Sever Necromancer Endgame Build (Season 2)

This is a Season 2 Sever endgame build for Necromancer in Diablo 4 (D4) that relies on Vulnerable, Critical, and Shadow related affixes, uniques, and skills to deal a consistent amount of burst and DPS. Read on for the complete list of Vampiric Powers, Skills, and Aspects you need and how to play the build for Season 2 and the new Abattoir of Zir (AoZ) endgame dungeon!

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

Corpse Skills Generate Essence

We do not mean 2 essences from the usual single point in Grim Harvest, we utilize the Black River unique in this build which allows us to generate a lot of essence whenever Corpse Explosion is used. This means that we do not need to rely too much on essence generator aspects from rings to sustain our build's skill output.

Decent Sustain from Blood Orbs

Blood Lance naturally spawns Blood Orbs on the ground and our aspect will allow us to consume the said Blood Orbs without picking them up. This gives us free sustain while also using our Core Skill to attack enemies which keeps us topped up in HP without losing DPS.

High Critical Strike Damage

Sever applies Vulnerable and has a decent base damage. This build also features several effects that rely on crtiical strikes such as X'fal and Shadowblight. This setup allows us to maximize the critical strike damage value of this build to deal strong burst damage from our DoT.

Weaknesses

Cooldown-Reliant Survivability

This build can avoid death whenever Bone Storm is up thanks to the barrier it provides from Aspect of Shielding Storm. But once the duration of Bone Storm is down, our build's survivability plummets to the ground. Be sure to play around Bone Storm and use it when against enemies that can kill you with high burst damage such as elites and avoid using it randomly.

Additionally, Sever Necromancer has no Invulnerability from Blood Mist which is one of the core reasons why the build's survivability is not as consistent as it should be. There's also no slot to put Blood Mist in as we require all the current skills in the build.

Low DPS Against Vampiric and Single Enemies

Our DPS comes from consistent corpse creation and making them explode via Corpse Explosion for strong DoT. When fighting against elites, there will be no other enemies that you can kill to spawn corpses so we'll have to rely on Hewed Flesh which limits our DoT.

Build is Not AoZ Capable

Build Lacks Survivability

The build simply doesn't have the survivability against enemies that have strong burst damage potential such as the Blood Seekers and elites that can gap close to you due to the absence of a slot to use Blood Mist. Our only option for survivability is Bone Storm but because its an ultimate, there will be several seconds of downtime where Bone Storm isn't up which takes so much time if you want to wait for it to cooldown and this is including the lucky hits we can get to reduce cooldowns from Decrepify.

Build Has Severe Flaws Against Certain Affixes

Wallers and Teleporters

The Sever Necromancer, as mentioned earlier, already lacks the survivability that other Necro builds have. If we encounter elites that can teleport, or have the waller affix, there's a very high chance for the run to conclude fast due to us not having the escape ability we need to create distance.

Suppressors

The biggest problem however, are Suppressors. We have no Blood Mist to approach Suppressors and use melee attacks against it, this is also adding to the fact that we need a corpse to use Corpse Tendrils to put Suppressors in an awkward spot (which also sometimes, gets consumed by corpse explosion that will prevent us from using the skill in the first place). Our consistent way to create corpses is to hit the elites and create corpses from Hewed Flesh or kill other enemies but if we run out of corpses mid-fight, it will be extremely difficult to create a new set of corpses against suppressors due to their barriers.

Sever Build Overview

Build Summary

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Summary		Skill Progression		Aspects & Affixes
Gems		Vampiric Powers		Paragon

Skills

Aspects & Uniques

Stats & Gems

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

Build Overview and Summary
Sever		Tier: Focus: PVE Playstyle: Solo and Party
Aspects and Uniques
X'Fal's Corroded Signet Greaves of the Empty Tomb Lidless Wall Aspect of Hardened Bones (Pants) Edgemaster's Aspect (Amulet) Blighted Aspect (2H Sword) Aspect of Grasping Veins Aspect of the Damned (Gloves) Blood-soaked Aspect (Ring) Blood Getter's Aspect (Chest Armor) Aspect of Explosive Mist (Boots) Viscous Aspect (Helm)

Build Overview and Summary
Sever		Tier: Focus: PVE Playstyle: Solo and Party
Stat Priorities			Recommended Gems
・Vulnerable Damage ・Critical Strike Damage ・Critical Strike Chance ・Intelligence ・Lucky Hit Chance ・Damage Reduction ・Damage Reduction while Fortified ・Maximum Life ・Core Skill Damage ・Total Armor ・Maximum Minion Life ・Damage Reduction from Affected by Shadow Damage Over Time Effects			Ruby (Armor) Sapphire (Weapon) Diamond (Jewelry)

This is an endgame build that revolves around Shadow Damage through Sever and several other Aspects, Skills and Paragon Nodes. This concept is built in mind with being a pure critical-based Sever solo build which abandons the minion archetype for a full on shadow necromancer playstyle.

