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Blood Surge – Necromancer Build for Diablo 4 (Season 8)

Drown your enemies in blood as you unleash your powers on Sanctuary.

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GhazzyTV

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Minion Overlord


Updated: A-Tier Build

Blood SurgeSoulriftBlightCorpse TendrilsBlood MistBone Prison


Build Introduction

The Blood Surge Necromancer build, also known as the “Bloodmancer”, provides a sturdy, resilient and high damage dealing character for you to start your adventures in Diablo 4. Thanks to the massive amount of Life and Fortify we have on this build, the damage dealt by Overpower on our skills skyrockets.

This build is entirely designed around Blood SurgeBlood Surge, both for clearing packs of enemies and single-target. Our defensive layers come in the form of Fortifying our massive Life pool, stealing health from enemies, and having access to Blood Orbs which will heal us. Enemies should be cursed by DecrepifyDecrepify to lower their damage dealt thanks to our Cursed Aura Aspect.

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.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths
  • Very tanky
  • Super high Overpower damage numbers
  • Consistent performance
Weaknesses
  • Not as strong as Blood Wave
  • Struggling with super high end-game Pit tiers due to lack of damage

Build Requirements

Required Uniques

Quick Navigation

Want to skip ahead? Use the table below to jump to the sections you are looking for.

BiS Gear, Gems, and RunesParagon Board
Rotation and PlaystyleSeason Updates

Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

Suggested Skill Bar
BlightBlightBone PrisonBone PrisonBlood MistBlood MistBlood SurgeBlood SurgeCorpse TendrilsCorpse TendrilsSoulriftSoulrift

Follow the points allocated in the Skill Tree above for the complete 71-point build. The additional skill points are completed using the Renown system.


Necromancer Class Mechanic – Book of the Dead

The Blood Surge Necromancer is designed to be able to take hits from enemies consistently. Using minions with this playstyle is a waste and can cause problems when you want to use Blood SurgeBlood Surge if enemies are scattered across your screen, hitting your minions rather than moving towards you. Therefore, we will be sacrificing all of them.

  • Melee Skeletons: Defenders – We get 25% Resistance to All Elements this way.
  • Mage Skeletons: Bone Mages – Sacrificed in the name of Lilith to provide a huge increase to Overpower Damage.
  • Golem: Iron – Sacrificed, scaling Critical Strike Damage.

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Gear, Stats, Gems, and Runes

The following sections cover the important systems that are essential to improving the power of your character in the endgame of Diablo 4.

Legendary Aspects

Each aspect is listed with its matching gear slot. Do your best to keep each aspect in the assigned slot. Additionally, if you are trying to farm a specific item, we recommend using your Obols to target farm them!

Gear SlotGemsAspect / UniqueLegendary Aspect / Unique Power
HelmCirCir + LumLumAspect of the EmbalmerAspect of the EmbalmerConsuming a Corpse has a 15-35% to spawn a Blood Orb.
ChestPocPoc + XalXalAspect of Hardened BonesAspect of Hardened BonesYou gain 15-20% increased Damage Reduction.
GlovesN/ACruor's EmbraceCruor’s EmbracePushes the whole focus of the build to the Blood Surge efficiency. Priority would be the Drain Count on these gloves.
PantsRoyal TopazRoyal TopazBlood Moon BreechesBlood Moon BreechesYou deal x20-50% increased Critical Strike Damage to enemies affected by your Curses.
BootsN/AAspect of the Cursed AuraAspect of the Cursed AuraYou automatically Curse enemies around you with Decrepify and Iron Maiden. Curses inflicted this way spread to surrounding targets every x seconds and last 4 seconds outside of the aura.
Weapon 1H (Mace)Royal RubyRoyal RubyCadaverous AspectCadaverous Aspect
Consuming a Corpse increases the damage of your Core and Ultimate Skills by #% for 5 seconds, up to x35%.
Off-hand (Focus)Royal RubyRoyal RubyBlood-bathed AspectBlood-bathed AspectBlood Surge’s nova echoes again after a short delay, dealing x% less damage.
Amulet (50% Scaling)Any Resistance Jewel or ArmorAspect of the Great FeastAspect of the Great FeastEach minion drains 1 Essence per second but deals x% bonus damage. With no minions, this bonus applies to you and drains 5 Essence per second.
RingAny Resistance Jewel or ArmorSacrificial AspectSacrificial AspectYour Sacrifice bonuses are increased by 10-25%
RingAny Resistance Jewel or ArmorAspect of Rathma's ChosenAspect of Rathma’s ChosenWhenever your Blood Skills Overpower you gain 35-55% Attack Speed for 4 seconds.

