Bone Spear Necromancer Leveling Build Guide
Last Updated:October 7, 2024|Changelog
Welcome to the Bone Spear Necromancer Leveling Guide. With a spear of bone in your hands, nothing can stand in your way! Bone Spear pierces all enemies it hits, then breaks apart when it collides with an object or the end of its travel distance, reflecting back three or five shards of Bone Shards.
This incredibly strong skill alone allows you to snipe enemies, defeat bosses, and do sufficient Area of Effect (AoE) damage to demolish anything in the game. Terrifyingly powerful on its own? Yes. But this build guide equips you with every utility skill and damage increase to take the Bone Spear Necromancer build to its absolute limits.
Even better, you don't need to rely on an army of useless skeletons to help you out. You quickly sacrifice these minions, while focusing all of your might on the power of Critical Strike Chance with Bone skills.
The satisfying part of this build's leveling experience is that it does not depend on any random Legendary drops! Making use of the Codex of Power Dungeons is enough to get you to the endgame, but if you find some key Aspects during your journey you can incresae your damage tremendously.
Best of all, this build transitions perfectly into the Bone Spear Endgame Necromancer. Then, your enemies will truly know the terrifying power of Bone.
This build guide takes you up to level 60 and gets you started for the early Endgame on Torment 1 difficulty. If you're looking for Endgame guides, check out our Rogue Guides section!
- Good AoE
- Fast Resource Gain
- Instant Vulnerability
- Great Single Target Damage
- No Mobility Skills
- Needs to keep distance
Check out our Leveling Builds Tier List to see how this build compares to others.
Season Theme
- Seething Opal of Equipment
- Seething Opal of Gold
- Seething Opal of Materials
- Seething Opal of Torment
- Seething Opal of Socketables
Learn more details about the season theme in our full Season Guide.
Skills & Gameplay
Generators
Use Bone Splinters until you can sustain your Essence through the tools below.
Iron Maiden is an incredible Essence generator in high density encounters but can only generate Essence when it hits a non-cursed enemy.
Grim Harvest also generates Essence every time you consume a Corpse with Raise Skeleton.
Raise Skeleton summons 3 Skeletal Mages - Cold which restore 3 Essence with their primary attack.
Bone Spear
Bone Spear always travels a fixed distance while piercing every enemy and then splits into 3 or 5 Bone Shards that return a portion of the distance travelled. It is important to hit as many enemies as possible with both portions of the Bone Spear. You can bounce your Bone Spear off a wall to limit the distance travelled, which is especially useful against Elites with the Suppressor affix.
Corpse Tendrils
Corpse Tendrils may be the best source of Crowd Control (CC) in Diablo 4. It Slows, Stuns, applies Vulnerable or generates Blood Orbs and pulls every monster (except Bosses) into a single space so that all of your AoE damage becomes infinitely more effective. With a few of your modifiers and Passives, these statuses become great sources of damage scaling as well. NOTE: Corpse Tendrils does not consume Corpses.
Bone Storm
Bone Storm mainly functions as an awesome buff that gives you 15% Damage Reduction and 20% Critical Strike Chance during its duration. You do not really care about the damage it provides.
Blood Mist
Blood Mist makes you Immune in dangerous situations but is has a long 24 second cooldown. Only use it when absolutely necessary!
Key Passive
Unlocking the Affliction Key Passive increases your damage to Vulnerable and Crowd Controlled Enemies by 15%. Your Iron Maiden now also deals damage for free!
Check out our Renown Guide to unlock all your additional Skill Points efficiently.
Book of the Dead
The Bone Spear Necromancer sacrifices Skeletal Mages - Cold. During leveling you can choose between sacrificing Skeletal Warriors - Skirmishers and Skeletal Warriors - Defenders depending on how your Elemental Resistances look like.
