Best Diablo 3 Necromancer Builds: Season 33

Ava Thompson-Powell
The female Necromancer on a dark background, with the Diablo logo

The best Diablo 3 Necromancer build for Season 33 will allow you to wreak havoc on your enemies with deadly blood, bone, and poison spells – so here’s everything you need to know to do just that.

Diablo 3’s Necromancer was released in the game back in 2017, allowing Diablo 2’s long-term fans of the same class – or those wanting to try something slightly different – to touch every corner of Sanctuary with the Priests of Rathma’s deadly power. The class also returned in Diablo 4 and Immortal.

While the Necromancer is somewhat similar to the Witch Doctor, the class has no damage over time attacks, instead allowing you to command and control pets, as well as affecting corpses found throughout the world to do your bidding or restore Essence.

Here’s what Necromancer build you should try in Season 33 of Diablo 3.

Is the Necromancer for me?

If you’re a character that loves dark magic and a gothic aesthetic, the Necromancer will make you feel right at home. Focusing on three themes: Blood & Bone, Poison, and Resurrection, their skills are based on deadly curses, an ever-growing horde of minions, and wielding one-handed or two-handed Scythes to destroy their enemies.

Able to restore their health as they’re fighting, the Necromancer is a solid choice if you’re looking to deal out dizzying amounts of damage while also providing a cushion to keep yourself alive.

If you prefer running head-on into battle as a tank, though, we’d recommend running either Barbarian or Crusader. For a similar style of play but with a less gothic theme, we’d suggest trying out the Witch Doctor. Or, those who prefer running standard magic builds will feel right at home with the Wizard.

Is the Necromancer good in Diablo Season 33?

The Necromancer is one of the most powerful classes you can use in Season 33, having multiple builds racked as S and A tier.

Artwork of Diablo 3's female Necromancer holding a flaming heart phylactery
Using their skills to cause havoc with decay and despair, Diablo 3’s Necromancer is an Acolyte of the Priests of Rathma.

Best Diablo 3 Necromancer build: Season 33

If you want to ensure that you’re putting out as much damage as possible this season with the Necromancer, make sure to run with the S-tier Trag’Oul Death Nova build.

This build now uses a variety of pieces to turn your Necromancer into a Death Nova-fueled experience-farming death machine.

Active skills

Below, we’ve listed all of the skills that you should focus on to put this build together:

SkillRune
Death NovaBlood Nova
Siphon BloodPurity of Essence
SimulacrumBlood and Bone
FrailtyAura of Frailty
Bone ArmorDislocation
Blood RushHemostasis

Passive skills

The passive skills you’ll want to utilize for this particular build are:

  • Swift Harvesting
  • Fueled by Death
  • Final Service
  • Stand Alone
  • Spreading Malediction

Item build

For the Trag’Oul Death Nova build, you’ll need to make use of the Trag’Oul’s Avatar set. This quadruples Life and adds a 10,000% damage boost to all Blood Skills – useful when using a build reliant on Death Nova.

Aim to equip the following items and weapons:

Item TypeRune
HelmTrag’Oul’s Guise
Neck (Amulet)Haunted Visions
ShouldersAughild’s Power
TorsoTrag’Oul’s Scales
WaistDayntee’s Binding
WristsAughild’s Power
HandsTrag’Oul’s Claws
LegsTrag’Oul’s Hide
FeetTrag’Oul’s Stalwart Grieves
Main hand weaponFunerary Pick
Secondary weaponBloodtide Blade
Off-handIron Rose
Rings 1Convention of Elements
Rings 2Krysbin’s Sentence

Diablo 3 Necromancer follower

Followers are a crucial part of gameplay, despite many neglecting to utilize them. Older season’s changes brought in the option to customize their armor alongside their weapon, meaning that you will only be making things easier for you in the long run by choosing to bring one with you.

For the Necromancer, we’d recommend adding the only follower that provides cooldown reduction to your party: the Enchantress. However, if you need backup from a tank, you can also bring the Templar. Just be aware you’ll have less cooldown reduction.

Artwork of the Male necromancer in Diablo 3
Now that you know the best build for the Necromancer, let’s take a look at some alternatives.

Alternative Diablo 3 Necromancer builds

If the tanky Corpse Explosion build doesn’t take your fancy – no worries! These other two builds are featured this season and both are also S-Tier builds!

LoD Death Nova build

Similar to the main build we’ve chosen above, the S-Tier LoD Death Nova build is also excellent for those who prefer focusing on dealing AoE damage from a distance.

SkillRune
Death NovaBlood Nova
Siphon BloodPower Shift
SimulacrumBlood and Bone
FrailtyAuro of Frailty
Bone ArmorDislocation
Blood RushHemostasis

Rathma Army of the Dead build

Based on the Bones of Rathma set, this build also currently ranks in the S-Tier. If sacrificing your own survivability for commanding and relying on minions is more your style of play, this will be an incredibly fun build to try out.

SkillRune
Army of the DeadDeath Valley
Blood RushPotency
Bone ArmorDislocation
Command SkeletonsFrenzy
DecrepifyBorrowed Time
RevivePurgatory

For all the Diablo 3 character class builds, check out our guides for the Barbarian, Witch Doctor, Monk, Demon Hunter, Wizard, and Crusader.

Sign up to Dexerto for free and receive:
Fewer Ads|Dark Mode|Deals in Gaming, TV and Movies, and Tech