Curious how this build compares to other endgame options? Take a look at our Endgame Build Tier List.

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Stat Priority and Tempering Affixes

Below are the affixes to prioritize on gear. Each line of affixes is listed in order of importance. Tempering Manuals and their recommended affixes are provided in the second column, and the bolded affixes are the most important targets for Greater Affix and/or Masterworking upgrades. Be sure to check our Tempering guide, and our Masterworking guide, for more details about these topics.

SlotTargeted Gear AffixesTempering Affixes
Helm1. Maximum Life
2. Essence per second
3. Intelligence
Decay InnovationDecay Innovation % Soulrift Duration
Necromancer WallNecromancer Wall + Ranks to Drain Vitality
Chest1. Maximum Life
2. Essence per Second
3. Intelligence
Decay InnovationDecay Innovation % Soulrift Duration
Worldly EnduranceWorldly Endurance #% Total Armor
Boots1. Armor
2. Essence per Second
3. Movement Speed
Necromancer MotionNecromancer Motion #% Movement Speed
Blood InnovationBlood Innovation #% Blood Surge Nova Size
Amulet1. Ranks to Tides of Blood
2. % Intelligence
3. Critical Strike Chance
Note: With higher end gear you should replace Crit Chance with + Ranks to Coalesced Blood
Blood FinesseBlood Finesse #% Blood Attack Speed
Necromancer EfficiencyNecromancer Efficiency % Ultimate Cooldown Reduction
Rings (2x)1. Attack Speed
2. Maximum Life
3. Intelligence
Blood FinesseBlood Finesse #% Blood Attack Speed
Necromancer EfficiencyNecromancer Efficiency #% Ultimate Cooldown Reduction
1H-Weapon (Mace)1. Maximum Life
2. Intelligence
3. Lucky Hit: #% Chance to Restore Primary Resource
Blood FinesseBlood Finesse #% Blood Attack Speed
Blood AugmentsBlood Augments #% Blood Surge Double Damage
Off-hand (Focus)1. Maximum Life
2. Critical Strike Chance
3. Intelligence
Blood FinesseBlood Finesse #% Blood Attack Speed
Blood AugmentsBlood Augments #% Blood Surge Double Damage

Keep in mind that the maximum Resistance is 70% by default for each element and can be increased to 85% by various sources. Furthermore, Unique items cannot be tempered, only masterworked!

Make sure to reach the Armor Cap of 1,000.

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Uniques and Mythic Uniques

Below you will find information on Uniques and Mythic Uniques that are useful for this build. Moreover, if you are interested in target farming Mythic Uniques, check out our How to Farm Mythic Uniques guide.

Uniques

  • Blood Moon BreechesBlood Moon Breeches (Required): Scales your critical strike damage and crit chance.
  • Cruor's EmbraceCruor’s Embrace (Required): Makes your Blood Surge consume nearby Corpses to cause mini novas for extra damage output.

Mythic Uniques

The following Mythic Uniques provide great power scaling to the build.

  • Heir of PerditionHeir of Perdition: This directly replaces your helmet but you’ll want Greater affixes and/or Masterwork on the + ranks modifier! You might need to replace your Movement Speed temper on your boots to fit this by adding % Total Armor instead.
  • Ring of Starless SkiesRing of Starless Skies: This will replace Aspect of Rathma's ChosenAspect of Rathma’s Chosen. It more or less covers your sustain lowering the requirement of this on your gear and scales your damage very well.
  • Shroud of False DeathShroud of False Death: Directly replaces your current body armor and brings crazy damage scaling for you.

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Gems and Runewords

See below for a more detailed explanation of the best Gems to socket into your gear for each category.

Weapon GemsArmor GemsJewelry Gems
Royal RubyRoyal Ruby
For increased Health.
Royal TopazRoyal Topaz
For increased Intelligence.
Royal SkullRoyal Skull

Runewords

The following Runewords are recommended to be used for this build.

