Best Diablo 4 Sever Necromancer build in Season 5
![Sever necromancer](https://www.dexerto.com/cdn-image/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/20/Sever.jpg?width=3840&quality=60&format=auto)
The Necromancer is Diablo 4’s very own Grim Reaper and that’s especially true in Season 5 with the Sever build. This is a build that allows the Necromancer to turn into Death himself. Here’s how to assemble the build as well as how effective it is for Leveling, Endgame, and PvP play.
The Sever Necromancer build involves the Necromancer summoning a shadow minion that cleaves its enemies to pieces with a deadly scythe. As the Necromancer is a top-tier class this season, knowing how to craft their best builds is essential.
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.
![diablo 4 necromancer endgame](https://www.dexerto.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=3840,quality=75,format=auto/https://editors.dexerto.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/02/necromancer-diablo-4-class.jpeg)
Best Sever leveling build in Diablo 4 Season 5
The Sever build is rated as B-tier this season, meaning while it’s not the best, it’s still pretty deadly.
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 | Bone Splinters |
2 | Enhanced Bone Splinters |
3 | Initiate’s Bone Splinters |
4 | Sever |
5 | Sever |
6 | Sever |
7 | Enhanced Sever |
8 | Paranormal Sever |
9 | Sever |
10 | Sever |
11 | Reap |
12 | Enhanced Reap |
13 | Acolyte’s Reap |
14 | Corpse Explosion |
15 | Corpse Explosion |
16 | Iron Maiden |
17 | Enhanced Iron Maiden |
18 | Enhanced Corpse Explosion |
19 | Blighted Corpse Explosion |
20 | Corpse Explosion |
21 | Corpse Explosion |
22 | Corpse Explosion |
23 | Corpse Tendrils |
24 | Enhanced Corpse Tendrils |
25 | Plagued Corpse Tendrils |
26 | Fueled By Death |
27 | Fueled By Death |
28 | Fueled By Death |
29 | Grim Harvest |
30 | Grim Harvest |
31 | Skeletal Warrior Mastery |
32 | Skeletal Warrior Mastery |
33 | Skeletal Warrior Mastery |
34 | Skeletal Mage Mastery |
35 | Skeletal Mage Mastery |
36 | Skeletal Mage Mastery |
37 | Unliving Energy |
38 | Imperfectly Balanced |
39 | Imperfectly Balanced |
40 | Imperfectly Balanced |
41 | Hewed Flesh |
42 | Hewed Flesh |
43 | Hewed Flesh |
44 | Reaper’s Pursuit |
45 | Shadowblight |
46 | Fueled By Death |
47 | Fueled By Death |
48 | Fueled By Death |
49 | Crippling Darkness |
Renown 1 | Reaper’s Pursuit |
Renown 2 | Amplify Damage |
Renown 3 | Amplify Damage |
Renown 4 | Gloom |
Renown 5 | Gloom |
Renown 6 | Gloom |
Renown 7 | Terror |
Renown 8 | Terror |
Renown 9 | Terror |
Renown 10 | Golem Mastery |
These skills will help you craft the ideal Sever 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 Sever) and make them as powerful as possible. As every build needs active skills, we’ve provided a variety that complements the Sever build in combat.
We’ve also ensured that your passive Minion skills have been boosted while ignoring Bone and Blood skills in this build, however, this will change when we respec for the endgame version of this build.
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. While your minions engage the enemies, cast your spells, then batter them with Sever from a distance.
Best leveling rotation
- Summon Minions
- Iron Maiden
- Corpse Tendrils
- Sever
- Corpse Explosion
- Reap
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 Sever to do damage from a distance once your minions engage the mob.
Plauged Corpse Tendrils, Iron Maiden, and Sever 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.
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 Sever 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 (Complete the Temple of Rot Stronghold first) | Dry Steppes |
Damned | Increased Shadow Damage | Uldur’s Cave | Kehjistan |
There will be more Aspects to hunt down in the endgame build.
![sever necromancer](https://www.dexerto.com/cdn-image/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/20/sever-skill.jpg?width=3840&quality=75&format=auto)
Best Sever 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 Sever Necro build.
However on this occasion, there are some significant changes from the leveling build. While the core skills remain similar, we now add Bone Storm to our arsenal – and say goodbye to minions.
