The Bone Spear Necromancer Guide covers everything you need to know to devastate the demons of Sanctuary with overwhelming magical might. Combining the Magic Damage of bonespear and the ability to lock down almost every monster with boneprison, you have no trouble farming any content your heart desires. Additionally, this build has access to corpseexplosion which brings large Area of Effect (AoE) Fire and Physical Damage to supplement your kit. Having three different Damage types gives us tools to deal with any monsters the game can throw at us.
What really makes this build so strong is the fact that most monsters in the game have very little Magic Damage Reduction, and only a handful are actually Immune. This means bonespear and teeth's damage are more effective on most monsters than the majority of other Skills.
Incredible Survivability ✔ Beginner Friendly Playstyle ✔ Access To Three Damage Types ✔
❌ High Average APM ❌ Low Top End Potential ❌ Key Gear Pieces are Rare
Sunder Charm Setup
Patch 2.5 introduces a new way of breaking Immunities: Sunder Charms. Any enemy that would be Immune to your damage type is reduced to 95% Resistance instead, before any other Resistance reductions apply. (e.g. Conviction, Lower Resist) The Charm also reduces YOUR Resistance against the sundered damage type! Check out our post on Sunder Charms to learn more about these new Charms. The following setup optimizes the use of Flame Rift, allowing you to farm anywhere you want.
Sunder Charm Setup
Sunder Charm Setup
Gear Changes
The Bone Spear Necro doesn't gain anything from Black Cleft since we don't have any further ways to decrease Monster's Magic Resistance. BUT we use Bonebreak since amplifydamage works at 100% efficiency against Sundered monsters, drastically increasing our corpseexplosion damage. The reduction in Physical Damage Reduction is of little concern on this Build!
Terror Zones
The new Terror Zone mechanic in combination with the Sunder Charms open up a wide range of areas for you to farm. The following list highlights the best and worst Terror Zones for this build on the Starter or Budget setup. With the Sunder Charm Setup, more Terror Zones become accessible on this build. Learn more about Terror Zones in our resource post and see how they stack up in our Terror Zone Tier List.
Put 1 Skill Point into each of the following Skills: 1. claygolem 2. decrepify 3. lifetap
Max out the following Skills in order of priority: 1. bonespear 2. boneprison 3. bonewall 4. bonespirit 5. teeth
Use the Scroll Bar to see Skill Point Progression
Use the Scroll Bar to see Skill Point Progression
Damage
bonespear* deals large amounts of Magic Damage in a straight line which pierces through all targets. It has a decent projectile width, making it an amazing Skill for use in tight passages or choke points.
teeth* deals a good amount of Magic Damage in a wide spread. While it deals less damage than bonespear it can be very useful for clearing large groups of lower Life monsters in wide areas.
CorpseExplosion* deals Physical and Fire Damage in a circle around the body of a dead monster that is targeted. The damage is based on the original Life of the monster.
boneprison* surrounds the target in walls of bone, which stop most projectiles and need to be destroyed for the target to escape. The walls overlap and fill in the entire screen if the Necromancer has high enough Faster Cast Rate.
ClayGolem* summons a tanky Golem with high Resistances, which applies a Slow Effect when striking and when struck. This can be summoned with no Cooldown even when already summoned. Note: Only 1 Golem may be summoned at a time.
AmplifyDamage* reduces the monster's Physical Resistance by 100%. This reduces monsters to negative Resistance (to a bottom cap of -100%).
bonearmor* grants the Necromancer a large Physical Damage shield. This can be recast, with no cooldown, so you can always have a full damage value after every hit.
decrepify* reduces Attack Speed, Movement Speed, Physical Damage, and Physical Damage Reduction of the target.
Note: This section provides you with the standard Stat Point allocation. Build Variants can require a different allocation!
Strength
Allocate enough Stat Points into Strength to equip all of your gear. Take into account how much Strength your gear provides when equipped.
Dexterity
Allocate enough Stat Points into Dexterity to equip all of your gear. Take into account how much Dexterity your gear provides when equipped.
Vitality
Allocate any remaining Stat Points into Vitality after meeting Strength, Dexterity and Energy requirements.
Energy
Don't allocate any Stat Points into Energy. This build gets enough Mana from gear, buffs, Charms, and Mana Potions.
Essentials
Gear Options
While every Stat in the Desirable Stats column is useful for this build, we highlighted the Priority Stats in Teal so you can easily identify the Most Important Stats on them.
Hover over any Item to see a pop-out with the full Item description.
