Blood Surge Necromancer Leveling Guide for Diablo IV Season 12 - Slaughter

The Season 12 theme brings Killstreaks and Bloodied Items to Diablo 4. Slay enemies in succession to begin a streak that grants increasingly greater benefits based on which affixes you roll on your gear in addition to seasonal reputation and experience. Tiers are divided as follows: Killstreak (0-99) - Carnage (100-249) - Devastation (250-499) - Bloodbath (500-999) - Massacre (1000-9000) - Fresh Meat! (9001+). For most instanced content types, you can typically expect to reach up to the 4th tier (Bloodbath). Additionally, you can find Bloodied Sigils for Nightmare Dungeons, Infernal Hordes and Lair Bosses that offer greater challenges and rewards (introducing "pseudo Torment 5").

Bloodied affixes are bonus affixes that can randomly roll on gear and come in three categories: Rampage (armor), Feast (weapons), Hunger (jewelry). The first two offer minor combat effects while the latter boosts specific loot drops, which doesn't impact your build. Recommended affixes for this build are:

• Rampage: Increased Main Stat, Gluttony(Max life), Heartbeat (Lucky Hit Chance), Keen(Attack Speed)
• Feast: Tenderize (Berserking)
• Hunger: Increased Chance for Runes, Bloodied Items, Increased Experience

To get started as an Blood Surge Necromancer, always use your highest DPS Weapon available for more damage. Otherwise, follow the priority list below. While you don't have all of the desired temper manuals available, simply try to get anything useful on your gear until you acquire the right ones. For example, % Damage and Vulnerable Damage, etc. all work as long as you activate their conditions. Likewise, you can temper multiple defensive options such as Resistances, Life and Armor to fill gaps in your survivability. Tempering low level gear is relatively cheap and the results can be very impactful.

Tip: For the early game, Elemental Surge Weapon Tempers are very powerful due to their high base damage, especially if you are twinking. If you find these, you may want to keep imprinting them on your weapons for an easy time.

The Codex of Power is a collection of Legendary Aspects you can imprint onto Rare or Legendary items at the Occultist. They unlock after completing specific Dungeons located around Sanctuary or salvaging items with these powers. Check out our Map Tool to locate these Dungeons.

For leveling, there are a few powers that can significantly help us if we have the funds to imprint them. In addition, keep an eye out for powerful Unique items you may find for this or other builds.

Must-have Dungeon unlocks

1. Blood-bathed in Hoarfrost Demise (Fractured Peaks)
2. Voracious Rage in Hallowed Ossuary (Fractured Peaks)

Nice-to-have Dungeon unlocks

1. Grasping Veins in Corrupted Grotto (Kehjistan)
2. Disobedience in Halls of the Damned (Kehjistan)

Other useful Aspects (drop/gamble)

1. Rathma’s Chosen
2. Great Feast
3. Cadaverous
4. Hardened Bones
5. Cursed Aura
6. Metamorphosis

What to Gamble

Great Uniques for this build

1. Cruor's Embrace
2. Blood Moon Breeches
3. Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul

As you level up, you may get lucky and find some great random drops. Some of these can massively amplify your power and speed up the leveling by switching to another build. Keep in mind that there are many more Aspects and Uniques that can be useful to multiple builds; this just lists some of the most impactful ones. While we usually recommend starting with Endgame Builds at level 60, you often can make them work earlier with these drops:

Build-defining Aspects

• Decay + Blighted: Shadowblight Necromancer
• Tidal + Fastblood: Blood Wave Necromancer
• Shattered Spirit's: Bone Spirit Necromancer

Build-defining Uniques

1. Ring of Mendeln: Minion Necromancer
2. Mutilator Plate: Blood Lance Necromancer
3. Deathless Visage: Bone Spear Necromancer
4. Kessime's Legacy: Blood Wave Necromancer

You can have up to two Runewords in your setup, each consisting of one Ritual and one Invocation Rune. Socket them in Two-Handed Weapons if your build calls for them, otherwise place them into your Armor pieces to replace normal gems. The Blood Surge Necromancer focuses on the following combos:

Best in Slot

• Cir + Lum: Drastically increases your Resource management so you can keep spamming Blood Surge.
• Yax + Ceh: Summons a Spirit Wolf that freezes enemies and more importantly, applies Vulnerable and they last for 8 Seconds. Make sure to drink a Potion whenever you can.

Alternative choices

If you have access to higher level runes, you can also explore the following options:

• Gar - adds a lot of Critical Strike Chance and should be swapped with Lum if you dont need the Resource.
• Zec - Good option early game when your Soulrift is not yet permanent.
• Igni - Another good way of generating offering
• Tam - We spam our core skill all the time
• Thul - The Freeze adds more defense and an extra damage buff

Mercenaries are unlocked during the Vessel of Hatred campaign and assist you in battle. There are 4 separate Mercenaries to choose from, each with their own skill trees and abilities. You can have one hired (permanent) mercenary during solo play and a reinforcement who assists you from time to time in certain situations.

Her Massacre is the strongest leveling ability out of all available Mercenaries and on top of that she even provides 25% Attack Speed.

You choose Bastion for more defense whenever you engage Elites or Bosses.

In Diablo 4, you can level by completing the Campaign, collecting Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers, completing Helltide activities, grinding Dungeons, clearing Strongholds, fighting in the Undercity of Kurast or interacting with the Seasonal Mechanics. While there are many ways to level up in Diablo 4, not all of them are equal.

As you approach level 60 with the Blood Surge Necromanccer, you unlock higher item power gear that represents a massive jump in character power. This is a good time to refresh your setup with new tempers and imprints.

After reaching level 60 and finishing the second Capstone Dungeon, Paragon Levels and The Pit unlock. Complete Tier 10 to enter Torment 1, where Diablo IV's Endgame begins.

At this point, your setup should look roughly like this before you dive into min/maxing with Aspects, Uniques, Mythics and more. With better gear, more levels and Glyphs, you can push further and eventually unlock higher difficulties for increased rewards.

This step marks the end of the leveling guide. Below is the Paragon setup to get you started in Torment difficulty but ideally you should now transition towards the endgame version of this build or choose another of your liking.