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Diablo 4’s Season of Infernal Hordes has seen a rise in the number of players using the Blood Surge Necromancer build due to a new Unique Item added to the game. This build is one of the best AoE Necromancer Builds due to its survivability and reliable damage well into the late game. However, as with most builds, playing it requires a certain mixture of Legendary Aspects, Unique Items, stats, and abilities.
For players who don’t have the desire to muck around trying to figure out their own Blood Surge build, guides such as this one can provide a framework to get them playing faster. Keep reading for tips on why this build works, what items and aspects to use, how to arrange the skill tree, and even how to arrange the Paragon Board.
Why The Blood Surge Necromancer Is So Powerful
The Blood Surge Necromancer Build has been hanging around the upper tiers of play in one form or another sinceDiablo 4’s release. This is due to the strength of the Overpower mechanic. Overpower refers to stronger attacks every character has a chance to make, similar to a Critical Strike. However,Overpower damage scales off of the character’s current Health and Fortifyamount.Blood Surge is one of the few abilities in the game with a built-in Overpower guarantee, provided players choose the Paranormal Blood Surge upgrade, which guarantees an Overpower Attack at least every five casts of their Core ability.
However, it wasn’t until the addition of Cruor’s Embrace in Season 5 of the Infernal Hordes that the build really jumped up the Build Tier List. This item further magnifies Blood Surge’s damage by consuming nearby corpses for additional explosions, as well as granting five ranks of the skill. The resulting build is dependent on only one Unique item and one Aspect to function while putting out insane damage combined with absurd survivability.
Variations Of This Build
While the build showcased here sacrifices all minions for additional personal stats, some variations of the build instead keep their minions and use the Deathspeaker’s Pendant Unique Item. This variation allows the player to damage larger areas at once, at the cost of damage multipliers and Damage Reduction.
Skill Tree & Abilities Of The Blood Surge Necromancer
The Skill Tree for the Blood Surge Necromancer is fairly laid back, with some flexibility in the Ultimate and Macabre Nodes to suit personal preference. The key points are in the Basic, Core, and Key Passive Nodes. However, it is important for this version of the Blood Surge Build to generate sufficient Fortify and Blood Orbs - players who want to deviate from the suggested course beware.
Basic Skills
This build uses the Basic Skill Hemorrhage to regenerate Essence as necessary and generate Fortify.
Core Skills
The main damage dealer of the build is its Core Skill - Blood Surge. While taking Supernatural Blood Surge might be tempting to get more Fortify, taking Paranormal Blood Surge instead is vital to generate consistent Overpower Attacks.
Corpse & Macabre Skills
In the first Corpse and Macabre Skill Node, Blood Mist provides Defensive Safety and increases Critical Strike Chance. Grim Harvest and Fueled by Death benefit the build because Cruor’s Embrace will constantly procc them - players can ignore these until finding the Unique item.
Curses
The Curse Decrepify isn’t key to the build, but 10% Damage Reduction is nice, as is the Amplified Damage bonus from the Passive. Happily, there’s no need to put more than one point into it, since the Blood Moon Breeches will contribute so many ranks.
Corpse & Macabre Skills (2nd Node)
In the second Corpse and Macabre Node this build picks up Corpse Tendrils - by far the best CC option available to Necromancers. Not only will this ability gather enemies up nicely to hit with Blood Surge, but it will also make them Vulnerable. In addition to Corpse Tendrils, several of the Blood Skill Passives on this node Benefit this build.
Ultimate Skills
While this build takes Bone Storm due to its similar AoE to Blood Surge, players can instead take Blood Wave if they can use it without knocking enemies away from them. It also allocates points into buffs for minion sacrifices - if players choose to run minions instead then allocate these points to other passives like Hellbent Commander.
Key Passive
The Key Passive of this build is Rathma’s Vigor. It provides another method of generating Overpower attacks reliant on staying Healthy. The time between proccs of this passive gets reduced each time the player picks up a Blood Orb, which shouldn’t be difficult in this build as the generation chance is high.
This build can be run with minions and the Deathspeaker’s Pendant. However, thebuild performs better against endgame bosses when minions are sacrificed.
Skeletons
Sacrifice the Skeleton Skrimishers to get +10% Critical Strike Chance.
While none of the Skeleton Warrior Sacrifice Bonuses are ideal for the build, Passives in the Necromancer Skill Tree incentivize sacrificing either all or none of the minions, and the buffs from the Mage and Golem Sacrifices are quite desirable.
Mages
Sacrifice the Bone Mages for a +30% increase in Overpower Damage - substantial considering the other buffs this build is stacking.
Golem
Sacrifice the Blood Golem for an additional +15% Maximum Life, potentially increasing the multiplier for Overpower damage by 30% (when full health and fully Fortified).
Itemization Of The Blood Surge Necromancer
The itemization for the Blood Surge Necromancer is flexible in that the build works as long as the player has the Blood Bathed Aspect and the Cruor’s Embrace Unique. However, optimizing the build can result in a Maximum Health of 40K, and Overpower bonus Damage of 1499% pre-Masterworking.
High Priority Stats
High Priority Stats in the Blood Surge Necromancer Build from highest to lowest priority include:
Any items that increase Minion Stats, Summon Damage, or Cooldown Reduction should be avoided - this build doesn’t need those.
The best stats for this build are typically found on Mace Weapons, which innately include Overpower Damage, not Scythes or Wands.
Tempering Statistics
There are a number of things that can increase Tempering optimization, but the most important are:
Gem Socketing
Rubies function well in all armor and weapon sockets. Players can choose Skulls or Diamonds in the Jewelry for a general build, or gems that correspond to Element Specific Resistances if they’d like to cater to a specific fight.
Key & Optional Aspects
There are between 7 and 8 spots for Aspects in this build, depending on whether players use a one-handed or two-handed weapon. Use these spots for the following, with some flexibility other than Blood Bathed being required.
Players might also consider aspects such asAspect of Disobedienceor Aspect of Potent Blood if they are struggling with a lack of survivability or Essence. In these cases, they can replace Cursed Aura for Disobedience and Potent Blood for Cadaverous.
Unique Items
The pinnacle item of this build is Cruor’s Embrace, which is a set of unique gloves added inDiablo 4’s5th Season. These gloves can drop from any enemy in World Tier 3+, but are target-farmed from theEcho of Lord Zir. This item is a must-have in order to reach the build’s full potential, so getting it should be top priority.
Additionally, this build makes use of the Blood Moon Breeches, a set of unique pants. These too can drop from any enemy in World Tier 3+, but the best chance of them dropping is fromEcho of DurielorAndariel, Maiden of Anguish.
Paragon Boards & Glyphs For The Blood Surge Necromancer
The Paragon Board setup for the Blood Surge Necromancer is fairly simple, but assumes players have the additional Paragon Points frommaximizing their Renown
All glyphs should be leveled to 21, but prioritizing Blood-drinker and Undaunted should be the priority.See images for exact Paragon Node pathing.
The Amplify Glyph can be used on the starting board instead, moving Blood-drinker to Board three to replace Gravekeeper. This is up to personal preference, and results in minimal change to damage.
