The Necromancer's Bone Spirit skill in Diablo 4 requires a lot of setup to work properly. However, once players do get the right gear and effects going, this ability becomes the single strongest nuke the class has to offer.
The following is a popular Bone Spirit build that features maxed-out critical hit stats, high survivability, good Crowd Control, and a ton of Corpse consumption. It won't be for everyone, but it's great for Diablo 4 players who want a strong ability that can one-shot almost everything in the game outside of bosses.
As of June 27, 2023, Blizzard has implemented Patch 1.0.3 for Diablo 4, making some slight gameplay adjustments here and there. However, our Bone Spirit Necromancer Build is still good to go and is accurate even with the changes.
Diablo 4 Bone Spirit Necromancer Build
Skills | Total Points |
Acolyte's Reap | 3 |
Blood Mist | 1 |
Blighted Corpse Explosion | 3 |
Plagued Corpse Tendrils | 7 |
Ghastly Bone Spirit | 7 |
Supreme Bone Storm | 3 |
Book of the Dead | Upgrades |
Defenders | Sacrificed |
Shadow Mages | Sacrificed |
Iron Golem | Sacrificed |
Bone Spirit consumes all the Necromancer's Essence to increase its own damage based on the total points it uses. The challenge here is generating enough Essence to fuel the spirit up once it goes off cooldown.
Reap is the best generator in the Necromancer's kit in AOE situations since it grants Essence based on the number of enemies it hits. However, this skill will primarily be used to generate a Corpse for the build's true Essence generator: Corpse Tendrils.
Corpse Tendrils slows, pulls, and stuns enemies over a wide area. With Aspect of the Umbral equipped, players can refill their Essence bar with a single cast of this skill. Its upgrade also makes targets Vulnerable, making them prime targets for a very angry Bone Spirit.
Bone Storm is used as more of a utility skill here—it's needed to reach max Critical Strike Chance and generate Barrier with Aspect of Shielding Storm. It'll keep players alive while also granting more Bone Spirit damage.
Blighted Corpse Explosion is an excellent damage tool and so far, it is the only skill that eats Corpses outside of Corpse Tendrils and Raise Skeleton. Use it for AOE damage whenever Bone Spirit is on cooldown and to trigger Grim Harvest and Fueled by Death.
Blood Mist is purely here for getting out of bad situations.
Passive Skills
Skills | Points |
Unliving Energy | 3 |
Hewed Flesh | 3 |
Grim Harvest | 3 |
Fueled by Death | 3 |
Death's Embrace | 3 |
Serration | 3 |
Rapid Ossification | 3 |
Compound Fracture | 3 |
Evulsion | 3 |
Stand Alone | 3 |
Memento Mori | 3 |
Ossified Essence | 1 |
Take Unliving Energy to boost Bone Spirit's damage and Hewed Flesh for constant Corpse generation with Blighted Corpse Explosion. All Corpse skills and passives rely on Hewed Flesh since Reap can only generate Corpses once every five seconds.
Pour points into all the Bone passives in the second Macabre skill tree to max out Bone Spirit's damage output, then take the Ossified Essence Key Passive to further boost its damage when cast at 50 Essence or more.
The build will not use minions. Instead, Defenders, Shadow Mages, and Iron Golem will be sacrificed for their bonuses to survivability, max Essence, and Critical Strike Damage respectively.
Gear and Aspects
Offense | Defense | Utility |
Smiting | Might | Umbral |
Swelling Curse | Disobedience | Eluding |
Serration | Shielding Storm | |
Grasping Veins |
Before anything else, it's important for players to get as much Critical Strike Chance as possible from their items. If Bone Spirit fails to kill a monster pack, then players will be left with few offensive options.
Swelling Curse straight-up buffs Bone Spirit's damage output by making it scale according to the distance it travels. Meanwhile, Grasping Veins helps players reach max Critical Strike Chance while simultaneously buffing damage against targets affected by Corpse Tendrils.
Aspect of Serration gives Bone Spirit a massive Critical Strike Damage multiplier when cast at full Essence. Make sure to stay topped-off with Corpse Tendrils and Reap to get the most benefit out of all damaging aspects.
Paragon Boards
Take Bone Graft and head straight for the Reinvigorate node for the Essence-related bonuses before going to the Legendary node itself. Use Exploit on the Glyph Socket once it's unlocked for more overall damage without having to rely on Corpse Tendrils' Vulnerable application.
Flesh Eater is another good Paragon Board for Bone Spirit builds (or anything else that eats Corpses) thanks to its damage buffs. It also has the Targeted node, which boosts damage against elites. The board's Glyph socket is close to a number of Dexterity nodes, which is good for Glyphs like Exploit and Gravekeeper.
Diablo 4 is available now on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, and PS5.