We utilize several DoT skills but also slot in critical strike damage and chances as well as survivability to ensure a balanced all-around build.

Sever Build Breakdown

Skill Progression

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Summary		Skill Progression		Aspects & Affixes
Gems		Vampiric Powers		Paragon

Active Skills

Skill		Upgrade Path
Hemorrhage (1 Point)	→	Enhanced Hemorrhage
Sever (5 Points)	→	Enhanced Sever	Paranormal Sever
Corpse Explosion (1 Points)	→	Enhanced Corpse Explosion	Blighted Corpse Explosion
Decrepify (1 Point)	→	Enhanced Decrepify	Abhorrent Decrepify
Corpse Tendrils (1 Point)	→	Enhanced Corpse Tendrils	Plagued Corpse Tendrils
Bone Storm (1 Point)	→	Prime Bone Storm	Supreme Bone Storm

Passive Skills

Sever Passives
Hewed Flesh (3 Point)	Grim Harvest (1 Point)	Fueled by Death (3 Points)
Amplify Damage (3 Points)	Necrotic Carapace (1 Point)	Unliving Energy (1 Point)
Imperfectly Balanced (3 Point)	Reaper's Pursuit (1 Point)	Gloom (3 Points)
Crippling Darkness (1 Point)	Terror (3 Points)	Inspiring Leader (3 Points)
Stand Alone (3 Point)	Memento Mori (3 Points)	Shadowblight (1 Point)

Skill Progression Breakdown

This build is an endgame build and cannot work without obtaining all the skills points first. Following the Skill Progression from level 1 is not recommended.

Recommended Skill Progression
Lv.2	Lv.3	Lv.4	Lv.5
Hemorrhage	Enhanced Hemorrhage	Sever	Enhanced Sever
Lv.6	Lv.7	Lv.8	Lv.9
Paranormal Sever	Unliving Energy	Corpse Explosion	Corpse Explosion
Lv.10	Lv.11	Lv.12	Lv.13
Corpse Explosion	Corpse Explosion	Grim Harvest	Corpse Explosion
Lv.14	Lv.15	Lv.16	Lv.17
Imperfectly Balanced	Fueled by Death	Enhanced Corpse Explosion	Corpse Tendrils
Lv.18	Lv.19	Lv.20	Lv.21
Enhanced Corpse Tendrils	Plagued Corpse Tendrils	Imperfectly Balanced	Blighted Corpse Explosion
Lv.22	Lv.23	Lv.24	Lv.25
Reaper's Pursuit	Inspiring Leader	Inspiring Leader	Inspiring Leader
Lv.26	Lv.27	Lv.28	Lv.29
Crippling Darkness	Gloom	Terror	Decrepify
Lv.30	Lv.31	Lv.32	Lv.33
Enhanced Decrepify	Abhorrent Decrepify	Amplify Damage	Amplify Damage
Lv.34	Lv.35	Lv.36	Lv.37
Amplify Damage	Shadowblight	Gloom	Gloom
Lv.38	Lv.39	Lv.40	Lv.41
Terror	Terror	Imperfectly Balanced	Bone Storm
Lv.42	Lv.43	Lv.44	Lv.45
Prime Bone Storm	Fueled by Death	Fueled by Death	Sever
Lv.46	Lv.47	Lv.48	Lv.49
Sever	Sever	Sever	Necrotic Carapace
Renown Skill Points (Lv50 Onwards)
R1	R2	R3	R4
Supreme Bone Storm	Stand Alone	Stand Alone	Hewed Flesh
R5	R6	R7	R8
Hewed Flesh	Hewed Flesh	Stand Alone	Memento Mori
R9		R10
Memento Mori	Memento Mori

Book of the Dead

Raise Skeleton	→	Warrior (Reapers)	Sacrifice
	→	Mage (Cold)	Sacrifice
Golem	→	Blood	Sacrifice

Since you will not be using summons for this build, it is best that you choose Sacrificed in your Book of the Dead. You will be selecting Reaper, Cold and Blood effects to drastically boost your Max HP, Vulnerable Damage, and Shadow Damage.

