Best Diablo 4 Blight Necromancer build in Season 5

Sam Smith
blight necro

The 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.

diablo 4 necromancer endgame
The Necromancer is a master of death and uses corpses as weapons.

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:

LevelSkill
1Reap
2Enhanced Reap
3Blight
4Enhanced Blight
5Supernatural Blight
6Blight
7Blight
8Blight
9Blight
10Unliving Energy
11Imperfectly Balanced
12Imperfectly Balanced
13Imperfectly Balanced
14Hewed Flesh
15Hewed Flesh
16Hewed Flesh
17Corpse Explosion
18Enhanced Corpse Explosion
19Blighted Corpse Explosion
20Corpse Explosion
21Corpse Explosion
22Corpse Explosion
23Corpse Explosion
24Skeletal Warrior Mastery
25Skeletal Warrior Mastery
26Skeletal Warrior Mastery
27Grim Harvest
28Grim Harvest
29Grim Harvest
30Fueled By Death
31Fueled By Death
32Fueled By Death
33Iron Maiden
34Enhanced Iron Maiden
35Death’s Embrace
36Death’s Embrace
37Death’s Embrace
38Amplify Damage
39Amplify Damage
40Amplify Damage
41Skeletal Mage Mastery
42Corpse Tendrils
43Enhanced Corpse Tendrils
44Plagued Corpse Tendrils
45Shadowblight
46Golem Mastery
47Golem Mastery
48Golem Mastery
49Crippling Darkness
Renown 1Reaper’s Pursuit
Renown 2Reaper’s Pursuit
Renown 3Reaper’s Pursuit
Renown 4Gloom
Renown 5Gloom
Renown 6Gloom
Renown 7Terror
Renown 8Terror
Renown 9Terror
Renown 10Skeletal 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.

blight necromancer skill
The Blight skill does AEO shadow damage.

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:

AspectPowerDungeonRegion
BlightedIncreased Shadow Blight damageAkkhan’s Grasp (complete A Debt Repaid quest)Hawezar
UmbralRestores Primary Resource when you crowd-control an enemyChampion’s DemiseDry Steppes
DamnedIncreased Shadow DamageUldur’s CaveKehjistan

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 SkillUpgradesPoints allocated
ReapEnhanced1
BlightEnhanced, Supernatural5
Corpse Explosion Enhanced, Blighted2
Iron MaidenEnhanced2
Corpse TendrilsEnhanced, Plagued2

Here’s which passive skills you’ll need for the endgame build:

Passive SkillPoints
Unliving Energy1
Hewed Flesh3
Imperfectly Balanced3
Grim Harvest1
Fueled by Death3
Amplify Damage3
Death’s Embrace3
Reaper’s Pursuit3
Crippling Darkness1
Gloom3
Necrotic Carapace1
Terror3
Hellbent Commander3
Inspiring Leader3
Shadowblight1

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:

AspectPowerDungeonRegionGamble Obols
BlightedIncreased Shadowblight damage damageAkkan’s GraspHawezar
DamnedIncreased Shadow damageUldur’s CaveKehjistan
UmbralBoosts resource regeneration Champion’s DemiseDry Steppes
GhostwalkerBecome unstoppable when movement speed is boostedBroken BulwarkScosglen
Disobedience Boosts defense based on your damage outputHalls of the DamnedKehjistan
Shared MiseryBoosts crowd control damageOblivionHawezar
SacrificialBoosts Sacrifice bonusesRuins of EriduHawezar
HulkingBoosts Golem cooldownSepulcher of the ForswordKehjistan
VoidBlight pulls in enemiesPants
Hardened BonesYou and your minions get damage reductionPants
Shielding StormBone Storm can lead to casting BarrierPants
SlaughterBoosts 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

Paragon Board
The Paragon Board replaces skills at level 50.

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 SocketItem typePower
Hulking Runic SkullcapRuby for extra lifeHelmBoosts Minion damage
Runic Mail of Disobedience Ruby for extra lifeChest ArmorIncreased Armor
Runic Gloves of Innder CalmRuby for extra lifeGlovesIncreased damage
Runic Leggings of Shared MiseryRuby for extra lifePantsIncreased crowd control damage
Ghostwalker Runic CleatsRuby for extra lifeBootsIncreased Unstoppable chance
‍Parashu of the Damned2x Amethysts for increased damageMain HandIncreased Shadow damage
Offhand
Blighted ChainDiamond for extra attack powerAmuletIncreased Shadowblight damage
Band of the UmbralDiamond for extra attack powerRing 1Increased crowd control damage
Band of Voracious RageDiamond for extra attack powerRing 2Increased 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.