Best Diablo 4 Blight Necromancer build in Season 5
Blizzard Entertainment / DexertoThe Necromancer is one of the top classes to play as in Season 5 of Diablo 4 with the Blight build also making the meta. Here’s how to assemble the build as well as how effective it is for Leveling, Endgame, and PvP play.
The Blight Necro build involves the Necromancer manipulating corpses and using them as a deadly weapon against the forces of hell. As the Necromancer is a top-tier class this season, knowing how to craft their best builds is essential. The Blight Necro is rated as C-Tier in Season 5, but the fact that the build is on the meta means it’s still worth trying.
Below, we’ll detail how to optimize the build for leveling, endgame, and PvP, giving you the best skills, items, Aspects, and Glyphs to target on your journey this season.
Best Blight Necro leveling build in Diablo 4 Season 5
As you level while playing through either the campaign or the new Season 5 content, you’ll want to make sure that you’re selecting your skills in the following order:
Level | Skill |
---|---|
1 | Reap |
2 | Enhanced Reap |
3 | Blight |
4 | Enhanced Blight |
5 | Supernatural Blight |
6 | Blight |
7 | Blight |
8 | Blight |
9 | Blight |
10 | Unliving Energy |
11 | Imperfectly Balanced |
12 | Imperfectly Balanced |
13 | Imperfectly Balanced |
14 | Hewed Flesh |
15 | Hewed Flesh |
16 | Hewed Flesh |
17 | Corpse Explosion |
18 | Enhanced Corpse Explosion |
19 | Blighted Corpse Explosion |
20 | Corpse Explosion |
21 | Corpse Explosion |
22 | Corpse Explosion |
23 | Corpse Explosion |
24 | Skeletal Warrior Mastery |
25 | Skeletal Warrior Mastery |
26 | Skeletal Warrior Mastery |
27 | Grim Harvest |
28 | Grim Harvest |
29 | Grim Harvest |
30 | Fueled By Death |
31 | Fueled By Death |
32 | Fueled By Death |
33 | Iron Maiden |
34 | Enhanced Iron Maiden |
35 | Death’s Embrace |
36 | Death’s Embrace |
37 | Death’s Embrace |
38 | Amplify Damage |
39 | Amplify Damage |
40 | Amplify Damage |
41 | Skeletal Mage Mastery |
42 | Corpse Tendrils |
43 | Enhanced Corpse Tendrils |
44 | Plagued Corpse Tendrils |
45 | Shadowblight |
46 | Golem Mastery |
47 | Golem Mastery |
48 | Golem Mastery |
49 | Crippling Darkness |
Renown 1 | Reaper’s Pursuit |
Renown 2 | Reaper’s Pursuit |
Renown 3 | Reaper’s Pursuit |
Renown 4 | Gloom |
Renown 5 | Gloom |
Renown 6 | Gloom |
Renown 7 | Terror |
Renown 8 | Terror |
Renown 9 | Terror |
Renown 10 | Skeletal Mage Mastery |
These skills will help you craft the ideal Blight Necro build for leveling. Of course, you’ll need to have unlocked the Renown points to use the extra ten.
Many of the passive skills above will boost your Corpse and Shadow skills (like Blight) and make them as powerful as possible. As every build needs active skills, we’ve provided a variety that complements the Blight build in combat.
As there’s synergy between Corpse skills and Minion skills, we’ve also ensured that your passive Minion skills have been boosted while ignoring Bone and Blood skills.
Best Book of the Dead setup for leveling
When it comes to using the Necromancer’s unique Book of the Dead skills, we recommend selecting the following:
- Skeletal Warriors – Reapers
- Skeletal Mages – Cold
- Golems – Blood
This Book of the Dead setup is the best for this build, letting your Reaper Skeletal Warriors focus on melee combat while you and your Mages support them from a distance with Cold Magic. This will slow enemies down while your Skeletons, Golem, and yourself strike at them while they’re vulnerable.
