The Blight Necromancer Endgame Guide melds the overwhelming power of Darkness Damage Over Time (DoT), with crippling Crowd Control (CC)! Proving that Blight is the ultimate Darkness build for someone looking to absolutely bully the denizens of Hell!
Blight applies damage on hit and a powerful DoT Area of Effect (AoE) pool of oozing miasma. With the addition of the Void aspect, you can literally drag monsters anywhere you want to, giving you complete control over the battlefield.
This build is also great for early progression since it doesn't require any Unique items and many of its best Legendary Aspects are found in the Codex of Power. Finding stronger Aspects from random drops only pushes the build even further!
The overlapping DoTs from every one of the skills on your bar, including Corpse Explosion and even Bone Storm, allow you to proc Lucky Hit Chance from a plethora of stats on your gear and in your Skill Tree.
This build guide assumes you have a Level 50 Character and finished the Campaign. Level up with our Blight Necromancer Leveling Guide. If you are looking for a different Necromancer play style, check out all of our Necromancer Guides.
Season 5 - Infernal Hordes
In Season 5, the Season Theme brings your hero back into the bowels of Hell, in the Infernal Hordes endgame activity. You're first introduced to Hellbreach Dungeons, miniature Horde-like micro-dungeons that teach you the new mechanics and rewards systems. As you slay more powerful Demons and Bosses, you're rewarded with the new Reputation progression that comes with amazing rewards. These include Crafting Materials, unlocking Season's Journey tiers and even the coveted Resplendent Spark, needed to craft a mythic unique.
Follow the seasonal questline until you unlock the Reputation system, check which rewards suit you most and then follow your regular leveling path. To learn more, check out our full Season 5 guide for more information.
Skill Tree & Gameplay
- Blight is a damage-over-time ranged skill. It deals a sizeable chunk of initial Shadow Damage in addition to damage over time in an Area of Effect (AoE).
- Blighted Copse Explosion turns its explosion into an area of Shadow Damage over time. Stacking continuous DoTs helps to butter up monsters while your Essence replenishes.
- Corpse Tendrils Slows, Stuns, applies Vulnerable and pulls every monster (except Bosses) into a single space so that all of your AoE damage becomes more effective.
- Bone Storm grants 15% Damage Reduction and powerful interactions with Defensive Aspects.
- Decrepify Slows, reduces incoming damage, Stuns and reduces your Cooldowns via Lucky Hit mechanics.
- Blood Mist is your source of Unstoppable, as well as an amazing survivability tool since it grants Immune for its duration.
- Shadowblight procs an instantaneous damage source that can Critically Strike.
- Hewed Flesh gives you an avenue for generating enough Corpses to sate all of your Corpse consumption needs. Stacking a ton of Lucky Hit Chance Bonus makes this passive efficient enough to not stall out on optimal gear. This generates extra survivability from Necrotic Carapace, via Fortified status.
- Gloom and Terror help to add on damage, while Reaper's Pursuit speeds us up and Crippling Darkness helps to stagger bosses and CC enemies in a fight.
Tier 100+ Pit Gameplay
- The Blight Necromancer does nearly all of its damage during the "Staggered" phase of a Boss fight, where you can activate additional damage multipliers that only effect "Crowd Controlled" targets. When a Boss is Staggered it has every Crowd Control effect on it.
- Your primary objective is to Stagger a Boss when the least amount of Shadow Boss attacks are happening, to maximize the time you can stand still and apply the maximum number of overlapping DoT effects.
- Before a Boss is staggered, while you can apply damage, focus on applying Crowd Control via Lucky Hit Chance tempers on your gear, Decrepify and most importantly Corpse Tendrils.
Necromancer Specialization - Book of the Dead
The Blight Necromancer doesn't have space on its Skill Bar for more abilities, so you choose to sacrifice all three Minion options for their valuable buffs. Prioritize Shadow Damage from Skeletal Warriors, Vulnerable Damage from Skeletal Mages and Attack Speed from Golem.
Learn more details and how to unlock this class specialization in our full Book of the Dead Guide.
Resource & Cooldown Management
Managing your Resources and Cooldowns is crucial to the success of the Blight Necromancer.
