Shadow Necromancer Build

Introduction

Welcome to our Diablo 4 Shadow Necromancer Build, the “Shadowmancer. This build uses the Ultimate Shadow, Blight, and Damned Aspects to Deal massive amounts of Shadow Damage with Reap while becoming nearly invisible with Blood Mist and Bone Storm. The guide covers Skill Tree, Paragon Board choices, Glyphs, Aspects, and Everything else you need to know to Run the Build.

Pros

Top Tier Mob and Elite Damage
Great Survivability with Blood Mist and Shielding Storm Aspect
Good Burst Damage for Bosses
No Required Uniques

Cons

Cooldown Dependent
High Number of Legendary Aspects Required to Play the Build
Struggles with sustained damage in Longer Boss Fights

Skill and Paragon Board

Board Order

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

Glyph Leveling Priority

Below are the Glyphs the Shadow Necromancer build uses in the Paragon Board. The Glyphs are in order of upgrade priority from top to bottom. MAKE SURE TO UPGRADE EACH GLYPH to 15 First, then push them to level 21

Exploit (Flesh Eater then Blood Bath) – Vulnerable Damage is one of the most important aspects of any build in Diablo 4. Because of this we will upgrade Exploit Early, and move it around the board as we get more opportunity to scale it. The first board that will come available that has the DEX necessary to scale Exploit is Flesh Eater. Once we get to the Blood Bath Board, We will move the Exploit Glyph there and replace it with Territorial due to the fact Blood Bath has more DEX within range of the node. Also, EXPLOIT is the ONLY glyph we have in the build that requires level 15 to activate the passive with surrounding nodes. This adds to the list of reasons to upgrade it first.

Control (Start Board) – Control grants increased damage to Slowed or Chilled Enemies and up to 20% Increased damage to Sunnted and Frozen Enemies. With Decrepify, Pertinent Greaves, and Crippling Darkness this build should have all enemies under one of the CC effects above all of the time. Couple this with the fact we can scale the started board to 70 INT and it’s an easy choice.

Darkness (Scent of Death) – Darkness is the next Glyph well upgrade as its one well utilize early on in the Scent of Death Board. The Glphs additional Damage also provides Damage Reduction to Enemies we’ve damaged. This Additional Bonus can be activated at level 1, which is a nice early boost to Survivability

Territorial (Flesh Eater) – Territorial is the 4th Glyph well upgrade and add to the Flesh Eater Board. Almost all the damage we deal is within “Close” range and the Additional Bonus Grants us with another Damage Reduction buff.
Essence (Bone Graft) – Essence is a great boost to our Sever damage, which is this build’s primary source of burst damage. Not only does it provide Scalable Crit Damage with Core Skills, but the passive also grants 22% Crit Damage increase to “non-Healthy” mobs.

Imbiber (Wither) – The Final Glyph for the Shadowmancer build is Imbiber. The Good thing about Imbiber, aside from the DPS boost, is that it can be activated in the Wither Board early at level 1. Since we have a barrier up most of the time with the Shielding Storm Aspect, Most of our damage falls into the “While Healthy” Bubble and outperforms all the other “6th” options.

Book of the Dead

For our Shadow Necromancer, We will sacrifice all Minions. Below are the perks you will earn from each sacrifice.

Skeletal Warrior (Reaper) – 15% X Increased Shadow Damage
Skeletal Mages (Ice) – 15%X Increased Vulnerable Damage
Golem (Iron) – 30% X Increased Critical Damage

Item Affix Priority

Item	1	2	3	4	5
Helm	Cooldown Reduction	Maximum LIfe	Lucky Hit with Barrier (Sorc)	+ Total Armor	+Intelligence
Chest	Damage Reduction	Damage Reduction to Clost Enemies	Maximum LIfe	+ Total Armor	+ Damage Reduction to Distant Enemies
Glove	Crit Chance	Attack Speed	Lucky Hit Chance	+ Ranks to Sever	Damage Reduction to Close Enemies
Pants	Damage Reduction	Damage Reduction to Close Enemies	Maximum LIfe	+Ranks to Blood Mist	+ Damage Reduction to Distant Enemies
Boots	+ Movement Speed	+ Essence Cost Reduction	+Intellegence	+Movement Speed for X seconds After Killing an Elite	+ All Stat
Amulet	+ Cooldown Reduction	+ Movement Speed	+ Ranks to Gloom Passive	+ Essence Cost Reduction	+ Ranks of the Terror Passive
Ring x 2	Crit Chance	Crit Damage	Vulnerable Damage	Lucky HIt Chance	+Damage to Close Enemies
Weapon 1H	Crit Damage	Vulnerable Damage	+Damage to Close Enemies	Core Skill Damage	+ Intelligence
Off Hand	Cooldown Reduction	Crit Chance	Lucky Hit	Essence Cost Reduction	Lucky Hit with Barrier (sorc)

