Bone Spear Necromancer Abattoir of Zir Build (Season 2)

his is a Season 2 Bone Spear endgame build for Necromancer in Diablo 4 (D4) that aims to maximize Vulnerable and Critical Strike to easily clear hordes of enemies. Read on for the complete list of Vampiric Powers, Skills, and Aspects you need and how to play the build for Season 2 and Abattoir of Zir.

Bone Spear Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

High Burst Damage

While the Bone Spear build has suffered from the damage computation update, the Bone Spear still holds an insane amount of burst and DPS under its name. In terms of damage output, the Bone Spear is still one of the best builds you can choose for the Necromancer.

High Movement Speed from Unstoppable

Thanks to the Metamorphosis Vampiric Power, we're able to get free movement speed from our Ghostwalker Aspect everytime we dodge. This alleviates the previous mobility issue that the Bone Spear necromancer have.

Weaknesses

Low Survivability

Despite the defensive focus of our paragon boards and items, the Bone Spear necromancer build is still extremely fragile. We easily die from burst damage when we get hit without our Bone Storm so its highly recommended to watch your position in every encounter.

Essence Hungry

One of the major flaws that the Bone Spear Necromancer have is its resource hungry playstyle. We need Decrepify to lower our Cooldowns to increase our survivability and we need our Bone Spear to deal our damage and both spells require essence. Not to mention that Bone Spear itself, costs a hefty amount of Essence and is your main DPS tool and you're looking at a class that instantly stops functioning when its essence tank is down.

We alleviate this issue with our Aspect of Exposed Flesh and the Bone Graft Rare node Reinvigorate. This is also another reason to retain our Bone Splinters skill and use it in between Bone Spear to avoid draining our essence tank too fast.

Vulnerable when Bone Storm is Down

Bone Storm's Aspect of Shielding Storm supplies us with a steady amount of durability thanks to its shielding effect. However, we are immediately vulnerable to even the lightest attack once its down.

We alleviate this issue by using Decrepify and lowering our active skill cooldown when we hit enemies that are under the said curse.

Bone Spear Build Overview

Build Summary

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Summary		Skill Progression		Vampiric Powers
Aspects & Affixes		Gems		Paragon

Skills

Aspects & Uniques

Stats & Gems

Build Overview and Summary
Bone Spear		Tier: Focus: PVE Playstyle: Solo and Party
Active Skills
Passive Skills

All Uber Lilith Builds

Build Overview and Summary
Bone Spear		Tier: Focus: PVE Playstyle: Solo and Party
Aspects and Uniques
Deathless Visage (Helm) Lidless Wall (Off Hand) Aspect of Might (Chest Armor) Aspect of Shielding Storm (Pants) Wind Striker Aspect (Boots) Aspect of Grasping Veins (Amulet) Splintering Aspect (Gloves) Aspect of Serration (1H Sword) Osseous Gale Aspect (Ring) Aspect of Exposed Flesh (Ring)

All Uber Lilith Builds

Build Overview and Summary
Bone Spear		Tier: Focus: PVE Playstyle: Solo and Party
Stat Priorities			Recommended Gems
・Vulnerable Damage ・Critical Strike Damage ・Critical Strike Chance ・Intelligence ・Lucky Hit Chance ・Damage with Physical ・Maximum Resource ・Core Skill Damage			Emerald (Weapons) Ruby (Armor) Diamond (Jewelry)

All Uber Lilith Builds

Bone Spear comes back in Season 2, and while it's not as strong as its predecessor, it still packs a punch that should be enough to clear any major content you'll encounter in the game.

This build has some of the best Aspects and Skill synergies in the game, which can easily boost up your Critical Strike and apply Vulnerable to enemies.

Together with other remarkable Aspect, Skill passives, and Paranode Nodes, you can regenerate Essence non-stop to keep on launching high-damaging Bone Spears at enemies!

