This is the Necromancer Blood Wave endgame build and guide for Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred (D4). Read on to learn more about the Overpower Blood Wave build, including its skills, gear, gems, runes, mercenaries, and paragon boards, as well as how to play the build for Season 6.

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Blood Wave Build Guide

Blood Wave Build Summary

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Skills and Class Mechanic				Aspects and Affixes				Gems and Runewords
Mercenary				Paragon				Playstyle

This Necromancer Endgame build is based on a build by Ruse_Cruize over at Goblin Inc (Youtube). The video includes details on how to gear up to get the build online. You can check Ruse_Cruize's Twitch Channel for more Necromancer content!

Build Summary
Blood Wave Endgame Build
	Focus: DPS, Endgame Clear
Top-of-the-meta DPS Not Essence Reliant High Durability, Sustain, and Movespeed Requires specific setup and high amounts of Cooldown Reduction

The build utilizes the Cooldown Reduction mechanic of Fastblood Aspect and the Blood Wave's Blood Orb generation while utilziing Overpower triggers from Rathma's Vigor.

How Does It Work?

The build works by thanks to the Blood Wave's Tidal Aspect and Fastblood Aspect to generate a loop of casting Blood Wave. We cast Blood Wave to create three Blood Waves, each creating 6 Blood Orb per wave which results in 18 Blood Orbs that can reduce its own cooldown thanks to the Fastblood Aspect which allows us to cast Blood Wave again.

Our damage then comes from several Overpower multiplier from Rathma's Vigor, Blood Moon Breeches, and our chosen Paragon Boards to create huge amounts of damage thanks to all the multipliers we stack up then guaranteeing Overpower by taking Blood Orbs from the Blood Wave which can reset Rathma's Vigor triggers.

Blood Wave Build Skills and Class Mechanic

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Skills and Class Mechanic				Aspects and Affixes				Gems and Runewords
Mercenary				Paragon				Playstyle
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Blood Wave Build Skills and Passives

※ More skills can be seen by scrolling vertically.

Active Skills
Basic Skill Tree ┗ Reap (1/5) 　┗ Enhanced Reap 　　┗ Acolyte's Reap
Core Skill Tree ┗ Hewed Flesh (3/3)
Corpse and Macabre Skill Tree 1 ┗ Blood Mist (1/5) 　┗ Enhanced Blood Mist ┗ Necrotic Fortitude (3/3) ┗ Titan's Fall (3/3) ┗ Spiked Armor (3/3)
Curse Skill Tree ┗ Decrepify (1/5) 　　┗ Enhanced Decrepify 　　　┗ Abhorrent Decrepify ┗ Death's Embrace (3/3) ┗ Death's Approach(3/3) ┗ Amplify Damage (3/3) ┗ Precision Decay (3/3)
Corpse and Macabre Skill Tree 2 ┗ Coalesced Blood (3/3) 　　┗ Drain Vitality (3/3) 　　┗ Tides of Blood (3/3) 　　┗ Transfusion (1/3) ┗ Necrotic Carapace (3/3) ┗ Corpse Tendrils (4/5) 　　┗ Enhanced Corpse Tendrils 　　　┗ Blighted Corpse Tendrils
Ultimate Skill Tree ┗ Blood Wave (5/5) 　┗ Prime Blood Wave 　　┗ Supreme Blood Wave ┗ Finality (3/3) 　├ Memento Mori (3/3) ┗ Stand Alone (3/3) ┗ Inspiring Leader (3/3)
Key Passive ┗ Rathma's Vigor

Blood Wave Build Book of the Dead

Skeleton Warriors	Skeleton Mages	Golem
Warrior Sacrifice	Bone Sacrifice	Iron Sacrifice

For this build, we'll be maximizing our Critical Strike Chance, Overpower, and Critical Strike Damage by sacrificing Warrior Skirmishers, Bone Mages, and Iron Golem. This will allow us to capitalize on our Overpower and Critical Strike damage bursts.

Blood Wave Build Aspects and Affixes

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Skills and Class Mechanic				Aspects and Affixes				Gems and Runewords
Mercenaries				Paragon				Playstyle
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Masterwork Priority	Affixes marked with ★ are the ones you should aim to upgrade when masterworking.

※ More gear Aspects can be seen by scrolling vertically.