Resource Aspect of the Umbral
Each unique Crowd Control effect that you inflict upon enemies triggers this aspect and generates Essence. Corpse Tendrils, Decrepify and Crippling Darkness all apply CC when used or activated. You can layer these abilities as well.
- Corpse Tendrils initially Slows, then it Pulls and Stuns. That's 3 instances of CC on every target. BUT after the Pull, the Slow is removed from the target, so you're able to re-Slow with Decrepify for another free CC proc.
- The Pull from Void Aspect counts as a CC proc. With enough enemies in range, this fully replenishes the Essence cost of the Skill use.
Grim Harvest
Whenever you consume a corpse via Corpse Explosion you generate Essence with this passive. You get to recoup resources while applying DPS. It's a great two for one!
Abhorrent Decrepify
With your multiple sources of overlapping Damage Over Time (DoT) effects, Decrepify quickly lowers all active Cooldowns by one second and rewards aggressive gameplay.
Essence per Second and Resource Cost Reduction
Essence per Second (EPS) affix on the Helm, Chest and Boots helps to passively replace Essence as you cast Blight. Resource Cost Reduction reduces the cost of Blight by a percentage equal to the total on your gear. Since the base rolls of EPS add up to 12 and the Necromancer regains 3 EPS, you generate a total of 15 per second. To completely replace the Essence loss of 1 cast per second you need 40% Resource Cost Reduction. This would allow you to go "infinite", meaning you would never run out of Essence. When casting Blight more than once per second, you need more of both stat to achieve this equilibrium.
Paragon Board
Carefully check your Paragon Boards to ensure correct board rotation. Glyphs go from a radius of 3 to 4 when they reach level 15! Imbiber is used as a holdover. Do not level it.
Level the Paragon Board by scrolling. Each step optimizes progression.
Glyphs
We need to level up our Glyphs to increase their power and activate their Additional Bonus with surrounding nodes. Glyphs have a radius of 3 by default, this increases to 4 at Glyph level 15. Complete Nightmare Dungeons to obtain Glyph experience.
Note that there are some Glyph position swaps and a few adjustments to surrounding Paragon nodes once they reach level 15. See the last two steps in the Paragon progression above for details. The setup displayed by default is the final version of the build.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
Level 15
- Darkness
(Not Used in Final Boards) - Control
- Scourge
- Sacrificial
- Abyssal
- Exploit
- Amplify
- Gravekeeper
Level 21
- Control
- Scourge
- Exploit
- Sacrificial
- Amplify
- Abyssal
- Gravekeeper
Also check out our dedicated in-depth guides to learn more about Paragon Boards and Glyphs.
Endgame Progression & Variants
When you start diving into the Endgame Blight Necromancer build, you don't have all the tools available to achieve the final build versions. Let us guide you through different progression points to give you a smooth transition from our Leveling Guides to the final build version.
Progression Goals
Some of your Skill Tree choices depend on what Legendary Aspects and Unique items are available to you. These are listed in priority order:
- Unlock the following Aspects from Dungeons:
- Blighted - Akkan's Grasp (Hawezar)
- Damned - Uldur's Cave (Kehjistan)
- Umbral Champion's Demise (Dry Steppes)
- Disobedience - Halls of the Damned (Kehjistan)
- Ghostwalker - Broken Bulwark (Scosglen)
- Shared Misery - Oblivion (Hawezar)
- Hulking - Sepulcher of the Forsword (Kehjistan)
- Sacrificial - Ruins of Eridu (Hawezar)
- Find the following Legendary Aspects either as a random drop or by gambling with Obols:
- Void - Gamble Pants
- Shielding Storm - Gamble Pants
- Hardened Bones - Gamble Pants
- Slaughter - Gamble Boots
- Acquire the following Unique items either as a random drop or by farming specific Boss drops.
- Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul (RoSS) The auto-casting skills needed to be equipped on your Skill Bar to function. This automates a lot of the build's primary gameplay loop to increase efficiency and Essence management.
- Black River a powerful option in the early game. This also offers a powerful automated gameplay experience with the RoSS for speedfarming and during Helltide.
- If you're lucky enough to obtain the following Mythic Uniques, they're useful for the build.
- Harlequin Crest increases all of your active Skill Ranks, and adds a ton of Damage Reduction. It a very powerful option for survivability.
- Ring of Starless Skies is pivotal to reduce Essence Cost and increase Attack Speed to maximize DPS.
