Golem Summoner Endgame Necromancer Build for Diablo 4 (Legacy)

This is a legacy build that is not competitive for the current version of Diablo 4 and which we do not recommend using. It will not receive any further updates and only exists for documentation purposes.

Build Introduction

The Golem Summoner, or Golemancer as it’s commonly known, is made in collaboration with SinityX to bring you the most well-rounded Golem build in Diablo 4. Its core design is to ramp up as many multipliers as possible to scale the damage output of the Golem whilst maintaining proper defensive layers to not end up being a glass-cannon!

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.

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 variant that relates to the Golem Summoner Endgame Necromancer.

Strengths and Weaknesses

To see how this build compares to the other builds on our site, you can check out our build tier list.

Build Requirements

This build has no direct requirements and can therefore be played without any unique items, it’s actually recommended to play without unique items altogether!

Skill Tree Points and Skill Bar

Recommended

Golem Summoner Necromancer Recommended Skill Bar (order does not matter)

Summoning Skill Summoning Skill Corpse Explosion Decrepify Corpse Tendrils Bone Storm

Follow the points allocated in the Skill Tree above for the complete 58-point build. The additional 10 skill points are completed using the Renown system.

Book of the Dead

• Melee Skeletons; Reapers – We’ll use the second option here to generate corpses on hit.
• Mage Skeletons; Shadow – First option gives us a significant damage boost.
• Golem; Blood – Second option makes the golem on-demand-ability deal hilarious amounts of damage and is our big damage button essentially.

Paragon Board

The Paragon progression system unlocks at Level 50 and provides a vast amount of character power. On the Paragon Board, bonuses range from minor stats on Magic Nodes to more powerful Rare Glyphs and Legendary Nodes.

As you path towards Glyph Sockets and Legendary Nodes, you should prioritize Damage, Intelligence, Resistance, and Life for Normal and Magic Nodes. Glyph radius increases as you level them up. Therefore, if you cannot fulfill Additional Bonus requirements early on, skip allocating extra nodes for now. It’s also important to point out that you might not have the Glyph you want when you reach your first socket; if that’s the case, simply slot in any Glyph providing any beneficial stats for you until you get the correct one.

Listed below are images of the pathing you should take along with the locations of the Glyphs and order you should choose your Paragon Boards past the initial Starting Board. Note that each Rare Glyph’s information and radius listed below is for the Level 21 version.

1. Starting Board

We begin by rushing the right side up to the Socket node for Amplify Glyph. Only take extra attributes within range when the Glyph is leveled enough to enable the bonus modifier, the radius grows at level 15, the same goes for all Glyphs on all boards on the build! Skip the resistance and life Rare and Magic nodes on the left side and rush out north to our next board instead.

2. Cult Leader

Start by spinning the board one time to fit the image above. On the Cult Leader board we’ll want to rush the Socket node for the Deadraiser and grab surrounding Rare and Magic nodes then pick up the Legendary node Cult Leader before we head out on the right side.

3. Bone Graft

Bone Graft will need one rotation before placing it. We are going to start with the Socket node for the Exploit Glyph as well as picking up the Rare and Magic on the right side before we head out north to the 4th board.

4. Hulking Monstrosity

Hulking Monstrosity requires no rotations. Same as before, we’ll rush the Socket node for the Territorial before we move to the Legendary node Hulking Monstrosity then we pick up the Rare and Magic before leaving on the left to the fifth board.

5. Flesh-Eater

Flesh-Eater also requires no spins to fit. Same as before, rush the Socket node for the Essence Glyph then the Legendary node Flesh-eater before we head out north for the sixth board.

6. Scent of Death

Scent of Death also requires no spins! In here we’ll pick up the Rare and Magic node on the right as we make our way to the Legendary node Scent of Death before we reach the Socket node for the Golem Glyph. We’ll access the seven board up north.

7. Wither

Wither board will require three spins. The purpose of this board is literally just to enable yet another Socket node in which we’ll use the Control Glyph. Now that you have all Glyphs placed we’ll pick up any node we’ve skipped so far and whenever you level any Glyphs to 15 you grab the surrounding attribute nodes to enable the bonus modifiers.

Paragon Board images courtesy of d4builds.gg.

Gear, Gems, Elixirs, and Stats

Season 5 has brought some nice itemization changes which is reflected in this guide as seen down below.

