Best Diablo 4 Necromancer build: Best skills for the Necromancer

Looking for the best Diablo 4 Necromancer build? The Corpse Explosion Necromancer build might have had a recent nerf leading into launch, but it’s still one of the best builds in Diablo 4. It’s a delightfully simple build, leaving skeletal minions to do a lot of the dirty work while you sit back, relax, and spam Corpse Explosion to keep up a steady stream of massive damage on the biggest enemies around.

If you’re excited to try out the Corpse Explosion Necromancer build, you’re in the right place! In this guide, we’ll break down the best skills, Aspects, Attributes, Gems, and Book of the Dead minions for the Corpse Explosion Necromancer.

This Corpse Explosion Necromancer build is ready for the full launch of Diablo 4, covering everything you’ll need to take your Necro to level 50. As we progress further towards level 100 and delve into endgame content, we’ll be back with an update on where to spend those precious Paragon Points.

Best Necromancer build in Diablo 4

Our Diablo 4 Corpse Explosion Necromancer build is all about summoning minions to cut through baddies while you explode corpses for massive damage. No surprise there, really, as it’s all in the name, but we’ve got a bunch of skills here that should both litter the battlefield with juicy corpses, and help you get the most damage out of each and every explosion.

The Key Passive that we’re building towards in this build is Shadowblight, which increases the amount of Shadow damage enemies receive. Key Passives are a handy way to get a rough idea of how builds will work, and that’s certainly true here! With this Corpse Explosion Necromancer, you’ll be dealing a bunch of Shadow damage at every opportunity. Your builder and spender? Shadow damage. Minions? Shadow damage. Corpse explosions? Shadow damage!

This all comes together to offer a bunch of ways to deal damage over time, which is the main effect of Shadow damage. Your builder, spender, and corpse explosions will all grant damage over time effects to your enemies, which will make their health bars rapidly plummet down to zero. This is especially satisfying against bosses, as you’ll see the big bar at the top of the screen just drain down with nothing they can do to stop it.

Of course, there has been a lot of talk about the effectiveness of skeletal minions since the recent Server Slam weekend. They were briefly nerfed to decrease their HP, but Blizzard soon decided to apply a buff that mostly restored the status quo. They won’t last forever, though, so just keep an eye on the two minion icons, positioned to the right of your Essence meter, to check how many are still active.

Diablo 4 Corpse Explosion Necromancer build skills

Below, you’ll find a full list of the skills that you should acquire for our Diablo 4 Corpse Explosion Necromancer build, in order:

1. Decompose lvl 1 (Basic)
2. Enhanced Decompose
3. Acolyte’s Decompose
4. Blight lvl 1 (Core)
5. Enhanced Blight
6. Paranormal Blight
7. Corpse Explosion lvl 1 (Corpse and Macabre)
8. Enhanced Corpse Explosion
9. Blighted Corpse Explosion
10. Hewed Flesh lvl 1-3
11. Corpse Explosion lvl 2-5
12. Grim Harvest lvl 1-3
13. Fueled By Death lvl 1-3
14. Corpse Tendrils (Corpse and Macabre)
15. Enhanced Corpse Tendrils
16. Plagued Corpse Tendrils
17. Army of the Dead (Ultimate)
18. Prime Army of the Dead
19. Supreme Army of the Dead
20. Corpse Tendrils lvl 2-5
21. Skeletal Mage Mastery lvl 1-3
22. Shadowblight (Key Passive)
23. Bonded in Essence lvl 1-3
24. Reaper’s Pursuit lvl 1-3
25. Crippling Darkness lvl 1-3
26. Gloom lvl 1-3
27. Terror lvl 1-3
28. Skeletal Warrior Mastery lvl 1-3
29. Blight lvl 2-5

With these skills, you’ll have plenty of ways to deal Shadow damage, which synergise with a bunch of passive buffs to Darkness skills from skills such as Terror and Gloom. Since Corpse Explosion is going to be your main damage dealer in the thick of combat, we’ve also opted to convert it to Shadow damage, so it also benefits from those passives. We’ve then opted for a range of skills that increase the amount of corpses you’ll generate, and also offer boosts each time you consume a corpse.

In practice, it’s a remarkably simple build. You use Decompose (your builder) and Blight (your spender) alongside your skeletal minions to generate corpses, and then just sit back and spam Corpse Explosion. Just be sure to save a few corpses for when your minions eventually die, so that you can bring them back and keep the enemy focus away from you.

