Diablo 4 Reaper Necromancer Endgame Build

When people think about the Necromancer in Diablo 4, they often picture the class as a lanky caster-type character that’s surrounded by skeletons and a golem most of the time. While it’s always nice taking advantage of a Necromancer’s undead-raising abilities, the class can still shine even without the help of allies.

On this build for the class, you’re going to rely mostly on the Necromancer’s deadly abilities and sacrifice all Book of the Dead slots for their passives instead.

This might sound like a challenging build to stand by but if you get used to this one-man army endgame build for Diablo 4’s Necromancer, you have a recipe for creating one of the most destructive forces that Sanctuary has ever known.

The One-Man Army Reaper Build

This build will not just make the Necromancer a formidable caster on the field, it’s probably the coolest-looking build out there too. For this, you’ll mostly focus on using the class’s Reaper-related abilities to start dishing out heavy damage on your own.

The lack of summons usually means that the Necromancer is going to be vulnerable to enemy attacks without skeletons and a golem to kite enemy aggro with. However, you’ll find that this build offers just as many opportunities for survivability as other Necromancer builds out there.

That said, let’s first take a tour of the best Caged Hearts for this class since this is going to be a Diablo 4 Season 1-specific build.

Caged Hearts

1. Caged Heart of the Barber

Effect: 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 11%[x] per second.

Let’s face it, Caged Heart of the Barber is one of the best Caged Hearts out there. It’s perfect for any build that’s centered on building damage at the expense of becoming more vulnerable. Caged Heart of the Barber is a good last resort passive that gives you the extra survivability that you need.

2. Caged Heart of the Sacrilegious

Effect: Walking near a Corpse automatically activates an equipped Corpse Skill every second, dealing [28 - 38]%[x] reduced damage. (Necromancer Only)

You’re not going to be using Corpses to raise skeletons with this build. You can still put Corpses to good use with this Caged Heart. You’ll have a few Corpse Skills equipped with this build so you can activate its effect consistently.

3. Caged Heart of the Decrepit Aura

Effect: When at least 4 enemies are near you, gain an aura that automatically curses surrounding enemies with Decrepify for [6 - 17] seconds. (Necromancer Only)

Lastly, you’ll need this Caged Heart that can help you curse more enemies without having to rely on your skills. You’ll be surrounded by plenty of enemies most of the time, especially if you’re on World Tier 3 or above already. This Caged Heart ensures that you can maximize damage output for every mob that you face.

Book of the Dead

As we’ve said before, this build will focus primarily on the Necromancer and his spells. As such, no summons are going to be needed. You’ll need to sacrifice all three of your summons for their great passives.

1. Skeletal Warriors - Sacrifice

Effect: Your Critical Strike Chance increased by 5%, but you can no longer raise Skeletal Warriors

A 5% increase in your Critical Strike Chance might not seem much but it’s still a significant upgrade in exchange for your Skeletal Warriors.

2. Skeletal Mages - Sacrifice

Effect:  You gain 15% Physical Resistance, but you can no longer raise Skeletal Warriors.

Out of the three sacrificed summons from the Book of the Dead, this might just be the most beneficial for this build. 15% physical resistance can go a long way in giving you extra survivability.

3. Golem - Sacrifice

Effect: You deal 10% increased Shadow Damage, but you can no longer raise Skeletal Warriors.

Many of the abilities on this build will be Shadow-based. As such, the Golem sacrifice is going to give you a significant boost to the damage you deal as well.

Aside from giving you great buffs, removing the summons will also give you more space for active abilities on this build. Now, let’s talk about Skill Points allocation.

Skill Point Allocation

1. Reap - 2 Skill Points

Upgrades: Enhanced Reap

Although this skill will primarily focus on using Sever, you’re still going to need a Basic Skill to help you out in most situations. In this case, the range and coverage of Reap is one of the best Basic Skills to use. Since we’re going to need 2 Skill Points to advance to the Core Abilities, just upgrade Reap to its enhanced form.

2. Sever - 7 Skill Points

Upgrades: Enhanced Sever, Paranormal Sever

The Core Ability and the star of this build is Sever. As such, you’re going to want to upgrade it to the highest level. Get the Paranormal Sever upgrade so you can further increase your damage against enemies once they become Vulnerable.

Sever is an excellent Core Ability because of its ability to attack enemies on the way out and on its way back to you. With proper positioning, you can deal heavy damage to all enemies in your way.

3. Unliving Energy - 1 Skill Point

Only needed to gain access to the next passive ability. However, the extra Essence is still well appreciated.

4. Imperfectly Balanced - 3 Skill Points

This ability makes your Core Skills deal more damage at the expense of costing more Essence. This is a great compromise to make as you’ll have a lot of opportunities for Essence regeneration with the other passives on this list. That said, you should also get gear that can help you get more Essence as well.

5. Hewed Flesh - 3 Skill Points

This passive gives you more opportunities for creating Corpses around you. Since you won’t need the Corpses for summons, you can instead use them for the other abilities that you’ll come across on this build too.

6. Blood Mist - 3 Skill Points

Upgrades: Enhanced Blood Mist, Ghastly Blood Mist

Don’t be mistaken, this build will still make your Necromancer very vulnerable. As such, you’ll need a quick escape in sticky situations. In this case, that will be Blood Mist. You’ll only need this to get out of dense mobs so make sure to manage it well and only use it when necessary.