Note the endgame Sever build is rated as C-tier in the meta. So, if you prefer to create a hybrid build you can always keep your minions – just know that this isn’t the true Sever endgame set-up.
Active Skill | Upgrades | Points allocated |
---|---|---|
Reap | Enhanced | 1 |
Sever | Enhanced, Paranormal | 5 |
Corpse Explosion | Enhanced, Blighted | 1 |
Iron Maiden | Enhanced | 1 |
Corpse Tendrils | Enhanced, Plagued | 1 |
Bone Storm | Enhanced, Supreme | 1 |
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 |
Crippling Darkness | 1 |
Gloom | 3 |
Reaper’s Pursuit | 3 |
Terror | 3 |
Necrotic Carapace | 2 |
Memento Mori | 3 |
Stand Alone | 3 |
Shadowblight | 1 |
This version of the build still primarily focuses on Shadow skills, but you’ll also notice that minion skills have been replaced by passives that favour a solo, minionless, Necromancer.
Best endgame Book of the Dead setup
In our endgame version of this build we’re going to Sacrifice our minions to strengthen ourselves, turning our Necromancer into a deadly solo warrior who’s Sever skill is even more powerful than before.
- Skeletal Warriors – Sacrifice
- Skeletal Mages – Sacrifice
- Golems – Sacrifice
Of course, you can choose to keep your minions, just know you’ll be less powerful when fighting solo without the buff Sacrifcing them gives you. If you do choose to do this, consider changing some of your passives, like Memento Mori and Stand Alone to minion mastery skills.
Best endgame rotation
For endgame, use the following skill rotation when approaching mobs in battle:
- Iron Maiden
- Corpse Tendrils
- Bone Storm
- Sever
- Corpse Explosion
- Reap
Once again, the aim here is to trap enemies in a box while Iron Maiden, and Corpse Tendrils do their work. However, this timne we won’t have minions to fall back on, so we’ll use Bone Storm instead.
Now, hit the mob with Sever and when the bodies start to drop, use Corpse Explosion to massacre the survivors. Should anyone get to close to you, use Reap to show them that you’re death personified.
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 | – |
Grasping Veins | Boosts critical when casting Corpse Tendrils | 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 | |
Metamorphosis | Inflicts Vampiric Curse on enemies | – | – | Boots |
Hardened Bones | You and your minions get damage boost | – | – | Pants |
Shielding Storm | Bone Storm has a chance to cast Barrier | – | – | Pants |
Cursed Aura | Decreptify added to Iron Maiden | – | – | Boots |
Great Feast | Minions damage increased | – | – | Focus |
Accelerating | Critical Strikes increase attack speed | – | – | Focus |
Concussive Strikes | Critical Strikes have a chance to cast Daze | – | – | Boots |
Exposed Flesh | Vaulrable enemies boost Essence regeneration | – | – | Rings |
Remember, you can also strip these Aspects from their original item and apply them to an item of your choosing.
Paragon Board
![Paragon Board](https://www.dexerto.com/cdn-image/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/08/Paragon-Board.jpg?width=3840&quality=75&format=auto)
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 Sever Necro in the ways that matter most to the build.
See below to see which Glyphs you should target first.
Best Glyphs
Level 15
- Abyssal
- Gravekeeper
- Essence
- Control
- Exploit
- Sacrificial
- Amplify
Level 21
- Essence
- Control
- Exploit
- Gravekeeper
- Amplify
- Sacrificial
- Abyssal
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 Sever Necro build.
Best Sever Necro endgame item build
Item | Socket | Item type | Power |
---|---|---|---|
Ruinic Runic Skullcap of Disobedience | Ruby for extra life | Helm | Boosts Minion damage |
Runic Mail of Shared Misery | Ruby for extra life | Chest Armor | Increased Armor |
Sacrifical Runic Gloves | Ruby for extra life | Gloves | Increased damage |
Ghoul Anvil | Ruby for extra life | Pants | Increased crowd control damage |
Wind Striker 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 | – |
Chain of Grasping Veins | Diamond for extra attack power | Amulet | Increased Shadowblight damage |
Blighted Band | Diamond for extra attack power | Ring 1 | Increased crowd control damage |
Band of the Umbral | Diamond for extra attack power | Ring 2 | Increased core skill damage |
Sever Necromancer build for PvP
The Sever 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. Minions will only be a hindrence in PvP, you’ll be much better off using the Sacrifice option if you use the Sever build.
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.