Diablo 4’s Season 10 has brought with it some of the most exciting shifts in endgame progression since launch. With new Chaos Perks, fresh build synergies, and unique items to chase, this season’s grind feels deeper and more rewarding than ever. If you’ve been hearing the hype about the new “Shadow Soul Rift spam” build but aren’t sure how to bridge the gap between your early endgame setup and the insane power spike that comes once it’s online, you’re in the right place.
In this guide, we’re going to break down how you can unlock Torment IV efficiently, farm the resources and uniques you need (like the much-sought-after Chaos Perk), and build a powerful Necromancer archetype to carry you into late endgame content. Specifically, we’ll focus on the Skeleton Mage Archmage build—a shadow summoner setup that blends survivability, overwhelming minion damage, and clever synergy with new D4 materials mechanics. This is the build that can carry you through Torment I–IV with ease and prepare you to dominate Bartok and his 666 Aether summoning requirement for the key unique perk you’ll need.
Let’s dive in.
The Challenge of Season 10 Endgame
Season 10 revolves around Chaos Perks—game-changing modifiers that can completely alter your skill interactions. The crown jewel for Necromancers this season is the perk that turns Ultimate Skills into Core Skills (and vice versa), enabling the powerful Soul Rift spam build everyone’s talking about. But here’s the catch: you’ll need to kill Bartok four times with 666 Aether minimum to even summon him.
That means you need to be strong enough to handle Torment IV before you can even think about farming the necessary components. And this is where the Skeleton Mage Archmage build comes in—a powerful, minion-focused bridge between the early endgame and the full Soul Rift spam setup.
The Skeleton Mage Archmage Build: Overview
The heart of this build is simple: forget warriors and golems. Instead, you’ll stack as many Shadow Skeletal Mages as possible and pump their damage to absurd levels. With the right setup, you’ll have 14 mages firing a machine-gun barrage of shadow projectiles, backed by massive damage multipliers and layered defenses.
This isn’t an entirely new build for Necromancers, but Season 10’s perks and uniques enhance it dramatically, creating one of the smoothest progression paths into Torment IV. By leaning into low-health synergies like Beast Cornered and Mard Guard, you’ll turn survivability quirks into power spikes, all while funneling your stats directly into your minions.
Core Mechanics and Perks
The build rests on two pillars:
Hand of Naz (a unique item that massively increases your Skeletal Mage count).
Service and Sacrifice Aspect (which lets your mages deal up to 200% more damage while taking 90% less).
Combined, these two effects turn your minions into a death squad while ensuring they’re practically unkillable. Without warriors or golems in play, Hand of Naz converts those slots into more mages, and with a good amulet roll you can stack an additional three, taking you from 11 to 14.
Layer on Service and Sacrifice and you’ve got a devastating army of shadow cannons that can tear through Torment IV content before you’ve even equipped the Soul Rift perk.
Key Chaos Perks to Prioritize
Beast Cornered: Boosts your damage for every 10% health you’re missing and provides straight damage reduction. Spending resources drains a percent of your health but won’t drop you below 10%, creating a powerful synergy with low-health setups.
Mard Guard: Halves your health but grants max resistance to all elements, a multiplier to armor, and massive barrier and fortification generation.
Accelerating Chaos: Reduces cooldowns—critical for maintaining Soul Rift uptime.
Defile the Dead: Allows you to consume a corpse twice, doubling the benefits of corpse-spawned buffs and synergizing with Paragon nodes that scale damage based on nearby corpses.
These perks are the backbone of your build’s defense and damage multipliers, and they’re relatively easy to acquire compared to the unique Soul Rift perk.
Skill Tree Breakdown
This build’s skill tree maximizes minion damage while weaving in essential cooldown reduction, corpse generation, and survivability tools. Here’s the core setup:
Reap (Enhanced): Grants a flat 30% attack speed buff for 4 seconds after killing enemies affected by Reap. This bonus feeds directly into your mages through the Cult Leader Paragon node.
Blight (Supernatural): Core shadow skill for grouping enemies and boosting both your and your minions’ damage against affected targets.
Three-Hued Flesh: Generates extra corpses for more buff uptime.
Necrotic Fortitude: Boosts barrier generation.
Titans Fall: Elite damage increase.
Spiked Armor: Helps you hit the armor cap.
Bone Prison (Enhanced + Dreadful): Traps enemies, makes them vulnerable, and reduces cooldowns for each enemy caught.
Decrepify (Abhorrent): Cooldown reduction plus amplified damage against cursed targets.
Death’s Embrace + Precision Decay: Increases close-range damage reduction and lucky hit chance.