Unlocking the Book of the Dead
You're able to summon Skeletons as early as level one, with the ability to customize your Skeletal Skirmishers starting at level 5, when the Book Menu unlocks. From there, you unlock more types of Skeletal Warriors, Skeletal Mages and eventually Golems as you gain levels. The Golem requires you to complete a Quest, which is detailed in this resource post. You must put the Raise Skeleton and Golem skills on your skill bar to summon them.
Learn more details in our full Book of the Dead Guide.
Gear & Stat Priorities
To get started as an Bone Spear Necromancer, always use your highest DPS Weapon available for more damage. Otherwise, follow the priority list below. While you don't have all of the desired temper manuals available, simply try to get anything useful on your gear until you acquire the right ones. For example, % Damage and Vulnerable Damage, etc. all work as long as you activate their conditions. Likewise, you can temper multiple defensive options such as Resistances, Life, Armor to fill gaps in your survivability. Tempering low level gear is relatively cheap and the results can be very impactful.
Tip: For the early game, Elemental Surge Weapon Tempers are very powerful due to their high base damage, especially if you are twinking. If you find these, you may want to keep imprinting them on your weapons for an easy time.
Legendaries & Uniques
The Codex of Power is a collection of Legendary Aspects you can imprint onto Rare or Legendary items at the Occultist. They unlock after completing specific Dungeons located around Sanctuary or salvaging items with these powers. Check out our Map Tool to locate these Dungeons.
For leveling, there are a few powers that can significantly help us if we have the funds to imprint them. In addition, keep an eye out for powerful Unique items you may find for this or other builds.
Must-have Dungeon unlocks
- Splintering in Guulrahn Slums (Dry Steppes)
- Torment in Black Asylum (Fractured Peaks)
- Voracious Rage in Hallowed Ossuary (Fractured Peaks)
Nice-to-have Dungeon unlocks
- Grasping Veins in Corrupted Grotto (Kehjistan)
- Disobedience in Halls of the Damned (Kehjistan)
Other useful Aspects (drop/gamble)
- Serration
- Hardened Bones
- Shielding Storm
- Metamorphosis
What to Gamble
| Offensive | 1h Weapon, Offhand |
| Defensive | Helm, Chest, Pants |
| Utility, Mobility | Boots |
| Resource | Rings |
Great Uniques for this build
- Deathless Visage
- Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul
Jackpot Drops
As you level up, you may get lucky and find some great random drops. Some of these can massively amplify your power and speed up the leveling by switching to another build. Keep in mind that there are many more Aspects and Uniques that can be useful to multiple builds; this just lists some of the most impactful ones. While we usually recommend starting with Endgame Builds at level 60, you often can make them work earlier with these drops:
Build-defining Aspects
- Tidal + Fastblood: Blood Wave Necromancer
- Shattered Spirit's + Requiem: Bone Spirit Necromancer
Build-defining Uniques
- Ring of Mendeln: Minion Necromancer
- Mutilator Plate: Blood Lance Necromancer
- Cruor's Embrace: Blood Surge Necromancer
- Blood Artisan's Cuirass: Spirit Wave Necromancer
Learn more details in our articles covering the Codex of Power and Unique Items.
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
- Moni + Gar - Grants you a lot of Critical Strike Chance early on.
- Cem + Ton - Summon damage dealing Meteorites whenever you Evade.
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.
- Mot - For even more defense.
- Zec - Good option early game when your Bone Storm is not yet permanent.
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: Varyana
Her Massacre is the strongest leveling ability out of all available Mercenaries and on top of that she even provides 25% Attack Speed.
- Reinforcement: Raheir
You choose Bastion for more defense whenever you engage Elites or Bosses since its linked to Corpse Explosion which should only be used on Elites or Bosses.
How To Level
In Diablo 4, you can level by completing the Campaign, collecting Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers, completing Helltide activities, grinding Dungeons, clearing Strongholds, fighting in the Undercity of Kurast or interacting with the Seasonal Mechanics. While there are many ways to level up in Diablo 4, not all of them are equal.
