Build Introduction
The Blood Wave build is expected to be the top-performing Necromancer build in all of Season 7 due to the extreme power being moved into the Ultimate skills. We thrive in both extreme crowd-control, damage, and survival with the correct item set-up. This build will take you to the highest tier of content and perform so well that you can even speed farm The Pit Tier 150 with it.
There will be plenty of required items for this build to work as listed down below in this guide in detail.
Build Variants
A build variant is a modified version of an existing build that changes some aspects of it, such as the damage type, specific skills or passives, and even certain items like different uniques or Legendary Aspects.
Below, you will find any variants that related to the Blood Wave Necromancer.
Strengths and Weaknesses
- Expected to the highest performing Necromancer of Season 7
- Safe and Comfortable
- Extreme damage output
- Heavy gear requirements to feel great
- Not recommended to play till higher levels
To see how this build compares to the other builds on our site, you can check out our build tier lists.
Build Requirements
Kessime’s LegacyThough they are not build requirements it is heavily recommended to get 2 Mythic Unique items being: 
Heir of Perdition as well as 
Shroud of False Death.
Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points
Blood Wave
Decrepify
Reap
Blight
Blood Mist
Corpse ExplosionBook of the Dead
Since we are focusing entirely on dealing brutal damage with our Blood Wave, we have no interest in bothering our minions, so they will all be sacrificed in the name of Lilith.
- Melee Skeletons: Reapers – By sacrificing these you get tons of extra Shadow damage.
- Mage Skeletons: Bone Mages – This makes our Overpower damage skyrocket.
- Golem: Iron – Provides increased Critical Strike Damage.
Mercenary
Mercenaries provide a nice extra layer of power to your character and mostly comes down to preferential decision. Below you’ll see the set-up I personally would run for this build which is having Raheir as the Mercenary and for reinforcement I’d use Varyana!
Subo Skill Tree choices:
Varyana Reinforcement choices:
- Opportunity Skill: Skill Cast – Whenever the player casts any skill in combat.
- Reinforcement Skill:
Bloodthirst
Witchpowers
In Season 7 we will have access to Witchpowers granting some absolutely crazy abilities that we’ll utilize to enhance our builds power. Below, you’ll find a list of the recommended powers we use for this build.
Red Power (Unique):
Purple Powers:
Paragon Board
Below you’ll find the entire end-game paragon board set-up for this build in detail!
Gear, Gems, Elixirs, and Stats
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 Slot | Gems | Aspect / Unique | Legendary Aspect / Unique Power |
|---|---|---|---|
| Helm |  Grand Topaz |  Aspect of the Cursed Aura | A dark aura surrounds you, inflicting Decrepify and Iron Maiden on enemies who touch it. Curses inflicted this way spread to surrounding targets every 2.5-0.3 seconds and last 4 seconds outside the aura. |
| Chest | Grand Topaz |  Aspect of Hardened Bones | You and your Minions gain 10-30% increased damage reduction. |
| Gloves | N/A |  Aspect of Ultimate Shadow | Bone Storm and Blood Wave are also Darkness Skills, deal Shadow damage, and gain additional effects: Blood Wave creates Desecrated Ground as it travels, dealing X Shadow damage over 4 seconds. |
| Pants |  Bac +  Qax | Kessime’s Legacy | Blood Wave now creates a wave on each side of you and converge at your feet pulling enemies in as well as increasing the damage they take from your Blood Wave. |
| Boots | N/A |  Aspect of Metamorphosis | When you Evade you turn in to a cloud of bats, becoming Unstoppable for 2.5 seconds. Enemies along your path take X Physical damage and are inflicted with Vampiric Curse. Evade’s Cooldown is increased by X seconds. |
| Weapon 2H (Mace) |  Zan +  Vex | Tidal Aspect | Blood Wave fires 2 additional wave, each dealing X% of normal damage, but you can no longer recast it until the last wave ends. |
| Amulet | Any Resistance Gem | Aspect of Apogeic Furor | Casting an Ultimate Skill increases your Ultimate damage by x#% up to x#%. At 10 stacks, your Cooldowns and this bonus are reset. |
| Ring | Any Resistance Gem | Vehement Brawler’s Aspect | Casting an Ultimate Skill increases your damage by #% for 8 seconds. Gain 2 additional Ultimate Skill Ranks. |
| Ring | Any Resistance Gem |  Fastblood Aspect | Blood Orbs reduce your Ultimate Cooldown by 1-3 seconds. |
Gems and Runewords
See below for a more detailed explanation of the best Gems to socket into your gear for each category.
| Weapon Gems | Armor Gems | Jewelry Gems |
|---|---|---|
| Zan + Vex | Grand Topaz For increased Intelligence. |  Royal Amethyst Royal Sapphire Royal Ruby  Royal Skull |
The following Runewords are recommended for use in this build.
| Runeword Combination | Effect |
| Zan + Vex | Gain 150 Offering when casting an ultimate skill. For 150 Offering you gain +1 to Skills for 10 seconds, able to overflow to +3. |
| Bac + Qax | Gain 50 Offering when you travel 5 meters. For 400 Offering your next non-Basic Skill cast spends all of your Primary Resource to deal up to 100% increased damage. |
In Season 7 we’ll have access to Occult Gems, below you’ll find the list of these gems we want to use for this build.
