If you’re looking for the best class to play in Diablo 4 season four, it’s definitely the Necromancer with a Minion build. Thanks to the companion buffs introduced in this update and the great affixes you can add to gear with Tempering, Necromancer Minions are simply overpowered.
What really makes Necromancer Minions shine in the late-game are the Legendary Temper Manual affixes you can add to gear that greatly increase the damage of Golems and Skeletal Mages, making these two minion types the focus of any Necromancer’s endgame in Diablo 4 season four. However, early game minions aren’t as effective for leveling in Diablo 4, so we’ll add some active skills into the mix for our Necromancer leveling build below. Here’s how it works.
Best Necromancer build for leveling in Diablo 4 season 4: Minions
Skill Tree
- Basic skills: Enhanced Reap
- Core skills: Blood Surge (5/5), Paranormal Blood Surge.
- Corpse & Macabre skills: Plagued Corpse Tendrils (1/3), Skeletal Warrior Mastery (3/3), Grim Harvest (1/3), Fueled by Death (3/3), Necrotic Carapace (3/3).
- Curse skills: Abhorrent Decrepify (5/5), Death’s Embrace (3/3), Amplify Damage (3/3), Death’s Approach (3/3), Skeletal Mage Mastery (3/3).
- Ultimate skills: Supreme Army of the Dead, Golem Mastery (3/3), Inspiring Leader (3/3) Death’s Defense (1/3), Hellbent Commander (3/3)
- Key passive: Kalan’s Edict.
This Minion Necromancer leveling build is the best in Diablo 4 season four, probably among all classes. It gears up to let your Skeletal Minions and Golems do most of the work for you while you walk around occasionally using Blood Surge, Corpse Tendrils, and Decrepify to deal with larger and stronger mobs.
Getting lots of Attack Speed and Maximum Health on your gear is usually the best approach during leveling, because the Necromancer’s minions now get 100 percent of your stats. Adjusting your character’s stats to make your minions stronger is more effective than ever. You want these minions to attack very fast and be resilient so they can survive for a long time and dispatch enemies quickly, while you do little work as possible. Your APM will be near zero as your level grows.
- Raise Skeleton is how you summon your minions from corpses on the ground. It’s also how you heal and buff them whenever you can.
- Take Enhanced Reap over Bone Splinters due to the Attack Speed buff, which minions inherit. If you’re familiar with the Bone Splinters build, you can still try it, though.
- Blood Surge is your best ally in the early game, at least until around level 35. Wiping mobs with it will be considerably easier and faster than with Minions before you are properly geared, so use Blood Surge often in your first levels.
- Decrepify is a staple in most Necromancer leveling builds due to its Slow, damage reduction, stun, and cooldown reduction. Overall, it’s the best debuff skill you can use to improve your Necromancer’s survivability.
- Corpse Tendrils is the best CC skill a Necromancer can have, which is why it’s present in this build. Combining its pull, stun, and vulnerable effects with Blood Surge may be all you need to completely clear a screen full of enemies.
- Army of the Dead is your main burst source and a great way to recover any lost minions on demand. With the Unyielding Commander’s Aspect, your minions also get a massive damage and defense buff.
Book of the Dead
As for Book of the Dead upgrades, we take a very defensive approach to ensure your Necromancer’s survivability and that your minions can handle large mobs by themselves without monsters ever touching you. The recommended Book of the Dead upgrades are:
- Skeletal Warriors – Defenders – Taunt upgrade: To distract enemies attacking you.
- Skeletal Mages – Cold – Essence upgrade: To guarantee constant Essence recovery for yourself.
- Golems – Blood – Healing upgrade: To increase your Necromancer’s survivability and Golems’ tankiness.
Gear
Your Necromancer gear should focus on stats that will be beneficial for both you and your minions. As a rule of thumb, the stats you want to prioritize are:
- Intelligence: To boost your skill damage.
- Attack Speed: To increase your minions’ attack speed.
- Critical Strike Chance: To land critical strikes more often.
- Maximum Life: For survivability.
- Ranks to Skills: To increase skills’ effectiveness and damage.
For optimizing your Minion Necromancer build, equip Ruby on your Armor to boost your health, ensuring better survivability. Use Diamond on your Amulet and Gear to increase your elemental resistances, which is crucial for mitigating various types of damage. For your Weapon, choose between Emerald or Sapphire. While Emerald is generally favored for Necromancer builds due to its Critical Chance enhancement, this specific variant benefits from the extra damage to crowd-controlled enemies provided by Sapphire, making it a viable option for maximizing your build’s effectiveness.
