![Dark Lord 2.0 Diablo IV Necromancer Build [RDY-4-Launch]](https://wasted666.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/DL2-1200x675.jpg)
Dark Lord 2.0 Necromancer BUILD for Diablo IV [RDY-4-Launch]
Diablo IV launches on June 6th, 2023 for PC (Battle.Net), XBOX, & PlayStation with a 4 days Early Access (no wipe) for pre-orders (so kind of really launching June 2nd).
Diablo IV‘s Launch is getting closer and it’s time to make some Ready-For-Launch full Builds/Theorycrafts that should be good for both ‘fresh-into-endgame’ characters as well as late endgame. I also plan to evolve them further when the game is released & keep them updated when we get rebalance updates. This is one such build for the Necromancer Class called Dark Lord 2.0.
I’ve also made spreadsheets for those builds (see the links below) that have shortlisted the active and passive skills + legendary aspect + unique item + gems & sockets + suggested stat rolls + paragon boards that work well with the build which you can use to tinker. Alternatively, I’ve added build calculator links (mostly needed for the paragons)
This build will be updated post-launch to a new & expanded version when I have more in-game information as reference.
Video Version:
Skill Trees
Below you’ll see ONLY the Active & Passive skills that were selected for this build. For additional skills that can be taken + alternative skill options, you can check my RDY-4-Launch Builds spreadsheet on this link. This build (Dark Lord 2.0) is one of the builds on that spreadsheet.
Basic Skill (Resource Generator/Builder) (Required Points: 0 ) Only used temporarily
- (active) Reap – Sweep an ethereal scythe in front of you, dealing 12% (X-?) damage. Hitting an enemy with Reap increases your damage Reduction by 15% for 2 seconds. Lucky Hit Chance: 17% Generates: 4 Essence per enemy hit Damage: Shadow ; Tags: Basic, Darkness
- (1st upgrade) Enhanced Reap – If an enemy hit by Reap dies within 2 seconds, you gain 30% attack speed for 3 seconds.
- (2nd upgrade – don’t need any of the 2 but temporary you can use ) Acolyte’s Reap – Reap forms a Corpse under the first enemy hit. Can only occur every 5 seconds.
Core Skill(s) (Resource Spender) (Required Points: 2 )
- (active) Blight – Unleash concentrated blight that deals 30% (X-?) damage and leaves behind a defiled area, dealing 80% (X) damage over 6 seconds. Lucky Hit Chance: 40% Essence Cost: 25 Damage: Shadow ; Tags: Core, Darkness
- (1st upgrade) Enhanced Blight – Blight Slows enemies by 25%
- (2nd upgrade – my pick of the 2) Paranormal Blight – Blight has a 30% (multiplicative) chance to Immobilize for 1.5 seconds on impact.
- (passive) Hewed Flesh – Lucky Hit: Your damage has up to a 4%/8%/12% chance to create a corpse at the target’s location.
- (passive) DID NOT INVEST in other Core passives to save points
Macabre Skills (Required Points: 6 )
- (active) Corpse Explosion – Detonate a Corpse, dealing 75% (X-XX) damage to nearby enemies. Lucky Hit Chance: 40% Damage: Physical ; Tags: Corpse, Corruption
- (1st upgrade) Enhanced Corpse – Corpse Explosion’s radius is increased by 15%.
- (2nd upgrade – my pick of the 2) Blighted Corpse Explosion – Corpse Explosion becomes a Darkness Skill and, instead of exploding, releases a vile miasma dealing 110% (X-?) Shadow Damage over 6 seconds.
- (passive) Grim Harvest – Consuming a Corpse generates 3/6/9 Essence.
- (upgrade) Fueled by Death – You deal 4%/8%/12% (multiplicative) increased damage for 4 seconds after consuming a Corpse.
- (passive) DID NOT INVEST in other Macabre passives to save points
Corruption Skills (Required Points: 11 )
- (active) Decrepify – Curse the target area. Enemies afflicted by Decrepify are Slowed by 40% and deal 20% less damage for 10 seconds. Essence Cost: 10 Damage: Physical ; Tags: Curse, Corruption
- (1st upgrade) Enhanced Decrepify – Lucky Hit: Enemies hit while afflicted with Decrepify have up to a 10% chance to Stunned them for 2 seconds.
- (2nd upgrade – my pick of the 2) Abhorent Decrepify – Lucky Hit: Enemies hit while afflicted with Decrepify have up to a 15% chance to reduce your Active Cooldowns by 1.0 seconds.