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	Royal Ruby	Juggernaut’s Aspect	Gain x Armor, but your Evade has 100% increased Cooldown.
Chest	Royal Ruby	Aspect of Hardened Bones	You and your Minions gain 15-20% increased Damage Reduction.
Gloves	N/A	Aspect of Ultimate Shadow	Bone Storm is now a Shadow skill dealing Shadow damage and makes enemies take X Shadow damage over 2 seconds.
Pants	Royal Ruby	Aspect of Shielding Storm	Each time that Bone Storm damage an enemy gain a Barrier equal to 2-5% of your Base Life for 10 seconds.
Boots	n/a	Aspect of Occult Dominion	Your maximum number of Skeletal Warriors and Skeletal Mages is increased by 2.
Weapon 2H (Scythe)	Royal Emerald	Blighted Aspect	You deal 50-120% increased damage for 6 seconds after the Shadowblight Key Passive damages enemies 10 times.
Amulet (50% Scaling)	Any Resistance Jewel	Aspect of Reanimation	Your Minions gain increased damage while alive, up to 30-40% after 10 seconds.
Ring	Any Resistance Jewel	Osseous Gale Aspect	Bone Storm consumes up to 8 Corpses to increase its duration by up to 5-10 seconds.
Ring	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%.

Gems

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.	Royal Ruby For increased Maximum Life.	Royal Amethyst Royal Sapphire Royal Ruby Royal Skull

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. To masterwork, you will need rare materials that only drop from The Pit. Be sure to check our Tempering guide, our Masterworking guide, as well as our guide about The Pit for more details about these topics.

Slot	Targeted Gear Affixes	Tempering Affixes
Helm	1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Intelligence 3. Maximum Life	Natural Resistance #% Lightning Resistance Profane Innovation #% Corpse Tendril Size
Chest	1. Ranks to Golem Mastery 2. Maximum Life 3. Intelligence	Worldly Endurance # Maximum Life Profane Innovation #% Corpse Tendrils Size
Pants	1. Ranks to Skeletal Mage Mastery 2. Intelligence 3. Maximum Life	Worldly Endurance # Maximum Life Profane Innovation #% Decrepify Size
Gloves	1. Attack Speed 2. Critical Strike Chance 3. Intelligence	Summoning Finesse #% Golem Damage Profane Innovation #% Decrepify Size
Boots	1. Movement Speed 2. Maximum Life 3. Intelligence	Necromancer Motion #% Movement Speed Profane Innovation #% Corpse Explosion Size
Amulet	1. Ranks to Hellbent Commander 2. Movement Speed 3. Cooldown Reduction	Necromancer Efficiency #% Golem Active Cooldown Reduction Necromancer Motion #% Movement Speed
Ring	1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Attack Speed 3. Intelligence	Summoning Finesse #% Golem Damage Necromancer Efficiency #% Golem Active Cooldown Reduction
Ring	1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Attack Speed 3. Intelligence	Summoning Finesse #% Golem Damage Necromancer Efficiency #% Golem Active Cooldown Reduction
2H-Weapon (Scythe)	1. Intelligence 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Maximum Life	Summoning Augments #% Minion Attack Speed Summoning Finesse #% Golem Damage

Keep in mind that the maximum Resistance is 70% by default for each element and can be increased to 85% by various sources.

Rotation and Playstyle

We’ll use Corpse Tendrils to pull enemies together and make sure they are all cursed by Decrepify. Follow this up with the use of your Golem ability that will explode the entire screen away. Corpse Explosion is used when everything else is on cooldown, but make sure you keep the Skeletal Priest buff active by using the Raise Skeleton ability consistently. The same goes for making sure the Bone Storm is active at all times.

Uniques and Uber Uniques

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

Mythic Uniques

There are some Mythic Unique items you can fit in the build, though all of them will require a lot of changes in the build ranging from shifting slots for your aspect powers to solving attribute issues in other cases. Generally, the recommendation is to not use any unique items at all for this build as we want as many aspect powers as possible.

Season 5: Infernal Hordes

The following list details the changes in the Season 5 Update (Patch 1.5.0) that may pertain to the Summoner Necromancer build. Check the Changelog for all the other guide updates. As you can see only 1 change affected the build directly and it’s a good one!

• Necromancer Minion attacks can now Overpower.
• Minions are now more aggressive and will automatically engage nearby enemies.

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

By stacking cooldown reduction from both gear and our Decrepify we can utilize the full power of our Golem build. To further scale the build we are utilizing the synergetic mechanic of Bone Storm providing Critical Strike Chance and Damage Reduction at a 100% uptime which will also be generating a Barrier for added layer of defense for the build. This is also turned in to Shadow damage to ramp up our Shadowblight Key Passive which in turn triggers our Blighted Aspect for even more damage output.

Heavy focus on attack speed for our minions makes this all function like clock-work!

