Blood Lance Necromancer Guide (Season 2)

Season 2

Endgame

Abottoir of Zir Ready

Overpower Everything with Ronarray's Blood Lance Build Guide! After all the balance changes, the builds that use Overpower received a significant buff so all Blood-based Necromancer builds can properly shine in the new meta. Also In Season 2 New Vampiric Powers heavily improve the main issue of all Necromancer builds - low mobility. Now the gameplay feels better than ever before and it is a perfect time to try Blood Lance Necromancer.

This build combines one of the best bossing potentials together with decent clear and can swiftly run all content - Nightmare Dungeons Tier 100, Uber Lilith, Duriel, Helltides, or anything else you will want to try. It is also really Tanky compared to many other Necromancer builds so you can make some mistakes along the way without immediately dropping dead.

The skill Blood Lance has a very low initial essence cost and can heavily benefit from additional Attack Speed. The main reason: It can overpower every 6 hits and also spawn a guaranteed Blood Orb which can be utilized for essence and additional damage with the Aspect of Gore Quills . All of that together with the Attack Speed bonuses that Seasonal Vampiric powers can provide makes Blood Lance one of the strongest skills in the game and the Blood Lance Necromancer Build significantly rose in popularity in Season 2.

You don't need to change any gear in the build setup to clear both single target and AoE so the gameplay should feel smooth doing all the content without stopping and will be versatile enough to face new challenges such as the upcoming Abattoir of Zir!

This Build guide mostly focuses on the endgame qualities of the Blood Lance Necromancer so you will want your Necromancer to be at least level 60 with access to paragon boards. To get more paragon points you can check our Altar of Lilith Map.

Main Skill

• Blood Lance - Is the main skill of the build which we will almost need to use non-stop. It pierces through targets so it works best when the enemies are lined up or pulled into one big pack with Corpse Tendrils. It will also share the damage with other Lanced enemies which should help clear speeds. Supernatural Blood Lance gives it a chance to Overpower and create a free Blood Orb every six hits which synergizes very well with the high Attack Speed the build has.

Generator

• Hemorrhage - Our basic attack and the essence generator that could be used if we run out of resource. It has a really high attack speed due to Acolyte's Hemorrhage bonus passive. It also should be used from time to time and at the start of the fight to proc Moonrise bonuses and stack the general Attack Speed even further.

Defensive

• Blood Mist - Necromancer defensive ability that can easily save you in any situation by making character invulnerable. It is also used to generate corpses before the fight starts or at bosses via Ghastly Blood Mist passive in the same fashion as in the other Necromancer builds.

Utility and CC

• Corpse Tendrils - Main CC ability for any Necromancer build, which should help us boost our damage with the Aspect of Grasping Veins. We can also use it as a source of Vulnerable via Plagued Corpse Tendrils which should work better for bosses. Alternatively, it is possible to use Blighted Corpse Tendrils instead to generate Blood Orbs with 35% chance for each enemy tendrils' damage which should be better for clear.

Curse Slot

• Option 1: Decrepify - Amazing option which gives us both Crowd Control source in the form of Slow and making enemies deal less damage - which can be a strong tool to raise the survivability of the build. Can also lower Cooldown of the Blood mist and Ultimate via Abhorrent Decrepify passive that synergized with high Attack Speed as well.

• Option 2: Iron Maiden - An alternative curse that doesn't have any essence cost so could be spammed much more freely. Even better - it can provide essence instead for any enemy cursed therefore could be used in any essence hungry Necromancer build. It can also heal you for 7% when an enemy dies under an effect which can help sustain health and boost survivability.

Ultimate

• Option 1: Bone Storm - Gives us Critical Strike chance via Supreme Bone Storm and additional Damage Reduction via Prime Bone Storm that way boosting both Defensive and Offensive capabilities of the build. It can also be parried with Aspect of Shielding Storm to provide a reliable source of Barrier.
• Option 2: Blood Wave - Alternative option which combined with Supreme Blood Wave passive and Tidal Aspect can generate a crazy number of the Blood orbs that can help both with damage and resource generation. Works great to Burst down a single target.

