Diablo 4 Season 7: Blood Wave Necromancer Build

Jonas Author

Created - 13.02.2025 Updated - 14.02.2025

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The community is abuzz with how powerful the Diablo 4 Season 7 Blood Wave Necromancer build is. There are lots of ways to make the Necromancer powerful but our build maxes out your damage with the class in every way possible. But of course, this requires a very strict approach.

Before proceeding with this build, make sure your character is rich. Buy D4 Gold if you want to. You’re going to want to have millions to get the best gear possible for this build. You’ll be rising through the ranks in no time with our Blood Wave Necromancer.

Key Components

If you're looking to dominate in Diablo 4 Season 7 with the Blood Wave Necromancer, you're in the right place. This build has seen some exciting changes, and we're going to break down exactly what makes it so powerful.

Kessime's Legacy and the Power of Blood Wave

One of the most critical pieces of this build is Kessime's Legacy. This unique item completely transforms how Blood Wave functions. Normally, Blood Wave would just send out a single wave in a straight line, but with Kessime's Legacy equipped, it now forms two waves that explode at the point of impact. This explosion is crucial—it not only deals extra damage but also generates Blood Orbs very close to you.

This change is incredibly important because Blood Orbs are a central mechanic in this build. Every time Blood Wave hits an enemy, that enemy takes increased damage, stacking up to ridiculous levels. More importantly, the waves explode at the center, ensuring that Blood Orbs drop exactly where you need them.

Tidal Aspect – The Hidden Puzzle Piece

A lot has changed with this build, thanks to some modifications in how the Tidal Aspect functions. Previously, this aspect allowed Blood Wave to fire two additional waves, increasing its damage output significantly. However, a new restriction has been added: you cannot cast Blood Wave again until the previous Blood Wave ends.

At first glance, this seems like a serious drawback. If you cast Blood Wave in a straight line, it takes a long time for the ability to reach its endpoint, delaying your next cast. But this is where the right gear pieces come in to eliminate that downside.

This is where a crucial piece of gear—your pants—completely changes the game. With the right legendary aspect, these pants effectively cut the Blood Wave cooldown time in half.

To illustrate, if you take off the pants and cast Blood Wave, it takes a significant amount of time to travel across the screen. But with the pants on, you can cast Blood Wave again almost immediately. Not only does this let you deal more damage faster, but it also completely negates the cooldown drawback of Tidal Aspect.

In practical terms, this means you’re not waiting for Blood Wave to finish its long journey—you’re just casting, walking forward, and resetting the cooldown naturally as you go.

Fastblood Aspect – Removing the Need for Perfect Gear

For a long time, managing the cooldown of Blood Wave has been one of the biggest pain points for this type of Necromancer build. Previously, players relied heavily on Fastblood, a rare and highly sought-after aspect that reduced cooldowns based on Blood Orb collection.

Last season, this was such a major requirement that perfect Fast Blood rolls were selling for over 99 billion gold. It was practically mandatory for optimizing Spirit Wave builds. However, that’s no longer the case.

With this updated version of Blood Wave, you don’t even need Fastblood on your amulet to make the build work. The cooldown reduction is so efficient that you’ll reset Blood Wave almost instantly just by playing naturally.

What Gear Do You Actually Need?

The most shocking part? You barely need anything to make this build work.

At the core, all you need is:

• Tidal Aspect (any roll will do)
• Kessime's Legacy (any roll, even a non-ancestral version)
• Fastblood Aspect (just a bonus, not a necessity)

That’s it. Everything else is just icing on the cake. Even in World Tier 4, you can dominate with completely average rolls on these items. It doesn’t matter what the numbers are—as long as you have these key components, you’ll be tearing through content effortlessly.

Getting these items can be challenging and time-consuming. If you’re running out of time for grinding, you should buy D4 Unique Items instead.

Cooldown Management

Let’s break down how fast the cooldown resets in real-time.

1. You cast Blood Wave—immediately, you’re at a 24-second cooldown.
2. You walk forward, picking up a few Blood Orbs.
3. Before you even realize it, the cooldown is already gone.
4. You cast again—and the cycle repeats effortlessly.

