Seasonal Necromancer Guide

Season 11 is finally starting today, and many players will be creating a Necromancer for the very first time. Haedrig's Gift for Necromancers in Season 11 will be the Bones of Rathma "Pet" set, so be prepared to play a pet build for the early paragon levels. For more information on Season 11, click here.

Season 11 Start Times: 5:00 pm PDT in North America, 5:00 pm CEST in Europe, and 5:00 pm KST in Asia.

Leveling from 1-70

Like the Witch Doctor, the Necromancer has an easy time leveling thanks to the power of pet skills at lower difficulties. Below is basic build that will help you get to level 70 as quickly and smoothly as possible.

Here are some additional leveling tips to help you on your journey:

• Corpse Explosion is your go to skill for killing mobs, as your Skeletons will have no issues creating a couple corpses for you to get the explosion chain started.
• The passive Fueled by Death is still broken and does not increase your movement speed above the 25% cap.
  • Adjust your build accordingly if you gain any items or group buffs that increase your movement speed.
• If leveling solo, don't bother trying to get Leoric's Crown until level 30 when you unlock Blood Rush.
• Grinding in the Fields of Misery and Halls of Agony is the fastest way to level, but only if you are regularly getting 400+ killing sprees.
  • If you're having trouble maintaining those higher killing sprees, farm regular rifts instead.

Additionally, always remember to:

• Level up your Blacksmith
• Craft a new 2-Handed Axe (with a socket) every time it's available
• Keep your highest level ruby in your helm and weapon for maximum XP gains and damage

Fresh Level 70

You've gotten to level 70, now what? The main focus should be on completing the first four chapters of the Season Journey as quickly as possible, and the build below by Bluddshed will get you started. This build is designed for a fresh level 70 with the expectation of no Legendaries or set pieces.

Completing Chapter Four & the GR20 Clear

Arguably the hardest part of the first four chapters is the GR20 clear. At this point, you'll have access to your 4-piece Rathma's set bonus, and Bluddshed has another build specifically to help you accomplish this task and complete your first 6-piece set.

Full Rathma's Set & Beyond

Once you've completed the first four chapters of the Seasonal Journey, you'll have your full Bones of Rathma set. Your next goal after completing the set is to farm for the 2-piece Jesseth Arms, Jesseth Skullscythe and Jesseth Skullshield. The most efficient route to acquiring these items will be to use Kanai's Cube to upgrade rare 1-handed scythes and spend bloodshards on shields at Kadala. This 2-piece set is extremely powerful not just for Rathma's builds, but it's essential to almost all pet based builds, as it adds a huge damage boost for all of your pets while the active portion of Command Skeletons is in effect.

Below is another great guide by Bluddshed to build off of your Rathma's set and transition into a speed farming setup to get your early paragon grind started.

We'd also recommend on trying to acquire the one-handed scythe Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang, the belt Dayntee's Binding, and the ring Krysbin's Sentence. These three items are the most common items shared between all sets and builds for the Necromancer. You can't go wrong adding these to your Kanai's Cube or keeping in the stash to swap between builds.

If you're looking to really push the Necromancer during Season 11, you'll want to start collecting pieces of the Trag'Ouls "Blood" set. Not only is the "Blood SIM Lance" build the top solo Necromancer build as of the writing of this guide, but it's currently the highest pushing solo build of any class in the game at the moment. Just as a disclaimer, this is a high GR pushing build and not something you'll be using to farm bounties or speed run TX+ rifts; there are other builds better suited towards those roles.

The Necromancer has an extremely diverse set of builds and option available to it at the moment and the full meta of the class is far from figured out. Keep an eye on our Necromancer Build Section for the full range of specs to choose to from, and happy hunting in Season 11.

Additional Resources

Bluddshed discusses Necromancer starter builds and tips for Season 11. To learn more about Season 11 or the Necromancer, click the banners below.

Neinball (@NeinballGamer) is a content creator for Diablo Fans and a horadrim in training. Whether he's relaxing on Zegema Beach, fighting servants of the Corpse-God in the 41st millennium, or quelling Rebellions in the Outer Rim, his passion always brings him back to slaying Demons in Sanctuary.