The Blood Lance Necromancer build, also known as the “Bloodmancer,” is a collaboration between content creators Ghazzy and Garm. This build offers a sturdy, resilient, and high damage dealing character to kickstart your adventures in Diablo 4. With a massive amount of Life and Fortify, the damage dealt by Overpower on your skills skyrockets, as Overpower provides bonus damage based on the sum of your current Life and Fortify.
Build Introduction
This build revolves entirely around Blood Lance, which excels in both clearing packs of enemies and single-target encounters. Fortifying our massive Life pool and having access to Blood Orbs for healing form the foundation of our defensive layers. Decrepify is vital to lower the damage dealt by enemies, while Hemorrhage allows for smooth Essence recovery while clearing Nightmare Dungeons.
If you’re starting from scratch, leveling with this build is possible. However, we strongly recommend checking out the Necromancer Leveling guide for the smoothest campaign experience before switching to this build.
Strengths and Weaknesses
To compare this build with others, refer to our build tier lists.
Season of the Malignant
Season 1 Patch Updates
The Season 1 Patch Update introduces several changes specific to this build:
- Aspect of Disobedience maximum stacks reduced from 100 to 60, reducing maximum Bonus Armor % from 25%-50% to 15%-30%.
- Abhorrent Iron Maiden healing increased from 5% to 7% of Maximum Life.
- Drain Vitality Lucky Hit Chance increased from 25% to 30%.
- Amplify Damage increased from 3/6/9% to 4/8/12%.
- New Aspect: Gore Quills (Offensive Aspect): Blood Lance will consume Blood Orbs to also conjure lances from them. Each additional Blood Lance deals 20-50% of normal damage and prioritizes targeting un-lanced enemies.
Patch 1.1.1
- Fixed an issue where guaranteed Overpower attacks from the Rathma’s Vigor key passive were not benefiting from the Paragon Legendary Node Bloodbath.
- Fixed an issue where the Necromancer’s Imperfectly Balanced passive could only have 1 point allocated to it.
The Aspect of Disobedience has been nerfed, but overall, this patch has significantly increased our damage output. The 1.1.1 patch fixed bugs related to Imperfectly Balanced and guaranteed Overpower damage scaling.
Malignant Hearts
The Season 1 theme introduces Malignant Hearts that provide build-altering bonuses. Here are the Malignant Hearts useful for this build, ranked by importance:
- Caged Heart of the Sacrilegious (Vicious, Offensive): Walking near a Corpse automatically activates an equipped Corpse Skill every second, dealing 40-30% reduced damage.
- Caged Heart of The Barber (Wrathful, Super-World Tier III): Critical Strikes and all subsequent damage within 2.0-4.0 seconds is absorbed by your target. Then, the absorbed damage erupts onto surrounding enemies. Stored damage is increased by 10% per second.
- Caged Heart of Revenge (Brutal, Defensive-World Tier III): 10-20% of incoming damage is instead suppressed. When you use a Defensive, Subterfuge, or a Macabre skill, all suppressed damage is amplified by 250% and explodes, dealing up to 1360-2040 Fire damage to nearby enemies.
Skill Tree Points
Check out the full allocation of Skill Points for the Blood Lance Necromancer build in the tables below:
First table (48 points) – Essential for starting the build.
Second table (10 points) – Allocate these points once you obtain all Skill Points from Renown.
Book of the Dead
The Blood Lance Necromancer build thrives on taking hits from enemies consistently. To optimize this playstyle, sacrifice the following minions:
- Melee Skeletons: Sacrifice the Skirmisher, as it provides increased critical strike chance.
- Mage Skeletons: Sacrifice Bone Mages to provide a significant increase in Overpower damage.
- Golem: Sacrifice the Blood Golem, as it provides a massive Life increase.
Paragon Board
The Paragon progression system unlocks at Level 50 and grants significant character power. Prioritize Damage, Intelligence, Resistance, and Life for Normal and Magic Nodes as you work towards Glyph Sockets and Legendary Nodes. The images below depict the pathing and locations of Glyphs for each Paragon Board:
Starting Board
Focus on picking up Rare and Magic Nodes that provide Life. Rush the socket and place the Blood-drinker Glyph. Only take extra attributes within the Glyph radius that increase when leveling up via Nightmare Dungeons. Afterward, grab the Rare and Magic Nodes before moving to the next board.