Alternative skill

• Corpse Explosion - Like in many other Necromancer builds Corpse Explosion could be used to proc various effects and multipliers such as Fueled By Death or Flesh Eater. It works especially great with Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul so make sure you have one on your skill panel if you prefer it.

Notable Passives

• Death's Reach - Good passive that gives additional damage against all Distant enemies, gives 3% more damage than Death's Embrace alternative.
• Tides of Blood & Coalesced Blood - Strong damage amplifiers and a primary motivator for us to stay Healthy at all times since both of them get more effective when healthy. This works in perfect synergy with other parts of the build kit.
• Transfusion - Unlike Blood Surge builds Blood Lance Necromancer can still get some value out of this passive. Even being very limited it is still worth spending 1-2 points for occasional procs which can help with essence generation and damage even if only once in 4 seconds.
• Rathma's Vigor - Interesting addition to the whole set that grants Overpowering Hit every 12 seconds. Timer could be lowered by Blood Orb healing - which synergizes well with the rest of the build kit.

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• Essential Powers

  • Metamorphosis - One of the most important Vampiric powers that can compliment almost any build mostly because it can provide a permanent unstoppable together with 25% of Movement Speed bonus from the Ghostwalker aspect. Can be swapped to some other options especially for bosses / Single Target, however your mobility will greatly suffer without Metamorphosis..
  • Ravenous - The best option out of all Vampiric powers for the builds that can utilize attack speed - provides a way to weaponize the movement speed that we are stacking on both boots and amulet.
  • Moonrise - Since we are using Hemorrhage as a strong essence generator and provider of Blood orbs Moonrise can add about 20% Attack Speed on top of our current kit and will help with making the whole attack set faster and the gameplay more smooth and fun by adding movement speed as well.

• Interchangeable Powers

  • Undying - One of the best ways to overheal since it constantly heals you with every skill usage including both attacks. Combined together with High Attack Speed it can greatly increase survivability and make *Healthy* damage bonuses stronger and much more reliable. It can also provide a barrier if combined with Temerity.
  • Resilience - An awesome way to boost overall Damage Reduction pretty significantly. Works better with the characters that have more maximum health (which is the case for many overpower builds that need to stack health for boosting damage). Mostly shines in higher tier nightmare dungeons.
  • Prey on the Weak - Interesting way to both proc Vulnerable through Vampiric Curse (Metamorphosis can apply the curse when you dash through enemies) and boost damage to the Vulnerable enemies. Works great for Bossing / Single target DPS oriented layouts.
  • Hemomancy - A great option that can be used for AOE clear in lower activities such as Helltides or lower tier nightmare dungeons - if you are doing a lot of those you can swap it in.

Offensive

• Aspect of Gore Quills - One of the best available aspects and core aspect for Blood Lance Necromancer build - it gives us an easy way to pick Blood Orbs without touching them directly. It also creates Blood Lances which can help with damage. Keep in mind that every Blood Lance conjured from any Blood Orb is considered as a picked Blood Orb for various effects.
• Aspect of Rathma's Chosen - Strongest aspect for any build that can utilize both overpower and attack speed. Gives a huge attack speed boost whenever any of the blood skills overpowers, since we are using Rathma's Vigor we should receive that bonus automatically at the start of each fight and then every six casts of Blood Lance .
• Aspect of Potent Blood - Main resource generator that gives 10-20 essence per each Blood Orb picked while you are Healthy, synergizes well with Aspect of Gore Quills and should help us to keep essence levels while constantly attacking.
• Aspect of Grasping Veins - A really strong offensive aspect for all Necromancers which can give 20% critical strike chance for 6 seconds and add some Critical Strike Damage on top of it.
• Accelerating Aspect - Reliable and straightforward attack speed boost which procs after every Core skill critical and helps with rising AS even higher.