7. Corpse Explosion - 7 Skill Points

Upgrades: Enhanced Corpse Explosion, Blighted Corpse Explosion

You’ll have a lot of Corpses to use for this ability since you aren’t using them for summons. With the help of the Caged Heart of the Sacrilegious, you can automatically make use of those Corpses without pressing your skills.

The Blighted Corpses is an excellent choice for an upgrade, especially now that you’re sacrificing your Golem for extra 15% Shadow damage.

8. Grim Harvest - 3 Skill Points

This build is going to be very reliant on active abilities so Essence regeneration is a must. This is why you’ll need Grim Harvest as a passive ability too. This makes Essence regeneration more consistent. Since you have Enhanced Reap, you’ll have a constant source of Essence too.

9. Fueled By Death - 3 Skill Points

With Grim Harvest, you’ll want more out of the Corpses you consume. This passive ability gives you extra damage for every Corpse that you consume. If it’s not going to be used for Corpse Explosion, you’re guaranteed to have consistent damage output thanks to this skill still.

10. Decrepify - 3 Skill Points

Upgrades: Enhanced Decrepify, Abhorrent Decrepify

Decrepify will help crowd control enemies so that you don’t get overwhelmed easily. The Aborrent Decrepify upgrade makes sure that you’ll have a constant source for cooldowns with the help of Lucky Hit mechanics. It’s not going to be a primary ability that you’ll use mostly but it can still be helpful in many scenarios.

Caged Heart of the Decrepit Aura does wonders for making sure that this skill’s effects will constantly help you out.

11. Death’s Embrace - 2 Skill Points

Death’s Embrace is an excellent passive that helps you deal more damage and take less damage from nearby enemies. With Reap as your Basic Skill, you’ll find yourself in close-quarter scenarios mostly. We aren’t going to maximize it as you’re still going to keep enemies afar with Sever.

12. Corpse Tendrils - 3 Skill Points

Upgrades: Enhanced Corpse Tendrils, Blighted Corpse Tendrils

Corpse Tendrils is a favorite ability for many Necromancer Builds because it’s such a great way to pool enemies into one area. As you can guess, you can use Corpse Tendrils to gather enemies into one location so that you can get the most out of Sever.

With the Blighted Corpse Tendrils upgrade, you’ll have a constant source of health to keep you up and running.

13. Reaper’s Pursuit - 1 Skill Point

This will only be needed to get access to the next passives.

14. Crippling Darkness -  1 Skill Point

Having the chance to stun enemies is a good passive ability but a 15% chance is good enough on its own. We’re only getting 1 point here as the skill points are better used in other slots.

15. Gloom - 3 Skill Points

This build takes advantage of Shadow damage so Gloom is an excellent way to supplement that.  Basically, the more you use Darkness skills, the more damage you can deal to your enemies as well. Gloom serves as one of the primary passives of this build.

16. Terror - 3 Skill Points

Terror rewards you with even more damage to crowd-controlled enemies. As you can see from this build, there are opportunities to inflict Stun and Slow to mobs. Terror gives you the opportunity to finish enemies off with Sever.

17. Bone Storm - 3 Skill Points

Since you won’t need to rely on your summons anymore, Army of the Dead as an Ultimate Ability is off the table. Go for Bone Storm instead. With Supreme Bone Storm, you can deal lethal damage as long as the skill is active. Use this as an opportunity to spam Sever.

18. Stand Alone - 3 Skill Points

The name itself says it all. This increases your damage reduction by 18% but it’s decreased by 2% per minion you have that’s active. Since you won’t have any minions active for this build, you’re going to take in all of that buff without any penalties.

19. Memento Mori - 3 Skill Points

This passive basically makes the Sacrifice bonuses for Skeleton Warriors and Skeletal Mages even better. It’s the most important passive to have with this build as it maximizes your role as a one-man army.

20. Shadowblight - 1 Skill Point

Our main key passive for this build is Shadowblight. It’s going to reward your usage of Darkness abilities by giving it an x10 boost for every enemy that’s affected by this passive.

Gameplay

As you can guess, this build is going to be focused on using Sever mostly. Thanks to Lucky Hit mechanics and other bonuses, you should have no issues when it comes to cooldowns and Essence regeneration. 

If you’re having issues with the number of enemies on the field, you’ll have a few options on how you can deal with them. First, you can summon Bone Storm and start spamming Corpse Explosion and Sever. With the upgrade you have for Bone Storm, it’ll be very easy to kill most of the enemies.

Another option would be to use Blood Mist to get to a safe space and start picking off enemies from there. In any case, Blood Mist should be reserved as a means of escape mostly.

With this build, you should be aggressive and upfront. It might seem hard to do without minions by your side but you have enough firepower to suppress groups of enemies easily. As always, potion management is key.

Key Aspects

Although it’s the Caged Hearts that are really important, you should take the time to work on your Aspects as well. You should focus on unlocking these Aspects first.

• ‍Blighted Offensive Aspect/Akkan's Grasp - Hawezar

• ‍Resource Aspect of the Umbral/Champion's Demise - Dry Steppes

• ‍Offensive Aspect of Grasping Veins/Corrupted Grotto - Kehjistan

• ‍Wind Striker Mobility Aspect/Shivta Ruins - Kehjistan

• ‍Fastblood Resource Aspect/Iron Hold - Hawezar

March As A One-Man Army

Being a Necromancer doesn’t always mean that you have to rely on skeletons and golems. This build will help you go through the toughest challenges in the endgame, without having to worry about whether or not you have enough minions by your side. Feel free to make any adjustments to this build as you see fit.