- (active – ONLY investing 1 point here and ONLY in the skill, NOT the upgrades) Iron Maiden – Curse the target area. Enemies afflicted by Iron Maiden take 10% (X-?) damage each time they deal direct damage. Lasts 10 seconds. Essence Cost: 10 Damage: Physical ; Tags: Curse, Corruption
- (1st upgrade) did not take
- (2nd upgrade – my pick of the 2) did not take
- (passive) DID NOT INVEST in any Corruption passives to save points
Summoning Skills (Required Points: 16 )
- (active) Corpse Tendrils – Veins burst out of a Corpse, pulling in enemies, Stunning them for 3 seconds, and dealing 20% (X-?) damage to them. Lucky Hit Chance: 20% Cooldown: 11.0 Seconds. Damage: Physical ; Tags: Corpse, Corruption
- (1st upgrade) Enhanced Corpse Tendrils – Enemies who are in range of Corpse Tendrils are Slowed by 50% before being pulled.
- (2nd upgrade – my pick of the 2) Plagued Corpse Tendrils – Enemies damaged by Corpse Tendrils are made Vulnerable for 3 seconds.
- (passive – ONLY put 1 point into this) Reaper’s Pursuit – Damaging enemies with Darkness Skills increases your Movement Speed by +5%/+10%/+15% for 3 seconds.
- (upgrade – ONLY put 2 points into this) Crippling Darkness – Lucky Hit: Darkness Skills have up to a 15% chance to Stun for 1/2/3 seconds.
- (upgrade) Gloom – When you damage enemies with Darkness Skills, they take 2%/4%/6% (multiplicative) increased Shadow Damage from you and your Minions for 2 seconds, stacking up to 3 times.
- (upgrade) Terror – Darkness Skills deal 3%/6%/9% (multiplicative) bonus damage to enemies who are Slowed, and 3%/6%/9% (multiplicative) bonus damage to enemies who are Stunned or Immobilized. These bonuses stack and apply to Shadow Damage dealt by your Minions.
- (passive – ONLY put 1 point into this) Serration – Your Bone Skills have a +0.5%/+1%/+1.5% increased Critical Strike Chance for each 10 Essence you have upon cast
- (upgrade) Rapid Ossification – DID NOT Take this
- (upgrade) Compound – Fracture After Critically Striking 10 times with Bone Skills, your Bone Skills deal 5%/10%/15% (multiplicative) increased damage for 5 seconds.
- (upgrade) Evulsion – DID NOT Take this
- (passive) Necrotic Carapace – When a Corpse is formed from your Skills or your Minions, Fortify for 2%/4%/6% Base Life.
- (passive) DID NOT INVEST in other Summoning passives to save points
Ultimate Skills (Required Points: 23 )
- (active) Bone Storm – A swirling storm of bones surrounds you and your Golem, dealing 180% (X-?) to surrounding enemies over 10 seconds. Lucky Hit Chance: 40% Cooldown: 60 Seconds. Damage: Physical ; Tags: Ultimate, Bone
- (1st upgrade) Prime Bone Storm – Your Damage Reduction is increased by 15% while Bone Storm is active.
- (2nd upgrade) Supreme Bone Storm – Your Critical Strike Chance is increased by +20% while Bone Storm is active.
- (passive) Stand Alone – Increases Damage Reduction by 6%/12%/18%,, reduced by 2% for each active Minion.
- (upgrade) Memento Mori – Sacrificing both Skeletal Warriors and Skeletal Mages increases their Sacrifice bonuses by 20%/40%/60%.
- (passive) DID NOT INVEST in any other Ultimate passives to save points
Specializations (Required Points: 33 )
- (passive) Shadowblight – Darkness Skills infect enemies with Shadowblight for 2 seconds. You and your Minions deal 10% (multiplicative) bonus damage to enemies affected by Shadowblight.
Book of the Dead (Class Mechanic):
This build is all about creating as many corpses as possible and consuming them with Corpse Explosion directly or with the auto-cast via Blood Mist. For that we don’t need minions as much. However, there’s no room for a basics kill on the skillbar so we’ll use Cold Mages to generate essence in case there are no corpses nearby to consume for essence.
I’d advise taking Zero Minions for this build & Sacrifice the Skeletal Warriors, Skeletal Mages, & Golem. The types sacrifices are:
- Skeletal Skirmishers: Sacrifice so that we get extra Crit Chance
- Description: Your critical strike chance is increased by 5%, but you can no longer raise Skeletal Warriors.
