The Necromancer's Blood Lance ability may not be as popular as the bigger and beefier Bone Spear, but it's got a few tricks up its sleeve that makes it a devastating Core Skill in Diablo 4's endgame. With the right build, this skill is able to challenge high-tier Nightmare Dungeons with relative ease.
Blood Lance is a very technical ability that relies on playing around with some of the Necromancer's class-specific mechanics in Diablo 4. This guide will go over all the parts needed to make this Diablo 4 build work, from the skill tree setup to Paragon Board point allocation.
Diablo 4: Blood Lance Build Main Skills
Skill | Points |
Acolyte's Hemorrhage | 3 |
Supernatural Blood Lance | 7 |
Dreadful Blood Mist | 7 |
Blighted Corpse Tendrils | 7 |
Ghastly Bone Prison | 3 |
Supreme Bone Storm | 3 |
This plays similarly to the endgame Bone Spear build but with a few key differences. It focuses on dealing as much Overpower damage as possible with every sixth cast of Blood Lance instead of relying completely on critical hits and high max Essence. As for the playstyle, simply spam Blood Lance downrange and watch everything die.
Corpse Tendrils is here to trigger Aspect of Grasping Veins' bonuses to Critical Strike Chance and Damage while also generating Blood Orbs to feed the build's Aspects and Paragon Nodes. Meanwhile, Bone Prison is used to act as a distraction for distant enemies and inflict Vulnerable.
The build still relies on critical hits to deal damage, hence Bone Storm's presence on the skill bar. When fully upgraded, it reduces incoming damage while also increasing the Necromancer's critical hit chance.
Passive Skills
Skill | Points |
Hewed Flesh | 3 |
Death's Embrace | 3 |
Death's Reach | 3 |
Gruesome Mending | 1 |
Coalesced Blood | 3 |
Tides of Blood | 3 |
Drain Vitality | 2 |
Stand Alone | 3 |
Memento Mori | 3 |
Inspiring Leader | 3 |
Rathma's Vigor | 1 |
Book of the Dead | |
Skirmishers | Sacrificed (+crit chance) |
Bone | Sacrificed (+Overpower damage) |
Blood | Sacrificed (+Life) |
This passive skill setup is used in almost every Blood build that takes advantage of Overpower damage. Tides of Blood and Coalesced Blood boost the damage of Blood skills significantly, especially in the late game.
Inspiring Leader is here for the free attack speed bonus. This skill works even without any active minions, and since Blood Lance relies on attack speed to reach those guaranteed Overpower procs, taking this passive is a no-brainer.
Rathma's Vigor is the best Key Passive for Blood builds since it grants an extra source of guaranteed Overpower damage every dozen seconds or so. This allows players to deal back-to-back Overpower procs that deal immense damage to every target hit by Blood Lance. Be careful not to waste Rathma's Vigor on Hemorrhage.
Aspects and Gear
Offense | Defense | Utility |
Accelerating (Gloves) | Might | Potent Blood (Ring) |
Rathma's Chosen (1H) | Disobedience | Mother's Embrace (Unique Ring) |
Hungry Blood (Off-hand) | Shielding Storm | Wind Striker |
Grasping Veins (Amulet) |
Hungry Blood is needed to make Blood Lance an effective AOE skill. It makes it so lanced enemies have a chance to shoot more Blood Lances, causing a cascade of crimson that can fill the screen with numbers.
Rathma's Chosen and Accelerating Aspect help players reach Blood Lance's Overpower proc much quicker while also making Hemorrhage hit faster, resulting in more Blood Orbs formed and more Essence generated. High attack speed also makes proccing Lucky Hit-based, Essence-generating effects trigger more often.
Potent Blood will help maintain the Necromancer's Essence levels as long as they can pick up Blood Orbs. Meanwhile, Mother's Embrace will dampen the Essence cost of gratuitous Blood Lance spamming while providing decent offensive stats.
As for gear, stack as much Life, Overpower damage, and crit stats as possible. Insert Rubies into weapon and armor sockets, and use Skulls on accessories.
Paragon Boards
Use either the Blood-drinker or Sacrificial Glyphs in the starting board—the former Fortifies the Necromancer every time they pick up a Blood Orb, while the latter grants a percentage damage bonus as long as there are no summoned minions.
Next, take the Bloodbath board for more Overpower damage. Purchase every node that affects max Life, Healing Received, and damage dealt while Fortified. The Glyph Socket here is mostly surrounded by Dexterity nodes, which makes it ideal for Glyphs like Territorial and Essence.
Get Bone Graft next for its Reinvigorate cluster of nodes. This will help make Essence management easier while clearing packs of monsters by restoring Essence after every kill. From here, players can take the Blood Begets Blood and Scent of Death boards for their bonuses to Life, damage, and defenses. Good Glyphs for these include Dominate, Corporeal, and Imbiber.
Diablo 4 is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.