It’ll also allow slowed enemies to be caught up in Blight and be more susceptible to its damage and status ailments. We’ve selected the Blood Golem for this Book of the Dead setup as it’ll allow your Golem to buff your damage output and heal you when you’re in danger.
Best leveling rotation
- Summon Minions
- Iron Maiden
- Corpse Tendrils
- Blight
- Corpse Explosion
- Reap (in close combat)
You’ll likely already have your minions active when a battle begins, if not summon them. Then, strike a mob with Iron Maiden so that they’re likely to take more damage when the battle starts.
Next, cast Plagued Corpse Tendrils to stun enemies and increase the likelihood of producing extra corpses to re-supply your minion army. From here, hit them with your main attack, using Blight to do damage from a distance once your minions engage the mob.
Blight, Plauged Corpse Tendrils, and Iron Maiden will work well together, trapping enemies in a deadly kill box that only becomes more lethal when you start casting Corpse Explosion. This will finish off stragglers in no time.
Should an enemy get too close to you slice them with Reap, or attack the bubbling mess left behind by Blight and Reap your enemies caught in it.
Of course, whichever rotation works for you will be the best to use, but the above is a logical, tried, and tested method to combine skills into one powerful set of attacks.
Best Legendary Aspects
While Legendary Aspects will become more useful in the endgame version of the Blight Necro build, there are some you can hunt down while progressing to level 50 or while playing through the story. Here’s where you can find them:
Aspect | Power | Dungeon | Region |
---|---|---|---|
Blighted | Increased Shadow Blight damage | Akkhan’s Grasp (complete A Debt Repaid quest) | Hawezar |
Umbral | Restores Primary Resource when you crowd-control an enemy | Champion’s Demise | Dry Steppes |
Damned | Increased Shadow Damage | Uldur’s Cave | Kehjistan |
Best Blight Necro endgame build in Diablo 4 Season 5
Once you reach endgame in Season 5 by beating the story, hitting level 50, and unlocking the Paragon Board, you can then respec to the endgame version of the Blight Necro build.
However on this occasion, this is the same set-up as the leveling build, only the point allocation has really changed:
Active Skill | Upgrades | Points allocated |
---|---|---|
Reap | Enhanced | 1 |
Blight | Enhanced, Supernatural | 5 |
Corpse Explosion | Enhanced, Blighted | 2 |
Iron Maiden | Enhanced | 2 |
Corpse Tendrils | Enhanced, Plagued | 2 |
Here’s which passive skills you’ll need for the endgame build:
Passive Skill | Points |
---|---|
Unliving Energy | 1 |
Hewed Flesh | 3 |
Imperfectly Balanced | 3 |
Grim Harvest | 1 |
Fueled by Death | 3 |
Amplify Damage | 3 |
Death’s Embrace | 3 |
Reaper’s Pursuit | 3 |
Crippling Darkness | 1 |
Gloom | 3 |
Necrotic Carapace | 1 |
Terror | 3 |
Hellbent Commander | 3 |
Inspiring Leader | 3 |
Shadowblight | 1 |
This build still primarily focuses on Corpse skills as your primary form of offense, but also uses Minions as a secondary set of skills, similar to the leveling build.
Best endgame Book of the Dead setup
We’re going to use the same set-up we used for leveling in our endgame version of this build:
- Skeletal Warriors – Reapers
- Skeletal Mages – Cold
- Golems – Blood
Best endgame rotation
For endgame, use the following skill rotation when approaching mobs in battle:
- Summon Minions
- Iron Maiden
- Corpse Tendrils
- Blight
- Corpse Explosion
- Reap (in close combat)
Once again, the aim here is to trap enemies in a box while Blight, Iron Maiden, and Corpse Tendrils do their malevolent work. Enemies will also be slowed by your Skeletal Mage’s cold damage, making them even more vulnerable.
