Diablo 4 Bone Spear Necromancer Build Guide

The Bone Spear Necromancer build is all about grouping dozens of enemies before melting them with a single well-placed projectile in Diablo 4.

You will not find another build for the Necromancer class that does as much damage while being so easy to play and handle. You also get great clear speeds for the endgame when your Necromancer is going to be farming dungeons after dungeons.

Yes, the other core skills you find in the Necromancer skill tree can be forged into good builds as well, but nothing beats the Bone Spear build when it comes to dishing raw critical damage in Diablo 4.

There were actually concerns that Blizzard Entertainment might nerf this build down. The recent update, though, actually buffed it a bit in contrast.

If you are a newcomer or are tired of leveling up that Minion Necromancer build in Diablo 4, consider giving this a shot.

• Skill Tree Distribution
• Book of the Dead
• Gameplay and Skill Rotations
• Gems, Stats, and Modifiers
• Legendary Aspects
• Unique Items
• Paragon Boards and Glyphs
• Elixir and Incense

Skill Tree Distribution

We are going to be helping you with an endgame build, but there are certain points while leveling up where you can switch to other skills until you are ready to run nightmare dungeons.

This flexibility is one of many reasons the Bone Spear Necromancer build is so easy to level up in Diablo 4. You do not need to find any leveling builds for your Necromancer. You can start taking up the main Bone Spear build skills straight away, especially if you have extra skill points shared by your alts.

Below are the active skills, modifiers, and passives that you need to make an excellent endgame Bone Spear Necromancer build in Diablo 4.

• Bone Splinters (1/5)
  • Enhanced Bone Splinters
    • Acolyte’s Bone Splinter
• Bone Spear (5/5)
  • Enhanced Bone Spear
    • Paranormal Bone Spear
• Unliving Energy (1/3)
• Imperfectly Balanced (3/3)
• Hewed Flesh (3/3)
• Blood Mist (1/5)
  • Enhanced Blood Mist
    • Ghastly Blood Mist
• Decrepify (1/5)
  • Enhanced Decrepify
    • Abhorrent Decrepify
• Death’s Embrace (3/3)
• Amplify Damage (3/3)
• Death’s Reach (3/3)
• Corpse Tendrils (1/5)
  • Enhanced Corpse Tendrils
    • Plagued Corpse Tendrils
• Necrotic Carapace (3/3)
• Serration (3/3)
• Compound Fracture (3/3)
• Evulsion (3/3)
• Rapid Ossification (3/3)
• Bone Storm
  • Prime Bone Storm
    • Supreme Bone Storm
• Stand Alone (3/3)
• Memento Mori (3/3)
• Ossified Essence

Unlock Order

There are three or four active skills that you need to get (and focus on) in the first 20 levels depending on your playstyle requirements.

Bone Splinters are a basic skill that serves as your main essence generator. The reason we are taking only one point is that they do little damage in the endgame. You can, however, max them out to help your clear speed while leveling up.

That being said, there is little reason to max them out because you are going to be using Bone Spear as your main bread-and-butter damage skill in Diablo 4. This conjured bone projectile hits hard. It also splits into three shards before returning to damage enemies, so your positioning matters a lot.

Blood Mist is the only Necromancer skill that makes you immune for a few seconds. You also heal off enemies during this period. This is a must-have skill in the endgame Necromancer Bone Spear build in D4.

While leveling up though, you will fare better with Bone Prison. This skill traps groups of enemies to generate essence and fortify your health with the right modifier. You can switch to Blood Mist after hitting level 40.

• Bone Prison (1/5)
  • Enhanced Bone Prison
    • Dreadful Bone Prison

Something else to note is that Necrotic Carapace works together with your Ghastly Blood Mist modifier. The former fortifies you based on each corpse made by the latter. If you are taking Blood Mist, make sure to take Necrotic Carapace as well.

Once you have gone past level 20, it is time to take Decrepify and Corpse Tendrils. Both skills work together to slow, stun, and group enemies.

Remember that all of your passive nodes on the skill tree as well as the ultimate and keystone work together as damage multipliers. However, some of these will not prove efficient until you are past level 50.