Decompose

Decompose is the builder for this Corpse Explosion Necromancer build, generating seven Essence per second. However, it also acts as a useful way of making corpses, as it forms a corpse every 2.5 seconds. That’s not often, but it’s just the beginning, and a useful way to get them in the early-game.

Decompose deals damage over time, and Enhanced Decompose grants you 10 Essence whenever an enemy dies while affected by Decompose. You can then grab Acolyte’s Decompose, granting you and your minions a 10% damage boost against Decomposed enemies.

Blight

Blight is the spender for this Necromancer build. It fires out a blast of Shadow magic that deals damage to enemies on impact and leaves behind an AoE in which enemies will take massive damage over the following six seconds.

For the upgrades, we’ve opted for Enhanced Blight and Paranormal Blight to leave enemies with some pesky status effects. The former Slows enemies by 25% while they’re inflicted with Blight, while the latter gives Blight a 30% chance to Immobilize enemies for 1.5 seconds on impact.

This is just one of many ways in which you’ll inflict status effects with this build, which helps trigger the Terror passive. Terror makes all Darkness skills deal bonus damage to enemies who are Slowed, Stunned, or Immobilized. The bonus stacks for each status effect, and also applies to Shadow damage dealt by your minions, giving a huge boost to your DPS output in the late-game.

Corpse Explosion

Corpse Explosion is the key to this build, allowing you to… explode corpses. It’s simple, but hugely effective, making it a staple skill for all Necromancers across the Diablo franchise. It turns all corpses that you generate into bombs, which you can detonate at will to deal massive damage to nearby enemies.

The main caveat here, early on at least, is that Corpse Explosion doesn’t start as a Darkness/Shadow skill. Luckily, we can change that with the Blighted Corpse Explosion upgrade, which turns it into a Darkness skill and causes any triggered corpses to deal huge amounts of Shadow damage for six seconds. To unlock this upgrade, you’ll also need to pick up Enhanced Corpse Explosion, which increases the radius of its effects by 15%.

Corpse Tendrils

Corpse Tendrils is incredibly important for getting the most out of those Corpse Explosions, as it allows you to pull enemies towards corpses and Stun them for 3 seconds. Crucially, this does not consume the corpse, so you can then trigger the Corpse Explosion to all enemies that were pulled by the tendrils.

Since we’re trying to inflict status effects to maximise the effectiveness of the Terror passive, we’ve then opted for the Enhanced Corpse Tendril and Plagued Corpse Tendril upgrades. Enhanced Corpse Tendril Slows all enemies before they are pulled by the tendrils, and Plagued Corpse Tendril also applies Vulnerable to enemies for 3 seconds.

Army of the Dead

Army of the Dead is the ultimate ability for this build, and it’s a handy way of overwhelming tougher enemies. When triggered, it makes explosive skeletons burst out of the ground for seven seconds. These skeletons charge at enemies before exploding, and with the Prime Army of the Dead upgrade, they also have a 15% chance to leave behind a corpse. More corpses means more Corpse Explosions!

Supreme Army of the Dead is the final upgrade here, making your Ultimate also raise all of your skeletal minions. It does so without consuming any corpses, meaning you can use it when all of your minions are dead, raise a full army of skeletons, and then use any nearby corpses to keep the damage coming as your army charges into the fray.

If you’re not sure how to use these skills effectively, follow the attack pattern below:

1. Use Decompose and Blight to build/spend Essence and generate corpses.
2. Use corpses to cast Raise Skeleton.
3. Let your minions deal with enemies and generate more corpses.
4. Use Corpse Tendril to pull enemies towards a corpse.
5. Spam Corpse Explosion when enemies are grouped together.

Diablo 4 Corpse Explosion Necromancer best minions

The Necromancer class also has access to a unique Book of the Dead system, which allows you to raise minions to form a powerful little army. The Book of the Dead screen is split into three parts: Warriors, Mages, and Golems. In this build, we use Skeletal Warriors and Mages, but we’ve opted to sacrifice the ability to summon Golems for a passive boost instead.

To get Warriors and Mages, you must use the Raise Skeleton skill. This will take up a slot on your skill bar, which is why we have only opted for five other active skills in the section above.