Slot
Item Options
Desirable Stats
Weapon
White Unearthed Wand Spirit Crystal Sword Heartoftheoak Ume'slament BladeofAliBaba wizardspike
+ to Skills + xx% Faster Cast Rate Elemental Resist +xx% xx% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items + Attributes + xx% Faster Hit Recovery
+x to Skill [Necromancer Only] +x% Faster Hit Recovery +x to Attribute + Life X Resist +x% x% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Unique Charms
Gheed's Fortune Hellfiretorch Annihilus Bone Break
+x to Necromancer Skill Levels +x to all Attributes All Resistances +xx% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items Reduces all Vendor Prices x% Monster Physical Immunity is Sundered
Farming Spots
The areas below are efficient farming locations that make use of the build’s strengths. Other farming spots might not be as effective due to Immunities or bad layouts. These areas are strong without a Sunder Charm.
Anything that has a ✔ in the "Starter" column can be farmed with the Starter Variant.
Your Mercenary serves an incredibly important role to the overall success of your build. They can be a front line tank, provide a pivotal Aura, and/or deal Physical Damage to kill enemies with Immunity to your Skill set.
Act 2 Desert Mercenary
The Act 2 Desert Mercenary is hired from Greiz. He can be equipped with a Spear or a Polearm, a Body Armor and a Helmet. Every Act 2 Mercenary has access to an Aura and uses Jab as his base Attack. The Aura activates once the Mercenary has engaged in combat and remains active between traveling to and from town. The Auras available are based on what difficulty you hire the Mercenary from.
Holy Freeze Insight
Holy Freeze Insight
Insight, Holy Freeze
Use a Desert Mercenary with Holy Freeze Aura for its powerful Crowd Control. A Mercenary with Might Aura isn’t used, since we don’t rely on his damage or benefit from the Physical Damage increase. Equip him with Insight for the high Mana Regeneration provided by Meditation Aura.
Mercenary Gear Options
Your Mercenary needs maximum Resistances, Life Leech, a high damage Weapon, and high Defense and/or Damage Reduction to stay alive reliably. Cannot Be Frozen is also a great stat for maintaining Mercenary DPS and leech. Ethereal gear is preferred since it doesn't lose durability.
Bulwark Undead Crown The Face of Horror Gemmed Mask Temper Ground Cure
Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest Guillaume's Face Vampire Gaze Crown of Thieves Stealskull Kira's Guardian Rockstopper
Andariel's Visage Guillaume's Face
The Mercenary is hard to keep alive until you have the minimum gear recommended in this guide. Remember you can drag Healing Potions onto the portrait, or shift + 1/2/3/4 to directly feed them a Healing Potion from your Belt. The Mercenary also gains bonus Resistances from Thawing Potions and Antidote Potions.
If your Mercenary dies in battle, you can revive them from any of the Mercenary NPCs in each Act. This does come with an increasing cost, capping at 50,000 Gold. Keep that in mind and decide if the Mercenary is currently worth the cost.
Playstyle
General
Bonespear deals damage in a straight line, with a decent width, and pierces every target to the end of it's trajectory. You want to have monsters in tightly packed areas, preferably bottlenecked in corridors.
For areas that you cannot funnel monsters, Boneprison allows you to artificially create corridors by boxing monsters into place and allowing you to pick off big packs at your leisure.
For Magic Immunes, or monsters packs that are stuck BUT wide spread, you can employ corpseexplosion to deal wider AoE Physical and Fire Damage.
Tip: Make sure to cast amplifydamage before casting corpseexplosion to maximize your Physical Damage.
Note:boneprison can box you into some dangerous scenarios by cutting off your ability to maneuver. It can also trap you inside its inner ring with dangerous monsters. Familiarize yourself with boneprison's radius to get a good sense of when and where to use it.
Note 2: boneprison and bonewall cause monsters to aggro from much further away than they typically would. This does help to wrangle up more monsters to increase farming speed, but may draw in unwanted attention from highly dangerous monster types. The most notable example would be Gloams which cast high damage lightning and can catch players unawares.
claygolem is an amazingly sturdy speed-bump and a 1 point wonder, as Golem stats scale with increasing difficulty.
Without Teleport you cannot remove yourself from inconvenient or dangerous scenarios caused by being boxed into your boneprison.
Immunities
Decrepify drastically reduces Attack speed, Physical Damage, animation speed, and Physical DamageReduction of affected monsters. amplify damage has an even larger impact on Physical DamageReduction.
lowerresist reduces enemy Resistances, most notably, their Fire Resistance which can break their Immunity. This allows our corpseexplosionFire Damage component to kill otherwise Immune monsters.
bonebreak allow us to never face Physical Immunes while farming, and increases our effective corpseexplosion damage.