What you can do is skip your Bone Storm ultimate skill until you hit level 45. Use those skill points to take the passive cluster (Serration, Compound Fracture, and Evulsion) instead.

Book of the Dead

Our D4 Bone Spear Necromancer build does not require you to summon any minions from the Book of the Dead. This is primarily because we need all six skill slots.

Hence, you will need to sacrifice all three minion types for their passive bonuses. Here are the minions that you need to sacrifice.

Skeletal Warriors – Skirmishers = Sacrifice
You increase your critical strike chance.

Skeletal Mages – Cold = Sacrifice
You do increased damage to Vulnerable enemies.

Golem – Iron = Sacrifice
You increase your critical strike damage.

Gameplay and Skill Rotations

Start the fight by casting Decrepify to curse as many enemies as possible. This will slow them down and allow you to reposition yourself better for the upcoming damage rotations.

Use your Bone Spear on the cursed enemies to create a corpse. If there is already a corpse present on the ground, you can save your essence by not using Bone Spear.

It has to be said again that the Bone Spear Necromancer build focuses on spamming Bone Spears on Vulnerable enemies in Diablo 4. Since Bone Spears cost a lot of essence, it is best to save one of them here for when you can do more damage.

Next, cast Corpse Tendrils on the corpse to pull and stun all enemies. This skill has a lot of range, more than you initially think. You can pretty much pull enemies from the edges of your screen.

If you are running Bone Prison, cast it here to get the maximum fortified value from all of the grouped-up enemies.

Then start firing Bone Spears at the stunned, Vulnerable enemies until they start chasing you again. Cast Decrepify again to slow them down and restart the whole skill rotation.

Note that the Necrotic Carapace passive fortifies your health on each corpse created. Using Blood Mist will create a lot of corpses to boost your defense, but it is recommended to save that skill to keep you alive in dangerous situations.

Blood Mist should only be used to remove crowd-control effects from your Necromancer or status effects such as poisons, curses, and damage-over-time spells. Its healing amount is little since we are taking only one point.

Another skill rotation for the D4 Bone Spear build is to start throwing Bone Spears after casting Decrepify on enemies. Depending on your Glyphs and Aspects–more on that later, this will boost your damage temporarily and let you potentially clear several enemies with a chance to proc a stun.

Gems, Stats, and Modifiers

One main damage multiplier of the Bone Spear Necromancer build is making enemies Vulnerable. Hence, you need to socket Emeralds in your weapon by going to a Jeweler.

While socketing Skulls in your rings and amulets is basic for just about any build, there are a couple of options to choose from for your helmet, chest armor, pants, gloves, and boots.

The amount of health gained from Rubies is not going to matter when you will be running nightmare dungeons in World Tier 4 difficulty settings. When that time comes, swap them out for Topaz for damage reduction.

Gear	Gem	Effects
Armor (pre lvl 60)	Ruby	Increases maximum life.
Armor (post lvl 60)	Topaz	Reduces damage taken while control-impaired.
Jewelry	Skull	Increases armor.
Weapon	Emerald	Increases critical strike damage against Vulnerable enemies.

For core stats, you need to prioritize Intelligence above all to increase your skill damage and resistance to all elements.

Next comes Dexterity to increase your critical strike and dodge chances. Your skill tree already gives you a lot of critical strike chance, so Dexterity comes second to Intelligence when increasing core stats.

The third stat on the priority order is Willpower which increases your resource generation and healing. You need a lot of essence to spam Bone Spears after Bone Spears, so any Willpower you can find is going to be helpful.

1. Intelligence
2. Dexterity
3. Willpower

When deciding between gears, it is important to look at their modifiers and affixes first. For the Bone Spear Necromancer build, you must always prioritize critical strike and essence stats in Diablo 4.

This is because the whole build revolves around critical strikes to amplify your damage, but for that, you need to always have a full essence globe.

Following that are the affixes to increase damage against Vulnerable enemies. There are several ways to make enemies in our Diablo 4 Bone Spear build. Getting a few modifiers on your gear to increase that damage is great.

Lastly, pick modifiers that increase damage against crowd-controlled enemies. Cursing and pulling enemies with Decripify and Corpse Tendrils is essentially CC-ing them in Diablo 4. Hence, any way to amplify that damage is helpful.