Corpse Tendrils (Blighted): Pulls enemies in, heals you, and fortifies your health.
For your Ultimate, go all-in on Soul Rift (Supreme). This creates huge barriers while applying vulnerability and setting up Finality’s damage buff. Combine with Hellbent Commander for a massive minion damage boost.
Key Passive: Kalan’s Edict for even more attack speed synergy with Cult Leader.
Book of the Dead Setup
Your Skeletal Mage choice is non-negotiable: Shadow Mage Upgrade 1 for increased damage per active mage. With 14 mages, this is a massive multiplier.
Warriors: Sacrifice Reapers for increased shadow damage once you’re capped on resistances. If you’re undergeared, sacrifice Defenders for a flat 25% all-resistance boost instead.
Golem: Bone for attack speed or crit damage depending on your current breakpoints.
Paragon Board Priorities
Rather than focusing on glyphs early, rush the legendary nodes for massive power spikes:
Dead Raiser (starting board): Easy to hit 40 Intelligence here for early bonuses.
Cult Leader: Rotated to reach ASAP, stacking minion attack speed and damage.
Scent of Death: Damage reduction and crit strike damage.
Flesh Eater: Now maintainable indefinitely, providing a huge damage buff.
Frailty: 40% increased damage to cursed targets over time—perfect for your Decrepify uptime.
Later, add glyphs like Amplify, Gravekeeper, Essence, and Eliminator for crit and elite damage scaling.
Gear and Affixes
Must-Have Uniques
Hand of Naz: The cornerstone of the build, increasing your Skeletal Mage count and their damage multipliers.
Blood Moon Breaches: Applies curses automatically, boosts crit strike damage, and enhances Hellbent Commander levels.
Ring of Mandel (optional): Great for pushing late-game damage.
Aspects to Use
Service and Sacrifice: 90% damage reduction and up to 200% increased damage for your mages.
Bloodgetters: Skeletal Priest also empowers you, feeding the buff back into minions.
Cursed Aura: Applies Decrepify automatically.
Hardened Bones: Extra damage reduction.
Affix Priorities
Defensive Slots: All resistance and armor cap first, then Intelligence and max life.
Weapon: Intelligence, max life, crit strike damage, Skeletal Mage mastery.
Amulet: Intelligence, max life, Hellbent Commander levels.
Rings: Intelligence, max life, attack speed (until you hit Cult Leader’s 100% cap).
If you’re still undergeared, consider rolling Spiked Armor levels on your chest or boots to hit the armor cap quickly.
Runes, Gems, and Masterworking
Socket Intelligence gems in everything. For runes, look for:
Sequer: Casting skills generates Offering.
Evade Cooldown Rune: Reduces your active ultimate cooldown by 1 second when you evade.
Legendary Offering Rune (if you can find it): Generates Offering for each minion alive—best-in-slot for this build.
When masterworking early, prioritize reaching key breakpoints (attack speed, armor, resistances) over rolling perfect stats. Fully upgrading items to 8/8—even with imperfect rolls—often gives a bigger power spike than chasing perfect affixes with fewer upgrades.
Mercenaries
Early in the season, Rahier with Rah’s Aegis is your best bet, providing 50% all-resistance and a damage buff inside his Bastion bubble. Pair with Yvana for Bloodthirst, which adds 10% flat attack speed for you and your minions—perfect for hitting those Cult Leader breakpoints.
Putting It All Together
With this build, you’ll breeze through Torment I–III and enter Torment IV ready to farm Bartok for your Chaos Perk. The Skeleton Mage Archmage build is the perfect stepping stone: it delivers overwhelming minion DPS, rock-solid survivability, and a playstyle that feels fresh and fun in Season 10. Once you’ve acquired the Chaos Perk that turns your Ultimate into a Core Skill, you’ll be fully ready to transition into the much-hyped Soul Rift spam build.
This isn’t just a build—it’s a strategy for conquering Diablo 4’s toughest seasonal content and unlocking the full potential of your Necromancer. Whether you’re an experienced player chasing leaderboards or someone who just wants to crush endgame bosses without constantly dying, this setup will get you there.
Final Thoughts
Diablo 4 admissions is all about adaptation. Chaos Perks open up wild new build possibilities, but getting to the point where you can take advantage of them requires a solid progression plan. The Skeleton Mage Archmage build offers exactly that: a reliable, high-damage, low-maintenance setup to power through Torment levels, farm the uniques you need, and prep for the late-game Soul Rift experience.
So gather your mages, embrace the low-health synergies, and start melting enemies with your shadow army. Torment IV won’t stand a chance—and Bartok won’t either.