Bone Spear Necromancer Endgame Build Guide
The Bone Spear Necromancer has been in the shadows for several seasons. With the addition of the Bone Duster's, the Bone Spear Necromancer is ready to return to the spotlight.
Sporting a fast paced, high action, machine gun style playstyle, this build fills your screen with a massive amount of Overpower damage and rapidly clears content. With the addition of Indira's Memory this build effectively becomes Blood Spear gaining a blood tag and access to new multipliers.
No matter if you are facing a boss or a massive horde of enemies, Bone Spear is up to the task. With the high lucky hit chance, Lucky Hit Chance to Restore Essence tempers keep you topped off on Essence to continue your onslaught.
If you have missed the Bone Spear build from old, and looking to relive its glory, or new to the Necromancer class and want a ranged playstyle, then you are in the right place.
Build Defining Drops:
- Indira's Memory - This unique turns your Bone Spear into a Blood Skill and grants you access to one of the biggest multipliers of Tides of Blood turning them into a Blood Spear
- Bone Duster's -Utilizing this aspect with Bone Prison makes every Bone Spear overpower and deal massive damage.
This build guide assumes you have a Level 60 Character and unlocked Torment 1. To get there, level up with one of our Necromancer Leveling Guides. See how this Build compares against others with our various Build Tier Lists.
Witchcraft Powers
Season 7 is the Season of Witchcraft. It features two separate borrowed power mechanics in the forms of Witchcraft Powers and Occult Gems. Both Seasonal mechanics are unlocked and improved by new NPCs found at the Tree of Whispers after collecting resources from Headhunt Zones, Seasonal areas similar to Helltide that appear across Sanctuary.
There are 25 Witchcraft Powers, 6 of which can be equipped at a time. Each Power belongs to one of three Schools (Eldritch, Growth & Decay, and Psyche), tags that promote synergies within themselves and with Occult Gems. Each School has a single Unique Witchcraft Power, only one of which can be equipped at a time. These Unique Powers max out and gain an additional effect at rank 5, while the other Powers max at rank 21 and gain their bonus effects at various levels. To unlock and improve Witchcraft Powers, defeat Headrotten or complete Whispers within the Headhunt Zones to collect Restless Rot. Lost Powers are an exception, requiring you to randomly encounter a Forgotten Altar in Dungeons to unlock them.
Best-in-Slot Witchcraft Powers
- Soul Harvest - This Power dramatically increases Core Stats based on monster density and is a reliably strong choice, especially for builds which can group mobs together such as using Corpse Tendrils
- Force of Will - This provides an additional multiplier to overpower damage.
- Hex of Whispers - Once upgraded to level seven, this power grants fortify and removes all crowd control and status effects.
- Aura of Siphoning - This is a great tool to increase survivability with the constant heal you receive.
- Aura of Lament - Maintaining Essence is one of the most important pieces to the Bone Spear puzzle. This grants consistent Essence gain.
- The Cycle - These flowers heal you for a substantial amount allowing for extra security to keep you topped off.
Alternate Witchcraft Powers
- Doom Orb - a viable alternative which grants more damage with the rapid amount of hits this build applies.
- Aura of Misfortune - A viable alternative to Aura of Siphoning, this Power mitigates some incoming damage while boosting your Movement Speed. Unfortunately, it's ineffective against Bosses.
- Hex of Shattering - This is a good alternative to grant additional Damage Reduction.
Occult Gems
Rarely, Headrotten Bosses appear with a still-attached Fugitive Head stolen from the Tree of Whispers. Slay these enemies and return the Heads to Gelena to unlock and upgrade Occult Gems. These Gems are socketable in Jewelry and each provide +160 Armor and +8% Resistance to All Elements. More importantly, each Occult Gem grants a unique effect that synergizes with your equipped Witchcraft Powers to provide a variety of Offensive, Defensive, and Utility-based bonuses.
Best-in-Slot Occult Gems
- Dust Stone - This Gem enables multiple powerful synergies from our Witchcraft Powers utilizing two Hexes and two Auras we get a nice boost of damage.