Late-Game
With teleport you can safely reposition if and when you close yourself into a boneprison. Once you are at a safe distance and monsters are locked into place, you can continue to cast boneprison as long as needed to round up targets for bonespear.
Using teleport brings your Mercenary to your position, so you can save them from dangerous situations.
Intentionally boxing in other players with boneprison is considered griefing, and should be avoided when possible.
For Uber farming lifetap is best used on a team that is dealing damage with weapon attacks. decrepify is a great option if your team is primarily using spell-based attacks.
Breakpoints
Breakpoints in Diablo 2 are the minimum values required to reduce the frames of an action. Below are the important breakpoints considered for this build. For more information on the mechanics involved, check out our in-depth Resource: Breakpoints.
Faster Cast Rate (FCR)
Faster Cast Rate speeds up your casting animation for spells. Aim for at least the 125% FCR Breakpoint. Note: FCR only controls the animation speed of the Character, and not any internal Cooldowns spells have.
Frames
15
14
13
12
11
10
9
FCR
0
9
18
30
48
75
125
Faster Hit Recovery (FHR)
Faster Hit Recovery increases survivability. Aim for at least the 86% FHR Breakpoint.
Frames
13
12
11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
FHR
0
5
10
16
26
39
56
86
152
377
Hardcore
For all Hardcore gameplay, your primary concern is increasing your Resistances, Damage Reduction, Chance to Block and Maximum Life. This can mean sacrificing overall power level for a more secure playstyle.
This build can become Hardcore viable with key changes to the Skills, Stat Point allocation, and items. Review the changes below before building this character, as they may differ significantly from the normal build.
Stat Point Changes
Allocate 171 Stat Points to Dexterity at by Level 99 for 75% Chance to Block for Stormshield.
Allocate 128 Stat Points to Dexterity at by Level 99 for 75% Chance to Block for Homunculus Hierophant Trophy.
Item Changes
Use Stormshield to maximize Physical Damage Reduction, Resistances, and Chance to Block.
Use Homunculus to maximize Resistances, Chance to Block and Faster Block Rate.
Use of Shimmering Small Charm of Vita for more Maximum Life instead of Better Chance to Find Magic Items.
Use String of Ears or Verdungo's Hearty Cord for + xx% Damage Reduction.
Build Variants
Starter
Standard
Hardcore
Setup
This set of gear represents the minimum you need to effectively play the Bone Spear Necromancer build. With +5 to all Skills in total, and the 75% Faster Cast RateBreakpoint, you can easily farm all the areas tagged with "Starter" from the Farming Spots section. You are also overcapped on Resistances at this point thanks to ancient'spledge, as well as the Charms which are representative of a larger collection of weaker Charms that you would have accrued throughout the 1-75 leveling process. You also have a Staff of Teleport on your secondary weapon slot for mobility. Note: When swapped, your Resistances and Faster Hit Recovery will be greatly diminished so stomp wisely. As you become accustomed to the build and your gear improves, feel free to explore all farming locations.
Mercenary
At this point your Mercenary is a tank and Meditation source. The talrasha'shoradriccrest and treachery provides great survivability and a decent increase to Mercenary DPS.
Skills
Put 1 Point into each of the following Skills: 1. claygolem 2. decrepify 3. lifetap
Max out the following Skills in order of priority: 1. bonespear 2. boneprison 3. bonewall 4. bonespirit 5. teeth
Attributes
Invest enough points into Strength to equip your gear and invest the remainder into Vitality.
Setup
This Variant is using the best possible piece of gear in every slot. You will reach the 125% Faster Cast Rate Breakpoint and have the largest +x to All Skills for your bonespear. This also gives you access to teleport without swapping, which opens up your swap for calltoarms to prebuff. This setup carries a good amount of Magic Find with a prioritization on clear speed. Your Resistances are all overcapped about 120%. This will counteract any conviction Aura you encounter.
When using bonebreak, harlequincrest can help to offset the Physical Damage Reduction loss, but it is not a priority.
Mercenary
Your Mercenary is a tank and Meditation source. The andariel'svisage and treachery provides a great amount of survivability as well as a boost to Mercenary DPS.
When using Flame Rift Grand Charm swap the Mercenary to Infinity Giant Thresher to maximize your damage output!