One of the most significant things to notice here is that you can already recast Blood Wave before even picking up most of the Blood Orbs on the ground. This means that the interplay between Fast Blood, cooldown reduction, and the natural limit of how quickly you can recast is perfectly balanced.

Unlike other top-performing Necromancer builds, this one requires minimal setup. You don’t need:

• Bone Prison for cooldown reduction
• Perfect gear to optimize Bone Spirit
• Snapshotting tricks for Soul Rift or Bone Storm

Instead, you simply cast Blood Wave, walk through enemies, and by the time you reach them, the cooldown is already gone. It’s insanely efficient and removes so many of the tedious mechanics other high-end builds rely on.

Skill Tree

If you’re looking for the optimal skill tree setup for the Blood Wave Necromancer, there are a few key decisions that will define your build. We’re going to go through exactly how to set up your skills to maximize damage, survivability, and efficiency.

While there was once a damage-over-time variation of this build, it’s simply outclassed by the current meta. It’s still possible to play it, but at this point, there’s no real reason to when this version is so much stronger.

Skill Rotation and Progression

One of the most useful things about following this guide is that every aspect of the build is covered, including skill rotations, progression, and best options for skill allocation. If you're trying to follow along with Paragon Boards or gear optimization, this guide will walk you through everything.

A progression checklist is also included so that you always know what to prioritize—whether you’re just starting out with basic Ancestral gear or pushing deep into high-tier Nightmare Dungeons. Additionally, there are several build variants, each with different playstyles and considerations, depending on what you’re optimizing for.

Primary Attack Skill: Decompose or Reap?

One of the first decisions in this build is whether to use Decompose or Reap as your primary skill.

• Lord SAR uses Decompose, allowing him to pull monsters from range and apply consistent damage.
• Reap, on the other hand, is great for increasing attack speed while also generating a corpse on hit.

For players with less optimized gear, Reap is a strong choice because it ensures you always have a steady supply of corpses for Corpse Tendrils and other interactions.

Blight – A Key Damage Multiplier

Blight is included strictly for its damage multiplier. When an enemy is hit with Blight and stands inside the Blight Pool, they take 20% increased damage. This is a crucial interaction that helps scale Blood Wave’s overall power.

Additionally, Blight generates corpses, which play into several mechanics, including Flesh Eater and Corpse Tendrils.

Blood Mist – Mobility and Invulnerability

Blood Mist is another core ability in this build, not just for its invulnerability but also because of its mobility potential.

• If you take the Ghastly option for Blood Mist, you gain a mobility boost, allowing you to move faster through enemies.
• Blood Mist also helps solve vulnerability issues, ensuring that damage output remains high.
• Every time Blood Mist overpowers, its cooldown is reduced, making it available almost constantly in the endgame version of the build.

Once you’re fully optimized, you can enhance Blood Mist further with critical strike chance bonuses, which improve overall damage output once you exit Blood Mist.

Corpse Explosion and Darkness Synergies

While Corpse Explosion is traditionally a strong Necromancer skill, this build takes a slightly different approach. Instead of using Blighted Corpse Explosion, the build benefits from Reaper’s Pursuit, which increases damage per Darkness skill on your skill bar.

Because Blood Wave is tagged as a Darkness skill in this setup, it interacts with several key passives:

• Gloom – Increases damage when hitting with Darkness skills.
• Terror – Boosts Shadow damage against enemies affected by crowd control.
• Reaper Pursuit – Provides a flat 8% increased damage per Darkness skill on your action bar.

With Blight, Corpse Explosion, a basic skill, and Blood Wave, you end up with four total Darkness skills, granting a massive 32% damage bonus.

Coalesced Blood vs. Tides of Blood

Normally, Tides of Blood is the go-to passive for Blood-based Necromancer builds. However, in this case, Coalesced Blood takes priority because:

• It boosts your stat-sheet damage, making your overall damage calculations higher.
• It scales well into the endgame, where your healthy status is a key factor in maximizing Blood Wave’s damage.

That said, Tides of Blood is still valuable for overpower damage, and you’ll be taking points in both.