- Doombringer is an incredible option for Tankiness and overall survivability that requires you to sacrifice damage output.
Learn more details and how to farm Legendary Aspects and Uniques in our General Farming Guide.
Progression Steps
Follow the build's gearing progression from level 50 to 100, including the changes that need to be made as you obtain Legendary Aspects and Uniques.
to 100
& The Pit
Once you have completed the leveling process to 50, only the Codex of Power Aspects are guaranteed. With this setup, the Blight Necromancer can farm the Legendary Aspects and Unique items you need for the next progression point.
Gear
- The Codex of Power has many damage multipliers available to fill out your imprinted gear, while focusing on Essence Management and Crowd Control leads to the best success in the early game.
- Damned on your weapon grants the largest bonus to damage, very early into your journey. Simply Curse the target and enjoy your bonus damage.
- Replacing some of your damage multipliers with a lucky drop of Reanimation or Frenzied Dead can greatly increase your clear speed, since your minions are very strong at this point in progression.
Skills
- Since Corpse Explosion is still a primary damage source, fully invest 5 Skill Ranks to get the most bang for your buck.
- The points you normally invest in an Ultimate Skill and Blood Mist instead empower your Skeletal/Golem Masteries.
- If you find yourself without Essence, Corpses, or just taking too much damage, you can sacrifice your Golem and put Acolyte's Reap back on your Skillbar to regain a valuable Generator Skill. Replace Hulking with Might for more Damage Reduction.
In this setup, your Blight Necromancer has access to all Legendary Aspects, allowing you to pilot a much stronger version of this build. Additional Legendary Aspects are used to fill slots that may be replaced with Unique items later on.
Gear
- Progressing to this Gear and Skill setup still relies on Essence management Aspects, but regains all of the engame tools like Bone Storm and Blood Mist.
- Shielding Storm adds on much needed survivability.
- Essence Cost Reduction and Essence Per Second should elminate the need for any other Essence generation tools, allowing you to Sacrifice your Minions and gain the full benefits of their damage multipliers.
Skills
- Regain the points invested in Skeletal/Golem Masteries to acquire Bone Storm, Blood Mist, Stand Alone and Memento Mori.
In this setup, the Blight Necromancer has access to all Unique items and Legendary Aspects. This allows you to pilot this build at its peak efficiency. Let's take a look at the changes you need to make to implement them. This setup is also used for Speed farming which is efficient in, Helltide zones, Tree of Whispers, regular Dungeons, and lower tier Nightmare Dungeons.
Gear
- This setup assumes you're pushing the highest tiers of the Pit possible. This sacrifices survivability for the DPS required to successfully kills density and the Boss, in time.
- To regain mobility needed to make easier content more fluid and fun, replace your Boot aspect with Slaughter.
- Until you have a Tyrael's Might, continue to use Void on your Chest for greater CC and damage output.
Skills
- This setup stops investing in Corpse Explosion damage and instead regains those points to empower other passives and Skill enhancements, like Ghastly Blood Mist and Necrotic Carapace.
- Casting Corpse Explosion merely activates damage buffs from your Skill Tree and Paragon Board.
- REMEMBER: This is not a Critical Strike Chance build, and you don't need the last point in Bone Storm.
The Speedfarming setup for the Blight Necromancer assumes you're able to swap survivability for higher damage output, to increase the rate of farming lower difficulty content. This setup is efficient in, Helltide zones, Tree of Whispers, regular Dungeons, and lower tier Nightmare Dungeons/The Pit.
Gear
- Ebonpiercer Amulet helps to stack additional DoT onto targets, to quickly proc Blighted and get massive value out of Wither.
- Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul automates your Corpse Tendrils casts in combat. This also has the benefit of pulling in new enemies that have aggroed and maintaining CC on your current targets to maximize DPS.
- Cooldown Reduction and chance to spawn multiple Blight projectiles helps to overlap many DoT AoE fields for maximum coverage.
Skills
- Take the Enhance and Upgrade points from Blood Mist and put them into Corpse Explosion to further boost its damage.
Hardcore Adjustments
Hardcore requires you to build into more defenses. Here are some tips to successful in this game mode:
- Focus more on your Chest & Pants while gearing up. Make sure to have only defensive stats on these two slots as they provide a ton of survivability.