- Cold Mages: Sacrifice is amazing to get extra DMG to Vulnerable enemies
- Description: You deal 15% (multiplicative) increased damage to Vulnerable enemies, but you can no longer raise Skeletal Mages.
- Iron Golem: Sacrifice so that we get extra Crit Damage
- Description: You deal 30% (multiplicative) increased critical strike damage, but you lose the ability to summon a Golem.
Unique Item
In Diablo IV apparently (I have multiple sources that confirmed this) we can equip more than one unique item at the same time (not so ‘unique’ if we can get decked out in full uniques I guess). It seems that the one unique per build idea that Unique inherited from the Mythical gear they supposedly replaced was scrapped even before the closed beta tests. My top pick will be the following one but check the notes under the Aspects list for some additional picks:
Black River (Scythe)
[0.06] Life On Kill
Corpse Explosion consumes up to 4 additional Corpses around the initial Corpse, dealing x[N] increased damage and with a +[X%] larger radius per additional Corpse.
[49 – 63] Intelligence
+[21 – 35]% Damage to Healthy Enemies
+1 Ranks of the Fueled by Death Passive
+[2 – 4] Ranks of Corpse Explosion
“The scrolls describe a river of tar that separated the living from the land of the dead. Any unfortunate soul who tried to cross would be dragged down into oblivion.” – Notes of Scholar Kamien
Sockets & Gems
There are various possible good/viable choices for the gem slots. I’ve shortlisted what works by slot. I’d recommend picking one of those:
Weps: Amethyst, Diamond, Saphire, Skull, Ruby, or Emerald.
Armor: Ruby, Skull, or Saphire.
Jewelry: Diamond unless you need specific resistance more than all.
XYZ Diamond (Requires Level XY)
• Weapon: +N% Ultimate Skill Damage
• Armor: +N% Barrier Generation
• Jewelry: N% Resistance to All Elements
+5%/+5%/5 for chipped (the 2nd grade at lvl 20)
XYZ Skull (Requires Level XY)
• Weapon: +N Life On Kill
• Armor: +N% Healing Received
• Jewelry: +N Armor
+13/+5%/+170 for chipped (the 2nd grade at lvl 20)
XYZ Amethyst (Requires Level XY)
• Weapon: +N% Damage Over Time
• Armor: N% Damage Taken Over Time Reduction
• Jewelry: N% Shadow Resistance
+5%/+8.2%/+14.3% for chipped (the 2nd grade at lvl 20)
XYZ Ruby (Requires Level XY)
• Weapon: +N% Overpower Damage
• Armor: +N% Maximum Life
• Jewelry: N% Fire Resistance
+15%/+5.5%/14.3% for chipped (the 2nd grade at lvl 20)
XYZ Emerald (Requires Level XY)
• Weapon: +N% Critical Strike Damage to Vulnerable Enemies
• Armor: +N Thorns
• Jewelry: N% Poison Resistance
+7.5%/39/14.3% for chipped (the 2nd grade at lvl 20)
XYZ Saphire (Requires Level XY)
• Weapon: +N% Critical Strike Damage to Crowd-Controlled Enemies
• Armor: N% Damage Reduction While Fortified
• Jewelry: N% Cold Resistance
+7.5%/5%/14.3% for chipped (the 2nd grade at lvl 20)
Legendary Aspects / Powers
I will only list the Legendary Aspects that have been selected for the build and the slots in which I advise putting those. For in-depth information you can check my RDY-4-Launch Builds spreadsheet on this link. This build (Dark Lord 2.0) is one of the builds on that spreadsheet.
- Helm: Exploiter’s Aspect
- Amulet: Blighted Aspect or Aspect of Grasping Veins (whichever you want to get the 50% boost, the other one goes in the 2nd Ring Slot)
- Chest: Aspect of the Embalmer
- Pants: Aspect of Shielding Storm
- Gloves: Aspect of Ultimate Shadow
- Boots: Aspect of The Void
- Ring 1: Aspect of Decay
- Ring 2: Blighted Aspect or Aspect of Grasping Veins (whichever of the two you did not put in the Amulet goes here)
- 1H Weapon: *Smiting Aspect Until The Unique goes here (see notes below)
- Off-hand: Aspect of The Damned
- 2-H Weapon (if you decide to use one): *Smiting Aspect Until The Unique goes in he 1h slot (see notes below)
NOTE: Smiting Aspect goes in the 1H Weapon slot ONLY until you get the Black River Unique Scythe. There are two other alternative picks for Uniques you could use if you get those first: Melted Heart of Selig (Amulet) & Harlequin Crest (Helm) NOTE 2: How to re-arrange if using any of the alternative Uniques: - For Melted Heart of Selig (Amulet): Smiting Aspect gets removed from the 1H Weapon slot and Blighted Aspect or Aspect of Grasping Veins (whichever you put in the Amulet) goes in the now empty 1H Weapon slot to make room for the Unique to go in the Amulet slot - For Harlequin Crest (Helm): Smiting Aspect gets removed from the 1H Weapon slot. Aspect of Ultimate Shadow goes in the now empty 1H Weapon slot. Then Exploiter’s Aspect goes in the now empty Gloves slot to make room for the Unique to go in the Helmet slot.
