Best Diablo 4 Blight Necromancer build in Season 5

The Necromancer is one of the top classes to play as in Season 5 of Diablo 4 with the Blight build also making the meta. Here’s how to assemble the build as well as how effective it is for Leveling, Endgame, and PvP play.

The Blight Necro build involves the Necromancer manipulating corpses and using them as a deadly weapon against the forces of hell. As the Necromancer is a top-tier class this season, knowing how to craft their best builds is essential. The Blight Necro is rated as C-Tier in Season 5, but the fact that the build is on the meta means it’s still worth trying.

Below, we’ll detail how to optimize the build for leveling, endgame, and PvP, giving you the best skills, items, Aspects, and Glyphs to target on your journey this season.

Best Blight Necro leveling build in Diablo 4 Season 5

As you level while playing through either the campaign or the new Season 5 content, you’ll want to make sure that you’re selecting your skills in the following order:

Level	Skill
1	Reap
2	Enhanced Reap
3	Blight
4	Enhanced Blight
5	Supernatural Blight
6	Blight
7	Blight
8	Blight
9	Blight
10	Unliving Energy
11	Imperfectly Balanced
12	Imperfectly Balanced
13	Imperfectly Balanced
14	Hewed Flesh
15	Hewed Flesh
16	Hewed Flesh
17	Corpse Explosion
18	Enhanced Corpse Explosion
19	Blighted Corpse Explosion
20	Corpse Explosion
21	Corpse Explosion
22	Corpse Explosion
23	Corpse Explosion
24	Skeletal Warrior Mastery
25	Skeletal Warrior Mastery
26	Skeletal Warrior Mastery
27	Grim Harvest
28	Grim Harvest
29	Grim Harvest
30	Fueled By Death
31	Fueled By Death
32	Fueled By Death
33	Iron Maiden
34	Enhanced Iron Maiden
35	Death’s Embrace
36	Death’s Embrace
37	Death’s Embrace
38	Amplify Damage
39	Amplify Damage
40	Amplify Damage
41	Skeletal Mage Mastery
42	Corpse Tendrils
43	Enhanced Corpse Tendrils
44	Plagued Corpse Tendrils
45	Shadowblight
46	Golem Mastery
47	Golem Mastery
48	Golem Mastery
49	Crippling Darkness
Renown 1	Reaper’s Pursuit
Renown 2	Reaper’s Pursuit
Renown 3	Reaper’s Pursuit
Renown 4	Gloom
Renown 5	Gloom
Renown 6	Gloom
Renown 7	Terror
Renown 8	Terror
Renown 9	Terror
Renown 10	Skeletal Mage Mastery

These skills will help you craft the ideal Blight Necro build for leveling. Of course, you’ll need to have unlocked the Renown points to use the extra ten.

Many of the passive skills above will boost your Corpse and Shadow skills (like Blight) and make them as powerful as possible. As every build needs active skills, we’ve provided a variety that complements the Blight build in combat.

As there’s synergy between Corpse skills and Minion skills, we’ve also ensured that your passive Minion skills have been boosted while ignoring Bone and Blood skills.

Best Book of the Dead setup for leveling

When it comes to using the Necromancer’s unique Book of the Dead skills, we recommend selecting the following:

• Skeletal Warriors – Reapers
• Skeletal Mages – Cold
• Golems – Blood

This Book of the Dead setup is the best for this build, letting your Reaper Skeletal Warriors focus on melee combat while you and your Mages support them from a distance with Cold Magic. This will slow enemies down while your Skeletons, Golem, and yourself strike at them while they’re vulnerable.

It’ll also allow slowed enemies to be caught up in Blight and be more susceptible to its damage and status ailments. We’ve selected the Blood Golem for this Book of the Dead setup as it’ll allow your Golem to buff your damage output and heal you when you’re in danger.

Best leveling rotation

• Summon Minions
• Iron Maiden
• Corpse Tendrils
• Blight
• Corpse Explosion
• Reap (in close combat)

You’ll likely already have your minions active when a battle begins, if not summon them. Then, strike a mob with Iron Maiden so that they’re likely to take more damage when the battle starts.

Next, cast Plagued Corpse Tendrils to stun enemies and increase the likelihood of producing extra corpses to re-supply your minion army. From here, hit them with your main attack, using Blight to do damage from a distance once your minions engage the mob.

Blight, Plauged Corpse Tendrils, and Iron Maiden will work well together, trapping enemies in a deadly kill box that only becomes more lethal when you start casting Corpse Explosion. This will finish off stragglers in no time.

Should an enemy get too close to you slice them with Reap, or attack the bubbling mess left behind by Blight and Reap your enemies caught in it.

Of course, whichever rotation works for you will be the best to use, but the above is a logical, tried, and tested method to combine skills into one powerful set of attacks.

Best Legendary Aspects

While Legendary Aspects will become more useful in the endgame version of the Blight Necro build, there are some you can hunt down while progressing to level 50 or while playing through the story. Here’s where you can find them:

Aspect	Power	Dungeon	Region
Blighted	Increased Shadow Blight damage	Akkhan’s Grasp (complete A Debt Repaid quest)	Hawezar
Umbral	Restores Primary Resource when you crowd-control an enemy	Champion’s Demise	Dry Steppes
Damned	Increased Shadow Damage	Uldur’s Cave	Kehjistan

Best Blight Necro endgame build in Diablo 4 Season 5

Once you reach endgame in Season 5 by beating the story, hitting level 50, and unlocking the Paragon Board, you can then respec to the endgame version of the Blight Necro build.

