Welcome to the ultimate guide for the strongest dungeon and mob-clearing build for the Necromancer in Diablo 4. This build has gained significant attention within the community due to its exceptional performance and survivability. In this guide, we will delve into the skills, gear, and paragon points required to maximize the effectiveness of this build. Please note that due to its overwhelming power, there is a possibility of future nerfs.

 

• Shadow Mist Showcase
• Gameplay Guide
• Talents & Why
• Equipment, Aspects, Skills, and Gems
• Closing Thoughts

 

↖ Shadow Mist Showcase

The foundation of this build revolves around utilizing shadow damage and the key passive skill, ShadowBite. By converting all your attacks into shadow damage, you inflict damage over time on your enemies. This provides a significant advantage, especially when combined with the classic skill, Corpse Explosion, which deals additional damage over time by transforming into a blighted pool of shadow damage.

 

Another crucial component is the power of Decrepify, which, when used correctly, allows you to reduce cooldowns and maintain Bone Storm and Blood Mist consistently. This grants you near-immunity to damage while simultaneously spreading blight pools and shadow bites to every enemy, ensuring continuous damage over time.

 

↖ Gameplay Guide

In mob or AoE scenarios, apply and maintain Decrepify on the targets to reduce cooldowns and potentially stun them. Decrepify costs nine essences and is a top priority. Use Blood Mist for guaranteed corpse spawns and damage. Before entering the mist, activate Bone Storm to deal damage and increase critical hit chance.

 

While in the mist, walking around the enemies, popping bodies to trigger Decrepify and leaving goop on the ground. When Blood Mist ends, use Corpse Tendrils to stun enemies and make them vulnerable. Apply Blight to the group, preferably targeting the strongest enemy, and then spam Corpse Explosion for massive burst damage.

 

↖ Talents & Why

Reap (Acolyte's Reap):

• Enhance this skill to consistently generate corpses, which are crucial for your damage output.

 

Blight (Supernatural Blight):

• Invest three points into this skill to deal 15 times increased damage to enemies affected by the Blight. It synergizes well with other abilities and boosts your damage significantly.

 

Grasp of the Dead (Ghastly Blood Mist):

• Maximize the cooldown reduction (cdr) on this skill to ensure you can consistently spawn corpses at the beginning of each fight. This is essential for maintaining your damage output and survivability.

 

Corpse Explosion (Blighted Corpse Explosion):

• Maximize the radius enhancement for this skill and convert it to shadow damage. Standing in the blighted area for six seconds is crucial for maximizing your damage potential.

 

Grim Harvest:

• Allocate one point to generate essence, but note that essence generation is not a priority for this build.

 

Fuel by Death:

• Allocate three points to increase your damage by 9% for six seconds after consuming a corpse. Consider obtaining Diablo 4 items that contributes additional points to maximize its effectiveness.

 

Decrepify (Abhorrent Decrepify):

• Allocate one point to this skill and enhance it. The lucky hit chance provided by Abhorrent Decrepify will reduce the cooldowns of your other abilities, ensuring you can maintain Bone Storm and Blood Mist consistently. This is a vital skill for this build.

 

Deaths Embrace:

• Allocate three points to increase your damage and gain mitigation against nearby enemies.

 

Shadow Passives:

The following shadow passives are essential for this build:

• Reaper's Pursuit: Grant's movement speed when dealing damage with darkness skills.
• Gloom: Increases shadow damage taken by enemies when damaged by darkness skills.
• Terror: Increases darkness skill damage against enemies, with an additional bonus if they are slowed or immobilized.
• Crippling Darkness: Provides a chance to stun enemies when using darkness skills

 

Corpse Tendril:

• Corpse Tendril is a vital skill for pulling in enemies, stunning them, and dealing substantial damage. Allocate three points to Corpse Tendril, with six additional points contributed through gear. Levelling this skill beyond level one is not recommended, as the cooldown reduction is unnecessary due to the constant uptime of Decrepify.

 

Bone Storm:

• Invest in Bone Storm and enhance it for the increased critical strike chance and damage reduction it provides. This skill significantly contributes to your survivability.

 

Book of the Dead:

The Book of the Dead provides various sacrificial skills that enhance your damage and survivability. Select the following choices:

• Reapers: This amplifies your damage by a significant percentage, considering the shadow damage focus of this build.
• Skeletal In Cold: Increases damage against vulnerable enemies, which synergizes well with Corpse Explosion.
• Blood Golem: Boosts your maximum life and significantly improves your critical strike damage. While attack speed may not be relevant for this build, the increased crit damage is valuable.

 

Paragon:

• Start by prioritizing Health, but you can switch to the Iron version for more survivability.
• The Paragon board setup is relatively straightforward. Follow the recommended path and pick up the prime node on the way to the center.
• Activate the Glyph in the center, focusing on increasing the radius of Control to level 15 or higher. This allows you to gain enough intelligence for the secondary effect, which significantly boosts your damage.
• If you don't have control at level 15, you can use the alternative suggestion of Exploit. This increases your damage to vulnerable enemies.
• Consider adding Exploit in other slots for additional damage instead of survivability, but prioritize survivability in true end-game scenarios.

 

↖ Equipment, Aspects, Skills, and Gems

• Two essential unique items for this build are Black River and Howl from Below. These items significantly enhance your corpse explosion damage and provide additional effects such as stun and fear.
• Black River allows your corpse explosions to consume up to four additional corpses, dealing massive damage. Combine it with the Blood Mist skill to trigger explosive mist and reduce the cooldown of Blood Mist per corpse popped.
• Howl from Below turns your corpse explosions into bomb skeletons that explode, dealing increased damage. It also adds the chance to stun and fear, which synergizes well with the Control glyph.
• The core aspects for this build include Wither, Disobedience, Shielding Storm, and Shadow or Ultimate Shadow. These aspects enhance your shadow damage, provide damage mitigation, and boost the power of your Shadow Blight.
• Use the Explosive Mist aspect to reduce the cooldown of Blood Mist and unleash powerful corpse explosions while being immune to damage.
• Aim to acquire the Territorial aspect, which increases damage to close enemies and provides damage reduction against them.
• Consider using the Unstoppable boots for movement speed and the ability to move through enemies. Alternatively, Penitent Greaves is recommended for the frost trail effect, which chills enemies and increases damage against them.
• The recommended rings are Wayward Shadow and Blood-Soaked Ring. Wayward Shadow enhances your Bone Storm skill, while Blood-Soaked Ring leaves a damaging trail behind you and prevents movement speed reduction during Blood Mist.
• Prioritize affixes and stats that increase your shadow damage, damage over time, lucky hit chance, intelligence, cooldown reduction, armour, damage reduction, max Health, and all stats.
• Socket rubies for maximum Health and amethysts for increased damage over time in your weapons. Use schools in your jewelry for additional armor.

 

↖ Closing Thoughts

The Shadow Mist build offers exceptional mob-clearing capabilities, making it one of the strongest builds for the Necromancer class. While it may not excel in single-target damage, it shines in clearing groups of enemies efficiently. With its survivability and potential mobility, this build is well-suited for a slower-paced Necromancer playstyle. Expect potential buffs and nerfs to the class and mechanics in future updates. Whether or not changes occur, the Shadow Mist build remains highly effective. We hope this guide has been useful, and happy gaming!