- Always reach Armor (9,230) and Resistance (70%) cap and prioritize Maximum Life instead of damage nodes on your Paragon Boards.
- Take Blood Mist cooldown Reduction on more Tempers to always have the Skill available as an escape option.
- Use Golems - Blood Sacrifice for even more Maximum Life, if needed.
- Swap to a Shield with Juggernaut's to make space for more Intelligence and Maximum Life Affixes on your gear. Intelligence increases your Elemental Resistances up to the cap of 70%. Shields also have a unique Damage Reduction stat in the form of Block and can have the Damage Reduction affix roll.
Build Scaling & Stat Priorities
Learn about the important build scaling mechanics and stat weights.
- Damage Over Time: Stacking Damage Over Time bonuses seems like a no brainer on a build that does primarily DoT damage. This boosts the damage output from every Skill on your Bar other than Corpse Tendrils. The additional bonus is that Shadowblight procs actually scale with your DoT damage total. Allowing you to scale every damage source.
- Damage: The Affix "+xx% Damage" double dips for DoT damage Skills. So you consider this stat as 2x the value seen on gear. This slightly outperforms Shadow Damage Over Time.
- Vulnerable: You get Vulnerable procs from Corpse Tendrils. While you don't prioritize Vulnerable Damage it's still powerful to benefit from the 20% multiplier, since it applies to DoT as well.
- Crowd Controls: Since all of your damage occurs in an area, pixel pulls and grouping of monsters becomes a direct damage scaler. This also allows you to benefit from every "Damage to CC'ed Enemies" affix in the game when Corpse Tendrils or Crippling Darkness procs.
- Attack Speed: Increased Attack Speed increases the rate you generate Essence, by reducing the animation length of your skills. It decreases the length of time before Tendrils is on the field and how quickly you can spam cast Blight. It's a high value stat.
- Don't Get Hit: Make use of your range advantage and hit enemies from afar. By stutter stepping on the edge of your range, you can avoid most projectiles that come your way.
- Armor: The armor cap of 9,230 reduces incoming Physical Damage. Always make sure to reach this cap even if it means sacrificng a bit of Damage or Maximum Life.
- Unstoppable: You only have one way to gain Unstoppable and that's from Blood Mist. Cooldown Reduction helps to "scale" this defensive mechanic by making it available more often.
- Damage Reduction: In addition to the typical suite of DR options, Darkness builds can also use Damage Reduction Shadow Damage Over Time Affected Enemies. This super long named Affix allows you to decide when and where you gain the DR buff, regardless of the enemy's position or your current Status.
- Resistances: Prioritize reaching the 70% cap in World Tier 4 at a minimum for most content. Use Max Resistance effects from Elixirs and gear to reach 85% when farming certain bosses and endgame content.
- Maximum Life: Life has become more important than ever with the reduction in options for Damage Reduction. In the overall equation of "Effective Life", scaling Life itself is the easiest option to avoid one-shots.
Our Damage Explained article explains how to scale your Offense.
Learn all you need to know to scale Defense with our Defense Explained Article.
Stat Priorities
To enable your build to perform optimally, you need to reach certain Stat "Breakpoints". Some examples are reaching 100% to Critically Strike, or 20 Resource per second. Since there are many values of these stats on different pieces of gear, read the checklist below and refer to the recommended Tempered Affixes and Masterwork Crits ↑. Desirable Greater Affixes will always be the top three recommended Affixes.