Runeword CombinationEffect
CirCir + LumLumGain: 300 Offering when you cast 5 Skills and become exhausted for 3 seconds.
For each 5 Offering you Overflow increasing Resources restored with 1 second Cooldown, restores 3.5 Essence
PocPoc + XalXalGain: 5 Offering by spending 5% of your Maximum Resource
For each 300 Offering you Overflow gaining more maximum life with a 3 second cooldown, gain 20% Maximum Life for 6 seconds.

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Paragon Board

Below you’ll find the entire end-game paragon board set-up for this build in detail!

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Boss Powers (Season 8)

The newly added seasonal mechanic lets us power our builds up by using abilities from endgame bosses themselves! Below you’ll find the recommended list for this build.

Main Boss Power:

  • Grigoire’s Lightning Square – After you Cast a Core Skill, lightning tiles outward for 1.2 seconds dealing x Lightning damage per strike.

Modifier Boss Powers:

  • Hatred’s Embrace’s Haste – Gain 5% Critical Strike Chance, increased by 0.5% for each 1% Shadow Resistance from bonuses you have, up to a maximum of 22.5%
  • Wandering Death’s Chest Beam – Your Main Boss Power instantly Executes Non-Boss enemies hit with less than 15% Life. When you Execute enemies you gain 25 Primary Resource.
  • Lilth’s Wind of Hate – Hitting an Elite enemyt with a Main Boss Power creates an inert Blister Clone with 10% of their Maximum Life for 15 seconds. Killing the Blister removes 5.25% of the Elite’s Life.

Mercenaries

During the Vessel of Hatred campaign, you will unlock Mercenaries to assist you. While you can choose freely early on, we recommend Raheir as your main merc, and Varyana as a Reinforcement once you reach endgame.

For the reinforcement, stick with Varyana, utilizing her Bloodthirst skill being cast when the player casts Blood Surge.

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Build Mechanics

Rotation and Playstyle

This build offers a very straight forward and simple rotation. Start by casting BlightBlight then Blood SurgeBlood Surge till there is a corpse on the ground which allows us to use Corpse TendrilsCorpse Tendrils. Do make sure that you try to stay close to the enemies to avoid having your Blood Surges miss their targets! Outside of this you’ll want to keep SoulriftSoulrift up and running at all times. Once enemies are grouped together you can utilize Bone PrisonBone Prison for even more damage output.

If you are crowd controlled, you’ll simply use Blood MistBlood Mist to get out of harms way. This will generate a corpse on the ground so you can follow it up with a Corpse TendrilsCorpse Tendrils to regain control over the situation!

Which Elixirs Should You Use?

Visit the Alchemist and craft an Elixir providing any Resistance you need most, or the Elixir of FortitudeElixir of Fortitude or Elixir of ResourcefulnessElixir of Resourcefulness. Some Elixirs cannot be crafted and only drop from things like Helltides or Nightmare Dungeons. Additionally, make sure to keep your health potion upgraded!

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Season 8 Updates

For a full overview of what is new in Season 8, please take a look at our comprehensive season hub.

Here is a quick overview of seasonal changes relevant to this build:

  • Very little has changed outside of the addition of boss powers from the seasonal content. Minor buffs on things such as our Paragon Board legendary nodes.

Obol Gambling

Obol gambling is a great way to potentially find item upgrades or items missing from your build. Check out the new tool guide from Icy Veins for gambling Obols in the link below:

Obol Gambling Optimization Tool Guide

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Changelog

  • April 25th, 2025: Guide updated for Season 8.
  • January 24, 2025: Clarified why Indira’s Memory unique is used in the build.
  • January 19th, 2025: Guide updated for Season 7.
  • October 12th, 2024: New Paragon tool added.
  • October 7th, 2024: Paragon board added.
  • October 2nd, 2024: Guide updated for Season 6.
  • August 6th, 2024: Guide updated for Season 5, Infernal Hordes.
  • May 12th, 2024: Guide updated for Season 4 Loot Reborn.
  • January 22nd, 2024: Guide updated for Season 3 Season of the Construct.
  • November 3rd, 2023: Optimized Paragon Board and added end-game version.
  • October 15th, 2023: Guide updated for Season 2 Season of Blood, Patch 1.2.
  • August 7th, 2023: Minor updates for Patch 1.1.1.
  • August 5th, 2023: Guide updated for Patch 1.1.1 (launches August 8th, 2023)
  • July 26th, 2023: Optimized Paragon board pathing and Glyph choices.
  • July 19th, 2023: Guide updated for Season 1 including Malignant Hearts.
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