Book of the Dead Guide

Best Vampiric Powers

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Summary		Skill Progression		Aspects & Affixes
Gems		Vampiric Powers		Paragon

Vampiric Power Cost	Effect Explanation
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. One of the best Vampiric Powers. Grants you a free Unstoppable for 4 seconds when you dodge which can allow you to escape easily. Even without synergistic effects from Tibault's Will, this is still a very good power to have.
Anticipation 0 1 0	Your Ultimate Skills gain 20% Cooldown Reduction. Your Ultimate Skills gain 12% increased damage for each nearby enemy affected by your Damage Over Time effects. Increases our Bone Storm uptime which translates to more durability and DPS.
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. More damage to vulnerable units. We can easily apply vulnerable using Sever or Corpse Tendrils so this is a must have power for an easy DPS boost.
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. As a shadow build, we naturally have a decent amount of lucky hit chance which also translates to us being able to use this power much easier.
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. Increases our damage further against enemies stunned by Corpse Tendrils.
4 | 3 | 3	Total Pacts Required: 12

List of Vampiric Powers and Pacts Explained

Aspects and Affixes

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Summary		Skill Progression		Aspects & Affixes
Gems		Vampiric Powers		Paragon

Best Weapons

Weapon	Aspects and Affixes
1H Scythe	Black River Corpse Explosion consumes up to 4 additional Corpses around the initial Corpse, dealing(122-130)% increased damage and with a (21-25)% larger radius per additional Corpse. ・+X% Critical Strike Damage (Inherent) ・+X% Critical Strike Damage ・+X% Core Skill Damage ・+X Intelligence ・+X% Vulnerable Damage
Shield	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	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. ・+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	Howl from Below Instead of detonating immediately, Corpse Explosion summons a Volatile Skeleton that charges at a random enemy and explodes. Corpse Explosion's damage is increased by (30-40)% . ・+ X% Lucky Hit chance ・+ X% Corpse Skill Attack Speed ・+ Lucky Hit: Up to a X% Chance to Stun ・+ Lucky Hit: Up to a X% Chance to Fear
Pants	Aspect of Disobedience You gain (0.25-0.50)% increased Armor for 4 seconds when you deal any form of damage, stacking up to (66)%. ・+X% Damage Reduction ・+X% Total Armor ・+X% Damage Reduction From Affected by Shadow Damage Over Time Enemies ・+X% Damage Reduction from Close Enemies
Boots	Greaves of the Empty Tomb Create desecrated ground beneath your Sever spectres as they travel, damaging enemies for (XX) Shadow damage over 2 seconds. ・+X Max Evade Charges (Inherent) ・+X% Movement Speed ・+X Lucky Hit Chance With Shadow Damage ・+X% Essence Cost Reduction ・+X Damage Reduction from Enemies With Shadow DoT

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 ・+X% Bone Skill Damage ・+X Ranks of the Evulsion Passive ・+X% Ultimate Damage ・+X% Essence Cost Reduction
Ring	X'Fal's Corroded Signet Lucky Hit: Your damage over time effects have up to a 50% chance to erupt, dealing 5.0-6.0 damage of the same type to Nearby enemies. ・+ X% Resistance to Fire Element (Inherent) ・+ X% Resistance to All Element (Inherent) ・+ X% All Stats ・+ X% Damage Over Time ・+ X% Lucky Hit Chance ・+ X% Cooldown Reduction
Ring	Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul You automatically activate the following equipped Skills on Corpses around you: Raise Skeleton every 2.0-1.0 seconds. Corpse Explosion every 2.0-1.0 seconds. Corpse Tendrils every 16-8 seconds. ・+ X% Resistance to Poison Element (Inherent) ・+ X% Resistance to All Element (Inherent) ・+ X% Lucky Hit Chance ・+ X% Maximum Life ・+ X% Maximum Essence ・+ X Rank to All Corpse Skills

Jump to a Section!
Summary		Skill Progression		Vampiric Powers
Aspects & Affixes		Gems		Paragon

Gem Type	Effect Explanation
Royal Emerald (Weapon)	+12.0% Critical Strike Damage to Vulnerable Enemies This is a DoT build but X'fal's explosion as well as Shadowblight can proc Critical Hits which is where our damage bulk comes from.
Royal Sapphire (Armor)	3.0% Damage Reduction while Fortified This Infinite Mist build has a supplementary Fortify build up capability and slotting in maxed out Royal Sapphires gives us a hefty 15% damage reduction once we reach Fortify status. We chose Sapphires over Rubies as these reduction is much more valuable than flat out HP to avoid getting killed by random attacks and affixes.
Elemental Gems (Jewelry)	+30% Elemental Resistance Gems Provides 30% Elemental resistance to a chosen element. We highly recommend capping out your elemental Resistance and gems that provide elemental resistances will be the key to doing so. The gems you can use for the three jewelry slots you have are flexible and highly depends on the resistances you currently have. We also recommend supplmenting this with one armor piece (Helm, Torso, or Waist piece) to cap out all of your resistances.