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

Ultimate Shadow Aspect (Offensive) – Converts Blood Storm to Shadow Damage
Blighted Aspect (Offensive) – Up to 180%(Amulet) with 10x Shadowblight Key Passive hits.
Damned Aspect (Offensive – Up to 40%x Damage to Cursed Enemies
Aspect of the Shielding Storm (Defensive) – Ensures constant Barrier Generation with Bone Storm.
Disobedience (Defensive) – Best in Slot Defensive Aspect, will help keep us at Armor Cap (85%) due to the builds hit frequency

Aspect of Decay (Offensive) – Extra Damage from Shadowblight Passive
Aspect of Gale (Offensive) – Extends the duration of Bone Storm by consuming Corpses
Aspect of the Blood Soaked (Offensive) – Removes reduced Movement speed from the mist and adds a trail of DOT shadow damage
Aspect of Explosive Mist (Defensive) – Blood Mist Explodes Corpses

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

This build only has one recommended Unique Item and it is not required to use the build.

Penitent Greaves – One of the most powerful Uniques in Diablo 4, Penitent Greaves allows you to obtain a significant amount of damage increase you can’t usually find in the Boots Slot. Since Shadow Necromancer has access to X Damage to Slowed enemies with the Terror Passive and has weak Affixes in the Boots slot Pentitent Greaves is a no-brainer for the build.

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:

The Malignant Pact (Wrathful, Super): Cycle through a Malignant bonus every 20 kills:
- Vicious: Gain 20% Attack Speed.
- Devious: Core and Basic Skills have a 15% chance to fully restore your Primary Resource.
- Brutal: Every 21 seconds, gain a Barrier absorbing 85-102 damage.
The Decrepit Aura (Brutal, Defensive): When at least 5 enemies are near you, gain an aura that automatically curses surrounding enemies with Decrepify for 5-15 seconds.
The Sacrilegious (Vicious, Offensive): Walking near a Corpse automatically activates an equipped Corpse Skill every second, dealing 40-30% reduced damage.

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 Shadow Necromancer

The Shadow Necromancer utilizes the Shadowblight Key Passive with the Blighted Aspect to open up burst windows for Sever. Stacking the Blighted Aspect perk comes easy with Bone Storm and Blood Mist. In large mob, groups, the Blighted Aspect should be up almost all the time, allowing you to mow through Nightmare Dungeons with Ease.

Bone Storm and Blood Mist also play into the defensive strategy of the build. Using the Aspect of Shielding Storm, while stacking Cooldown Reduction and Lucky HIt, you should have either Blood Mist or Bone Storm active at all times, making you almost invincible.

The last piece of the build is our 2 curses and Reap. Iron Maiden and Decrepify are used in tandem to provide the following benefits.

40%X bonus increase (Aspect of the Damned)
9%X damage to Cursed Enemies
20% damage reduction
Cooldown Reduction on Lucky HIt
Chance to Stun on Lucky Hit
Apply Slow
Gain 5 Essence Per Hit
5% of Max Life when an Enemy Dies

Reap is used to Weave in between attacks during Pack Mobs for increased Attack Speed, and is used for Essence Regen and Corpse Generation on Bosses. We will cover more on this below

Vs Trash and Elite mobs

The Shadow Necromancer blasts trash mobs and Elites with easy by maintaining max stacks of Shadowblight while utilizing the 180% damage increase from the blighted aspect. This is done by Keeping High Bone Storm uptime and utilizing the Blood-Soaked and Explosive Mist Aspects of Blood Mist. Make sure to CURSE ALL ENEMIES with both Iron Maiden and Decripfy as it keeps our damage high and our cooldowns low. Below is a general rotation while pulling mob packs and Elites

Apply Iron Maiden and Decrpify
Cast Bone Storm
Cast Sever Until Out of Essence – Make sure to weave in a Reap to get increased attack Speed
Blood Mist to Regen Essence and reset Bone Storm Cooldown while applying more Shadow Damage

Its important to note that you should NOT USE BLOOD MIST OFFENIVELY. Never open a fight with Blood Mist as you will need to use it defensively to remove CC and to reset your Bone Storm Cooldown.

Vs Bosses

On bosses, the goal is to get to 10 Shadowblight stacks with the Blighted Aspect and dump Essence with the Sever. This is much more difficult in a single-target fight, but can be done with the right rotation

Boss Skill Rotation

Apply Iron Maden and Decrepify
Cast Bone Storm
Sever until Out of Essence
Reap X 1 for Corpse generation
Cast Blood Mist to regen Essence and apply more shadow damage with Blood-Soaked and Exploding Corpse Aspect
Cast Reap if necessary until 10 stacks of Blighted Aspect Stacks
Sever til Out of Essence

This Rotation should down most bosses pretty quickly. Some Bosses can be killed with just the first 3 steps while other Bosses (ones that move around a lot) might require a Second rotation.