This is a legacy build that is not competitive for the current version of Diablo 4 and which we do not recommend using. It only exists for documentation purposes and will not receive any further updates for the time being.
Build Introduction
This build features the niche approach of using our Bone Mages cast Bone Spear to deal damage, but we’ll also be casting spears ourselves of course. Combined with the full force of the Deathless Visage, the spears spawn bone echoes that explode for high-damage bursts. The mages will cast the spears every sixth attack, making the unique ring Ring of Mendeln a logical addition to the builds toolkit!
Outside of this unique playstyle, the build is very much like other summoner versions, such as the Mendeln summoner or Shadow Minion build, and can also be compared to the original self-casting Bone Spear builds. Those variations can be found in the links below.
Strengths and Weaknesses
- Effective up to Pit Tier 61+
- Fun to play
- Easy to gear
- Can’t compete with Shadow Minion or Golem endgame builds in higher Pit tiers
- Requires the Uniques: Deathless Visage
To see how this build compares to the other builds on our site, you can check out our build tier lists.
Build Requirements
Since the build is entirely designed around Bone Spear coupled with Deathless Visage, you’ll want that Unique helmet before you follow this guide to achieve its full efficiency. It can later be replaced with Harlequin Crest if you wish. Since the bone mages will cast the spears every 6th attack we couple this with Ring of Mendeln to also trigger every 6th attack!
Skill Tree Points and Skill Bar
necromancer Skills1 / 7
Follow the points allocated in the Skill Tree above for the complete 71-point build. The additional 12 skill points are completed using the Renown system.
Book of the Dead
This build is all about having our minions attack fast to trigger the unique ring, this means a heavy focus of critical strike damage and attack speed.
- Melee Skeletons: Reapers – We’ll make sure these guys create corpses on hit for us to consistently use our summoning skill to heal our minions and/or to use Corpse Tendrils.
- Mage Skeletons: Bone – The bread and butter of the build; the first option makes the mages cast either Bone Spear or Bone Splinters if they are on the action bar. We will only have the Spear on the bar making them cast it every 6th attack!
- Golem: Bone – We can generate 5 corpses on demand with the first option.
Mercenary
Aldkin is a great choice with crowd-controlling features, but the comfortability of using Subo, who brings the ability of revealing enemies and materials in the area, makes him a natural preferential decision. The mercenaries are a nice addition to the game and whichever you chose to run is up to you. The recommendation for this build will be to run Subo.
Skill-tree wise we’ll grab the left-hand side first for Wire Trap to provide stuns with the following node is up to you. Trip Mines is the next big notable to grab, taken for safety reasons. We finish that tree with Mastermind.
For the reinforcement, stick with Raheir, utilizing his Bastion skill being cast when the player becomes injured.
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 | Deathless Visage | Bone Spear leaves behind echoes as it travels that explode dealing X damage, increased by x5% for every 30% of your Critical Strike Damage Bonus. |
| Chest | Yul + Ohm | Blood Getter’s Aspect | Your Skeletal Priests also empower you at 55-70% effectiveness. |
| Gloves | N/A | Splintering Aspect | Bone Spear’s primary attack makes enemies hit beyond the first Vulnerable for 3 seconds. Bone Shards from Bone Spear deal 30-60% bonus damage to Vulnerable enemies and pierce them. |
| Pants | Lith + Ceh | Aspect of Hardened Bones | You and your Minions gain 15-20% increased Damage Reduction. |
| Boots | N/A | Aspect of Occult Dominion | Your maximum number of Skeletal Warriors and Skeletal Mages is increased by 2. |
| Weapon 1H (Sword) | Royal Emerald | Aspect of Serration | The Ossified Essence Key Passive also increases the Critical Strike Damage of your Bone Skills by x1% per Essence above 50, up to x25-40%. |
| Off-hand (Focus) | Royal Emerald | Aspect of Reanimation | Your Minions gain increased damage while alive, up to x25-40% after 10 seconds. |
| Amulet (50% Scaling) | Any Resistance Jewel | Aspect of Frenzied Dead | Each time one of your Summoning Minions damages an enemy, they gain 10-14% Attack Speed for 3 seconds, up to 30-42%. |
| Ring | Any Resistance Jewel | Ring of Mendeln | Every 6th attack from each Minion is empowered, exploding for X Physical damage. |
| Ring | Any Resistance Jewel | Unyielding Commander’s Aspect | While Army of the Dead is active, your Minions gain 70-100% increased damage and take 90% reduced damage. |
Royal EmeraldDo keep in mind that you’ll need to reach 1000 armor, which is the cap to mitigate physical damage taken. If your gear isn’t reaching this, you can replace the Blood Getter’s Aspect with the Juggernaut’s Aspect until it does.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Royal Emerald For Crit Damage. | Grand Topaz For increased Intelligence. | Royal Amethyst Royal Sapphire Royal Ruby Royal Skull |
The following Runewords are recommend to be used for this build.
| Runeword Combination | Effect |
| Yul + Ohm | Gain 50 Offering when casting a skill with a cooldown 500 Offering will trigger the Barbarians Enhanced War Cry increasing your movement speed and damage dealt. |
| Lith + Ceh | Standing still gives you 25 Offering every 0.3 seconds 100 Offering will summon multiple wolves which will attack enemies for 8 seconds. |
Which Elixirs Should You Use?
