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!

List of Contents

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

List of Vampiric Powers and Pacts Explained

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Build Guides and Tier List

Sever