How to Reach Maximum Resistances

To reach Maximum Resistances, we'll have to focus on supplying gems to our other elements that are still not capped. Mainly, these will be Fire, Ice, Lightning, and Poison as Shadow will be capped out due to our Paragon Board. We'll want to equip three elemental gems to each of our jewerly slot to max those elements then adjust one of our defensive armor pieces (helm, chest, or waist) to include one elemental resistance to cap the last element.

Paragon Board Setup

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Summary		Skill Progression		Best Aspects
Gems and Hearts			Paragon

The boards we take are centered around Shadow damage boards such as Wither and Flesh-Eater. We also chose the Flesh-Eater board as our Tears of Blood board to maximize the stats we can potentially get from it at Tier 50.

Starting Board (Sacrificial)

• Sacrificial (Glyph) - Sacrificial gives us bonuses on our magic nodes which amps up our damage and armor for the starting board.
• Prime (Rare) - Damage is mandatory for this build and Prime provides it.
• Knowledge (Rare) - Same reason as Prime. This also gets more bonuses from the Sacrificial Glyph.
• Resilience (Rare) - Provides extra all resist to our character that helps in rounding up our resistance to maximum.
• Preservation (Rare) - Extra armor boosts our survivability.

Flesh-Eater (Tears of Blood)

• Flesh-Eater (Legendary) - Gives us insane value as we can easily consume multiple corpses with this build.
• Tears of Blood (Glyph) - Tears of Blood is best slotted in Flesh-Eater as its the best board to maximize its stats if you can increase its radius at tier 50.
• Erudite (Rare) - Provides additional resistances to all elements.
• Targeted (Rare) - Damage to elites is valuable to our build. We can easily clear mob groups but may lack DPS against taking down elites. Targeted makes this issue a bit more manageable.
• Stifle (Rare) - Execution damage to low health enemies which is easliy procced by our DoT and the extra critical strike damage is welcome.

Wither (Control)

• Wither (Legendary) - Wither amplifies our DoT from Corpse Explosion which contributes a hefty amount of DPS in our build.
• Control (Glyph) - Our main source of damage boost is our Grasping Veins and Control just makes that much stronger.
• Gloom (Rare) - Our main aim is getting a bit of Shadow Resistance and the Intelligence node from the rare node.
• Malediction (Rare) - Increases our Shadow Damage which is essentially what 100% of our DPS is.
• Lingering Shadows (Rare) - Shadow and Shadow DoT Damage bonus.
• Dragging Shadows (Rare) - We get more Shadow Resist from these nodes but our main goal is to get the damage reduction from enemies afflicted by Shadow DoT.
• Gnawing Darkness (Rare) - Elite damage which is once again, really helpful and we get a decent boost to our Corpse eEplosion DoT as well.

Scent of Death (Darkness)

• Scent of Death (Legendary) - Gives you extra damage when initiating fights and gives durability in the middle of it.
• Darkness (Glyph) - Extra shadow damage.
• Preservation (Rare) - Gives extra armor for survivability
• Deathmarked (Rare) -Damage to injured enemies and extra Intelligence.
• Ruin (Rare) - Provides extra all resist to our character that helps in rounding up our resistance to maximum.

Sever Playstyle

Sever Build Tips
Recommended Openers and Rotations Use Decrepify to Lower Your Tendrils and Bonestorm Cooldown Try to Actively Use Your Corpse Tendrils Use Sever Slightly Behind Enemies

Recommended Openers and Rotations

Opener Against Any Enemies

Use Decrepify to Lower Your Tendrils and Bonestorm Cooldown

Managing our Cooldown is mandatory especially in high tier dungeons as we'll want our Bone Storm to be up at every engagement due to its shielding capability from Aspect of Shielding Storm.

Try to Actively Use Your Corpse Tendrils

Since we have Black River and Ring of the Sacrilegous Soul, it will be difficult to rely on its Corpse Tendrils usage due to Black River consuming a lot of corpses at once. Try to actively use Corpse Tendrils else Corpse Explosion use all the corpses in the area.

Use Sever Slightly Behind Enemies

To maximize Sever's DPS, you'll have to cast Sever exactly on top of the enemies or slightly behind them. This is to make use of the extra DoT from Greaves of the Empty Tomb and to also maximize its circular slash.

Diablo 4 Related Guides

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Blood Lance (PVE)	Blood Surge (PVE)	Bone Spear (PVE)
Corpse Explosion Blight (PVE)	Infinimist (PVE)	Necromancer Leveling (Leveling)
Ring of Mendeln Summoner (PVE)	Sever (PVE)