In this Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred Class Guide, I’ll be helping you understand how the Necromancer Class changes for the D4 Vessel of Hatred expansion affect it and give you an easy overview of what to expect for your builds and Gameplay.
The new expansion is adding 1 new Darkness Ultimate Skill, 1 Key Passive and 4 regular passives to the Necromancer as well as a new Paragon board. On the itemization side, we’ll be getting new Uniques, and Legendary Aspects.
The New Necromancer in Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred – Patch 2.0
Before we get into the specifics of Necromancer though, let me tell you about some huge changes coming to the game itself. I’ll try to keep this as brief as possible, and we’ll have full detailed coverage of all these changes in a future video, but for now, let me tell you about the most important ones.
First of all, the max level has been reduced to 60 (from 100), and players will begin receiving Paragon Points once they reach this level. These Points can be used by any level 60 character on your account. This not only means that you can gain Paragon Points for your Necromancer while playing on your Druid, but it also means that you will have an additional 10 Skill Points to allocate into your build (from levels 51-60), for a total of 69 Skill Points in Patch 2.0, up from 59 before.
Additionally, stats like Armor, Health, and Damage have been drastically reduced in order to simplify the game and make mathing easier for players. This doesn’t result in a nerfing of your character, it’s more of a backend change that is reflected in new numbers in your UI. Don’t freak out if you see your weapon no longer deals the same damage, it will still be as effective as it was before.
Lastly, the difficulty system of Diablo IV is changing, and there are now new Torment levels along with new difficulty levels, much like there were in Diablo III. Regular difficulty levels will be unlocked by advancing your character, but Torment levels will need to be unlocked through an End Game activity called The Pit of Artificers, which is much like Rifts in Diablo III, which are randomized dungeons essentially with a Boss at the end. This shouldn’t change the way you play the game fundamentally and hopefully allows players to customize their preferred difficulty a bit better.
Table of contents
Diablo 4 Necromancer – New Skills in Vessel of Hatred
Active Skill
The new Darkness Ultimate Skill for Necromancers is called Soulrift. What this skill does is that it deals 65% Weapon Damage each second to all enemies around you in an AoE and it absorbs souls of enemies and increases your damage for each soul absorbed, as well as applies vulnerable at the same time.
This is a HUGE upgrade for Necromancers who have had to rely on a Legendary Aspect in order to transform Bone Storm or Blood Wave into a Darkness Skill since launch. This gives them a viable alternative, potentially freeing up a valuable Aspect slot, while also getting a reliable way to apply Vulnerable to enemies at the same time.
Passive Skills
Affliction is the new Key Passive for Necromancers in Vessel of Hatred and it’s another buff for Shadow Necros. What it does is: Enemies affected by Vulnerable, Crowd Control, or Shadow Damage over Time are infected with Affliction and take 15% increased damage from you and your Minions. Your Curse Skills deal 80% (Weapon Damage) Shadow damage to enemies that have Affliction. This amount increases by 30% of your damage to Crowd Control, Vulnerable, and Shadow Damage over Time combined.
This is actually a really good passive for Shadow Necros and I don’t know if it will replace Shadowblight, but does give you another option that could do really well, particularly if you are a Shadow Necro who also uses summons, which some are.
The 4 regular passives being added are as follow:
- Necrotic Fortitude: Lucky Hit: Your damage has up to a 5/10/15% chance to grant a Barrier for 5% of your Maximum Life for 6 seconds.
- Finality: You deal 5/10/15% increased damage for 8 seconds after casting an Ultimate Skill.
- Titan’s Fall: While Fortified you deal 6/12/18% increased damage to Elites
- Precision Decay: Your Lucky Hit chance is increased by 5/10/15%
Necrotic Fortitude looks really good, and should make Necros in general much tankier, even if they don’t go the Shadow Damage route. Finality should find its way into most Necro Builds, while Titan’s Fall is likely to be as well. Precision Decay boosts Lucky Hit, and that’s always good, so I think you’ll see most of these in many different Builds.
Changes to Necromancer Skills & Trees in Diablo IV Vessel of Hatred
There have been multiple changes to Necromancer skills since release, so if you are a returning player you will probably need to tweak your build to match the new effects. The latest patch also brings a new wave of changes, starting with the Blight.
Active Skills
Blight is getting tweaked a bit and Enhanced Blight no longer slows enemies, but instead makes the radius of Blight pools larger, which is kind of a bummer but not the end of the world. However, Paranormal Blight no longer has a chance to Immobilize enemies, and now Chills enemies 15% guaranteed, which is a HUGE buff for Blight that sort of matches the theme of some Necro Uniques like Bloodless Scream. Can’t wait to try this!