Skills
Put 1 Point into each of the following Skills: 1. claygolem 2. decrepify 3. lifetap
Max out the following Skills in order of priority: 1. bonespear 2. boneprison 3. bonewall 4. bonespirit 5. teeth
Use the Scroll Bar to see Skill Point Progression
Use the Scroll Bar to see Skill Point Progression
Attributes
Allocate enough Strength to wear all of your gear. This lets us add all of our Stat points to Vitality.
Setup
For Hardcore gameplay we prioritize having high overcapped Resistances to maintain maximum Resistances when affected by conviction Aura. We achieve 75% Block Chance, 7 frame Block Rate, 7 frame Hit Recovery, 50% Damage Reduction, while maintaining the 75% Faster Cast Rate Breakpoint and high +xx to All Skills on gear. This along with BoneArmor and BonePrison give an amazing amount of survivability and Crowd Control. We also prioritize having Shimmering Small Charm of Vita over the Shimmering Small Charm of Good Luck.
When using Flame Rift Grand Charm swap to Aldur's Advance to offset the loss of Fire Resistance and Life.
Mercenary
Your Mercenary is a tank and Meditation source. The andariel'svisage and treachery provides a great amount of survivability as well as a boost to Mercenary DPS.
When using Flame Rift Grand Charm swap the Mercenary to Infinity Giant Thresher to maximize your damage output!
Skills
Put 1 Point into each of the following Skills: 1. claygolem 2. decrepify 3. lifetap
Max out the following Skills in order of priority: 1. bonespear 2. boneprison 3. bonewall 4. bonespirit 5. teeth
Use the Scroll Bar to see Skill Point Progression
Use the Scroll Bar to see Skill Point Progression
Attributes
To reach the maximum Chance to Block of 75% we need to invest 171 Dexterity points at Level 99. This requires less Dexterity at lower Levels. Put the rest of the Stat points into Vitality.
Mechanics
Teleport
teleport allows a Player to select any square within the total range of the visible screen and teleport to that location, bringing any Mercenary or Minions with it. (Other than Traps).
You are able to teleport an even farther distance by holding down right click and opening either the Attributes or Inventory screen and dragging your mouse to the edge of the screen in that window, while casting.
Teleporting is not obstructed by walls or other impediments but can fail if your cursor is not completely passed those impediments when cast.
In single player, clicking the Escape key after teleporting can give you enough time to determine if you are in a safe location before continuing. If you teleported into a sticky situation, consider Save and Exiting and try again.
Depending on Minion type, your Minions/Mercenary becomes “stuck” to the spot you have teleported, so you often have to move from this spot to allow your Minions to spread out. Get into the habit of moving backwards after every teleport to give your Minions this opportunity.
Shoots out a number of projectiles in a cone-shaped arrangement in the direction of the cursor. The closer your cursor is to the Character, the wider the spread of the projectiles. Going far away concentrates them heavily.
Each target can only get hit by 1 projectile. A projectile hitting a target is destroyed, while the remaining projectiles pass that target without colliding with it.
Teeth causes a Next Hit Delay timer of 4 Frames (0.16 seconds) in which no Next Hit Delay Skill can damage that target.
Scaling: Projectiles: The number of projectiles increases by 1 per Skill Level. This scaling is capped at 24 and starts with 2 projectiles at Skill Level 1.
Number of projectiles = min(1 + slvl, 24)
Example slvl = 20: Number of projectiles = min(1 + 20, 24) Number of projectiles = min(21, 24) Number of projectiles = 21
Since 21 < 24, the number of projectiles at Skill Level 20 is 21.
Mana Cost: The Mana Cost increases with each Skill Level:
Mana Cost = 0.5 * slvl + 2.5
Example slvl = 20: Mana Cost = 0.5 * 20 + 2.5 Mana Cost = 12.5
Creates a circle of walls around a selected target. Gaps can occur when obstacles or units are in the way, allowing the target to escape.
The walls collapse, when either one segment is destroyed or when it expires after 24 seconds at all Skill Levels.
Walls obstruct the pathing of all monsters except for flying monster types such as Wraiths, Willowisps, etc. It also blocks most ranged attacks. Exceptions are piercing projectiles and Throwing Spear attacks, like from they monster type Slinger.
After being damaged, they regenerate 2 Life per second.
Despite being "summoned", the walls are not considered pets, therefore Summon Resist won't apply, and they take 100% damage from bosses (Andariel, Duriel, etc.), not 400%.
Auras and Buffs from party members do not apply.
Conviction and other hostile Auras do apply.
Life and Mana stolen per hit don't return anything from walls. They also can't be chilled as they are immobile.
