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Blood Surge Necromancer Endgame Build Guide

Last Updated: August 31, 2024

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Season 5 - InfernalB-Tier

The Blood Surge Necromancer is an AoE focused Overpower build that manages to output great DPS and continuous healing. The passive benefit of stacking Maximum Life bonuses and Fortify means we get damage for free, while building an unstoppable tank!

The Blood Surge Necromancer deals most of its damage by making use of the guaranteed Overpower abilities provided by the Blood skills which also offer built-in tankiness through Fortify. Blood Surge is especially effective at applying Overpower damage to the entire screen with its massive AoE potential. This makes the Blood Surge Necromancer incredibly strong in density farming in Helltides, Nightmare Dungeons and some Seasonal content.

While this build focuses on Overpowering as often as possible, learning how to incorporate Critical Strike Chance and Vulnerable status can push your damage ever further and rewards the player for understanding the finer details.

This build is the natural evolution of our Blood Surge Necromancer Leveling Guide. It uses many of the same Aspects, including powerful options from the Codex of Power.

Blood Surge Necromancer Endgame Gear

This build guide assumes you have a Level 50 Character and finished the Campaign. Level up with our Blood Surge Necromancer Leveling Guide. If you are looking for a different Necromancer play style, check out all of our Necromancer Guides

DifficultyEasy
SpeedfarmingExcellent
PitWeak
BossingWeak
DefenseExcellent

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

  • Reap and Decompose are not part of the build but the Skill Tree requires you to invest 2 Skill Points in the Basic Skill section to further advance down the Skill Tree.
  • Blood Mist is your get out of jail free card. While you are Immune, reposition yourself to gain an advantage.
  • Decrepify applies a powerful CC effect that also causes Lucky Hit procs to reduce Cooldowns on your Skills. Prioritize casting this on any new monsters, or when it runs out. This also greatly reduces incoming damage and makes kiting monsters easier.
  • Bone Storm provides additional Damage Reduction and Crit Chance. The high cooldown is reduced by Cooldown Reduction on your gear and Rapid Ossification.
  • Blood Surge has two damage components. The first one hits the entire screen and "drains" the targets, which empowers the second smaller AoE damage "surge" and scales with targets hit by the first damage portion.
  • Cruor's Embrace is used as corpse consumption for Grim Harvest, Fueled by Death and Flesh-eater.
Blood Surge Necromancer Endgame Skill Tree

Passives

  • Rathma's Vigor gives you another source of Overpower procs when you are able to stay Healthy for 12 seconds. Picking up or consuming Blood Orbs decreases the time between guaranteed Overpower procs. Make sure to use your guaranteed Overpower procs on Blood Surge by keeping track of Rathma's Vigor's timer on your buff bar.
  • Drain Vitality allows you to quickly stack Fortify to increase your Overpower Damage output as well as decrease incoming damage.

Book of the Dead

There are 3 different Minion types you can choose to summon or sacrifice, located in the Book of the Dead. The Blood Surge Necromancer chooses to sacrifice Skirmishers for the Critical Strike Chance bonus, Bone Mages for the massive increase to Overpower Damage and Iron Golem for Critical Strike Damage bonus.

Book of the Dead

Learn more details and how to unlock this class specialization in our full Book of the Dead Guide.

Resource & Cooldown Management

One of the most important parts of your endgame journey is acquiring enough Essence to destroy your enemies. With the introduction of +x Essence per Second in Season 4 the Resource management on the Blood Surge Necromancer has become extremely easy. Make sure you have enough +x Essence per Second on your gear to cover your Blood Surge costs. It is important to finetune your +x Essence per Second and your Resource Generation to smoothen the gameplay experience. Additionally Starlight helps with Essence Generation.

Decrepify is the most important ability when it comes to recovering all your cooldowns quickly outside of raw Cooldown Reduction on your gear. With every proc you reduce every currently active cooldown by 1 second which adds up to quite a lot more uses of all of your abilities, especially over the course of a long fight.

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!

