or damage for bone skills, and of course, extra ranks for corpse skills, or specific skills like Bone Spear or Corpse Explosion are pretty valuable. It's also good to get some extra evade charges on the feet so you can escape dangerous situations.

In gem terms, Emeralds or Sapphires boost crit damage against vulnerable or crowd controlled enemies, but otherwise I'd prioritise getting decent all round resistance, and the Sapphire's damage reduction while Fortified, which due to the Necrotic Carapace passive, you should almost always have.

Bone Spear Necromancer build

Bone Spear is honestly a bit broken for Necromancers at the moment, and is one of the most powerful builds for high-level content due to its ability to throw some absurdly high damage numbers. The build itself is also pretty straightforward: you use Bone Spear and Corpse Tendrils to deal effective damage, Decrepify to reduce ability cooldowns, while keeping Bone Storm and Blood Mist in your back pocket for survivability.  

Skills

There are six skills to use in this build: 

• Acolyte's Bone Splinters: This is your primary way of generating Essence for your Bone Spear casts early on, especially once combined with the Aspect of Exposed Flesh that has a Lucky Hit chance to generate Essence when you hit vulnerable enemies with bone skills.
• Paranormal Bone Spear: This is the main way you'll deal damage, gaining those extra break-off bone shards whenever you manage to crit.
• Ghastly Blood Mist: This keeps you alive when you find yourself in a dangerous spot, and provides a few corpses so you can cast Corpse Tendrils.
• Abhorrent Decrepify: Honestly, one of the best Necromancer skills. This slows enemies, giving you an easy source of crowd control, but also has a chance to reduce ability cooldowns when you hit enemies that have been Decrepified.
• Plagued Corpse Tendrils: The best version of Corpse Tendrils gives you an easy source of stun, slow, and vulnerable provided you have a corpse to use.
• Bone Storm: Another great tool of Necro survivability; Bone Storm's damage will benefit from you strengthening your bone skills, but once you get Aspect of Shielding Storm it'll also provide a barrier.

In the early game, you'll be using Bone Splinters for resource generation, but once you get Aspect of Exposed Flesh and Aspect of the Umbral, you likely won't use it as much.

Passives and Book of the Dead

The most important passives for this build centre around buffing damage and gaining benefits based on your Essence. Unliving Energy increases your max essence, while Imperfectly Balanced, Serration, Rapid Ossification, and Ossified Essence provide extra damage, crit chance, and cooldown for your bone skills based on your Essence. Evulsion and Compound Fracture add a further layer to this, dealing extra damage when you crit lots and increased crit damage against vulnerable enemies.

You can further buff your overall damage with Amplify Damage, Death's Reach, and Death's Embrace, plus you won't be using minions, so Stand Alone and Memento Mori can buff those sacrifice-based bonuses, and give you a nice chunk of damage reduction. Lastly, Hewed Flesh will give you a Lucky Hit chance to create corpses on hit so you can use Corpse Tendrils often.

This build has no room for summoning skills, so I suggest sacrificing all three minion types, specifically Skeletal Skirmishers for the increased crit chance, Cold Mages for more damage against vulnerable, and Iron Golem for more crit damage.  

Aspects 

There are a fair few aspects that are great with this build:

In terms of Unique items, the Deathless Visage helmet would be a good pick since it creates mini-explosions along the path of your Bone Spear that deal extra damage, though it might not be worth it endgame-wise if you're having to sacrifice one of the powerful aspects above. 

Gems and Affix Priority

In terms of Affixes, I'd recommend buffing Bone Skill Damage, but most importantly, Critical Strike Chance, Critical Strike Damage, and Lucky Hit Chance. The performance of this build relies heavily on you getting a steady stream of crits and lucky hits in terms of increasing your damage, creating corpses, reducing ability cooldowns, and generating Essence.  If you have extra space, then more damage to Crowd Controlled enemies will provide a lot of benefit, particularly for slowed or vulnerable enemies.

With gems, you'll want Skull on your jewellery for extra armor, an Emerald on your weapon for more crit damage against vulnerable enemies, and either Diamond or Ruby on your armor for increased Barrier Generation or Maximum Life.