Fortification and Survivability

This build doesn’t rely on barriers as much as a traditional Necromancer, so it leans into Fortification mechanics for survivability.

• Drain Vitality ensures that you always have fortified status, improving overall tankiness.
• Gruesome Mending increases healing from Blood Orbs, keeping you alive in tough fights.
• Transfusion generates extra Blood Orbs, but in most cases, it’s unnecessary—it’s more of a luxury than a necessity.

Corpse Tendrils – A Crucial Utility Skill

Corpse Tendrils is a very important part of this build but it’s not going to be a main one. It will serve two important functions:

1. Clumping Enemies Together – This is useful if you didn’t place Blood Wave properly and need to reposition enemies.
2. Applying Vulnerability – If you haven’t solved vulnerability through other means, Corpse Tendrils is an easy way to apply it.

That said, in fully optimized endgame setups, neither of these effects are necessary. If you’ve already solved vulnerability and corpse generation, you can drop Corpse Tendrils entirely and reallocate points elsewhere.

Final Skill Allocations

The last few skill points go into maximizing Blood Wave and improving overall performance:

• Finality – Boosts Blood Wave’s effectiveness since you’re casting it constantly.
• Huge Momentum & Stand Alone – Provides extra bonuses for tankiness and offense.
• Rathma’s Vigor – Further enhances survivability and scaling.

The way this build synergizes Darkness skills with Blood Wave is what makes it so incredibly powerful.

With Blood Wave tagged as a Darkness skill, you gain access to multiple passive damage multipliers, while fast cooldown resets ensure that you’re casting it as often as possible.

By removing the need for perfect gear, this build is not only strong but accessible, making it a top-tier choice for Season 7 Necromancers.

Gear

Now that we’ve covered the skill tree, it’s time to go over the best gear and aspects to optimize the Blood Wave Necromancer for endgame content. This build scales incredibly well, even without perfect Mythic Uniques, and progresses quickly through Ancestral gear.

We’ll break down each piece of gear, its best affixes, and which aspects you need to prioritize to maximize both damage and survivability.

Helmet – Hardened Bones for Damage Reduction

Your helmet is one of the most important pieces when it comes to staying alive.

• Hardened Bones is the best-in-slot aspect here, providing a massive damage reduction bonus (DR).
• Stack as much Cooldown Reduction (CDR), Maximum Life, and Intelligence as possible.

Since this build doesn’t rely on traditional barrier mechanics, stacking Maximum Life directly improves Overpower damage and overall survivability.

Chest Armor – Cursed Aura for Darkness Synergy

Your chest armor plays a key role in freeing up skill slots.

• Cursed Aura eliminates the need to put Cursed Touch on your bar, giving you room for another Darkness skill.
• Stack Maximum Life, Intelligence, and either Armor or Resistances, depending on which stat you need to hit your defensive caps.

This item ensures optimal Darkness synergy, allowing Blood Wave to fully benefit from all Darkness passives and multipliers.

Gloves – Crit Chance and Attack Speed Optimization

The gloves provide a crucial way to increase your DPS.

• Stack Critical Strike Chance to hit your cap.
• Attack Speed is also a great choice for faster corpse generation and spell uptime.
• Intelligence and Maximum Life further increase your power scaling.

For the legendary aspect, place Ultimate Shadow here for damage while fortified, ensuring your Blood Wave hits harder.

Kessime's Legacy – The Core of the Build

Kessime's Legacy is absolutely essential for this build.

• It provides two major benefits:
1. Chance for Blood Wave to deal double damage.
2. Cooldown Reduction (CDR).

Ideally, you want to stack both cooldown reduction and double-damage chance on your gear to hit 100% uptime on Blood Wave’s double damage effect.

Boots – Movement Speed and Damage Scaling

Movement speed is a surprisingly important factor in this build.

• Maxing out movement speed allows you to reposition quickly and collect Blood Orbs effortlessly.
• Exploiter’s Aspect is a strong choice here, increasing damage against Unstoppable enemies.

This effect is especially useful in high-end Nightmare dungeons, where bosses and elite enemies often go Unstoppable for extended periods.