Blood Begets Blood (2nd Board)
Use this board as a crossroads. Start by rushing the socket on the left-hand side and use the Amplify Glyph. Again, only take attributes within the Glyph radius that enable the bonus modifier. Obtain the Overpower damage increasing Magic Nodes to the right of the socket. Head to the left-hand side to proceed to the third board, Bloodbath.
Bloodbath (3rd Board)
Rush the socket and use the Control Glyph. Similar to previous boards, only take extra Nodes for attributes if the Glyph radius/level allows them. Grab all the Rare and Magic Nodes, including the Bloodbath Legendary Node. Return to the second board, Blood Begets Blood, and head north.
Scent of Death (4th Board)
Rush the socket and use the Dominate Glyph. Take extra Nodes within the Glyph radius if the level of the Glyph permits. Don’t forget to grab the Scent of Death Legendary Node and its surrounding Rare and Magic Nodes. Return to the second board again, Blood Begets Blood, and head to the right-hand side.
Bone Graft (5th Board)
Rush the Glyph Socket and use the Territorial Glyph. Take extra attributes within the radius only if the level of the Glyph allows for the bonus modifier. Obtain the Rare and Magic Nodes north of the Glyph Socket to finalize the build.
Wither (6th Board)
Access this board via Bloodbath (3rd board) by heading north. The Wither board mainly offers extra Life Nodes, as the Paragon system has limited scaling powers for Overpower.
View Paragon Board Images Here
Mechanics and Playstyle
The order of skills for this build is straightforward:
- Use Hemorrhage when you run out of Essence.
- Spam Blood Lance for your main source of damage. Ensure enemies are cursed with Decrepify before attacking.
- Utilize Bone Storm for added Critical Strike Chance and Damage Reduction when facing bosses or bigger targets.
- Use Corpse Tendrils manually to group enemies and generate Blood Orbs, which help with Blood Lance through the Gore Quills Aspect. The Malignant Heart, Caged Heart of the Sacrilegious, triggers this automatically.
- Blood Mist serves as a panic button when you find yourself in danger.
Gear Choice and Stat Priority
Prioritize higher total damage output when selecting your weapon, as a higher Item Power 1-Handed weapon can be more effective than a 2-Handed weapon when coupled with an Off-hand or shield. Shields scale your main-hand weapon by 80%!
Here are the Affixes to prioritize on gear for Blood Lance Necromancers, listed in order of importance:
- Life
- Armor
- Overpower Damage
- Attack Speed
- Movement Speed
- Ranks of Tides of Blood
- Essence Cost Reduction
- All Stats
- Basic Skill Attack Speed
Aspects, Powers, and Uniques
The focus of this build is to optimize Blood Lance for clearing while ramping up defensive layers for tanking endgame bosses. Here are the best-in-slot Aspects found on Legendary Items for the Bloodmancer build:
- Gear Slot: Aspect Name (Aspect Power)
The Windstriker Aspect on our boots can be replaced by common Unique Items like Penitent Greaves. However, using Legendary boots is still recommended.
Gems
Use the following Gems for each gear slot:
- Weapon: Royal Ruby for +#% Increased Overpower damage.
- Armor: Royal Ruby for +#% Maximum Life.
- Jewelry: Royal Skull for increased armor to mitigate damage.
Elixirs and Health Potions
To gain an edge in your adventures, craft Elixirs at the Alchemist to enhance your stats and experience gain for 30 minutes. Gather the necessary crafting materials by foraging plants. Choose an Elixir that provides the resistance you need most or try the Assault Elixir to boost your Attack Speed.
Upgrade your potion at Level 20, 30, 45, 60, 70, 80, and 90 for extra healing essential for survival.
Changelog
- August 7th, 2023: Guide added.
Remember to experiment and adapt the build to your playstyle as you progress through Diablo 4. Good luck on your Blood Lance Necromancer journey!