← Scroll to Level →

Level the Paragon Board by scrolling. Each step optimizes progression. The Paragon Board is optimized in the "Mythic Unique" variant.

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.

Glyph Leveling Priorities

Level 15

  1. Corporeal
  2. Exploit
    • NOTE: The two Glyphs above need to be leveled to 15 to be functional and are your priority while progressing in WT3 and WT4.
  3. Dominate
  4. Essence
  5. Sacrificial
  6. Amplify

Level 21

  1. Essence
  2. Dominate
  3. Exploit
  4. Corporeal
  5. Amplify
  6. Sacrificial

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 Blood Surge 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

Many of your Skill choices depend on what Legendary Aspects and Unique items are available to you. While we can guarantee that everyone has access to the same Codex of Power Aspects, the progression might be different for everyone!

  1. Unlock the following Aspects from Dungeons:
  2. Find the following Legendary Aspects either as a random drop or by gambling with Obols:
    • Juggernaut's - Gamble Pants.
    • Hardened Bones - Gamble Pants.
    • Shielding Storm - Gamble Pants.
    • Slaughter - Gamble Boots.
  3. Acquire the following Unique items either as a random drop or by farming specific Boss drops.
    • Blood Moon Breeches - Powerful pants with the highest total damage multiplier as well as decent survivability stats. Target farm Duriel or Andariel.
    • Cruor's Embrace - An absolute powerhouse of an item for the Blood Surge Necromancer. Provides additional Single Target damage whilst also buffing your overall damage and consuming corpses.
  4. If you're lucky enough to obtain the following Mythic Uniques, they're useful for the build:
    • Tyrael's Might - Check the "Endgame & The Pit" variant for how to fit this item into the build.
    • Ring of Starless Skies - Check the "Endgame & The Pit" variant for how to fit this item into the build.

Learn more details and how to farm Legendary Aspects and Uniques in our General Farming Guide.

Progression Setups

Starter
Leveling
to 100
Endgame
& The Pit

Once you have completed the Leveling Guide, only the Codex of Power Aspects are guaranteed. With this setup you can farm the Legendary Aspects you need for the next progression point.

Gear

  • Focus on acquiring +x Essence per Second on your Helm, Chest and Boots slots to solve your Essence management. Supplement with Resource Cost Reduction on your Jewelry.
  • Maximum Life not only helps you survive, but also directly scales your Overpower damage.
  • Grasping Veins provides an increase in Critical Strike Chance and a Damage multiplier.
  • Blood-bathed is an insane damage multiplier because your Blood Surge nova is cast twice, almost doubling the damage of one cast of Blood Surge.
Blood Surge Necromancer Starter Gear

Skills

  • Iron Maiden provides a huge amount of Essence on demand, but only per hit uncursed enemy.
  • Raise Skeleton not only provides additional Essence generation through Skeletal Mages - Cold but also functions as your corpse consumption for Grim Harvest and Fueled by Death
  • Corpse Tendrils groups enemies for you whilst also stunning them for 3 seconds.
  • Drain Vitality generates Fortify.
Blood Surge Necromancer Starter Skill Tree

Book of the Dead

  • Essence generation will be increased by incorporating Skeletal Mages - Cold. If you have enough Essence generation, sacrifice Skeletal Mages - Bone instead.
Blood Surge Necromancer Starter Book of the Dead

In this setup, you have 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

  • While you keep increasing your +x Essence per Second on your gear you will now also have access to Tempering. You will increase your build's overall strength tremendously by getting accesss to more survivability, utility and damge.
  • Rathma’s Chosen skyrockets your Attack Speed for four seconds after an Overpower proc which helps you towards the next Overpower proc to keep the endless machine gun Blood Surge cycle going.
  • Great Feast will drain your Essence but will increase your damage output drastically. This is offset by the above mentioned +x Essence per Second on your gear and the Starlight aspect.
  • Hardened Bones and Shielding Stormdrastically reduce the amount of damage you take.
Blood Surge Necromancer Leveling to 100 Gear

Book of the Dead

  • You now have enough Essence generation, therefore you can now sacrifice Skeletal Mages - Bone.
Blood Surge Necromancer Leveling to 100 Book of the Dead

In this setup, you have access to all Legendary Aspects and Unique items, unleashing the strongest version of the Blood Surge Necromancer. Be prepared to grind to access some of these highly sought after items!