Two-Handed Weapon – Maximum Life and Overpower Damage

The two-handed mace is your main damage-scaling weapon.

• Prioritize Maximum Life, Overpower Damage, and Fortified Damage.
• Blood Wave Double Damage Chance should also be stacked here.

If you manage to cap your double-damage chance elsewhere, you can replace it with Tides of Blood, Coalesced Blood, or Gloom, depending on your preference.

Stacking Maximum Life is particularly effective since it directly amplifies Overpower damage scaling.

Amulet – Critical Strike Damage and Fast Blood

Your amulet is where you’ll slot in the Fast Blood Aspect early on.

• While Fast Blood becomes unnecessary in the extreme endgame, it’s vital for early progression.
• Stack Crit Chance, Maximum Life, Intelligence, and Ultimate Cooldown Reduction.

For gem choices, an Occult Gem that increases Overpower damage is a great choice, as it also provides extra armor and elemental resistances.

Rings – Lucky Hit and Additional Multipliers

Both rings are crucial for optimizing damage output and cooldown efficiency.

First Ring:

• Crit Chance, Maximum Life, Intelligence, and Ultimate Cooldown.
• Place Fast Blood here for cooldown reduction (until you no longer need it).

Second Ring:

• Lucky Hit Chance to apply Vulnerable.
• This ensures you don’t have to rely on other sources for Vulnerable.
• Additional options include Vehemo Brawler’s Aspect or The Damned Aspect:
• Vehemo Brawler’s Aspect boosts damage by 30% and grants additional Blood Wave ranks (resulting in a 40% total damage multiplier).
• The Damned Aspect is a stronger raw option, providing a flat 55% damage multiplier.

Since Blood Wave resets so efficiently, additional cooldown reduction is not necessary in endgame setups.

The Most Important Occult Gem – Voice of the Stars

The Voice of the Stars gem is absolutely essential for maximizing Blood Wave damage.

• This gem makes your Ultimate skill inherit all damage multipliers from various categories.
• It applies Eldritch Growth, Decay, and Psyche effects, ensuring that every Witch Power you use boosts Blood Wave’s effectiveness.
• This acts as a major damage multiplier, making Blood Wave hit significantly harder.

To fully optimize this build, focus on stacking the following stats:

1. Maximum Life – Directly scales Overpower damage and survivability.
2. Cooldown Reduction (CDR) – Ensures Blood Wave resets instantly.
3. Crit Chance & Crit Damage – Increases DPS consistency.
4. Lucky Hit Chance – Helps apply Vulnerable efficiently.
5. Fortified Damage & Overpower Scaling – Further enhances Blood Wave’s effectiveness.

By following this gear and aspect setup, your Blood Wave Necromancer will be one of the most efficient and devastating builds in Diablo 4 Season 7.

Mercenary & Witchcraft Powers

Now that we’ve covered the gear and aspects, let’s dive into the Mercenary selection and Witchcraft Powers that will take this build to the next level.

Mercenary choices provide extra bonuses, while Witchcraft Powers add damage multipliers, cooldown reductions, and critical strike enhancements. Choosing the right combination will maximize your efficiency in high-end content like Nightmare Dungeons and Tier 100 pushes.

Mercenary – Subo for Overpower Scaling

For the Mercenary, the best choice for this build is Subo.

• Subo provides additional Overpower damage, which synergizes well with our high Maximum Life scaling.
• While the bonus isn’t game-breaking, it’s a fun addition that enhances our burst potential.

This extra Overpower boost allows Blood Wave to hit even harder, making elite enemies and bosses easier to clear.

Best Witchcraft Powers for Blood Wave Necromancer

1. Soul Harvest – Infinite Core Stat Scaling

One of the most important Witchcraft Powers to use is Soul Harvest.

• Whenever you use a cooldown, you gain +1% Primary Core Stat per surrounding enemy.
• This buff lasts 5.5 seconds, but at Rank 9, it becomes infinite.

Since this build constantly cycles cooldowns, you’ll be gaining tons of free Core Stats just by playing normally.