Defenses

Aspect of Shielding Storm on a 100% uptime using Bone Storm on top of a large minion army tanking our enemies is how this build stays alive in the highest end-game content.

Offenses

The beautiful combination of massing out Shadow damage sources from our entire toolkit triggers Blighted Aspect to scale the damage output of our Golem to the skies. This is handled via Cooldown reductions and fast hitting minions triggering the Decrepify and how we are double-dipping defensive focused abilities to provide us with ramping damage output on top of the defensive gains!

Paragon

The recommended Paragon Boards for this build are listed above, and further down below, you can find a more thorough route for allocating the Paragon points, as well as some notes on why specific nodes were chosen and why they are essential for this build.

Glyphs & Legendary Nodes	Effect
Amplify	– Grants +150% bonus to all Magic Nodes within range. – Additional Bonus is unlocked with 40 intelligence in radius making enemies affected by your Curses take an additional x10% increased damage from you and your minions.
Deadraiser	– Paragon nodes within range gain +100% bonus to their Minion damage and damage reduction modifiers. – Additional Bonus is unlocked with 40 Intelligence in radius making it so whenever your Minions deal damage to an enemy, that enemy takes 1% increased damage from you and your Minions, up to 15%, for 10 seconds.
Exploit	– For every 5 Dexterity purchased within range, you deal +8% increased damage to Vulnerable targets. – Additional Bonus is unlocked with 25 Dexterity in radius making you dealing damage to a Vulnerable target increase your damage by x1% for 6 seconds, up to x10%.
Territorial	– For every 5 Dexterity purchased within range, you deal +10% increased damage to Close targets. – Additional Bonus is unlocked with 25 Dexterity in radius, making you gain 15% Damage Reduction against Close targets.
Essence	– For every 5 Dexterity purchased within range, you deal +20% increased Critical Strike Damage. – Additional Bonus is unlocked with 25 Dexterity in radius, Critical Strikes deal x22% increased damage to enemies that are not Healthy.
Golem	– For every 5 Willpower purchased within range, Golems gain +19,8% increased damage. – Additional bonus is unlocked with 25 Willpower in radius, making your Golem gain x25% increased damage.
Corporeal	– Grants +150% bonus to all Magic nodes within range. – Additional Bonus is unlocked with 40 Intelligence in radius, you and your minions deal x10% increased Physical damage and you gain 1% Movement Speed for each active Minion.
Control	– For every 5 Intelligence purchased within range, you deal +10% increased damage to Crowd Controlled targets. – Additional Bonus is unlocked with 40 Intelligence in radius, you deal x10% increased damage to Slowed or Chilled enemies or, instead, x20% increased damage to Stunned or Frozen enemies.
Cult Leader	Your Minions deal x30% increased damage for each x20% of Attack Speed Bonus they have, up to a maximum of 100% Attack Speed Bonus.
Hulking Monstrosity	Your Golem has x40% increased Maximum Life and deals x100% increased damage.
Flesh-eater	Consuming 5 Corpses grants x40% increased damage for 6 seconds.
Scent of Death	With at least 2 Corpses Nearby, you gain 15% Damage Reduction. With no Corpses Nearby, you deal x15% increased damage.

Let’s take it one step further and break down each of the beneficial nodes we spend our Paragon Points on

Starting Board

1. Rushing Socket nodes is the play on all boards, starting board is no different.
2. You can ignore the resistance and life nodes on the right side till World Tier 4 before they become more and more important.

Cult Leader

1. Deadraiser Glyph is super important for the survival of your minions so pick up the surrounding nodes in range of this.
2. Cult Leader is insanely strong so this is to be rushed before you leave the board.

Bone Graft

1. Socket rush
2. Grab the magic and rare nodes on the right before you leave the board.

Hulking Monstrosity

1. Socket Rush, yes, this means ignoring the magic and rare nodes on the right.
2. Hulking Monstrosity most important node of the entire Paragon Board for the build will be taken next.
3. Take the remaining magic and rare nodes before leaving the board.

Flesh-Eater

1. Socket rush.
2. Flesh-eater before you grab any magic and rare nodes then leave the board.

Scent of Death

1. Scent of Death will be picked up first as it’s on the way to the socket.
2. Socket rush comes next!
3. Pick up remaining magic and rare nodes before you leave the board.

Wither

1. Socket rush.
2. Now we pick up the remaining magic and rare 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 from Icy Veins for gambling Obols in the link below:

Changelog

• August 5, 2024: Guide updated for Season 5, Infernal Hordes.
• May 17th, 2024: Guide made for Season 4 Loot Reborn.