Campaign Leveling
- For your first character in Diablo 4, completing the Campaign provides all the background lore information but is not necessary.
- The Campaign is the slowest way to level, but it's worth experiencing the Campaign and Diablo 4's storyline at least once.
- To play Seasonal Content you need to have completed or skipped the Campaign.
- If your account is below Rank 4 Renown in each zone, focus on completing your Renown.
- This only needs to be done once per realm (Softcore / Hardcore).
- After finishing the campaign, you should focus on earning experience in Helltides by combining Helltide activities with Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers or completing Gathering Legion Events.
- Strongholds provide a big boost of experience for little time investment. Make sure to clear all of them after around level 40.
Seasonal / Alt Leveling
- Complete the Seasonal Questline in order to progress your Seasonal Journey to unlock additional Legendary Aspects and work on your Seasonal Powers.
- If your account is below Rank 4 Renown in each zone, focus on completing your Renown.
- This only needs to be done once per realm (Softcore / Hardcore).
- Complete the Dungeons needed for any Legendary Aspects from your Codex of Power.
- From level 1-60 you should focus on earning experience in Helltides by combining Helltide activities with Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers or completing Gathering Legion Events.
- Strongholds provide a big boost of experience for little time investment. Make sure to clear all of them after around level 40.
- If you're playing an Alt, make sure to use Tempers and Leveling Caches crafted from the Alchemist to speed up your progression.
- Find the most efficient way of leveling your character in detail with our Speed Leveling Guide.
Tips and Tricks
- Don't Imprint Your Weapon
- It is a better idea to put your best Offensive Aspect on your Amulet, which will usually not be replaced as often as your Weapon.
- Compare Your Items
- Press Shift to activate item comparison. Use this build guide's Stat Priorities section to identify potential upgrades.
- Choose an Easy Difficulty
- Ideally, start on Hard difficulty for the extra XP modifier, then try to go higher when it's way too easy. If that slows you down noticeably, it's better to stay on a lower difficulty.
- Use Your Materials
- There's no point in holding on to your gold or materials for later. Use everything to speed up your journey to 60. If you're twinking, make sure to craft the Allowance Caches from the Alchemist at level 20 and if available, equip your Mythic Uniques at level 35 to make the leveling a breeze.
Speedrun Route
- If you're looking to min/max your time spent on the way to 60 instead of following a generic guideline, you need to use a specific strategy.
- This usually includes farming certain activities up to a specified level and then switching to other tasks while gathering XP in high density areas and pushing the difficulty as high as you can.
- We update this strategy seasonally in our Speed Leveling Guide.
Endgame Transition
As you approach level 60 with the Bone Spear Necromancer, you unlock higher item power gear that represents a massive jump in character power. This is a good time to refresh your setup with new tempers and imprints.
At level 60, Paragon Levels and The Pit unlock. Work towards Tier 20 to enter Torment 1, where the Endgame begins. Focus on overcapping your Armor (1000+) and Resistances (70%+) as you receive some penalties to your character's stats:
- -250 Armor per Torment difficulty
- -25% All Resistances per Torment difficulty
At this point, your setup should look roughly like this before you dive into min/maxing with Uniques, Mythics & Masterworking. With better gear, more levels and Glyphs, you can push further and eventually unlock higher difficulties for increased rewards.
This step marks the end of the leveling guide. Below is the Paragon setup to get you started in Torment difficulty, but ideally, you should now transition towards the endgame version of this build or choose another of your liking.
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 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.
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
- Exploit
To Level 46
- Eliminator
- Essence
- Exploit
- 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.
Summary
- Bone Spear makes almost everything Vulnerable. You lean into this strength and trigger effects off it. Don't forget this while adjusting and swapping your build around!
- Zoning enemies by using Corpse Tendrils and stutter-stepping far away from the monsters is mandatory.
- Happy blasting 🚀!
Credits
Written by Chronikz