Greatsword - Dagger

Longbow - Staff

Staff - Dagger

Crossbow - Daggers

Longbow - Dagger

Wand - Longbow

Wand - Dagger

COMING SOON

Sword & Shield - Greatsword

Sword and Shield - Dagger

Sword and Shield - Wand

Introduction

Bone Spear is one of the hardest-hitting abilities in Diablo 4. We’ll teach you everything you need to know to one-shot packs of enemies with ease in our Bone Spear Necromancer Build.

Pros

  • Deals Massive amounts of Burst Damage at Range
  • Capable of completing BOTH Tier 100 Nightmare Sigils and Uber Lilith
  • Great for Farming XP and Glyphs as well

Cons

  • Necromancer Kit provides poor survivability
  • Only 1 way to gain unstoppable/Invisible (Blood Mist)
  • Requires Several Legendary Aspects to function at the highest level

Skill and Paragon Board

Paragon Board Order

Starter>Bone Graft>Scent of Death>Flesh Eater>Blood Bath

Glyph Leveling Priority

  • Exploit (Bone Graft)
  • Control (Starting then Flesh Eater)
  • Essence (Scent of Death)
  • Sacrificial (Starting)
  • Imbiber (Blood Bath)

Book of the Dead

For the Bone Spear Necromancer, we will sacrifice all Minions. Below is the perks you will get from each sacrifice:

  • Skeletal Warrior (Skirmishers) – 5% X Crit Strike Chance
  • Skeletal Mages (Ice) – 15%X Increased Vulnerable Damage
  • Golem (Iron) – 30% X Increased Critical Damage

Item Affix Priority

Item12345
Helm or
(Deathless Visage)
Maximum EssenceMaximum LifeCooldown Reduction+ Total Armor+Intelligence
ChestMaximum LifeDamage ReductionDamage Reduction to DIstant Enemies+ Total Armor+ Damage Reduction to Close Enemies
Glove+Ranks to Bone Spear+Lucky HIt+Crit Chance+Lucky Hit: Chance to Restore Essence+Crit Damage with Bone Skills
PantsDamage ReductionDamage Reduction to Distant EnemiesMaximum Life+ Ranks to Blood MIst+ Total Armor
Boots
+ Movement Speed+ Essence Cost Reduction+Ranks to Corpse Tendril+Intelligence+ Movement Speed for X Seconds After Killing an Elite
Amulet+ Cooldown Reduction+ Movement Speed+Essence Cost Reduction+ Ranks to Evulsion+ Damage Reduction
Ring x 2Crit ChanceCrit DamageMaximum Essence+Vulnerable Damage+Critical Strike Damage with Bone Skills
Weapon 2HVulnerable DamageCrit Strike DamageIntellectDamage with Core SkillsCrit Strike Damage with Bone Skills

Legendary Aspects

Below is a list of Aspects we use and recommend for this build. The Aspects are in order starting from the most to least important.

Build Defining

  • Splintering Aspect (Offensive)
  • Aspect of Grasping Vines (Offensive)
  • Aspect of Serration (Offensive
  • Umbral Aspect (Resource
  • Aspect of Exposed Flesh (Resource)
  • Disobedience (Defensive)
  • Aspect of the Protector or Shielding Storm (Defensive)
  • Aspect of Explosive MIst (Utility)
  • Wind Striker Aspect (Boots) if not using Deathless Visage

Aspect Slots

You can use Aspect in any slot you can fit it in, aside from the Amulet Aspect which needs to be used on the Blighted Aspect. Here is a reminder of the slot limitations for Legendary Aspects:

  • Offensive – Amulets, Gloves, Ring, Weapons, Off-Hands
  • Defensive – Amulets, Chest, Helm, Legs, Shield
  • Mobility – Amulets, Boots
  • Resource – Rings
  • Utility – Amulets, Boots, Chest, Gloves, Helm, Shield

Unique Items

The only Unique Item that fits into our Bone Spear Build is Deathless Visage. It increase our DPS with its unique passive that causes Bone Spear to leave echos in its wake. It also has increased Critical Stike Damage with Bone Skill AND Physical Damage, two perk that are not otherwise available on Helms. The helmet also guarantees Maximum Essence, an essential perk to the build.

The Only Downside to using Deahless Visage is there is no Cooldown-reduction. Cooldown reduction is primarily for Bone Storm but also helps with Blood Mist and Corpse Tendril uptime. For this reason, Deathless Visage is an optional Unique.

Season 1: Malignant Hearts

Malignant Hearts, a new addition to Diablo 4 through the first Seasonal experience act as a huge boost to your build capabilities. As a result, we recommend using the following Malignant Hearts for this build:

Recommended

  • Tempting Fate (Vicious, Offensive-World Tier III): You gain 40-60% Critical Strike Damage but your Non-Critical Strikes deal 20-15% less damage.
  • The Calculated (Devious, Utility-World Tier III): After spending 150-200 of your Primary Resource, your next attack Stuns enemies hit for 2 seconds.
  • The Great Feast (Wrathful, Super-World Tier IV): Each Minion drains 1.0-2.0 Essence per second but deals 50-75% increased damage. With no Minions, this bonus applies to you and drains 5 Essence per second.

NOTE – The Great Feast can be dangerous due to our damage being linked to Max Essence. Make sure you have enough Essence sustain to utilize this Heart, otherwise go with one of the Alternative Choices until you do.

Alternative Choices

  • The Dark Dance (Vicious, Offensive-World Tier III): Every 5 seconds while above 60% Life, Core Skills cost 68-51 Life instead of your Primary Resource. Skills that consume Life deal 10-20% increased damage.
  • The Calculated (Devious, Utility-World Tier III): After spending 150-200 of your Primary Resource, your next attack Stuns enemies hit for 2 seconds.

How to Play Bone Spear Necromancer

Offense

The Bone Spear Necromancer lives true to its namesake and is easy to play – Cast Bone Spear. The main challenges of the build lie in resource management and survivability. Aspect of the Umbral and Aspect of Exposed Flesh help solve one of these problems by returning our Essence with most of our abilities. Both Decrepify and Corpse Tenrils not only scale our damage exponentially but, with Aspect of the Umbral, can also refill our Essence pool. Decrepify also provides a way to use our Lucky HIt Chance to reset our cooldowns quickly which, again, we can use to get more Essence.

Defense

The most important Defensive Quality of the build is its ability to deal Massive amounts of Damage at range. In high Tier content, killing mobs before they get in attack range allows you to push to the highest level of NIghtmare Dungeons. The Aspect of Disobedience helps us stay at Armor Cap (85%) while Aspect of the Protector adds some cushion with Barrier.

Finally, is Blood Mist. One of the weaknesses of the Necromancer class is the fact that it depends on Blood Mist to gain access to Unstoppable and Immunity. For this reason, we need it available to cast at a moment’s notice. Adding Cooldown Reduction and + Ranks to Blood Mist on our pants, along with Lucky HIt procs to targets under the Decrepify Curse, can help us make sure it’s up when we need it.

VS Trash, Elite Mobs, and Bosses

The Rotation of the Bone Spear is relatively straightforward and works in almost every situation

  • Cast Bone Storm (if available)
  • Decrepify Target(s)
  • Cast Bone Spear until something dies
  • Cast Corpse Tendrils on the first available Corpse
  • Cast Bone Spear on Tendril-Effected Targets until dead

If something lives through this combo (VERY UNLIKELY), Repeat steps 3-5.

Conclusion

That concludes our Bone Spear Necromancer Build. For an alternative Necromancer build, check out our Shadowmancer Build