Gear

  • As you continue your character's journey you will now start to focus on acquiring the correct Greater Affixes and correct Masterworking crits on your gear.
  • Focus on getting one greater affix of Maximum Life on most gear pieces, while spreading your Masterworking crits to reach all necessary caps and breakpoints detailled in the "Stat Priorities" section below.
  • Cruor's Embrace consumes corpses to increase the power of your Blood Surge and activate your corpse consumption effects. Focus on farming Lord Zir for it.
  • Blood Moon Breeches are crucial for the Blood Surge Necromancer build. Focus on farming Duriel and Andariel for it.
Blood Surge Necromancer Endgame & The Pit Gear

Gear with Mythic Uniques

  • If you are lucky enough to acquire a Tyrael's Might, you drop Hardened Bones.
  • Ring of Starless Skies provides an incredible damage multiplier.
Blood Surge Necromancer Mythic Unique Gear

Paragon Board with Mythic Uniques

← Scroll to highlight differences →

Hardcore Adjustments

Hardcore requires you to build into more defenses. Here are some tips to successfully navigate the Blood Surge Necromancer through potentially dangerous situations:

  • See the gear changes in the "Hardcore" variant above.
  • Swap Golems - Iron for Golems - Blood to maximize your tankiness if absolutely necessary.

Check out our dedicated in-depth guide to learn more survival tricks in Hardcore.

Build Scaling & Stat Priorities

Learn about the important build scaling mechanics and stat weights.

Damage
Defense
  • Overpower: Reads your current Life, maximum Life and Fortify value to calculate its bonus damage. So stacking Maximum Life and Fortify Generation are keys to outputting your maximum damage, in addition to the additive Overpower Damage on gear and in the Paragon boards.
  • Attack Speed: One of the strongest direct damage multipliers in the entire game.
  • Critical Strike/Vulnerable: Activating the base 1.5 and 1.2 multipliers from these sources is already powerful enough. The build also has a few multipliers that rely on meeting these requirements to activate.
  • Don't Get Hit: Make use of your range advantage and hit enemies from afar whenever you are in dangerous situations. By stutter stepping on the edge of your range, you can avoid most projectiles that come your way.
  • Armor: A great deal of defenses comes from your Armor. Disobedience and later Juggernaut's will help you reach the cap of 9230.
  • Resistances: As an Intelligence main stat class, the Necromancer naturally accrues a lot of Elemental Resistances. Make sure to reach the 70% cap in World Tier 4, and use Maximum Resistance buffs against particularly deadly enemies and content.
  • Unstoppable: You only have ‍Blood Mist to gain Unstoppable. Cooldown Reduction helps making this defensive mechanic available more often.
  • Fortify:Necrotic Carapace allows you to gain Fortify through generating Corpses with Hewed Flesh and by killing Monsters.

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

  • 100% Critical Strike Chance during Bone Storm + Inspiring Leader + Skeletal Warriors - Skirmishers.
  • 100% Blood Attack Speed (Gear + Rathma's Chosen)
  • > 40% Attack Speed
  • > +2 Ranks to Blood Surge