1. Increase critical strike chance
2. Increase critical strike damage
3. Increase essence capacity or generation
4. Increase Vulnerable damage
5. Increase crowd-control damage

Legendary Aspects

When it comes to choosing the best Necromancer aspects for this build, you are going to start with the Aspect of the Umbral. This restores essence every time you crowd-control an enemy.

In the endgame, you can pretty much remove your basic skill because you are going to get a lot of essence from your core skills or even Decripify.

The next important legendary aspect for this build is the Splintering Aspect which multiplies your Bone Spear damage against vulnerable enemies.

Do that this is a key aspect of the Bone Spear Necromancer build. You need to have it alongside your critical strike chance, critical strike damage, and damage done to vulnerable enemies.

If you are taking the Bone Storm ultimate in this build, you can get the Aspect of Shielding Storm which gives you a barrier for every enemy hit.

The Aspect of Grasping Veins is also a good legendary imprint on your gear. Since Corpse Tendrils are a crucial cog in this build, getting the said aspect gives you increased critical strike chance and damage against enemies hit with Corpse Tendrils.

If resource management is still an issue, get yourself the Aspect of Exposed Flesh. This generates a ton of essence for every vulnerable enemy hit with your bone skills.

Lastly, get the Aspect of the Protector to add a solid layer of defense to your Necromancer. This aspect gives you a barrier to mitigate damage for 10 seconds after hitting an elite enemy. 10 seconds is a lot!

Unique Items

The new Diablo 4 unique items are incredibly rare and hard to find. They are also incredibly powerful, so managing to find some of the best Necromancer unique items is going to give your Bone Spear build a massive power spike.

Deathless Visage (helm)
This unique helm increases the critical strike damage of all of your bone skills which includes the Bone Spear.

In addition, your Bone Spears leave behind exploding echoes in their paths that do a lot of damage to all nearby enemies.

The Deathless Visage is perfect for a speed run or when you are farming dungeons back-to-back for gear and loot.

Penitent Greaves (boots)
These unique boots are perfect for increasing your maximum movement speed as well as granting a movement speed boost after an evade in Diablo 4.

You get increased crowd-control duration on enemies and reduced slow durations from enemies. Lastly, the Penitent Greaves chill any enemies that try to chase you.

Not only that but you get to do additional damage to chill enemies as well. This is another great amplifier to multiply your Bone Spear build damage.

Paragon Boards and Glyphs

The Necromancer Bone Spear build starts becoming overpowered when you begin completing your Paragon Boards in Diablo 4. This is going to happen after you hit level 50 and start earning Paragon Points.

Remember that you should always find the shortest route on the Paragon Boards to each Rare Node and Glyph Socket. That being said, below are examples of how your Bone Spear Necromancer Paragon Board can look in the endgame.

Starting Board

Glyph: Control

Board #2

Glyph: Exploit
Board Attachment Gate: Bone Graft

Board #3

Glyph: Corporeal
Board Attachment Gate: Scent of Death

Board #4

Glyph: Sacrificial
Board Attachment Gate: Flesh-Eater

Board #5

Glyph: Essence
Board Attachment Gate: Bloodbath

When it comes to leveling up glyphs through nightmare dungeons, prioritize leveling up Control, Exploit, and Sacrificial first to level 15. Following that, start focusing on leveling up Essence, Exploit, and Control first to level 21.

Elixir and Incense

Elixir of Cruelty increases your critical strike chance by 15 percent, while Elixir of Savagery increases your critical strike damage by 25 percent.

There is also Heady Precision Elixir which is a sort of middle ground between the two. This one increases both critical strike chance and damage by 6 and 35 percent respectively.

Since you can only activate one Elixir at a time in Diablo 4, you need to decide for yourself which one you need for your Bone Spear Necromancer build.

If you are more interested in using an Incense, consider either Song of the Mountain or Reddamine Buzz. The former increases your armor by 200 for every nearby player while the latter increases your maximum life by 500 for every nearby player. Pick one if you are running dungeons with a complete party.

Lastly, always remember to upgrade your healing potions and bring a full stack to every dungeon run.