![Reaping Army 2.0 Diablo IV Necromancer Build [RDY-4-Launch]](https://wasted666.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/RA2-1200x675.jpg)
Reaping Army 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 Reaping Army 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 (Reaping Army 2.0) is one of the builds on that spreadsheet.
Basic Skill (Resource Generator/Builder) (Required Points: 0 )
- (active) Decompose – Tear the flesh from the enemy, dealing 30% (X) damage per second and forming a usable corpse with the flesh every 2.5 seconds. Lucky Hit Chance: 40% Generates: 7 Essence per second Damage: X ; Tags:
- (1st upgrade) Enhanced Decompose – If an enemy dies while being Decomposed, you gain 10 Essence.
- (2nd upgrade – my pick of the 2) Acolyte’s Decompose – You and your Minions deal 10% (multiplicative) increased damage to enemies who are being Decomposed.
Core Skill(s) (Resource Spender) (Required Points: 2 )
- (active) Sever – A spectre of you charges forward and attacks with its scythe for 42% (X) damage then returns to you and attacks again for 21% (X-?) damage. Lucky Hit Chance: 20% Essence Cost: 20 Damage: X ; Tags:
- (1st upgrade) Enhanced Sever – Sever damages enemies along its path for 25% of its damage.
- (2nd upgrade – my pick of the 2) Supernatural Sever – Sever deals 2% (multiplicative) increased damage for each Minion you have upon cast.
- (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: X ; Tags:
- (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) Skeletal Warrior Mastery Increase the damage and Life of your Skeletal Warriors by 15%/30%/45% (multiplicative).
- (passive) DID NOT INVEST in other Macabre passives to save points
Corruption Skills (Required Points: 11 )
- (active) DID NOT TAKE a Corruption active due to using 2 minions on the skillbar
- (1st upgrade)
- (2nd upgrade – my pick of the 2)
- (passive) Skeletal Mage Mastery – Increase the damage and Health of your Skeletal Mages by 15%/30%/45% (multiplicative).
- (passive) DID NOT INVEST in other Corruption passives to save points
Summoning Skills (Required Points: 16 )
- (active) DID NOT TAKE a Summoning active due to using 2 minions on the skillbar
- (1st upgrade)
- (2nd upgrade – my pick of the 2)
- (passive) Reaper’s Pursuit – Damaging enemies with Darkness Skills increases your Movement Speed by +5%/+10%/+15% for 3 seconds.
- (upgrade) Crippling Darkness – DID NOT INVEST in this to save points
- (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) 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) Army of the Dead – Call forth the deep buried dead. Volatile Skeletons emerge over the next 7 seconds that explode when around enemies, dealing 30% (X-?) damage. Lucky Hit Chance: 54% Cooldown: 90 Seconds. Damage: X ; Tags:
- (1st upgrade) Prime Army of the Dead – When Army of the Dead’s Volatile Skeletons explode, they have 15% chance to leave behind a Corpse.
- (2nd upgrade) Supreme Army of the Dead – Army of the Dead also raises your Skeletal Warriors and Skeletal Mages.
- (passive) Bonded in Essence Every 5 seconds, your Skeletal Priest’s Healing will Heal your skeletons for 20%/40%/60% of their Maximum Life.
- (upgrade) Death’s Defense Your Minions can’t lose more than 75%/50%/25% of their maximum Life from a single damage instance.
- (passive) Golem Mastery Increase the damage and Life of your Golem by 15%/30%/45% (multiplicative).
- (passive) Inspiring Leader After you have been Healthy for at least 4 seconds, you and your Minions gain +4%/+8%/+12% Attack Speed. (seems to need a point in Death’s Defene to unlock this)
- (upgrade) Hellbent Commander Your Minions deal 10%/20%/30% (multiplicative) increased damage while you are near them.
- (passive) DID NOT INVEST in other Ultimate passives to save points
Specializations (Required Points: 33 )
- (passive) Kalan’s Edict – After you have not taken damage in the last 3 seconds, your Minions gain +15% Attack Speed. While you have at least 7 Minions, this bonus is doubled.