Blood Lance now always pierces through enemies who are currently lanced, dealing 10% reduced damage to subsequent enemies beyond the first. And Enhanced Blood Lance now Overpowers after 8 casts and spawns a Blood Orb under the first enemy hit. This means that you can Overpower Blood Lance and choose an upgrade, rather than having to choose Overpower over something else. Additionally, this means Supernatural Blood Lance now has to change, and it now increases Critical Strike Damage and Overpower Damage of Blood Lance by 15%! Love Blood Lance, and now it’s just even better!
Blood Wave has also been buffed and the Prime Blood Wave upgrade now no longer slows enemies, but provides 20% Damage Reduction for 10 seconds, which is great. Additionally, the Supreme Blood Wave upgrade now spawns 6 Blood Orbs up from 3 previously, so that’s just a 100% increase in effectiveness.
Passive Skills
Has had the cooldown for spawning a Blood Orb reduced from 4 to 2 seconds. This makes it more effective in general.
Has had its Movement Speed increased from 4/8/12% to 5/10/15%. Necros definitely need their Movement Speed, unless they are Blood Misting of course…
Changes to Necromancer Paragon Boards & Glyphs in Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred
In 2.0, players will also now only be able to equip 5 Paragon Boards at a time, including your base board, so you cannot just ninja through a board for one node and out really quickly, and instead players will need to utilize their boards wisely. However, each Class has gained a new Board, for a total of 9 Boards (up from 8), and some Rare Nodes have changed. And on top of that, players can now earn a total of 300 Paragon Points (up from 200), which should allow for a serious power increase across all Builds.
Glyphs have also seen a significant change. They now no longer improve via experience, but instead level up by completing levels of The Pit of Artificers and trying to improve them at the end, again much like Diablo III. The higher level of Pit you complete, the higher chance you have improving your Glyph. Glyphs also now go up to level 100 further expanding their power, and the higher level they are, the more difficult it becomes to improve them without going to higher and higher levels in The Pit of Artificers.
Starter Board
- Grasp (replacing Preservation)
- Previous: +200 Armor / +10 Intelligence
- Now: (Grasp) +16% Damage to Elites / +10 Intelligence
Cult Leader Board
- Custody
- Previous: 10% Damage Reduction for Your Minions / +10 Intelligence
- Now: +15% Summon Crit Damage / +10 Intelligence
Hulking Monstrosity
- Miscreation
- Previous: +14% Golems Armor / +10 Intelligence
- Now: +10% Summon Damage / +10 Intelligence
Flesh-Eater Board
- Rend (replacing Erudite)
- Previous: +3% Resistance to All Elements / +10 Intelligence
- Now: (Rend) +10% Damage / +10 Intelligence
- Erudite (replacing Culler)
- Previous: +35% Ultimate Damage / +2.5% Attack Speed
- Now: (Erudite) +3% Resistance to All Elements / 4% Maximum Life
Scent of Death
- Seethe (replacing Preservation)
- Previous: +100 Armor / +10 Intelligence
- Now: (Seethe) +10% Damage / +10 Intelligence
- Ruin
- Previous: +35% Ultimate Damage / +15% Crtitical Strike Damage
- Now: 4% Damage Reduction from Vulnerable Enemies / +20 Armor
Bone Graft Board
- Erudite (replacing Tenacity)
- Previous: 4% Maximum / +100 Armor
- Now: (Erudite) +3% Resistance to All Elements / 4% Maximum Life
- Calcified
- Previous: +15% Bone Critical Strike Damage / +10% Bone Damage
- Now: +20 Armor / 4% Damage Reduction from Vulnerable Enemies
- Splinter (replacing Erudite)
- Previous: +3% Resistance to All Elements / +10 Intelligence
- Now: (Splinter) +15% Bone Critical Strike Damage / +10 Intelligence
Blood Begets Blood Board
- Aggression (replacing Blood-drinker)
- Previous: +5% Blood Orb Healing / +10 Intelligence
- Now: (Aggression) +12.5% Damage while Healthy / +10 Intelligence
- Blood-drinker (replacing Aggression)
- Previous: +45% Overpower Damage / +10% Damage
- Now: (Blooddrinker) +5% Blood Orb Healing / 4% Maximum Life
Bloodbath Board
- Guarded Advance
- Previous: +10% Damage while Fortified / +6.5% Fortify Generation
- Now: 4% Damage Reduction while Fortified / +6.5% Fortify Generation
- Remedy
- Previous: +4% Healing Received / +10 Intelligence
- Now: +45% Overpower Damage / +10 Intelligence
Wither Board
- Gnawing Darkness (replacing Gloom)
- Previous: +10% Shadow Resistance / +10 Intelligence
- Now: (Gnawing Darkness) +10% Damage to Shadow Damage Over Time-Affected Enemies / +10 Intelligence
- Gloom (replacing Gnawing Darkness)
- Previous: +10% Damage to Shadow Damage Over Time-Affected Enemies / +16% Damage to Elites
- Now: (Gloom) +10% Shadow Resistance / +20 Armor
New Necromancer Paragon Board in Diablo IV Vessel of Hatred
The new Paragon board is called “Frailty” and its unique node makes it so Cursed enemies take 10% increased damage from you and your Minions, increased by 10% each second they are Cursed, up to 40%.