Cannot be cursed, however, Battle Cry and Cloak of Shadows do apply when used.
Monsters that are killed by Iron Maiden don't grant experience.
Surrounding monsters are drawn to the Bone Prison from off-screen. Be aware of this!
Base Stats: The base stats of Bone Prison change depending on the difficulty they are used:
Stat
Normal
Nightmare
Hell
Level
7
40
73
Life
19
147
431
Defense
35
174
334
Damage Resist
0
0
50
Cold Resist
70
90
90
Poison Resist
70
200
200
Scaling: Life per Skill Level: Each Skill Level adds +25% Life to the base Life of Bone Wall. +% Life from Synergies is added to this value before it is applied to the base Life.
+% Life = 25 * slvl - 25
Example slvl = 20: +% Life = 25 * 20 - 25 +% Life = 475
Synergies: Synergies add +8% Life per Base Level (blvl). The blvl is the amount of Skill Points that have been put into a Skill. The bonus is added to the +% Life from Skill Levels in Bone Prison before it is applied to the base Life.
+% Life = 8 * (Bone Armor.blvl + Bone Wall.blvl)
Example, assuming all Synergies have a blvl = 5:
+% Life = 8 * (5 + 5) +% Life = 80
Total Life: As mentioned above, the +% Life from Skill Levels and Synergies are added up before they are applied to the base Life of Bone Prison. Taking the values from the examples above, we have 475 + 80 = +555% Life, which is a 6.55 multiplier. The total Life value calculated is rounded down. Using the base Life values from the table above, we get the following calculations per difficulty:
Life = Base Life * 6.55
Normal: Life = int(19 * 6.55) Life = 124
Nightmare: Life = int(147 * 6.55) Life = 962
Hell: Life = int(431 * 6.55) Life = 2823
Conclusion: Our slvl 20 Bone Prison with 10 Skill Points in Synergies will have 124 Life in Normal, 962 Life in Nightmare, and 2823 Life in Hell.
Affected monsters will have their "Physical Resistance" reduced by 100% at all Skill Levels (slvl). This effect is reduced to 1/5 on monsters that are Immune to Physical.
Amplify Damage will affect Undead type monsters before Sanctuary.
Will be overwritten by any other Curse.
Scaling: Amplify Damage will affect a circular shaped area around the cursor. The radius scales with the Skill Level (slvl).
Formula: Radius (in yards) = (4 + (2 * slvl)) / 3
Example with slvl = 12: Radius (in yards) = (4 + (12 * 12)) / 3 Radius (in yards) = 49.33
The affect duration scales with the Skill Level (slvl). Example shown use slvl = 12:
Formula: Duration = 5 + (3 * slvl)
Example with slvl = 12: Duration = 5 + (3 * 12) Duration = 41 seconds
corpseexplosion
The damage dealt is split 50%/50% between Physical and Fire Damage. This means only 50% of the damage benefits from Amplifydamage.
Monsters with an Immunity to either Physical and Fire Damage can still receive damage from the other damage type of corpseexplosion.
Each Skill Point in corpseexplosion increases the radius, with the Fire Damage having a slightly larger radius than the Physical Damage.
This damage is not blocked by Physical obstacles.
Damage is calculated using the base Monster type's average maximum Life. This means the player count and Champion/Unique/Super Unique status do not increase the damage dealt. Damage does NOT scale with Player's count making corpseexplosion less efficient in Multiplayer.
If the Character's Level (cLVL) is less than the Monster's level (mLVL) of a targeted corpse, the damage dealt is multiplied by a variable (cLVL/mLVL) which reduces the total damage dealt.
corpseexplosion is considered a Fire Skill for items which give + to Fire Skills, but not for items which give +% Fire Skill Damage or Fire Mastery.
Summary
bonespear is your bread and butter, learn how to maximize the number of monsters hit per Spear to maximize DPS potential.
bonespear works best in corridors or funnels, so use boneprison to artificially create these scenarios if the farming area does not have any.
Filling the screen with boneprison when all else fails, typically gives you the time you need to make decisions. Watch out for Ghosts and monsters whose projectiles are not stopped by Bone Prison.
Getting stuck in a boneprison can be a death sentence. Make sure to have a source of teleport before you start making brash decisions.
teeth and corpseexplosion bring more diversity to your damage kit and can help smooth out certain farming situations.
After you master the direct damage style of bonespear, and the Crowd Control of boneprison, there are no places the Bone Spear Necromancer can't go! Have fun smashing the legions of Diablo with Magic, the best damage type in the game!