- Friend of the Bog - Extra Core Stats improve both skill damage and your Witch Powers potency. Maximum life both increases survivability and overall damage when overpowering.
- Phantom String - Overpowering with this build is an incredibly strong multiplier for this build.
Alternate Occult Gems
- Toadling's Wish - Increases potency for the three Growth and Decay powers
- Hungering Void - Another way to pull mobs together.
Learn more details about the season theme in our full Season Guide.
Skills & Gameplay
- To start your tree you must select two points into the basic skills. With the change to Reaper's Pursuit, we use Reap primarily for the multiplier however, it does grant more Damage Reduction and Attack Speed.
- Bone Spear is your main damage and hits enemies with both the main hit and reflected shards. The secondary damage component makes positioning important when fighting elites or bosses. Now that it overpowers on every cast, the multipliers available have substantially increased the damage output of this skill.
- Decrepify coupled with your high Lucky Hit Chance helps you reduce all of your cooldowns at a fast pace and provides additional safety through occasional Stuns.
- Bone Prison is the enabler of guaranteed overpower hits paired with Bone Duster's. This also helps with projectiles as the walls can block them.
- Soulrift grants barrier, huge damage multiplier, and Essence generation while adding yet another Darkness skill.
- Corpse Tendrils slows, stuns and pulls every monster (except Bosses) into a single space so that all of your AoE damage becomes more effective. It also triggers Grasping Veins, which is vital for reaching 100% Critical Strike Chance.
- Blight grants a 20% multiplier as well as adding a third Darkness skill to the action bar.
Skill Rotation
- No matter if you are figthing bosses or mobs, you will begin your destructive rampage with Bone Prison. This not only helps group mobs and detain them, it enables Bone Duster's to guarantee overpower from Bone Spear
- Bone Spear activates multiple features of this build. From Hewed Flesh to activating Flesh-eater with the use of Indira's Memory. This will be your primary spam only stopping to activate your support skills as they fall off. Once you have a Bone Prison, you will attack with Bone Spear to create a corpse.
- Once you get spawn a corpse, activate Corpse Tendrils to group mobs, reach Critical Strike Chance, and gain a massive multiplier.
- After the enemies have been pulled with Corpse Tendrils, begin your onslaught with Bone Spear only stopping to reapply your support skills. Bone Spear is very unique in its damaging effects. With Deathless Visage, you will spawn Echoes when you damage enemies that explode for massive amounts of damage.
- To maximize your damage you will want to make sure that you are casting at Bone Spear maximum range or bouncing them off of a wall so that the broken Shards all hit the enemy. Bouncing them off of a wall immediately breaks Bone Spear and does not require the max range to activate.
- You need to keep Soulrift active at all times. This is an incredibly strong utility for this build as it offers barrier generation, huge damage multiplier, applies vulnerable, and Essence generation.
- Keeping your enemies in a pool of Blight will maintain a 20% damage multiplier on them. You need to utilize Blight every six seconds to maintain this buff.
- NOTE : Reap is on the toolbar to add another Darkness skill to the action bar to increase the multiplier from Bone Spear. You can however use this if enemies get too close for additional damage reduction.
Book of the Dead
The Bone Spear Necromancer sacrifices all three minions types. With the increased amount of Unique items, Skeletal Warriors - Defenders helps to obtain max resists.
Utilizing the Bone Duster's, every cast will overpower. Skeletal Mages - Bone grants a huge multiplier to all overpower damage.
Bone Spear critically strikes on every cast therefore Golems - Iron grants a massive multiplier.
Learn more details and how to unlock this system in our full Book of the Dead guide.
Paragon & Glyphs
Carefully check your Paragon Boards to ensure correct board rotation. Glyphs go from a radius of 3 to 4 at level 15 and from 4 to 5 at level 46. Some of them cannot be activated before reaching these thresholds! Progress through The Pit to rank up your Glyphs.