- Lingering Shadow: +10% Shadow Damage Over Time, +10% Shadow Damage
- Shadow Resilience: +10% Shadow Resistance, 4% Maximum Life
- Calculated: +15% Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies, +20 Armor
- Preservation: +10 Intelligence, +20 Armor
- Eradicate: +10% Vulnerable Damage, +10 Intelligence
- Relentless: +2.5% Attack Speed, +4% Maximum Life
To further prove that Blizzard is buffing Shadow Necromancers here you can see that Shadow Damage and Shadow Damage over time both appear on this board, though there are a number of great passives including Eradicate and Calculated! Remember that Armor values will be much lower after the update, so 20 Armor may be a lot!
Changes to Aspects
Remember that the Codex of Power was changed in Season 4, and now stores Legendary Aspects of the highest roll you’ve obtained for that particular Aspect. You can also use the Codex of Power as many times as you want on items provided you have the gold and materials. If you have not played in awhile, you should probably head over to your storage pull items you’ve been saving for a rainy day, and Salvage many of them as soon as possible at the Blacksmith in order to unlock higher rolls at the Codex of Power and free up space.
The 2 following aspects have been changed:
- Tooltip was updated to clarify that Curses are not cast, and so the curses would not benefit from Tempering. This is a great clarification so players don’t waste Tempering on Curse Size and not see any benefit.
- Additional Blood Waves now deal 100-120% of normal damage instead of dealing 50-30% reduced damage. This is a great rewording, but also a buff, so Blood Wave should deal more damage in general when using this Aspect.
Necromancer New Uniques & Aspects in Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred
3 new offensive aspects can be acquired for the Necromancer:
Reaping Lotus’ Aspect – Offensive Aspect
- Sever no longer returns and instead splits into 3 specters that expand out and back from its apex. Sever deals 80-120% of normal damage.
This is a huge buff for Sever Shadow Necromancers. Sever was always slightly worse than Blight, and with this Aspect it should be much more on par, and might actually be better!
Phasing Poltergeist’s Aspect – Offensive Aspect
- When Bone Spirit explodes, it spawns 3 spirits that seek nearby enemies and deal 20-40% of its damage. This effect can only occur once per cast.
Bone Spirit Necros get another option here, though I’m not sure they need it, but this should buff their playstyle even further.
Aspect of Fel Gluttony – Offensive Aspect
- Your Golem Active also causes your Golem to erupt, dealing (200-400% of Weapon Damage) Physical damage to surrounding enemies. Your Golem consumes Corpses to reduce its remaining Cooldown by 1 second.
This is actually a fantastic Aspect because it makes your Golem into a powerhouse damage dealer, rather than just a tank utility character. Can’t wait to see Builds revolving around this Aspect.
Unique Item
The Unmaker – Unique Helm
- Affixes
- X% Damage Reduction while you Have a Barrier
- X% Resource Generation
- +X to Soulrift
- +X to Imperfectly Balanced
- Power
- Soulrift’s duration is increased by 0.5 seconds for every 30 Essence you spend while it is active, up to 8 seconds. Soulrift deals 100-200% of its Shadow damage per second to surrounding enemies for every 30 Essence you gain while it is active.
This is a Unique specifically aimed at enhancing the new Soulrift Ultimate Skill, which looks like possibly a must have for Shadow Necros using it. And with a freed up Legendary Aspect slot do to this Skill, this might actually find a place in Shadow Builds.
What this all means for the Necromancer
The changes to Necromancer mostly buff Shadow and minion playstyles, but Blood Necros got some love too so hopefully this means they will catch up a bit to Bone Necros in terms of overall damage. I still think they might be a bit behind, particularly Blood Necros, but we’ll have to wait and see how it all pans out.
As Shadow and Blood are my two favorite Necro types to play, even when they were worse off then they are now, I can’t wait to play these builds again and see how they do. I bet there are some Runeword combos with them that will make them quite strong!
So that rounds up our introduction to the 2.0 Necromancer in Diablo IV. I’m very excited to try all these changes and try many new builds and even some old ones that were nerfed at the time. As always, you can find our builds on the blog at fextralife.com and make full use of our interactive map and wiki to keep track of where to get all items! We’ve already been working and the expansion content is shaping up nicely.
Will you be playing a Necromancer? Or are you going to be going full-on into Shadow? Let us know in the comments below.
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