In the Skeletal Warriors tab, we’ve opted for the Reaper variant. We’ve selected their second node, which gives Reapers a 15% chance to form a corpse with each attack. This is the only option in the Warriors tab that synergises with a Corpse Explosion Necromancer build, making it an obvious pick.

In the Skeletal Mages tab, we’ve opted for the Shadow variant. We’ve selected their second node, which lets them fire a second Shadow bolt every fifth attack. This helps you get the boosts from any passives that buff Shadow damage, as they’ll also apply to minion attacks. Bone Mages do have an option that allows them to generate a corpse when they die, but we found the effect to be negligible and Shadow Mages to synergist better into this build.

We aren’t using a Golem in this build, as Summon Golem takes a separate skill slot that we didn’t want to lose. With that in mind, we’ve opted to select the Sacrifice node on the Iron Golem variant. This takes away the ability to use Summon Golem, but provides a huge 30% boost to Critical Strike damage for all of your attacks. Of course, if you do want to try out Summon Golem, the option to Sacrifice this ability isn’t permanent and can be switched out whenever!

Diablo 4 Corpse Explosion Necromancer best Aspects

Completing Side Dungeons in Diablo 4 will grant Aspects as a reward. These are modifiers or improvements to your skills and abilities that will make this build far stronger. Below, we’ll list the best Aspects for the Corpse Explosion Necromancer build, alongside the Dungeons you must complete to get them:

• Blighted Aspect (Akkhan’s Grasp – Hawezar): You deal 50% damage for six seconds after the Shadowblight Key Passive damages enemies 10 times.
• Aspect of Reanimation (Aldurwood – Scosglen): Your skeletons gain increased damage while alive, up to 20% after ten seconds.
• Unyielding Commander’s Aspect (Faceless Shrine – Hawezar): While Army of the Dead is active, your minions gain 70% attack speed and take 90% reduced damage.
• Flesh-Rending Aspect (Nostrava Deepwood – Fractured Peaks): After Decompose spawns a corpse, gain 10 Essence.
• Aspect of Shared Misery (Oblivion – Hawezar): Lucky Hit: When you hit a crowd-controlled enemy, there is up to a 30% chance for that crowd control effect to spread to another unaffected enemy.

You must equip an Aspect to Legendary Gear to gain its effect, but you may also find Legendary Gear as random loot drops that spawn with Aspects already equipped. If you find a Legendary item with one of the above Aspects while exploring, make sure to equip it straight away!

Diablo 4 Corpse Explosion Necromancer build Attributes

Farming Legendary Gear will take up lots of your time in the endgame, but throughout the levelling experience, you may have to make do with some Rares. With that in mind, you want to look out for Rares that raise specific Attributes that strengthen our Corpse Explosion Necromancer build.

Intelligence is the most important Attribute to focus on in this build, as it raises skill damage by 0.1% per point. That means with 100 Intelligence, all of your skills will deal an extra 10% damage, which is a huge boost.

Willpower is also important for the Corpse Explosion Necromancer, as it raises your resource generation, which is essential for generating plenty of Essence to keep casting Blight. Each point in Willpower grants roughly a 0.03% boost to resource generation. That might seem tiny, but it’ll really add up later on.

Diablo 4 Corpse Explosion Necromancer build Gems

Many Gear items in Diablo 4 will come with Gem Sockets, into which you can insert Gems for more passive bonuses. Gems will have different effects depending on whether they are inserted into Weapons, Armor, or Jewelery.

For your Weapons, we’d recommend using Amethysts to boost your damage over time. Decompose, Blight, and Corpse Explosion all deal damage over time in this build, and using Amethysts in Weapon Gem Sockets could offer up to an 8% increase to that damage.

For your Armor, use Rubies to boost your Maximum Life. Necromancers can feel quite weak when taking enemy hits, and the extra Life offered by Rubies will come in handy if you suddenly find yourself without any minions left standing to soak the hits.

For your Jewelery, find Diamonds to use in empty Gem Sockets. When placed in Jewelery, Diamonds offer increased resistance to all elements, giving you some extra defense against whatever your enemies throw at you.

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That wraps up our Diablo 4 Corpse Explosion Necromancer build guide. If you’re eager to try out other classes, take a look at our Diablo 4 Barbarian build guide, Rogue build guide, Sorcerer build guide, and Druid build guide.

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