Use the slider to see the progression steps. At around Paragon 200, leveling slows down significantly and all important Rare clusters, Legendary nodes and Glyph sockets should be unlocked. Afterwards, you can min/max your build with minor tweaks and by picking up additional smaller nodes.
Bone Spear Necromancer Endgame Paragon
Some Glyph position swaps, board changes and other pathing adjustments may occur as you unlock your full potential. The setup displayed by default is the final version of the build before spending additional points that do not significantly impact your character's power.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
To Level 15
- Corporeal
- Essence
- Eliminator
- Sacrificial
- Dominate
To Level 46
- Eliminator
- Essence
- Dominate
- Corporeal
- Sacrificial
There are a total of 328 Paragon Points. After reaching level 60, you gain up to 300 Paragon Levels, 24 from Renown and 4 from Altars of Lilith. Check out our dedicated in-depth guides to learn more about Paragon Boards and Glyphs.
Runes
You can have up to two Runewords in your setup, each consisting of one Ritual and one Invocation Rune. Socket them in Two-Handed Weapons if your build calls for them, otherwise place them into your Armor pieces to replace normal gems. The Bone Spear Necromancer focuses on the following combos:
Best in Slot
- Tam + Wat - This combo casts Decrepify and when specced into Decrepify, will cast both versions constantly. This allows to free up a skill slot to add another Darkness skill for more multiplier from Reaper's Pursuit
- Igni + Ohm - As you stand still to cast your Bone Spear, you will charge up this ritual to cast War Cry for an additional 15% multiplier.
Alternative choices
If you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top runes, you can also benefit from these options:
- Poc - We continuously gain and spend Essence, so this is an easy activator.
- Xal - For extra defense.
- Qax - Grants a huge single hit when activated
Learn more about Runes and how they work in our dedicated Runewords Overview and Runewords Tier List.
Mercenaries
Mercenaries are unlocked during the Vessel of Hatred campaign and assist you in battle. There are 4 separate Mercenaries to choose from, each with their own skill trees and abilities. You can have one hired (permanent) mercenary during solo play and a reinforcement who assists you from time to time in certain situations.
- Hired: Subo
This mercenary grants you a map hack to see all enemies as well as an Overpower multiplier.
- Reinforcement: Raheir
You choose Bastion for additional defenses when you become injured
Stat Priorities & Item Progression
To enable the Bone Spear Necromancer to perform optimally, hunt for these stats on your gear with good rolls and aim to Temper ⚒️ & Masterwork Crit ↑ them accordingly. Keep in mind that certain stats, such as Armor, Resistances, Extra Size Tempers, Attack Speed and more, have caps that may affect your priorities according to the items and Paragon points available at that moment.
Recommended Endgame Stat Thresholds
- 55% Critical Strike Chance on Character Sheet
- 88% Chance for Bone Spear to Cast Twice (Deathless Visage
- 80%+ Attack Speed
- 2000+ Intelligence
- Armor Capped 1,000
- Resistance Capped 75%
- 15,000+ Life
- 160%+ Movement Speed
Item Progression Goals
Before you dive into the Endgame with the Bone Spear Necromancer, take a look at this overview of the items used in the build. See below for further details about the different progression steps and variants. Some of your Skill Tree choices depend on what Legendary Aspects and Unique items are available to you. Keep in mind that while we can guarantee that everyone has access to the same Codex of Power Aspects, the exact progression is different for everyone.
Learn more details and how to farm Legendary Aspects and Uniques in our General Farming Guide.
Build Variants
This section is designed to guide your Bone Spear Necromancer from a fresh level 60 into the very late endgame using the three variants Starter, Ancestral and Mythic. At the final step, you should be fully decked out with a great all-rounder build. From there, follow the other min/max variants if you want to optimize around certain activities such as Pit Pushing, Speedfarming and more.
If you are fresh in Torment 1 coming from a leveling guide, this is where you begin. Since only some Aspects can be guaranteed from Dungeon unlocks for the Codex of Power, focus on acquiring the additional aspects via gambling with Murmuring Obols.
