Introduction

Learn everything you need to know to blow up your enemies with explosive ghosts in our Bone Spirit Necromancer Build.

Pros

• Deals Massive amounts of AOE Burst Damage
• Fun to “one-shot” most monsters in the game with Bone Spirit
• Strong Defense (for a Necromancer) with “Infimist” and quick ways to stack Barrier and Fortify.

Cons

• Falls short in HIgh-Tier NM dungeons due to “Melee” Style combat
• Only 1 way to gain unstoppable/Immune (Blood Mist)

Skill and Paragon Board

Paragon Board Order

Starter>Bone Graft>Scent of Death>Flesh Eater>Blood Bath

Glyph Leveling Priority

• Exploit (Bone Graft)
• Territorial (Scent of Death)
• Control (Starting then Flesh Eater)
• Blood-Drinker (Starting)

You will start by placing Control in the Starting Board, then moving the glyph once you gain access to the Flesh Eater Board. Control can be activated in the Starting board without the level 15 increase to radius, so for this reason, we’ll start upgrading Exploit and Territorial First.

Book of the Dead

For the Bone Spirit Necromancer, we will sacrifice all Minions. Below are the perks you will get from each sacrifice:

• Skeletal Warrior (Skirmishers) – 5% X Crit Strike Chance
• Skeletal Mages (Ice) – 15%X Increased Vulnerable Damage
• Golem (Iron) – 30% X Increased Critical Damage

Item Affix Priority

Item	1	2	3	4	5
+ Ranks to Blood Mist	Maximum Essence	Maximum Life	Cooldown Reduction	+ Total Armor	+Intelligence
Chest	Maximum Life	Damage Reduction	Damage Reduction While Fortified	+ Damage Reduction to Close Enemies	+ Total Armor
Glove (or Howl from Below)	+Ranks to Bone Spear	+Lucky HIt	+Crit Chance	+Lucky Hit: Chance to Restore Essence	+Attack Speed
Pants	Damage Reduction	Damage Reduction While Fortified	Maximum Life	+ Ranks to Blood MIst	+ Total Armor
Boots	+ Movement Speed	+Ranks to Bone Spirit	+Ranks to Corpse Tendril	+Intelligence	+ Movement Speed for X Seconds After Killing an Elite
Amulet	+ Cooldown Reduction	+ Movement Speed	+ Damage Reduction	+ Rank to All Macabre Skills	+ Ranks to Evulsion
Ring x 2	Crit Chance	Crit Damage	Maximum Essence	+ Lucky HIt	+Critical Strike Damage with Bone Skills
Wand	Vulnerable Damage	Crit Strike Damage	+Intellect	Damage with Core Skills	Crit Strike Damage with Bone Skills
Off-Hand	Cooldown Reduction	+Lucky Hit	+Intellect	Damage Reduction While Fortified	+ Lucky Hit with Barrier (must have Sorc to roll)

Legendary Aspects

Below is a list of Aspects we use and recommend for this build. The Aspects are in order starting from the most to least important.

Build Defining

• Aspect of Grasping Vines (Offensive) on 2H
• Aspect of Serration (Offensive) Amulet
• Umbral Aspect (Resource
• Disobedience (Defensive)

Recommended

• Aspect of Retribution (Offensive)
• Aspect of the Protector or Shielding Storm (Defensive)
• Aspect of the Embalmer (Defensive)
• Aspect of Explosive MIst (Utility)
• Blood-Soaked Aspect (Offensive
• Windwalker Aspect (mobility)
  • If not using Howl from Below move Explosive mist to Gloves and add to Boots

Aspect Slots

You can use Aspect in any slot you can fit it in, aside from the Amulet Aspect which needs to be used on the Blighted Aspect. Here is a reminder of the slot limitations for Legendary Aspects:

• Offensive – Amulets, Gloves, Ring, Weapons, Off-Hands
• Defensive – Amulets, Chest, Helm, Legs, Shield
• Mobility – Amulets, Boots
• Resource – Rings
• Utility – Amulets, Boots, Chest, Gloves, Helm, Shield

Unique Items

The only unique we recommend with this build is Howl From Below. Howl from Below adds range and Damage to Corpse Explosion while also adding some “Lucky Hit: CC) perks which works well with our Umbral Aspect.

There are other options that look good on paper such as Penitent Greaves and Blood Artisan’s Cuirass. Penitent Greaves works great with the Umbral Aspect but prevents us from stacking +Rank to Bone Spirit and + Rank to Corpse Tendrils. These are the two most vital skills to our build. Blood Artisans gives us some extra free Bone Spirits and helps increase clear times but at the Cost of Defense. It can be put on while farming XP, Glyph XP, drops etc, but when moving up to harder content its not recommended.

Season 1: Malignant Hearts

Malignant Hearts, a new addition to Diablo 4 through the first Seasonal experience act as a huge boost to your build capabilities. As a result, we recommend using the following Malignant Hearts for this build:

Recommended

• Tempting Fate (Vicious, Offensive-World Tier III): You gain 40-60% Critical Strike Damage but your Non-Critical Strikes deal 20-15% less damage.
• The Great Feast (Wrathful, Super-World Tier IV): Each Minion drains 1.0-2.0 Essence per second but deals 50-75% increased damage. With no Minions, this bonus applies to you and drains 5 Essence per second.
• Revenge (Brutal, Defensive-World Tier III): 10-20% of incoming damage is instead suppressed. When you use a Defensive, Subterfuge or a Macabre skill, all suppressed damage is amplified by 250% and explodes, dealing up to 1360-2040 Fire damage to nearby enemies.

NOTE – The Great Feast is Dangerous due to our damage being linked to Max Essence. Make sure you have enough Essence sustain to utilize this Heart, otherwise go with one of the Alternative Choices until you do.

Alternative Choices

• The Decrepit Aura (Brutal, Defensive): When at least 5 enemies are near you, gain an aura that automatically curses surrounding enemies with Decrepify for 5-15 seconds.
• The Calculated (Devious, Utility-World Tier III): After spending 150-200 of your Primary Resource, your next attack Stuns enemies hit for 2 seconds.

How to Play Bone Spirit Necromancer

Offense

The Offensive side of the build is Centered around using Corpse Tendril followed by Bone Spirit to deal massive AOE damage to Mobs. These two abilities should be available to cast most of the time due to Bloodmist, corpse consumption, and our Decrepify passive that reduces your active cooldowns on lucky hit. The rotation on the build is as followed:

• Cast Bone Storm if available
• Reap For Corpse
• Corpse Tendrils
• Decrepify
• Bone Spirit

Once you get going you won’t need to Reap for a corpse as you’ll have several after the Massacre you just caused. What you might need is your essence back. when low on essence cast Blood mist and consume some corpses in your path. This will also boost your damage (Flesh Eater Legendary Node) and ready you for your next rotation. Rinse, Repeat, Explode, Enjoy.

Defense

The most important Defensive Quality of the build is its ability to go infinite with Blood Mist. Blood Mist stacks Fortify while producing and Consuming Corpses. With the Aspect of the Embalmer, Blood Orbs are also created by doing so, adding more Fortify with the Blood Drinker GLyphs. With our Cooldown Reduction,+ Ranks to Blood Mist on our pants, Lucky HIt procs to targets under the Decrepify Curse, and our Shadow Trail from the Blood-Soaked Aspect, we’ll keep all our offensive cooldowns available while being an invinsible Blood Blob.

Conclusion

That concludes our Bone Spirit Necromancer Build. For an alternative Necromancer build that scales Shadow Damage and uses Sever with Blight stacks to deal MASSIVE damage, check out our Shadowmancer Build.