Which Elixirs Should You Use?
Visit the Alchemist and craft an Elixir providing any Resistance you need most, or the 
Elixir of Advantage II to increase Attack Speed. Some Elixirs cannot be crafted and only drop from things like Helltides or Nightmare Dungeons. Additionally, make sure to keep your health potion upgraded!
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 Masterworking upgrades. Be sure to check our Tempering and Masterworking guides for more details about these topics.
| Slot | Targeted Gear Affixes | Tempering Affixes |
|---|---|---|
| Helm | 1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Intelligence 3. Maximum Life |  Necromancer Wall + Ranks to Drain VitalityWorldly Fortune Lucky Hit #% Chance to Stun for 2 seconds |
| Chest | 1. Maximum Life 2. Armor 3. Intelligence | Worldly Endurance #% Total ArmorWorldly Fortune Lucky Hit #% Chance to Stun for 2 seconds |
| Gloves | 1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Maximum Life 3. Intelligence | Blood Finesse #% Damage while FortifiedThorn Army + Ranks to Spiked Armor |
| Boots | 1. Movement Speed 2. Maximum Life 3. Intelligence | Necromancer Motion #% Movement SpeedThorn Army + Ranks to Spiked Armor |
| Amulet | 1. Ranks to Coalesced Blood 2. % Intelligence 3. Maximum Life | Blood Finesse #% Damage while FortifiedNecromancer Efficiency #% Ultimate Cooldown Reduction |
| Ring #1 | 1. Intelligence 2. Lucky Hit: Chance to make enemies vulnerable 3. Maximum Life | Blood Finesse #% Damage while FortifiedNecromancer Invigoration Casting Ultimate Skills Restores # Primary Resource |
| Ring #2 | 1. Intelligence 2. Maximum Life 3. Critical Strike Chance | Blood Finesse #% Damage while FortifiedNecromancer Efficiency #% Ultimate Cooldown Reduction |
| 2H Weapon (Axe) | 1. Lucky Hit: Chance to Restore Essence 2. Maximum Life 3. Intelligence | Profane Finesse #% Damage to Cursed EnemiesShadow Augments — Decay #% Chance for Blight Projectiles to Cast Twice |
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!
Rotation and Playstyle
The entire playstyle is all about grouping enemies together then explode with tsunami’s of actual Blood Wave that comes crashing down obliterating your enemies.
This is handled by providing corpse via Reap when needed to allow for Corpse Explosion to provide more damage sources. We also have access to Blight for more damage and crowd-control. Our Witchpower 
Piranhado helps group enemies together same as our Blood Waves.
Blood builds in general packs an insane amount of defense and sustain so you can expect to walk through content, grouping enemies together then watch them drown in blood.
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
- Kessime’s Legacy – Mandatory for the build to perform.
- Heir of Perdition – Simply replaces Aspect of Hardened Bones.
- Shroud of False Death – You’ll move the Aspect of the Cursed Aura aspect to your boots and entirely remove Aspect of Metamorphosis to make room for this item.
Advanced Information
Below, you will find every additional piece of information you need to know for a more in-depth look at this build.
Build Mechanics
The mechanics are pretty straight forward, we run a handful of different damage sources that helps Lucky Hits and general crowd-control such as Corpse Explosion and Blight. We generate corpses with Reap when required and it all comes down to grouping enemies up with the Witchpower Piranhado or simply by finally casting our big damage button Blood Wave.
The remaining mechanics of the build are all designed to lower the Cooldown of Blood Wave so that you can repeat the process. It’s very straight forward!
Defenses
The build is designed to consistently be fully Fortified as well as having a massive Barrier covering your already crazy large health pool. All of this is adding to your defensive layers as well as your damage output thanks to the Overpower mechanic. Everything else that this build is bringing to the table helps control enemies via slows, stuns and/or pulling them back and forth as they collapse under your Blood Waves.
Offenses
“Overpower”. The only word needed to describe the offensive approach this build brings to the table. By massively stacking our Life and Fortified pools we can deliver insane Overpower damages. This is handled by Blood Wave combined with a handful of specific Legendary Aspect Powers specifically scaling our Ultimate Skill damage output.
Obol Gambling
Obol gambling is a great way to potentially find item upgrades or items missing from your build. Check out the new tool from guide Icy Veins for gambling Obols in the link below.
Changelog
- January 19th, 2025: Guide posted for Season 7.