Bone Spear Build Breakdown

Skill Progression

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Summary		Skill Progression		Vampiric Powers
Aspects & Affixes		Gems		Paragon

Active Skills

Skill		Upgrade Path
Bone Splinters (1 Point)	→	Enhanced Bone Splinters	None
Bone Spear (5 Points)	→	Enhanced Bone Spear	Paranormal Bone Spear
Blood Mist (1 Point)	→	None
Decrepify (1 Point)	→	Enhanced Decrepify	Abhorrent Decrepify
Corpse Tendrils (5 Points)	→	Enhanced Corpse Tendrils	Plagued Corpse Tendrils
Bone Storm (1 Point)	→	Prime Bone Storm	Supreme Bone Storm

Passive Skills

Bone Spear Passives
Unliving Energy (3 Points)	Imperfectly Balanced (3 Points)	Hewed Flesh (1 Point)
Amplify Damage (3 Points)	Death's Reach (3 Points)	Serration (3 Points)
Compound Fracture (3 Points)	Evulsion (3 Points)	Rapid Ossification (3 Points)
Stand Alone (3 Points)	Memento Mori (3 Points)	Inspiring Leader (3 Points)
Ossified Essence (1 Point)

Skill Progression Breakdown

Recommended Skill Progression
Lv.2	Lv.3	Lv.4	Lv.5
Bone Splinters	Enhanced Bone Splinters	Bone Spear	Enhanced Bone Spear
Lv.6	Lv.7	Lv.8	Lv.9
Paranormal Bone Spear	Bone Spear	Bone Spear	Bone Spear
Lv.10	Lv.11	Lv.12	Lv.13
Bone Spear	Unliving Energy	Unliving Energy	Unliving Energy
Lv.14	Lv.15	Lv.16	Lv.17
Imperfectly Balanced	Imperfectly Balanced	Imperfectly Balanced	Hewed Flesh
Lv.18	Lv.19	Lv.20	Lv.21
Blood Mist	Death's Reach	Death's Reach	Death's Reach
Lv.22	Lv.23	Lv.24	Lv.25
Amplify Damage	Amplify Damage	Amplify Damage	Decrepify
Lv.26	Lv.27	Lv.28	Lv.29
Enhanced Decrepify	Abhorrent Decrepify	Corpse Tendrils	Enhanced Corpse Tendrils
Lv.30	Lv.31	Lv.32	Lv.33
Plagued Corpse Tendrils	Corpse Tendrils	Corpse Tendrils	Corpse Tendrils
Lv.34	Lv.35	Lv.36	Lv.37
Corpse Tendrils	Stand Alone	Stand Alone	Stand Alone
Lv.38	Lv.39	Lv.40	Lv.41
Memento Mori	Memento Mori	Memento Mori	Inspiring Leader
Lv.42	Lv.43	Lv.44	Lv.45
Inspiring Leader	Inspiring Leader	Bone Storm	Prime Bone Storm
Lv.46	Lv.47	Lv.48	Lv.49
Supreme Bone Storm	Ossified Essence	Serration	Serration
Renown Skill Points (Lv50 Onwards)
R1	R2	R3	R4
Serration	Rapid Ossification	Rapid Ossification	Rapid Ossification
R5	R6	R7	R8
Evulsion	Evulsion	Evulsion	Compound Fracture
R9		R10
Compound Fracture		Compound Fracture

Note that this is an endgame build and its skill build progression is not ideal to be followed as a new character

Book of the Dead

Raise Skeleton	→	Defenders (Skirmisher)	Sacrifice
	→	Mage (Cold)	Sacrifice
Golem	→	Iron	Sacrifice

Like previous iterations of the Bone Spear Necro, this build sacrifices all its minions in exchange for a more powerful caster Necromancer.

Defenders is our big difference under the standard Bone Spear builds. The enemy damage is absurd on the Abattoirs of Zir dungeon and we'll want to get as much defensive stats as we can. With our Paragon Board setup and Jewelries and Gem, we should be able to hit a very high amount of Resistances together with sacrificing Defenders and getting the 20% resistance bonus.

Sacrificing Cold Mages increases our damage to Vulnerable enemies and is a great flat damage multiplier to our build.

Lastly, sacrificing our Iron Golems gives us a huge increase to the Critical Strike Damage that we deal.

