Diablo 4: How do Skeletal Priests work?

Any Diablo 4 Necromancer build that uses minions has and should take advantage of Skeletal Priests. They’re incredibly useful for keeping your undead allies alive and kicking. While there are builds that recommend you sacrifice your Skeletons to gain buffs (Blood Wave being one of these), we’re looking solely at minion builds and builds that allow us to keep them, even if they aren’t a major part of said ensemble.

Thankfully, the days of speccing into Skeletal Priests are over in Diablo 4. There used to be a talent called Bonded in Essence in the Ultimate section, which allowed Skeletal Priests to heal, but now that’s simply a part of how the temporary unit functions in general.

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What Skeletal Priests are in Diablo 4 and how they work

When you have your maximum amount of Skeletons in Diablo 4 and press Summon Skeleton, you receive a Skeletal Priest. That’s all there is to “getting” one, but there does need to be a Corpse on the ground first. This unit will only stay around for a limited time, but it provides a pair of important features.

Simply summoning an extra skeleton when you're at your max will net you a Priest (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

As long as the Skeletal Priest is out in D4, it will heal your Skeletons and buff their damage. This can be influenced and enhanced. As you can see, my Skeletal Priest sticks around for 19 seconds and heals for a significant amount. You can tell when a Skeletal Priest shows up because a skeleton appears with its arms outstretched and casts a bluish glow across your undead army.

You don’t have to spec into this anymore in the talent tree, but there are a pair of Legendary Aspects for Necromancers that improve what the Skeletal Priests do, and your build may or may not call for them. While you’re leveling, you might want to use them either way.

• Aphotic Aspect: Skeletal Priests empower your Skeletal Warriors’ attacks to deal Shadow Damage and have an X% chance to Stun.
• Blood Getter’s Aspect: Your Skeletal Priests now empower you at X% effectiveness.

You can never have too much damage (Image via Blizzard Entertainment)

Aphotic Aspect, for example, is useless in a Hand of Naz Mendeln build, because we don’t use Skeleton Warriors there. Blood Getter’s isn’t the worst idea, but you may not have room for it in your loadout, all the same.

It’s worth summoning Skeletal Priests often in D4, even if your Skeletons are at full life; they still get a damage buff, and this can enhance how hard your skeletons hit. It can, and will, make many fights much easier, so don’t forget to occasionally press the “Raise Skeleton” button when you have a spare corpse lying around in battle.

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Check out our other Diablo 4 guides and features

• Diablo 4 Season 9: All changes since the 2.3.0 PTR
• Diablo 4 Season 9: Escalating Nightmares mechanic, explained
• Diablo 4 Season 9 Endgame tier list: Best builds for Pit push and bossing
• Diablo 4 Season 9: All Horadric Jewels (known so far)