Defensive

• Aspect of Disobedience - Still the best way to ramp up armor in tough situations for any build out there, therefore it is the most important defensive aspect due to the huge bonus it can provide.
• Aspect of Might - Since we need to use Hemorrhage to stack Moonrise at all times, this aspect is a constant source of 20% Damage Reduction so should be picked almost always.
• Ghostwalker Aspect - The main way to fix the mobility problem for any Necromancer build, 25% movement speed feels great and we have a way to stay Unstoppable most of the time due to Metamorphosis Vampire Power.

Alternative Aspects

• Most alternate options for offensive aspects should replace Accelerating Aspect and most of the defensive ones should replace Aspect of Might .

• Edgemaster's Aspect - Can be used in some situations to boost Single Target damage if your essence management is very good.
• Tidal Aspect - Should be used together with the Blood wave to generate a free set of Blood orbs here and there.
• Aspect of Inner Calm - Good damage multiplier that can help with bossing if you stay at one place.
• Osseous Gale Aspect - An awesome way to trigger Corpse consuming bonuses without trying too hard. Should be used with Bone Storm Ultimate.
• Sacrificial Aspect - simple way to get a very reliable but not significant damage and health bonus. Can also help with resistances early on if you get them from sacrifice instead of critical strike chance.
• Aspect of Untimely Death - Less Reliable bonus that based on the health that we can overheal with some of our passives and Vampiric powers such as Undying.
• Aspect of Shielding Storm - An amazing source of Barrier that can help with survivability if you needed.

• Banished Lord's Talisman - The most important unique in the build. It provides a lot of good stats such as +2 to All Core Skills bonus together with critical strike Chance and resource generation. The bonus itself is very strong too, since it gives us a multiplicative damage increase of 120% for every Critical Strike hit that overpowers together with additional Overpower hits every 300 essence spent. Therefore, the talisman gives us the highest multiplicative bonus that we can receive from a single item, together with an amazing stat set it makes Banished Lord's Talisman an absolute BIS for all overpower builds. The only possible downside is the absence of Movement speed in the stats.
• Blood Moon Breeches - Another multiplicative damage bonus that can increase damage of all Overpower hits against the cursed enemy. You don't need any minions to activate the bonus so just keep your curse UP and enjoy the damage increase. Both Maximum Life bonus and Ranks to Amplify Damage passive could increase our damage even further.
• Harlequin Crest (Shako) - Best In Slot helmet for all Blood related Necromancer builds. Can give us the same Damage Reduction as an aspect of Might without additional conditions. Can also provide a significant Maximum Life increase together with Resource Generation and amazing +4 Ranks to all Skills bonuses. If you have the Harlequin Crest you definitely should use it in the Blood Lance build.

• The Grandfather - Probably the strongest offensive option for Necromancer builds, should be used if your essence management is working quite well already and you have Chance to Restore % Primary Resource on your gloves. Drop Accelerating Aspect and Aspect of Grasping Veins to fit it in and enjoy BIG Numbers from overpowered Crits. However due to the nature of the Blood Lance build and its heavy reliance on Attack Speed to overpower Grandfather can be much less effective compared to wand and focus/shield approach.
• Doombringer - A really good alternative to the classical one handed wand. Could be used for both damage and survivability due to significant Maximum Life Bonus (about 41% for upgraded version). Lucky hit proc which can heal the character and can help with overheal as well.
• Lidless Wall - One of the most popular options for any Necromancer build. Paired with Aspect of Shielding Storm it can give a significant boost to survivability. Also has a pretty good set of stats and could be used if you don't have a good 925 Item Power Focus with at least 1-2 desired stats.
• Temerity - Another way to improve survivability by using the Barrier it provides. Works perfectly with Undying since it can provide an overheal every time when you use a skill. Blood moon Breeches are still overperforming due to strong multiplicative damage increase yet if you really need the barrier - you can use Temerity instead.
• Flickerstep - Amazing boots that can heavily help with the cooldown for Bone Storm or Blood Wave and has a pretty good stat set as well that can work for any build including Blood Lance Necromancer. The main downside here is losing the 25% additional Movement speed after every Metamorphosis which could be critical in many cases.
• Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul - An interesting option which will require Corpse Explosion skill on the panel. Otherwise, can provide consistent CC together with strong damage boost through Corpse Explosion paired with Flesh Eater. Main downside is the requirement of both - corpses and additional skills on panels which can be less convenient for some builds and Blood Lance Necromancer in particular.