Book of the Dead Guide

Best Vampiric Powers

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Summary		Skill Progression		Vampiric Powers
Aspects & Affixes		Gems		Paragon

Vampiric Power Cost	Effect Explanation
Sanguine Brace 0 1 1	When you kill an enemy, Fortify for 6% of your Base Life. While you have more Fortify than half of your Maximum Life, you gain 8% Critical Strike Chance. An easy way to get Fortify, and add more durability to the build. Since the build can clear mobs fast, its easy to get the Fortify status. This, in turn, also grants us free Critical Strike Chance for free.
Metamorphosis 2 2 2	When you Evade you turn into a cloud of bats, becoming Unstoppable for 4 seconds. Enemies along your path take 160% Physical damage and are inflicted with Vampiric Curse. A great escape tool due to its Unstoppable mechanic.
Prey on the Weak 2 0 0	You deal 16% increased damage to Vulnerable enemies. Enemies are Vulnerable while affected by a Vampiric Curse from your other Vampiric Powers. A flat 16% damage multiplier to this build as we can permanently apply Vulnerable to any enemies we encounter.
Ravenous 3 0 0	Lucky Hit: Up to a 20% chance to increase your Attack Speed by 40% of your Total Movement Speed for 6 seconds. Not the most reliable Vampiric Power but when it triggers, it gives free attack speed which is great.
Domination 1 0 0	You deal 24% increased damage to enemies who are Stunned, Immobilized, Frozen, or Feared. If they're also Injured and not an Elite, they're instantly killed. Synergizes extremely well with our Corpse Tendrils. The extra execution damage is also nothing to scoff at, as it helps with Resource generation if some trash mobs still survive with little HP.
Total Pacts Required 8 | 3 | 3

List of Vampiric Powers and Pacts Explained

Aspects and Affixes

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Summary		Skill Progression		Vampiric Powers
Aspects & Affixes		Gems		Paragon

Best Weapons

Weapon	Aspects and Affixes
1H Sword	Aspect of Serration The Ossified Essence Key Passive also increases the Critical Strike Damage of your Bone Skills by 1% per Essence, up to (30-40)%. ・+X% Critical Strike Damage (Inherent) ・+X% Critical Strike Damage ・+X% Core Skill Damage ・+X% Critical Strike Damage With Bone Skills ・+X% Vulnerable Damage
Off Hand	Lidless Wall Lucky Hit - While you have an active Bone Storm, hitting an unaffected enemy has a (5-25)% chance to spawn an additonal storm at their location. Each of your active Sacrifice bonuses increases the chance by 25% and the total additional Bone Storms you can have by +1. ・+ 60% Blocked Damage Reduction (Inherent) ・+ 20% Block Chance (Inherent) ・+ 80% Mainhand Weapon Damage (Inherent) ・+ Thorns (Inherent) ・+ X% Attack Speed ・+ X% Lucky Hit: Chance to Restore Your Primary Resource ・+ X% Maximum Life ・+ X% Maximum Essence

Best Armor

Equipment	Aspects and Affixes
Helmet	Deathless Visage Bone Spear leaves behind echoes as it travels that explode, dealing (XX-YY) damage. ・+X% Total Armor ・+X% Physical Damage ・+X% Critical Strike Damage With Bone Skills ・+X Maximum Essence
Chest	Aspect of Might Basic Skills grant 20% Damage Reduction for (XX) seconds. ・+X% Bone Skill Damage ・+X% Damage Reduction ・+X% Damage Reduction From Close Enemies ・+X% Total Armor
Gloves	Splintering Aspect Bone Spear's primary attack makes enemies hit beyond the first Vulnerable for (XX) seconds. Bone Shards from Bone Spear deal (30-60)% bonus damage to Vulnerable enemies and pierce them. ・+X Ranks to Bone Spear ・+X% Lucky Hit Chance ・+X% Critical Strike Chance ・+X% Critical Strike Damage with Bone Skills
Pants	Aspect of Shielding Storm Each time that Bone Storm damages an enemy, gain a Barrier equal to (2-5)% of your Base Life for 10 seconds. ・While Injured, Potion Grants X% Max Life as Barrier (Inherent) ・+X% Damage Reduction ・+X% Total Armor ・+X% Damage Reduction From Close Enemies ・+X% Dodge Chance
Boots	Ghostwalker Aspect While Unstoppable, and for 4 seconds after, you gain (10=25)% increased Movement Speed and can move freely through enemies. ・+X Max Evade Charges (Inherent) ・+X% Movement Speed ・+X Intelligence ・+X% Essence Cost Reduction ・+X Ranks of Corpse Tendrils