Gear	Aspect and Affixes
Head	Harlequin Crest Gain 20% Damage Reduction. In addition, gain +4 Ranks to all Skills. Stats: ・Cooldown Reduction ★★★ ・Maximum Life ・Armor ・ Ranks to Velocity Note: Aspect of Hardened Bones is a great alternative as it can still grant you Damage Reduction and avoid dying in higher torment tiers.
Chest	Juggernaut's Aspect Stats: ・Maximum Life ・Intelligence ・Armor ・Maximum Resistance to All Elements Note: If you aren't able to get Tyrael's Might, you can use Yen's Blessing for your Boots and run Aspect of Turbulence on your Chest instead of your Boots. Temper: ・Defensive - Worldly Endurance 　┗ Total Armor ・Utility - Thorn Army 　┗ Spiked Armor
Gloves	Sacrificial Aspect Stats: ・Intelligence ★★★ ・Maximum Life ・Overpower Damage Temper: ・Offensive - Blood Finesse 　┗ Blood Overpower Damage ・Utility - Profane Innovation 　┗ Corpse Tendrils Size
Pants	Blood Moon Breeches Your Minions' attacks have a 3 - 7% chance to randomly inflict Decrepify or Iron Maiden. You deal 100 - 150% increased Overpower damage to enemies affected by your Curses. Stats: ・Overpower Damage ★★★ ・Maximum Life ・Curse duration ・+ Rank to Curse Skills
Boots	Inexorable Reaper's Aspect Stats: ・Attacks Reduce Evade's Cooldown by 1.5 Seconds ・Movement Speed ★★★ ・Intelligence ・Resistance to All Elements Temper: ・Mobility - Natural Motion 　┗ Movement Speed ・Utility - Profane Innovation 　┗ Corpse Tendrils Size
Amulet	Aspect of the Great Feast Stats: ・Armor ・Ranks to Tides of Blood ・Ranks to Coalesced Blood Temper: ・Mobility - Necromancer Efficiency 　┗ Ultimate Cooldown Reduction ・Utility - Profane Innovation 　┗ Corpse Tendrils Size
Ring	Fastblood Aspect Stats: ・Critical Strike Chance ・Maximum Life ★★★[ ・Intelligence Temper: ・Offensive - Blood Finesse 　┗ Blood Overpower Damage ・Resource - Necromancer Efficiency 　┗ Ultimate Cooldown Reduction
Ring	Aspect of Grasping Veins Stats: ・Critical Strike Chance ・Maximum Life ★★★[ ・Intelligence Temper: ・Offensive - Blood Finesse 　┗ Blood Overpower Damage ・Resource - Necromancer Efficiency 　┗ Ultimate Cooldown Reduction
Weapon (2H Mace)	Tidal Aspect Stats: ・Intelligence ・Max Life ★★★ ・Lucky Hit Chance: restore primary resource

Blood Wave Build Gems and Runewords

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Blood Wave Build Gems

Armor	Weapons	Jewelry
Ruby	None	Diamond

For gems, it's best to slot in Amethyst to improve Barrier Generation and maintain the build's defenses. For Weapons, we'll use a Runeword so no Gem is needed.

Skulls can be replaced with Diamonds if you are low on Resistances.

Blood Wave Build Runewords

Runeword 1	Runeword 2
Zan Vex	Bac Gar

Zan Vex is our first combo for this build as we can spam an unlimited amount of Blood Wave. With every 7 casts, we will gain a huge burst to our performance which will lessen our Blood Wave cooldown and increase its damage.

Bac Gar is the next one and this aims to alleviate the sluggish nature of the Necromancer by allowing us to gain Movement Speed by moving which essentially means that we get a ramping movement speed to allow our Necro to quickly pick up Blood Orbs as well as traverse the area while exploring.

List of All Runewords

Blood Wave Build Mercenaries

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Skills and Class Mechanic				Aspects and Affixes				Gems and Runewords
Mercenaries				Paragon				Playstyle
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Mercenary	Reinforcement
Raheir	Varyana

The best mercenary for the Blood Wave Build is Raheir, who gives 5% Fortify (buffing your Overpower damage) with Shield Charge, boosts your Armor by 15% with Raheir's Guard, and grants Damage Reduction and increases damage to enemies with Provoke and Mocking Lure.

For the Reinforcement, Varyana is the best pick as she can use Bloodthirst to boost your Attack Speed by 10%.

List of All Mercenaries

Blood Wave Build Paragon Boards

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Skills and Class Mechanic				Aspects and Affixes				Gems and Runewords
Mercenaries				Paragon				Playstyle
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Paragon Boards
1. Starting Board (Sacrificial)
2. Blood Bath (Amplify)
3. Blood Begets Blood (Control)
4. Frailty (Corporeal)
5. Scent of Death (Dominate)

We'll be wanting to get the first two Blood-Related boards to increase our Blood Wave's damage. Thanks to the Blood Orbs we generate, both Blood Bath and Blood Begets Blood's legendary node gets an easy 100% uptime as we can spam Overpower and pick up unlimited amounts of Blood Orbs.

For the next boards, we'll be passing through crowd control related nodes as well as extra nodes that our build can make use of as we already got the nodes we wanted from the first three boards.

Blood Wave Build Playstyle and Tips

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Skills and Class Mechanic				Aspects and Affixes				Gems and Runewords
Mercenaries				Paragon				Playstyle
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With the complete set, the Blood Wave build is extremely simple to play as you'll mostly be spamming Blood Wave similar to how you would a Core Skill. Your other supporting skill is there to help group up enemies as well as provide extra durability to your character such as Soulrift's Barrier and Corpse Tendril's displacement.

Lastly, be sure to always apply Decrepify first to ensure that you are getting extra cooldown reductions for a faster Blood Wave spam.

1. Use Decrepify to curse your enemies and gain extra Overpower.
2. Use Wave of Blood then follow the wave to pick up the blood orbs.
3. Use Soulrift and Tendrils while running to gain its effects and group up the next mob group.

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