The NEW Necromancer in Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred - Patch 2.0
Oct. 5, 2024The NEW Necromancer in Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred – Patch 2.0
In thisDiablo 4Vessel of Hatred Class Guide, I’ll be helping you understand how theNecromancer Classchanges for theD4 Vessel of Hatred expansionaffect it and give you an easy overview of what to expect for your builds and Gameplay.
The new expansion is adding 1 newDarkness Ultimate Skill, 1 Key Passive and 4 regular passives to the Necromancer as well as a newParagon board. On the itemization side, we’ll be getting new Uniques, and Legendary Aspects.
Before we get into the specifics ofNecromancerthough, 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 to60(from100), and players will begin receivingParagon Pointsonce they reach this level. These Points can be used by any level 60 character on your account. This not only means that you can gainParagon Pointsfor yourNecromancerwhile playing on yourDruid, but it also means that you will have an additional10 Skill Pointsto allocate into your build (from levels51-60), for a total of69 Skill PointsinPatch 2.0, up from59before.
Additionally, stats likeArmor,Health, andDamagehave 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 yourUI. 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 ofDiablo IVis changing, and there are now newTorment levelsalong with newdifficulty levels, much like there were inDiablo III. Regulardifficulty levelswill be unlocked by advancing your character, butTorment levelswill need to be unlocked through anEnd Gameactivity calledThe Pit of Artificers, which is much likeRiftsinDiablo III, which are randomized dungeons essentially with aBossat 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.
The newDarkness Ultimate Skillfor Necromancers is calledSoulrift. 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 aLegendary Aspectin order to transformBone StormorBlood Waveinto aDarknessSkill since launch. This gives them a viable alternative, potentially freeing up a valuable Aspect slot, while also getting a reliable way to applyVulnerableto enemies at the same time.
Afflictionis the new Key Passive forNecromancersinVessel of Hatredand it’s another buff forShadow Necros. What it does is: Enemies affected byVulnerable,Crowd Control, orShadow Damage over Timeare infected withAfflictionand take 15% increased damage from you and yourMinions. YourCurse Skillsdeal 80% (Weapon Damage) Shadow damage to enemies that have Affliction. This amount increases by 30% of your damage toCrowd Control,Vulnerable, andShadow Damage over Timecombined.
This is actually a really good passive forShadow Necrosand I don’t know if it will replaceShadowblight, 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 Fortitudelooks really good, and should make Necros in general much tankier, even if they don’t go theShadow Damageroute. Finality should find its way into most Necro Builds, whileTitan’s Fallis likely to be as well.Precision DecayboostsLucky Hit, and that’s always good, so I think you’ll see most of these in many different Builds.
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.
Blight
Blightis getting tweaked a bit andEnhanced Blightno longer slows enemies, but instead makes the radius ofBlightpools larger, which is kind of a bummer but not the end of the world. However,Paranormal Blightno longer has a chance toImmobilizeenemies, and nowChillsenemies 15% guaranteed, which is a HUGE buff forBlightthat sort of matches the theme of someNecro Uniqueslike Bloodless Scream. Can’t wait to try this!
Blood Lance
Blood Lancenow always pierces through enemies who are currently lanced, dealing 10% reduced damage to subsequent enemies beyond the first. AndEnhanced Blood Lancenow Overpowers after 8 casts and spawns aBlood Orbunder the first enemy hit. This means that you can OverpowerBlood Lanceand choose an upgrade, rather than having to choose Overpower over something else. Additionally, this meansSupernatural Blood Lancenow has to change, and it now increasesCritical Strike DamageandOverpower DamageofBlood Lanceby 15%! Love Blood Lance, and now it’s just even better!
Blood Wave
Blood Wavehas also been buffed and thePrime Blood Waveupgrade now no longer slows enemies, but provides20% Damage Reductionfor 10 seconds, which is great. Additionally, theSupreme Blood Waveupgrade now spawns6 Blood Orbsup from 3 previously, so that’s just a 100% increase in effectiveness.
Transfusion
Has had the cooldown for spawning aBlood Orbreduced from 4 to 2 seconds. This makes it more effective in general.
Death’s Approach
Has had itsMovement Speedincreased from 4/8/12% to 5/10/15%. Necros definitely need their Movement Speed, unless they areBlood Mistingof course…
In 2.0, players will also now only be able to equip 5Paragon Boardsat 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.
Glyphshave also seen a significant change. They now no longer improve via experience, but instead level up by completing levels ofThe Pit of Artificersand trying to improve them at the end, again much likeDiablo III. The higher level of Pit you complete, the higher chance you have improving yourGlyph.Glyphsalso 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
Cult Leader Board
Hulking Monstrosity
Flesh-Eater Board
Scent of Death
Bone Graft Board
Blood Begets Blood Board
Bloodbath Board
Wither Board
The newParagon boardis called “Frailty” and itsunique nodemakes it soCursedenemies take 10% increased damage from you and your Minions, increased by 10% each second they areCursed, up to 40%.
To further prove thatBlizzardis buffingShadow Necromancershere you can see thatShadow DamageandShadow Damage over timeboth 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!
Remember that theCodex of Powerwas changed in Season 4, and now storesLegendary Aspectsof the highest roll you’ve obtained for that particular Aspect. You can also use theCodex of Poweras 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 theBlacksmithin order to unlock higher rolls at theCodex of Powerand free up space.
The 2 following aspects have been changed:
Aspect of The Cursed Aura
Tidal Aspect
3 new offensive aspects can be acquired for the Necromancer:
Reaping Lotus’ Aspect– Offensive Aspect
This is a huge buff for Sever Shadow Necromancers. Sever was always slightly worse thanBlight, and with this Aspect it should be much more on par, and might actually be better!
Phasing Poltergeist’s Aspect– Offensive Aspect
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
This is actually a fantastic Aspect because it makes yourGoleminto a powerhouse damage dealer, rather than just a tank utility character. Can’t wait to see Builds revolving around thisAspect.
Unique Item
The Unmaker– Unique Helm
This is a Unique specifically aimed at enhancing the newSoulriftUltimate Skill, which looks like possibly a must have forShadow Necrosusing it. And with a freed up Legendary Aspect slot do to this Skill, this might actually find a place in Shadow Builds.
The changes toNecromancermostly 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.
Castielle
Senior Editor at Fextralife. I enjoy gaming, playing and watching sports, cooking yummy food, watching a good movie and hanging out with Fex.