Best Jewelry

Jewelry	Aspects and Affixes
Amulet	Aspect of Grasping Veins Gain (10-20)% increased Critical Strike Chance for 6 seconds when you cast Corpse Tendrils. You deal (20-40)% bonus Critical Strike Damage to enemies damaged by Corpse Tendrils. ・+X% Resist All Elemets (Inherent) ・+X% Bone Skill Damage ・+X Ranks of the Evulsion Passive ・+X% Damage Reduction ・+X% Essence Cost Reduction
Ring	Aspect of Exposed Flesh Lucky Hit: Up to a 10% chance to generate (XX) Essence when hitting a Vulnerable enemy with your Bone Skills. ・+X% Resist to All (Inherent) ・+X% Resistance to X Element (Inherent) ・+X% Lucky Hit Chance ・+X% Critical Strike Chance ・+X% Critial Strike Damage ・+X Maximum Essence
Ring	Aspect of Retribution Distant enemies have a 8% chance to be Stunned for 2 seconds when they hit you. You deal (10-20)% increased damage to Stunned enemies. ・+X% Resist to All (Inherent) ・+X% Resistance to X Element (Inherent) ・+X% Lucky Hit Chance ・+X% Critical Strike Chance ・+X% Critial Strike Damage ・+X Maximum Essence

Best Gems

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Summary		Skill Progression		Vampiric Powers
Aspects & Affixes		Gems		Paragon

Item Type	Effect Explanation
Royal Emerald (Weapon)	+12.0% Critical Strike Damage to Vulnerable Enemies Emerald amplifies our damage to Vulnerable enemies and since this build applies Vulnerable easily, we basically get a free damage multiplier from this gem!
Royal Ruby (Armor)	4.0% Maximum Life Ruby gives you Maximum Life, which is a more reliable source of defense than the other gem counterparts.
Elemental Gems (Jewelry)	5.0% Resistance to All Elements Skulls are great if we lack armor but with this current setup, we won't be able to reach max resistance in tier 4 with just our natural equipment. This can be slotted in with Diamonds if you don't have a resistance to any elements on your defensive armor slots or elemental jewels to cover for elements that isn't being currently maxed out by your gear options. Highly flexible depending on your current gear setup.

How to Reach Maxed Resistances

With our current setup, reaching Max Resistances is the easiest part. We took three All Resistance bonuses in our Paragon Board from the Erudite nodes and Some all resistance bonuses from our Jewelries which will easily result in a maxed out resistances to all element.

Paragon Board Setup

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Summary		Skill Progression		Vampiric Powers
Aspects & Affixes		Gems		Paragon

Starter Board

Our starter board has a good set of Rare Nodes and a decently centralized glyph socket with a good amount of Intelligence node. This is where we socket Control for our synergy with Corpse Tendrils for a good amount of damage.

• Control (Glyph) - Bonus damage to enemies that are Crowd Controlled. This includes stunned enemies and slowed enemies from Decrepify. You also deal another set of bonus damage of 20% when they are stunned by Corpse Tendrils due to its bonus effect.
• Prime (Rare) - Damage and Maximum HP are the stats we absolutely need for higher tier content.
• Resilience (Rare) - Good set of survivability as well as a decent set of Resistance bonuses are crucial and one of our priorities when setting up the board to avoid dying to random elemental affixes and attacks.
• Preservation (Rare) - A decent boost to armor as well as intelligence increases the multiplier of the Control Glyph. This strengthens our damaged to enemies that are crowd controlled while boosting our survivability.
• Knowledge (Rare) - Damage and Intelligence. Not much to say aside from its a good set of DPS boost for the build.