Paragon Boards:
Use the links below to check the paragon boards selected and the nodes I’ve taken. One link is for what the boards will look like at lvl 93 without any paragon points from renown (so more paragon points will be obtained on the way to 100 as well as from renown. The other link will be what the boards will look like when fully maxed out on paragon points.
- LVL 93 & no Points from renown: Click THIS LINK
- MAXed out points: Click THIS LINK
Suggested Gear Rolls to look out for (NOT in complete order of priority):
I’ve shortlisted 46 different affixes that work well with the build of almost 300 total. I’ll highlight in Orange the ones I think should get higher priority
| Bonus to All Damage | ||||
| Critical Strike Chance / Critical Damage Bonus | ||||
| Critical Chance / Critical Damage with Darkness/Shadow/Corpse/Bone/Physical Skills | ||||
| Critical Chance / Critical Damage with Core/Macabre/Corpse/Ultimate Skills | ||||
| Damage with Core/Macabre/Corpse/Ultimate Skills | ||||
| Lucky Hit Chance | ||||
| Damage with Core/Macabre/Corpse/Ultimate Skills | ||||
| Lucky Hit Chance with Darkness/Shadow/Bone/Physical Damage | ||||
| Darkness/Shadow/Bone/Physical Damage Bonus | ||||
| + % Critical Chance / Critical Damage with Darkness/Shadow/Bone/Physical Damage | ||||
| Resistance to All Elements | ||||
| + % Darkness/Shadow/Bone/Physical Damage to Elites | ||||
| + % Critical Strike Chance with Darkness/Shadow/Bone/Physical Damage Against Elites | ||||
| + % Damage for X Seconds After Killing an Elite | ||||
| Damage Reduction for X Seconds After Killing an Elite | ||||
| Damage Reduction from Elites | ||||
| Damage to Close Enemies | ||||
| Critical Strike Chance Against Close Enemies | ||||
| Critical Strike Damage to Close Enemies | ||||
| Critical Strike Chance Against Crowd Controlled Enemies | ||||
| Critical Strike Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies | ||||
| Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies | ||||
| Critical Strike Chance Against Vulnerable Enemies | ||||
| Critical Strike Damage to Vulnerable Enemies | ||||
| Vulnerable Damage | ||||
| Fortify Generation | ||||
| Damage while Fortified | ||||
| Chance When Struck to Fortify for X Life | ||||
| Overpower Chance | ||||
| Overpower Damage with Blight/Corpse Explosion/Bone Storm | ||||
| Overpower Damage with Core/Macabre/Ultimate/Darkness/Corpse/Bone Skills | ||||
| Damage to Slowed/Stunned/Immobilized Enemies | ||||
| Critical Strike Chance Against Slowed/Stunned/Immobilized Enemies |
| + All Stats | ||||
| Damage while Healthy | ||||
| Damage vs Healthy Enemies | ||||
| Damage vs Injured Enemies | ||||
| Damage vs Close Enemies | ||||
| Weapon Damage (not sure if there are any bonuses to that as rolls) | ||||
| Essence Generation | ||||
| Essence Regeneration | ||||
| Essence On Kill | ||||
| Movement Speed | ||||
| Attack Speed | ||||
| Intelligence | ||||
| Resource Cost Reduction |
Useful Links (Spreadsheets & more):
For all of my Diablo IV RDY-4-Launch Theorycrafts/Builds: This Spreadsheet
For my Diablo IV Pre-Launch Class Skill Trees (can be used as mini-calculator): This Spreadsheet
For all of my Diablo IV Pre-Launch Theorycrafts/Builds: This Spreadsheet
♦ ◊ ♦ ◊ ♦
This concludes the Dark Lord 2.0 Necromancer Build for Diablo IV. If you’re interested in the game below are links to the various platforms where one can buy it (you can just click the links to open a new tab):
PC (Battle.Net)