Most of the Gem picks are pretty common through all Necromancer builds so it will be pretty easy to acquire early in the game.

For the armor slots the best pick will be Royal Ruby everywhere to stack our health higher for both additional damage through Overpower, and survivability. We can have 1 in the helmet, 2 in the Chest armor and 2 in the pants for a total of 5 gems. Altogether, it can give about 20% of additional Maximum Life which is a very strong bonus - make sure you always have all 5 gems on.

For the weapons we are also using Royal Ruby to stack our overpower damage even higher since the Blood lance Necro is heavily based on Overpower damage anyway.

In the jewelry slots, Royal Diamond x3 is the best option since Blood Lance Necromancer build can cap resistances just with those three Gems and the paragon board bonuses. You can also try to use different stand alone gems to boost resistances that you don't have close enough to the cap. With such an approach, the most common pick will be x1 Royal Topaz , x1 Royal Ruby , x1 Royal Sapphire .

In Season 2, the resistance system was revamped heavily. Now to achieve maximum survivability you will need to cap most of them - ideally all to the maximum of 70%. This can be done through a variety of options. For the Necromancer there is a strong variant of Sacrificing your Skeletons to get resistances instead of Critical Strike Chance. However in the proper endgame setup of the Blood Lance Necromancer build you can get enough to max all of them with just the paragon and three Royal Diamond's in the Jewelry. Always make sure that you have at least 68%+ to stay alive in higher Nightmare Dungeons without any issues and have better gameplay experience overall.

For the book of the Dead we have a variety of strong options that can compliment our playstyle even further. At the start of the game and until we have 90+ paragon board it is a good option to take Defenders Sacrifice to get 20% resistances bonus that will be amplified further with Memento Mori Passive rising the bonus to 32% of all resistances which is amazing. Later on when you will have an updated gear and a full paragon board it is a great idea to swap the bonus to Skirmishes Sacrifice to receive a 5% critical strike chance bonus that will help with overall DPS and will be further amplified with Memento Mori bonus as well.

For second sacrifice the best option should be Bone to receive a 25% increase in Overpower damage. However Shadow could be picked as well in some cases if you require a longer set of constant attacks.

The third and the last sacrifice has a few options as well. The most prominent one should be Blood for 10% Maximum Life Increase since it can boost both - Overpower Damage and Survivability at the same time. However in some cases Bone could be an option to receive 10% more Attack Speed which can help with speeding up the start of the whole rotation set and would work best with such options as Grandfather when any additional attack speed is heavily valued.

In regards to the weapon choices we generally have many possible combinations that could be chosen based on the Gear that you have in your disposal. The recommended one will be a combination of Wand and Focus to receive Lucky hit Chance from the wand itself and a set of essence related stats from the Focus itself.

The second option would be changing Focus in that set to a shield for better Survivability especially for T100 Dungeons and higher. Lidless Wall works perfectly for such purposes and should be considered as the best shield for that purpose. This setup will lose some damage and utility but will receive more armor and could be combined with Aspect of Shielding Storm to increase Survivability tremendously.

There is also a possibility to use Two Handed Sword and in most cases this option should be taken if you have access to The Grandfather or want to emphasize some Particular aspect further. This variant will showcase highest single hit damage possible but could struggle with both Ramp Up speed and essence generation. You also will need to get rid of both Accelerating Aspect and Aspect of Grasping Veins to properly fit it in.

The last option would be Sword + Focus to get some additional Critical Strike damage from Sword upper bonus. This option is only recommended if you don't have a good Wand and have access only to Swords, it is also an option if you want to use Doombringer which can work pretty well in any Overpower based build due to the huge innate health bonus. In this case - Accelerating Aspect should be dropped to fit the Sword in.

With the current paragon setup we are mostly focusing on getting all the sources of Overpower Damage and Damage While Healthy that are available. Additional bonuses could also be a great source for all the stats we need considering that we don't have minions up and all our damage is physical. We are also trying to get resistances where possible mostly to avoid rolling any of them on the items too.