Bone Graft

The main Board that we are investing in as most Bone Skill synergies are locked into Bone Graft.

• Bone Graft (Legendary) - Damage increase and Essence increase which also translates to another set of damage increase thanks to Ossified Essence. This Legendary Node just gives so much damage and its too good to pass up.
• Essence (Glyph) - Our main reason why we focus on Dexterity nodes in this Glyph area. This is a direct multiplier to our DPS due to our insane synergy with Critical Strikes with Bone Spear.
• Erudite (Rare) - Another boost to our Resistances and together with our Starting Board, already brings us to a decent 13.5% bonus to all Resistances from board bonuses alone.
• Shaper of Bones (Rare) - We use Bone Spear which is a Bone Skill and this directly increases our Bone Skill damage.
• Calcified (Rare) - Same reasoning with Shaper of Bones but with bonuses to Critical Strikes too.
• Reinvigorate (Rare) - Arguable the most important node in Bone Graft and usually makes taking this board almost mandatory for other builds to take Bone Graft just for this Rare node. This makes our Essence usage much smoother due to its on-kill essence regeneration effect.
• Tenacity (Rare) - More HP and armor for survivability.
• Entomb (Rare) - We take this Node for more critical strike Chance and to path our way to the Bone Graft Legendary Node. Avoid the last Healign Potion Node as its unnecessary to the build.

Scent of Death

Scent of Death provides us with great Nodes to boost our survivability. Its Legendary Node also provides us 15% damage reduction as we do not consume corpses with this build.

• Scent of Death (Legendary) - We have no way to consume Corpses with this build which makes this a free 15% damage reduction to our build once we start slaying mob groups with Bone Spear.
• Exploit (Glyph) - Free damage to Vulnerable enemies which further amplifies our Corpse Tendrils and Bone Spear.
• Preservation (Rare) - Decent survivability boost and some Dexterity Magic nodes to amplify Exploit.
• Corrective (Rare) - Makes our Critical Strikes much stronger.
• Ruin (Rare) - Damage to Health Enemies and Critical Strike damage makes clearing mob groups much easier. We rely on burst damage so Damage to Healthy is a very good stat to have.

Flesh-Eater

We avoid the Legendary Glyph of Flesh-Eater as we don't have a reliable method to consume Corpses with this build. We, however, still chose this Board for its Glyph Node to maximize the effect of Tears of Blood.

• Tears of Blood (Glyph) - We use Tears of Blood in the Flesh-Eater board for its the most worth while slot in the Necromancer's Paragon Board.
• Erudite (Rare) - Another 7.5% bonus resistance to our build which ramps it up to 19%. This is further amplified by Tears of Blood depending on its level.
• Targeted (Rare) - Damage to Elites makes it easier to clear the elites and Blood Seekers inside Abattoir of Zir as well as boss content.

Bone Spear Playstyle

Bone Spear Build Tips
Open Up with Bone Spear Always Use Corpse Tendrils After Generating a Corpse Use Decrepify to Reduce your Cooldowns Always use Bone Storm

Open Up with Bone Spear

Bone Spear can easily clear a huge amount of mobs. This will allow you to generate corpses that you can use for Corpse Tendrils.

Always Use Corpse Tendrils After Generating a Corpse

Corpse Tendrils will not only Stun and apply Vulnerable to a group of enemies, it will also pull them all together in one location. This will allow you to use Bone Spear and concentrate it in one area for huge AoE damage.

Use Decrepify to Reduce your Cooldowns

Another skill to include in your combos after casting a skill with Cooldown is Decrepify. This will reduce the cooldown of your skills that have been used, such as Corpse Tendrils, Blood Mist, and Bone Storm! This will speed up your clears and survivability because in case you get jumped on by an elite, you can simply use Blood Mist to become Immune again.

Always use Bone Storm

Bone Storm will give you a decent boost to your damage via Critical Strike chance bonuses. However, its not only an offensive tool because with our Aspect of Shielding Storm, we can also get a Barrier if we damage an enemy with Bone Storm. This will drastically improve our survivability!

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