However on this occasion, this is the same set-up as the leveling build, only the point allocation has really changed:

Active Skill	Upgrades	Points allocated
Reap	Enhanced	1
Blight	Enhanced, Supernatural	5
Corpse Explosion	Enhanced, Blighted	2
Iron Maiden	Enhanced	2
Corpse Tendrils	Enhanced, Plagued	2

Here’s which passive skills you’ll need for the endgame build:

Passive Skill	Points
Unliving Energy	1
Hewed Flesh	3
Imperfectly Balanced	3
Grim Harvest	1
Fueled by Death	3
Amplify Damage	3
Death’s Embrace	3
Reaper’s Pursuit	3
Crippling Darkness	1
Gloom	3
Necrotic Carapace	1
Terror	3
Hellbent Commander	3
Inspiring Leader	3
Shadowblight	1

This build still primarily focuses on Corpse skills as your primary form of offense, but also uses Minions as a secondary set of skills, similar to the leveling build.

Best endgame Book of the Dead setup

We’re going to use the same set-up we used for leveling in our endgame version of this build:

• Skeletal Warriors – Reapers
• Skeletal Mages – Cold
• Golems – Blood

Best endgame rotation

For endgame, use the following skill rotation when approaching mobs in battle:

• Summon Minions
• Iron Maiden
• Corpse Tendrils
• Blight
• Corpse Explosion
• Reap (in close combat)

Once again, the aim here is to trap enemies in a box while Blight, Iron Maiden, and Corpse Tendrils do their malevolent work. Enemies will also be slowed by your Skeletal Mage’s cold damage, making them even more vulnerable.

Best Legendary Aspects

Now that you’ve reached endgame, you’ll have access to many more Legendary Aspects to boost your build and add special powers to buff your primary skills. Some are the same as in the leveling build, but now there’s even more. Here’s where and how you can find them:

Aspect	Power	Dungeon	Region	Gamble Obols
Blighted	Increased Shadowblight damage damage	Akkan’s Grasp	Hawezar	–
Damned	Increased Shadow damage	Uldur’s Cave	Kehjistan	–
Umbral	Boosts resource regeneration	Champion’s Demise	Dry Steppes	–
Ghostwalker	Become unstoppable when movement speed is boosted	Broken Bulwark	Scosglen	–
Disobedience	Boosts defense based on your damage output	Halls of the Damned	Kehjistan	–
Shared Misery	Boosts crowd control damage	Oblivion	Hawezar	–
Sacrificial	Boosts Sacrifice bonuses	Ruins of Eridu	Hawezar	–
Hulking	Boosts Golem cooldown	Sepulcher of the Forsword	Kehjistan
Void	Blight pulls in enemies	–	–	Pants
Hardened Bones	You and your minions get damage reduction	–	–	Pants
Shielding Storm	Bone Storm can lead to casting Barrier	–	–	Pants
Slaughter	Boosts movements speed by 20%	–	–	Boots

Remember, you can also strip these Aspects from their original item and apply them to an item of your choosing.

Paragon Board

Once you reach level 50 you’ll stop earning skills points and start earning Paragon points instead. This leveling system works very differently and involves you selecting updates from various boards with different themes and buffs.

Every path is different, but the good news is that by targeting different Glyphs as you move around the Paragon Board, you’ll start buffing your Blight Necro in the ways that matter most to the build.

See below to see which Glyphs you should target first.

Best Glyphs

Level 15

• ‍Darkness
• ‍Control
• ‍Scourge
• ‍Sacrificial
• ‍Abyssal
• ‍Exploit
• ‍Amplify
• ‍Gravekeeper

Level 21

• Control
• ‍Scourge
• ‍Exploit
• ‍Sacrificial
• ‍Amplify
• ‍Abyssal
• ‍Gravekeeper

Once you reach Paragon Level 15, work your way towards the above Glyphs. You’ll also unlock more across the Paragon Board as you earn more points, but selecting these particular Glyphs in this order will keep you on the best possible path for the Blight Necro build.

Best Blight Necro endgame item build

Item	Socket	Item type	Power
Hulking Runic Skullcap	Ruby for extra life	Helm	Boosts Minion damage
Runic Mail of Disobedience	Ruby for extra life	Chest Armor	Increased Armor
Runic Gloves of Innder Calm	Ruby for extra life	Gloves	Increased damage
Runic Leggings of Shared Misery	Ruby for extra life	Pants	Increased crowd control damage
Ghostwalker Runic Cleats	Ruby for extra life	Boots	Increased Unstoppable chance
‍Parashu of the Damned	2x Amethysts for increased damage	Main Hand	Increased Shadow damage
–	–	Offhand	–
Blighted Chain	Diamond for extra attack power	Amulet	Increased Shadowblight damage
Band of the Umbral	Diamond for extra attack power	Ring 1	Increased crowd control damage
Band of Voracious Rage	Diamond for extra attack power	Ring 2	Increased core skill damage

Blight Necromancer build for PvP

The Blight Necro isn’t recommended for PvP, and while it’s fantastic in PvE, we’d recommend using the Bone Spirit or Bone Spear build instead, sacrificing your minions and turning your Necromancer into a one-person army in some cases.

If you’re set on taking this build into battle against other players, though, we’d suggest sticking to our endgame version for the best results.

Your minions will be weak to other players, you tap your PvP opponents in your kill box (see rotation) then move in for the kill with Reap. It may be worth upgrading Reap by taking some of the points away from your minions if you choose to use this build for PvP.

Now that you know how to craft this top-tier Necromancer build this season, make sure to check out our guides for the Druid, Sorcerer, Rogue, and Barbarian.