Glyph leveling priorities

1. Dominate - The main source of overpower damage which scales pretty well in Season 2. Should be leveled as fast as possible.
2. Blood-drinker - Can provide both defensive and offensive bonuses through the interactions with Magic nodes. Additional Bonus is a great source of fortify as well - so get it to 15 right after Dominate.
3. Corporeal - main way to improve resistances in the Flesh- eater board. Additional bonus is great for overall damage output.
4. Sacrificial - Unusual way to boost overpower damage together with a sweet additional bonus.
5. Essence - A really significant additive bonus with the downside in the form of critical strike only restriction. Can be leveled to 15 quickly and then left out until everything else is complete.
6. Tears of Blood - Strongest Glyph available that should replace Blood-drinker and be placed in Flesh-eater board. Try to get all the core stats (Inteligence, Strength, Dexterity, Willpower) around it for maximum damage bonus.

Alternative glyphs

1. Imbiber - Great source of a stable additive damage which can boost AP pretty high. Potential replacement of starting / finishing boards in case you just want more pure damage.
2. Territorial - Interesting glyph which can Provide both Damage Reduction and Damage itself, the main downside would be the necessity to stay Close to enemies at all times which can be counterintuitive.
3. Exploit - Interesting combination when both main bonus and additional bonus can provide a damage increase. The main downside is the unreliable way of proccing Vulnerable in all Blood Necromancer builds which requires Tendrils hit or the Vampiric Curse to function.

Tears of Blood

To fit in Tears of Blood from Abattoir of Zir you will need to make a few changes. First move Corporeal to the Start board and drop Blood-drinker completely. Tears of Blood on the other hand will take the place of the Corporeal in the Flesh-Eater board. This is probably the best place to use Tears of Blood to get the maximum possible damage for the Blood Lance Necromancer build. Since you are receiving resistances from it you will also be able to take Royal Skull for your jewelry instead when you level it high enough. To take more stats Around Tears of Blood for maximum Damage you will need to drop a Powerhouse node in the Bloodbath board and all nodes leading to it together with Deathbringer at Scent of Death Board and other additive Magic nodes across the board.

The Blood Lance Necromancer Build follows a pretty simple gameplay pattern which is easy to understand. Most of the time you have two options to engage, the safe one and the bold one. Both can showcase different qualities of the build itself and can be chosen based on the type of content you are currently running. For the safe option you need to dash forward with Metamorphosis then cast Blood Mist to spawn a corpse while staying invincible. Then at the moment Blood Mist Ends you need to cast Corpse Tendrils on the corpse that you spawned and dash out with Metamorphosis again. Right after that when the Tendrils proc and group/stun enemies you use your Curse of choice at the group and cast Hemorrhage 2-4 times for Moonrise. After that just spam Blood Lance until the pack is down. Repeat until all enemies are overpowered!

The bold option would be to just engage with Hemorrhage casts (about 2-4 to stack Moonrise), use the Curse, spam Blood Lance until you get a first kill, then use Corpse Tendrils on the bodies to finish enemies off. If you feel more pressured or would like to deal more damage in the meantime - cast Bone Storm to get additional Critical Strike Chance and Damage Reduction / or Blood Wave to Push Enemies back and get some healing from the set of Blood Orbs.

For the Speedrun experience you can just dash through enemies with Metamorphosis and start the Safe option when you are out of health or feel like it.

For single target, the build follows the same rotation - cast Blood Mist to spawn a corpse, use your Curse together with Corpse Tendrils then 2-4 Hemorrhage and Blood Lance Spam until it is done.

The Blood Lance Necromancer build can utilize all the new trump cards that were highlighted in Season 2 such as Overpower, Vampiric powers that amplify Attack Speed, easier access to Vulnerable and new Unique Items. That makes the build a Jack of All trades which can pretty much run any content without changing significant parts of the gear/paragon. You can always try to explore alternative Aspects and Items to bend the gameplay playstyle to your needs for the best experience! And Overpower them all!