Book of the Dead (Class Mechanic):
This build is all about taking as many summons as possible without sacrificing any of them for passive bonuses. I’d advise taking all minions for this build and the types + upgrades are: Skeletal Skirmishers: Upgrade 1 + Shadow Mages: Upgrade 2 + Bone Golem: Upgrade 2 (OR Iron Golem – Sacrifice):
- Skeletal Skirmishers + Upgrade 1 so that we get and extra minion to boost the damage of Sever and other things that scale from the number of minions
- Description: You can raise an additional Skirmisher
- Shadow Mages + Upgrade 2 is a good dps increase & goes especially well with Minion Attack Speed bonuses
- Description: Shadow Mages fire an additional shadow bolt every 6th attack.
- Bone Golem + Upgrade 2 will let big boi tank for us and keep the aggro away from us oftentimes. Alternatively, if you want even more DPS, Iron Golem – Sacrifice can help
- Description: Your Golem gains 10% maximum Life and the amount of Thorns they inherit from you is increased from 30% to 50%.
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:
Ring of Mendeln (Ring)
[6 – 35]% Cold Resistance
[6 – 35]% Shadow Resistance
While you have 7 or more Minions you gain: Lucky Hit: Up to a 10% chance to empower all of your Minions, causing the next attack from each to explode for N Physical damage.
+[4 – 10]% Lucky Hit Chance
+[7 – 14]% Minion Attack Speed
[17.5 – 31.5]% Maximum Minion Life
+[0.14 – 0.28] Thorns
The signet of Mendeln ul-Diomed, the founder of the Priests of Rathma and the first Necromancer, was lost for over 3,000 years. The immense power over death held within, however, has not diminished.
Sockets & Gems
Full Diamonds is a good fit for many builds, but this one doesn’t do much barrier. I’d recommend doing for Weps: Diamond, Skull, Amethyst or Emerald. For Armor: Skull, Amethyst or Emerald. For 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 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)
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 (Reaping Army 2.0) is one of the builds on that spreadsheet.
- Helm: Viscous Aspect
- Amulet: Aspect of Empowering Reaper
- Chest: Blood Getter’s Aspect
- Pants: Aspect of Hardened Bones
- Gloves: Cadaverous Aspect
- Boots: Exploiter’s Aspect
- Ring 1: Aspect of Frenzied Dead
- Ring 2: *Aspect of Reanimation Until *The Unique goes here
- 1H Weapon: Unyielding Commander’s Aspect
- Off-hand: Rotting Aspect
- 2-H Weapon (if you decide to use one):Unyielding Commander’s Aspect
NOTE: Aspect of Reanimation is a great choice for Until The Unique goes on that 2nd ring slot. Alternatively, you can put another Resource generation or Offensive Aspect such as: Aspect of Flesh-Rending, Requiem Aspect, Hulking Aspect, Edgemaster's Aspect, Aspect of Inner Calm
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 99 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 99 & no Points from renown: Click THIS LINK
- MAXed out points: Click THIS LINK
Suggested Gear Rolls to look out for (NOT in order of priority):
I’ve shortlisted 38 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 Damage Bonus | ||||
| Critical Strike Chance | ||||
| Critical Strike Damage with Core Skills | ||||
| Damage with Core Skills | ||||
| Lucky Hit Chance | ||||
| Shadow Damage Bonus | ||||
| Shadow Critical Strike Damage Bonus | ||||
| Resistance to All Elements | ||||
| Cooldown Reduction | ||||
| + % Critical Strike Chance with Shadow Damage | ||||
| + % Damage to Elites | ||||
| + % Shadow Damage to Elites | ||||
| Damage Upon Killing an Elite | ||||
| + % Critical Strike Chance with Shadow Damage Against Elites | ||||
| Damage Reduction for X Seconds After Killing an Elite | ||||
| + % Damage for X Seconds After Killing an Elite | ||||
| Damage Reduction from Elites | ||||
| + % Minion Damage | ||||
| + % Damage to Enemies affected by Shadow DoT | ||||
| + % Minion Resistance to All Elements | ||||
| + % Minion Attack Speed | ||||
| + % Maximum Minion Life |
| Amplify_Damage_From_Pets_Per_Player_Percent (Struck’s note: my guess is this is + % Minion Damage based on the player’s % Damage) | ||||
| Lucky Hit: Critical Strikes From Your Minions Have up to a 5% Chance to Reduce Enemy Damage Dealt by X% for N Seconds | ||||
| + 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 Reaping Army 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)