Defense and Utility

  • > 50,000 Maximum Life
  • Armor Capped: 9,230
  • Resistance Capped: 70%
  • permanent Bone Storm with Shielding Storm through Rapid Ossification
  • 40% additional Movement Speed
  • Helm: Embalmer
    1. Cooldown Reduction
    2. Maximum Life
    3. Intelligence
    4. Resistance to All Elements
  • ⚒️ Maximum Life
  • ⚒️ Lucky Hit: Stun
  • Chest: Hardened Bones
    1. Maximum Life
    2. Armor
    3. Intelligence
    4. Resistance to All Elements
  • ⚒️ Maximum Life
  • ⚒️ Lucky Hit: Stun
  • Gloves: Cruor's Embrace
  • Otherwise Look For: Grasping Veins
    1. Ranks to Blood Surge
    2. Attack Speed
    3. Critical Strike Chance
  • ⚒️ Blood Attack Speed
  • ⚒️ Lucky Hit: Stun
  • Pants: Blood Moon Breeches
  • Otherwise Look For: Concussive Strikes
    1. Maximum Life
    2. Intelligence
    3. Armor
    4. Resistance to All Elements
  • ⚒️ Maximum Life
  • ⚒️ Lucky Hit: Stun
  • Boots: Cursed Aura
    1. Movement Speed
    2. Maximum Life
    3. Intelligence
    4. Resistance to All Elements
  • ⚒️ Movement Speed
  • ⚒️ Lucky Hit: Stun
  • Weapon: Rathma's Chosen (1h-Mace)
    1. Maximum Life
    2. Intelligence
    3. Overpower Damage
    4. Critical Strike Damage
    5. Vulnerable Damage
  • ⚒️ Blood Attack Speed
  • ⚒️ Blood Surge Size
  • Amulet: Great Feast
    1. Ranks to Tides of Blood
    2. Ranks to Coalesced Blood
    3. Attack Speed
    4. Maximum Life
  • ⚒️ Blood Attack Speed
  • ⚒️ Ranks to Rapid Ossification
  • Ring 1: Starlight
    1. Attack Speed
    2. Intelligence
    3. Critical Strike Chance
    4. Maximum Life
    5. Overpower Damage
    6. Critical Strike Damage
    7. Vulnerable Damage
  • ⚒️ Blood Overpower Damage
  • ⚒️ Ranks to Rapid Ossification
  • Ring 2: Cadaverous
    1. Lucky Hit: Vulnerable
    2. Attack Speed
    3. Intelligence
    4. Critical Strike Chance
    5. Maximum Life
    6. Overpower Damage
    7. Critical Strike Damage
    8. Vulnerable Damage
  • ⚒️ Blood Overpower Damage
  • ⚒️ Ranks to Rapid Ossification
  • Offhand: Blood-bathed (Focus)
    1. Cooldown Reduction
    2. Critical Strike Chance
    3. Intelligence
    4. Maximum Life
    5. Overpower Damage
  • ⚒️ Blood Attack Speed
  • ⚒️ Blood Surge Size

This build benefits the most from the following consumables:

  • Elixirs: Elixir of Destruction, Elixir of Precision, Elixir of Fortitude
  • Type I Incense: Sage's Whisper
  • Type II Incense: Soothing Spices to cap Resistances, Reddamine Buzz
  • Type III Incense: 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.

How Does Overpower Work?

Blood Surge

Video Guide

Disclaimer: Always follow the Maxroll Guide for the most up to date build setups.

Summary

The Blood Surge Necromancer is incredibly nuanced and rewards the player for learning as much as you can about Overpower mechanics and how to maximize your Overpower procs. With your huge Maximum Life pool, Fortify and healing, you can survive damage that other builds could never conceive of!

  • Blood Surge can hit a target twice, as long as they're within range of the "drain" and the "surge". The "drain" hits the entire screen, while the "surge" only hits Close Enemies.
  • Overpower has been drastically overhauled in Patch 1.2! It finally plays well with other damage scalers like Critical Strike and Vulnerable.
  • Blood-bathed Aspect allows you to cheat out an extra "surge" for free. This Overpowers when the base Skill does.
  • Reset your Bone Storm cooldown by spending resource on Blood Surge, dealing damage and fueling your defenses at the same time!
  • Practice makes perfect! Don't be afraid to run slightly easier content of Nightmare Dungeons to get the flow of the gameplay loop.
  • Happy blasting 🚀!

Credits

Maintained by Chronikz

Originally written by MacroBioBoi
Reviewed by MacroBioBoi

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