Best Legendary Aspects
Now that you’ve reached endgame, you’ll have access to many more Legendary Aspects to boost your build and add special powers to buff your primary skills. Some are the same as in the leveling build, but now there’s even more. Here’s where and how you can find them:
Aspect | Power | Dungeon | Region | Gamble Obols |
---|---|---|---|---|
Blighted | Increased Shadowblight damage damage | Akkan’s Grasp | Hawezar | – |
Damned | Increased Shadow damage | Uldur’s Cave | Kehjistan | – |
Umbral | Boosts resource regeneration | Champion’s Demise | Dry Steppes | – |
Ghostwalker | Become unstoppable when movement speed is boosted | Broken Bulwark | Scosglen | – |
Disobedience | Boosts defense based on your damage output | Halls of the Damned | Kehjistan | – |
Shared Misery | Boosts crowd control damage | Oblivion | Hawezar | – |
Sacrificial | Boosts Sacrifice bonuses | Ruins of Eridu | Hawezar | – |
Hulking | Boosts Golem cooldown | Sepulcher of the Forsword | Kehjistan | |
Void | Blight pulls in enemies | – | – | Pants |
Hardened Bones | You and your minions get damage reduction | – | – | Pants |
Shielding Storm | Bone Storm can lead to casting Barrier | – | – | Pants |
Slaughter | Boosts movements speed by 20% | – | – | Boots |
Remember, you can also strip these Aspects from their original item and apply them to an item of your choosing.
Paragon Board
Once you reach level 50 you’ll stop earning skills points and start earning Paragon points instead. This leveling system works very differently and involves you selecting updates from various boards with different themes and buffs.
Every path is different, but the good news is that by targeting different Glyphs as you move around the Paragon Board, you’ll start buffing your Blight Necro in the ways that matter most to the build.
See below to see which Glyphs you should target first.
Best Glyphs
Level 15
- Darkness
- Control
- Scourge
- Sacrificial
- Abyssal
- Exploit
- Amplify
- Gravekeeper
Level 21
- Control
- Scourge
- Exploit
- Sacrificial
- Amplify
- Abyssal
- Gravekeeper
Once you reach Paragon Level 15, work your way towards the above Glyphs. You’ll also unlock more across the Paragon Board as you earn more points, but selecting these particular Glyphs in this order will keep you on the best possible path for the Blight Necro build.
Best Blight Necro endgame item build
Item | Socket | Item type | Power |
---|---|---|---|
Hulking Runic Skullcap | Ruby for extra life | Helm | Boosts Minion damage |
Runic Mail of Disobedience | Ruby for extra life | Chest Armor | Increased Armor |
Runic Gloves of Innder Calm | Ruby for extra life | Gloves | Increased damage |
Runic Leggings of Shared Misery | Ruby for extra life | Pants | Increased crowd control damage |
Ghostwalker Runic Cleats | Ruby for extra life | Boots | Increased Unstoppable chance |
Parashu of the Damned | 2x Amethysts for increased damage | Main Hand | Increased Shadow damage |
– | – | Offhand | – |
Blighted Chain | Diamond for extra attack power | Amulet | Increased Shadowblight damage |
Band of the Umbral | Diamond for extra attack power | Ring 1 | Increased crowd control damage |
Band of Voracious Rage | Diamond for extra attack power | Ring 2 | Increased core skill damage |
Blight Necromancer build for PvP
The Blight Necro isn’t recommended for PvP, and while it’s fantastic in PvE, we’d recommend using the Bone Spirit or Bone Spear build instead, sacrificing your minions and turning your Necromancer into a one-person army in some cases.
If you’re set on taking this build into battle against other players, though, we’d suggest sticking to our endgame version for the best results.
Your minions will be weak to other players, you tap your PvP opponents in your kill box (see rotation) then move in for the kill with Reap. It may be worth upgrading Reap by taking some of the points away from your minions if you choose to use this build for PvP.
Now that you know how to craft this top-tier Necromancer build this season, make sure to check out our guides for the Druid, Sorcerer, Rogue, and Barbarian.