Damage Scaling
- 85.5% Attack Speed
- Minimum 1200 Intelligence
- ~40% Chance to Make Enemies Vulnerable for 2 Seconds
- Max +x Ranks to Blight
- >500% Shadow Damage over Time
- As many "Lucky Hit: Up to a +xx% Chance to Crowd Control for 2 seconds" Tempers on gear as possible
Defense and Utility
- >35,000 Maximum Life
- Armor Capped: 9,230
- Resistance Capped: 70%
- 100% Corpse Tendrils Size (Quality of Life)
- 100% Decrepify Size (Quality of Life)
- >14 Essence per Second
- >35% Resource Cost Reduction
- ~50% Bonus Movement Speed
- Helm: Hardened Bones
- Essence per Second ↑
- Cooldown Reduction ↑
- Intelligence ↑
- Maximum Life
- Lucky Hit Chance
- ⚒️Maximum Life
- ⚒️Lucky Hit: Up to a +xx% Chance to Crowd Control for 2 seconds
- Chest: Tyrael's Might
- Temporary Use: Void
- Essence per Second ↑
- Intelligence ↑
- Maximum Life ↑
- Armor
- +x to Corpse Explosion
- ⚒️Maximum Life
- ⚒️Lucky Hit: Up to a +xx% Chance to Crowd Control for 2 seconds
- Gloves: Blighted
- Attack Speed ↑↑↑
- Intelligence
- Damage Over Time
- +x Ranks to Blight
- Lucky Hit Chance
- ⚒️Shadow Damage Over Time
- ⚒️Lucky Hit: Up to a +xx% Chance to Crowd Control for 2 seconds
- Pants: Shielding Storm
- Armor
- Maximum Life ↑
- Intelligence ↑ ↑
- Dodge Chance
- ⚒️Total Armor
- ⚒️Lucky Hit: Up to a +xx% Chance to Crowd Control for 2 seconds
- Boots: Slaughter
- Movement Speed ↑
- Intelligence ↑
- Essence Per Second ↑
- +x to Corpse Skills
- Maximum Life
- ⚒️Movement Speed
- ⚒️Lucky Hit: Up to a +xx% Chance to Crowd Control for 2 seconds
- Amulet: Ebonpiercer
- Temporary Use: Great Feast
- +x to Gloom ↑
- Attack Speed ↑
- Movement Speed
- Cooldown Reduction
- ⚒️Resource Cost Reduction ↑
- ⚒️Damage OR Shadow Damage Over Time
- Ring 1: Ring of Starless Skies
- Temporary Use: Umbral
- Attack Speed ↑↑↑
- Intelligence
- Resource Cost Reduction
- Maximum Life
- Damage Over Time
- ⚒️Ultimate Cooldown Reduction/Resource Cost Reduction
- ⚒️Shadow Damage Over Time
- Ring 2: Sacrificial
- Attack Speed ↑↑↑
- Intelligence
- Lucky Hit: Up to a +xx% Chance to Make Enemies Vulnerable
- Maximum Life
- Damage Over Time
- ⚒️Ultimate Cooldown Reduction/Resource Cost Reduction
- ⚒️Damage OR Shadow Damage Over Time
- Main Hand: Damned (2-Handed Axe)
- Intelligence ↑
- Damage ↑
- Damage Over Time
- Maximum Life
- Resource Cost Reduction
- ⚒️Bone Storm Duration ↑
- ⚒️Damage OR Shadow Damage Over Time
Put in the following Gems into your gear:
- Helmet / Body Armor / Pants: Royal Ruby OR Royal Topaz
- Weapon / Off-Hand: Royal Amethyst
- Jewelry: Royal Diamond OR Royal Skull (Which ever is needed to hit either Cap)
This build benefits the most from the following consumables:
- Elixirs: Elixir of Advantage II / Elixir of Resourcefulness II
- Incenses: Song of the Mountain, Reddamine Buzz & Chorus of War
FAQ & Mechanics
Once a guide is released, many players have questions on why and how we are approaching certain choices. In this section you can find the answers to the questions that have been asked the most.
Abhorrent Decrepify
Corpse Explosion
Wither
Video Guide
Summary
The Blight Necromancer melds the worlds of AoE Damage over time, high Crowd Control and single target damage spikes. It's a DoT build that loves bullying enemies with constant CC.
- Blight deals a small amount of initial damage, and leaves behind an AoE DoT pool of miasma to melt your foes.
- As one of the few Necro builds that actually gains Movement Speed from their skills, the play style is fast and engaging.
- When all else fails, spamming Corpse Explosion eventually kills most things in the game.
- While the leveling build enjoys the addition of Minions, but sacrifice them later on to get the highest bonuses you can from your Skills.
- With enough Lucky Hit Chance and mob density, this build is effectively an Infinimist Necromancer. Don't be afraid to constantly stay in Mist form while your automatic Corpse Explosions tear apart the enemy!
- Practice makes perfect! Don't be afraid to run slightly easier content of Nightmare Dungeons to get the flow of the gameplay loop.
- In Bocca al Lupo!
Credits
Written by MacroBioBoi
Reviewed by Chronikz