• If you’re surrounded by 10 enemies, you get 10% extra Core Stats, which directly increases damage and survivability.
• This makes getting Soul Harvest to Rank 9 a top priority, as the infinite duration ensures consistent scaling.

2. Force of Will – Overpower Burst Damage

Next up, Force of Will is another amazing boost for Overpower damage.

• When you kill an enemy, your next Overpower deals up to 100% increased damage.
• At higher ranks, this damage boost extends to two Overpowers instead of one.

This power shines in high-density dungeon runs, where you’re constantly killing trash mobs before focusing on elites.

• When clearing a mob pack with an elite in the center, you chain two Overpowered Blood Waves to obliterate everything.

3. Hex of Flames – Extra AoE Explosion Damage

Hex of Flames adds another layer of AoE destruction to the build.

• Lucky Hit: Up to 22% chance to afflict Hex of Flames when you damage an enemy.
• Enemies affected by Hex take bonus Fire damage when hit.
• Critical Strikes against a Hexed enemy cause the Fire damage to explode in an AoE.

Since Blood Wave hits multiple enemies at once, this triggers often, creating extra explosions and amplifying AoE damage even further.

4. Shaken Soul – Easy Vulnerable Application

Shaken Soul is crucial for maintaining constant Vulnerable uptime.

• Your Eldritch effects apply Vulnerable for 3.3 seconds.
• Psychic Growth and Decay effects also apply Vulnerable for half the normal duration at Rank 10.

At Rank 10, this becomes an easy, automatic way to ensure enemies are always taking increased damage.

• Since Hex of Flames is already an Eldritch effect, Shaken Soul ensures that enemies constantly remain Vulnerable, maximizing damage multipliers.
• If you add Aura of Syphoning, it further enhances the damage-dealing potential of Blood Wave.

5. Aura of Syphoning – Life Drain and Enhanced Damage

Once Shaken Soul is maxed out, you can add Aura of Syphoning to the setup.

• This ability drains life from surrounding enemies, adding extra sustain while keeping Blood Wave active.
• It also applies Vulnerable the moment you jump into enemies, making it a strong synergy with Shaken Soul.

At Rank 10, this combination ensures that as soon as you engage a pack, enemies are weakened instantly.

6. Vengeful Spirit – Extra Defense (Optional)

While not essential, Vengeful Spirit can be used as a defensive safety net.

• It prevents some incoming damage, which is useful in Tier 100 Nightmare Dungeons.
• However, if you don’t need the extra defense, other options like Doom Orb or Padoolater can be swapped in.

That said, Aura of Syphoning is generally the better choice for boosting offense while maintaining survivability.

Once you reach the highest levels, you may want to swap out Hex of Flames in favor of other high-value effects.

• Aura of Syphoning + Shaken Soul at Rank 10 already provides consistent Vulnerable application.
• At this point, Hex of Flames becomes redundant and can be replaced for more pure damage boosts.

Since Blood Wave scales heavily with critical strikes, maximizing Critical Strike Damage within the aura makes a significant difference in Tier 100 dungeon runs.

Avoid the Frog – A Minion Holdover Issue

One thing you absolutely should not do is take the Frog as a Witchcraft Power.

• This was left over from a previous minion-based playthrough, but it doesn’t work well for this setup.
• The Frog’s tongue attack pulls enemies away from you, disrupting your Blood Wave rhythm.

Since this build thrives on enemies being tightly packed together, the Frog actually works against you, slowing down your clears.

By fine-tuning your Witchcraft Powers and Mercenary choices, this build reaches its full potential.

• Soul Harvest (Rank 9) provides infinite Core Stat scaling.
• Force of Will adds massive Overpower burst damage.
• Shaken Soul ensures automatic Vulnerable uptime.
• Aura of Syphoning improves both sustain and damage.
• Vengeful Spirit adds an optional layer of defense.

With these optimizations, your Blood Wave Necromancer will clear Tier 100 dungeons efficiently, allowing you to farm gear at maximum speed.

Start Dominating With The Blood Wave Necromancer

The Blood Wave Necromancer is one of the most powerful builds in the history of the game so far. We’re sure that this build will be effective, even in the most challenging new content in Diablo 4 Season 7.