Blood Surge is one of the Necromancer's hardest-hitting AOE skills in Diablo 4. It maintains Death Nova's playstyle from the previous games while having an identity of its own, allowing players to create a character that fits in nicely with the life and death theme of the class without losing out on practical power.
Necromancers may find themselves struggling when they use Blood Surge in the early stages of Diablo 4's endgame. Its power comes with a cost, so players must find ways around it. Here's a setup that combines effects from gear and passives to maximize Blood Surge's potential while mitigating some of its glaring drawbacks.
Patch 1.0.3 for Diablo 4 was released on June 27, 2023, making small changes to the action RPG. Still, our Endgame Blood Surge Build guide remains the same, even after the update. Players can still use this guide to reach their full potential with the Necromancer's ability.
Diablo 4 Endgame Blood Surge Build
Skills | Total Points |
Initiate's Hemorrhage | 3 |
Paranormal Blood Surge | 7 |
Supernatural Blood Lance | 7 |
Blighted Corpse Explosion | 3 |
Plagued Corpse Tendrils | 3 |
Ghastly Blood Mist | 3 |
Book of the Dead | Upgrades |
Defenders | Sacrifice |
Bone Mages | Sacrifice |
Blood Golem | Sacrifice |
The idea behind this build is to use Blood Surge as the main mob-clearing tool while Blood Lance takes care of elites and bosses. Since Blood Lance doesn't have any Legendary Aspects that increase its single-target damage, players can freely focus on stacking effects for Blood Surge, Overpower, and other related effects.
Take Paranormal Blood Surge and Supernatural Blood Lance to get guaranteed Overpower procs. This playstyle involves keeping track of cast counts for each of these abilities so Overpower damage doesn't go to waste, so keep that in mind.
Blood Mist is primarily a defensive skill, but players can also use it offensively when Rathma's Vigor is active. Use it to start an engagement to heavily damage every enemy on screen, then finish them off with Blood Surge.
Corpse Tendrils is here for its Crowd Control and Vulnerable effects. Meanwhile, Corpse Explosion is used to consume Corpses for passive and Aspect effects.
Passive Skills
Skills | Points |
Unliving Energy | 3 |
Imperfectly Balanced | 3 |
Hewed Flesh | 3 |
Grim Harvest | 3 |
Fueled by Death | 3 |
Death's Embrace | 3 |
Gruesome Mending | 1 |
Coalesced Blood | 3 |
Tides of Blood | 3 |
Stand Alone | 3 |
Memento Mori | 3 |
Rathma's Vigor | 1 |
Hewed Flesh is a must-have for any corpse-consuming Necromancer build, just like how Coalesced Blood and Tides of Blood are mandatory for Blood builds. Take Death's Embrace for extra protection and damage, and get Memento Mori since the build won't be using any minions.
The other passives here are self-explanatory—more damage, more Essence, more survivability. If Essence management becomes a problem, swap Imperfectly Balanced out for Death's Reach.
Sacrifice Bone Mages for the added Overpower damage, Blood Golem for maximum Life, and either Skirmishers for critical hit chance or Defenders for Non-Physical damage resistance.
Gear And Aspects
Offense | Defense | Utility |
Blood-bathed | Might | Potent Blood |
Grasping Veins | Disobedience | Explosive Mist |
Untimely Death | Embalmer | Eluding |
The setup above still has room for improvement, but many players who are above level 50 should have easy access to all the Aspects on the table.
Blood Orbs play a key role in this build, so players will want Embalmer and Potent Blood on their gear to take advantage of them even more. Both will feed the damage bonus from Untimely Death, which will make every Overpower proc deal significantly more damage.
Resource management is going to be the main issue with this build. Players should get rings with Essence cost reduction to help alleviate that problem. Potent Blood alone won't be able to maintain the Necromancer's Essence levels, so make sure to support it with items and Paragon passives.
As for Unique items, players should use the Mother's Embrace to Starless Skies rings so they don't lose as much Essence when spamming their Core Skills. Feel free to swap out Aspect of Explosive Mist for one of these Unique rings.
Paragon Board
Bone Graft is an excellent board for any build that's heavy on spellcasting. It contains nodes that restore Essence every time players get a kill, so despite being a Bone-focused board, everyone can take Bone Graft without sacrificing much power.
Bloodbath and Blood Begets Blood are both great options for Blood Surge and Blood Lance builds since they boost Overpower damage. The latter also increases the effectiveness of Blood Orbs, making it perfect for this build in particular.
As for Glyphs, Essence, Blood-drinker, and Dominate are good choices. However, players will have to make sure that the Paragon Boards they choose are capable of supporting these glyphs.
Diablo 4 is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.