Gear & Skills
- Early on in your progression, focus on Armor & Resistances to survive. Each Torment difficulty adds a penalty of -250 Armor and -25% all Res and it's recommended to keep both capped (1000 Armor, 70+ Res) at all times. As you unlock higher power gear, masterworking levels and more Paragon points, you naturally scale your character into the higher difficulties and can start replacing some of these rolls with offensive or utility stats.
- It is extremely important to have your Soulrift up as much as possible for defense and Essence generation.
- If you are struggling with Essence generation, remove Great Feast, put Serration on your amulet until you can maintain your Essence.
The goal here is to progress through the Torment difficulties as you unlock Ancestrals, Paragon points, all Legendary Aspects, Temper mods and the most important Uniques to pilot this build. Some Legendary Aspects are used temporarily to fill slots that may be replaced with more Unique items later on.
Gear & Skills
- As you upgrade your gear to Ancestrals with more masterworking levels and reach higher paragon, you can focus more and more on replacing Armor & Resistance rolls with better stats, but ensure to stay capped at 1000 Armor and 70%+ Resistances for the difficulty you're currently in.
- Once you acquire Deathless Visage it is very important to stack as much Critical Strike Damage as possible to boost the Unique effect of Deathless Visage.
- Indira's Memory turns your Bone Spear into a Blood Skill and grants access to new multipliers and making your spears into awesome looking Blood Spears.
This is the final version of the build's progression, including all regular Unique items, Mythic Uniques, Legendary Aspects, Temper mods and Masterworking, leaving you with a great all-rounder build for all content in the game. Additional variants use this as a baseline to optimize around certain activities.
Gear & Skills
- The biggest challenge to overcome with this build is the life drain. To solve this Doombringer provides not only a substantial increase to life but massive healing. With the incredible amount of Lucky Hit Chance and the amount of hits per spear, you will constantly remain topped off.
- Shroud of False Death not only increases your damage output but substantially increases your survivability as well as increasing the ranks of all your support passives.
This Speedfarming variant optimizes the build for easy activities like Helltides, Whispers, Nightmare Dungeons and lower Pit Tiers after you have finished the Mythic variant and reached a plateau in your progression.
Gear & Skills
You will swap a Legendary pair of boots with Metamorphosis and utilize the Jah rune in place of Ohm
This setup optimizes the build to push the highest possible Tiers in The Pit after you have finished the Mythic variant and reached a plateau in your progression.
Gear & Skills
- When fighting monsters in high tiers of the Pit, remember that after crowd controlling elites for 5 seconds, they become Unstoppable for 8 seconds. This may be the right moment to start kiting them around because your damage done goes way down and they can freely retaliate.
- In high tier boss fights, beware that many of your conditional damage and damage reduction modifiers cannot activate outside of stagger phases. This means they generally deal more damage against you than regular monsters and you have to prioritize dodging the attacks from shadow bosses while you can barely scratch them outside of stagger bursts.
- For pit pushing a higher focus on maximizing your Masterworking to achieve the highest output with the build.
FAQ & Mechanics
Once a guide is released, many players have questions on why and how you are approaching certain choices. In this section you can find the answers to the questions that have been asked the most.
Why not Blood Wave instead of Soul Rift?
How can I hit 100% Critical Strike Chance?
How do I Reset my Cooldowns Faster?
Mechanics
Lucky Hit Chance (LHC)
Attack Speed Caps
Stagger
Summary
The Bone Spear Necromancer is a fun to play, fast-paced tactical genius that performs well in almost any scenario. With a range of tricks and devices up your sleeve, and constant resets on all of your cooldowns, you can deal with anything.
- Utilizing every tool in your toolkit, this build will effectively clear all content and provide a smooth gameplay experience.
- Reaching permanent Critical Strikes is extremely easy for the Bone Spear Necromancer and has to be abused at all times to make the most out of the build.
- Fill your screen with huge ORANGE NUMBERS.
- Relive the glory days with the new and improved Bone Spear.
Credits
Written by Serocifkre