Visit the Alchemist and craft an Elixir providing any Resistance you need most, or the Elixir of Advantage 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 guide, as well as our Masterworking guide, for more details about these topics.
| Slot | Targeted Gear Affixes | Tempering Affixes |
|---|---|---|
| Chest | 1. Armor 2. Maximum Life 3. Intelligence | Worldly Endurance #% Total Armor Profane Innovation #% Corpse Tendril Size |
| Gloves | 1. Ranks to Bone Spear 2. Critical Strike Chance 3. Attack Speed | Bone Finesse #% Bone Critical Strike Damage Profane Innovation #% Corpse Tendril Size |
| Pants | 1. Ranks to Skeletal Mage Mastery 2. Intelligence 3. Maximum Life | Worldly Endurance #% Total Armor Profane Innovation #% Corpse Tendril Size |
| Boots | 1. Essence per Second 2. Movement Speed 3. Intelligence | Natural Motion #% Movement Speed Natural Schemes #% Crowd Control Duration |
| Amulet | 1. Ranks to Evulsion 2. Maximum Essence 3. Ranks to Compound Fracture | Bone Finesse #% Bone Critical Strike Damage Worldly Stability #% Resource Cost Reduction |
| Ring | 1. Lucky Hit: Chance to Make Enemies Vulnerable on Hit 2. Resource Cost Reduction 3. Critical Strike Chance | Bone Finesse #% Bone Critical Strike Damage Worldly Stability #% Resource Cost Reduction |
| 1H-Weapon (Sword) | 1. Critical Strike Damage 2. Intelligence 3. Maximum Life | Bone Finesse #% Bone Critical Strike Damage Bone Augments #% Chance for Bone Spear Projectiles to Cast Twice |
| Off-hand (Focus) | 1. Maximum Resource 2. Resource Cost Reduction 3. Intelligence | Bone Finesse #% Bone Critical Strike Damage Bone Augments #% Chance for Bone Spear Projectiles to Cast Twice |
Rotation and Playstyle
There’s two top priorities when playing this build. The first is to make sure you always keep the Skeletal Priest buff active by using your Raise Skeleton skill on a corpse when you have the maximum amount of corpses. This will heal the minions to keep the Bone mages alive as they are consistently damaging themselves when attacking. Secondly, you’ll want the enemies to always be cursed by Decrepify.
Follow this up with sending your Golem into the enemy pack using the golem ability, this will generate corpses allowing for Corpse Tendrils to group up enemies to then unleash brutal damage by spamming Bone Spear!
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
Listed below are the recommended and optional Unique Items for this build. This build thrives of the legendary aspect powers so we would prefer not to involve any uniques to have the build function the best. This doesn’t mean you can’t play around with some changes and test it out yourself though!
- Deathless Visage – All our damage is about Bone Spear, this unique will skyrocket the efficiency of that approach.
- Ring of Mendeln – Our bone mages will cast the spears every 6th attack, Mendeln will further make every 6th attack explode for even more bursts of damage.
Mythic Uniques
The only mythic unique this build can utilize in a highly effective manner is the classic Harlequin Crest. While providing a bit better layer of defense compared to Deathless Visage, you will also have a significant increase in single-target damage output. Sadly, it’s not all rainbows and unicorns; you will have a slight loss of clear speed damage when using it over the Visage.
Season 6: Vessel of Hatred
The following list details the changes in the Season 6 Update that may pertain to the Bone Mage Summoner Necromancer build. Check the Changelog for all the other guide updates.
- Wolves from the Runeword greatly improved performance.
- Ring of Mendeln now directly scales with minions damage significantly improving this build.
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
This build is all about corpse generation from Hewed Flesh and our melee skeletons as well as on-demand corpses via the Golem. Besides that, we are looking at utilizing the Bone Mage mechanic that allows them to cast Bone Spear every sixth attack which we combine with Ring of Mendeln to trigger even bigger bursts of damage at the same cadence. An army of minions defending us on top of consistent crowd control via Corpse Tendrils is how the build works!
Defenses
The Golem will not just generate corpses; it will straight up taunt enemies, causing bosses to stagger faster as well. The army of minions defending us is one layer of our defense whilst the other is a consistent application of crowd control via Corpse Tendrils to both stun enemies as well as grouping them up together.
Offenses
Bone Spear is the name of the game for our offensive scaling powers. Bone Mages, and you, will be casting them at a consistent basis coupled with Deathless Visage and Ring of Mendeln to deliver high bursts of 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 Icy Veins for gambling Obols in the link below:
Obol Gambling Optimization ToolChangelog
- October 12th, 2024: New Paragon tool added.
- October 2nd, 2024: Guide updated for Season 6.
- August 5th, 2024: Guide updated for Season 5, Infernal Hordes.
- May 27th, 2024: Guide published
