Image: Blizzard Entertainment
Having trouble putting together a build for Diablo 4’s tough endgame? We’ve got you.
Diablo 4’s loot game and diverse skill trees allow players to play and replay the game many times over without ever trying the same build twice. That’s down to character classes that can make endgames feel like wildly different beasts on separate playthroughs, and character-specific loot drops that demand for unique builds. Season 1 of Diablo 4 drops this month, bringing lots of changes to a game that only launched a month ago, but we’ve got a list of all the builds you should try before they’re gone.
If you’re stuck trying to figure out which build to chase next in Diablo 4’s long endgame, here are a few fun ideas for each class:
Bouncy Barbarian AKA ‘The world is my bounce house’
Let the hordes of Sanctuary feel the wrath of an angry trampoline with this extremely fun Barbarian build. A few Diablo 4 builds tend to double down on a specific skill to an absurd degree, and the Leapquake Barbarian build is one of them. Brought to light by streamer Tangent and spotted by PCGamer, this build takes the Barbarian’s Leap ability and amps it up as much as possible, thanks to the Ring of Giant Strides, which resets Leap’s cooldown whenever you hit multiple targets.
The ring on its own allows you to reset Leap every time it hits the enemy, which is already plenty useful. Add onto that more talents and loot that buff out Leap, however, and you’ve become Sanctuary’s most dangerous kangaroo. Tangent has a pair of Legendary boots that also reset Leap’s cooldown whenever enemies are kicked or ground stomped, and a weapon that adds 600% damage for Leap whenever a Core skill hits an enemy. An Earthquake Ring also gives Tangent a whole lot of sustained damage thanks to Earthquakes triggered by every Ground Stomp. A few other pieces of gear, such as one that causes enemies to explode if they’re killed within seconds of being hit, just round out a very impressive build.
It may not be the quickest or easiest way to clear out a dungeon, but Hulk smashing your way through hordes of demons is worth the price of admission alone.
Shred Werewolf Druid AKA ‘Who’s the real Prime Evil here?’
YouTuber Moxsy shed light on one of the best endgame builds for Druids recently, and it involves putting out truly unholy amounts of damage. Moxsy takes the Shred Druid build - a fairly typical but nonetheless effective build for the Druid and uses key Aspects to cause what is referred to as ‘Double Dip’ damage - where an ability’s damage gets scaled way up due to interactions with other aspects.
First, let’s talk about Shred Druid. Moxsy’s version of this build (written here) emphasises critical hits, lightning and poison damage, the star of the show being the Shred ability that allows Druids to teleport from one enemy to the next. Hurricane makes enemies vulnerable, Blood Howl increases attack speed and Grizzly Rage stacks critical damage. The Stormclaw’s Aspect makes this build extra powerful by dealing 41% of Shred’s critical strikes as Lightning damage. The Unique Waxing Gibbous then grants Stealth whenever enemies are killed using Shred, and that in turn guarantees Critical Strikes for one to two seconds.
This means that the build guarantees Critical Strikes all the time, and Stormclaw’s Aspect interacts with Shred’s critical hits for a second hit that scales the damage up to insane amounts. Moxsy has messed around with this build to get single hit damage numbers of 10 million to a whopping two billion - just so you know what it’s capable of. Uber Lilith is shaking in her boots.
Twisting Blades Rogue AKA ‘It’s a critical hit!’
The Rogue class has a lot of tricks up its sleeves when it comes to creating a fun endgame build. This class can go in multiple directions depending on whether you want to keep enemies at long range or dash into them at high speed and clear everyone out quickly. This build goes for the latter, and is perhaps one of the best and speediest ways to rack up kills as the Rogue. The only prerequisite is that you get Twisting Blades as a Core Skill - everything else in this build relies on it.
This build turns Rogue players into fearsome speedsters of death, with Dash, Evade and Shadow Step as key abilities that allow for high mobility. The only consequence is that you’ll be something of a glass cannon - but that’s not a problem when you’re zipping around dungeons anyway. Twisting Blades have the ability to hit enemies before returning to the player and hitting others on the way back. Advanced Twisting Blades then allows you to reset your abilities more often, while Shadow Step and Enhancing Dash let you stun and slow enemies down, making them vulnerable. Shadow Imbuement by giving your attacks Infect against enemies.
The Aspect of the Umbral allows you to keep energy levels up, which lets you spam Twisting Blades with as little downtime as possible. Other Aspects like Mangler's Aspect, Ravager's Aspect and Unique loot like the Doombringer only serve to buff up your other abilities and create a combo chain that lays waste to most mobs in the game. Check out a more detailed guide on Twisting Blades Rogue here.
Army of the Exploding Dead Necromancer AKA ‘We’re Evil Dead now’
Obviously, Bone Spear Necromancer is the easiest way to get through the game with this class - but let’s try something different. Necromancers are the best class in Diablo 4 for solo players, seeing as they can quite literally convert kills into teammates. This build is centered around Corpse Explosion, a skill that turns dead demons into proximity bombs. Bone Spear just… happens to be a part of that.
Bone Spear is a great ranged ability to destroy hordes of demons with, and that’s great for this build seeing as it requires lots of dead corpses on the screen to work. When enemies group up on you, use Bone Spear to kill some of them and then Corpse Explosion to destroy whatever’s left. The cycle of violence that these two skills encourage feeds into itself, as corpses explode to create more corpses, which explode again. Obviously, don’t forget your undead minions - use the Skeletal Warriors’ Reaper upgrade to create more corpses per enemy killed, and Grim Harvest or Recompose to keep your Essence up. It’s all about maintaining a cycle of explosions until everyone on screen is gone.
Round out your build with the Supernatural Blight Passive to strengthen your minions and use the Army of the Dead ult to keep that damage going - and create more corpses in the process. The Aspect of the Umbral restores your resource when crowd controlling enemies, and Blighted Aspect lets you deal more damage with the Shadowblight key passive. With this build, all of Sanctuary is your meat grinder.
Frost Blizzard Sorcerer AKA ‘You need to chill out’
The Sorcerer is a tricky class to take into Diablo 4’s endgame. They can be extremely powerful when built up the right way, but they're also quite the glass cannon in solo play. Seeing as Blizzard hasn’t added matchmaking features to the game yet, let’s assume that you need to get through the entire campaign from start to finish alone. Building your Sorcerer up with a focus on ice-themed abilities is a great way to maximise both your damage and defensive capabilities at the same time, especially in dungeons and bossfights.
This build relies on key abilities like Frost Nova, Blizzard and Deep Freeze to apply chill, vulnerable and freeze effects on large groups of enemies at a time. For enchantments, slot in Fireball to make enemies explode for additional damage when killed, and Ice Shards so that frozen enemies are automatically targeted by Ice Shards. The combo goes like this: Blizzard > Frost Nova > Deep Freeze with a few Ice Shards thrown in for good measure, seeing as Deep Freeze ends up resetting most cooldowns by the midgame. Use Teleport to stay out of reach or Hydra to keep them in check, but definitely keep Ice Armour around to keep you safe in tough situations.
With the Sorcerer, it’s all about maximising damage while either keeping yourself safe or out of reach. This build is flexible enough to include both of the latter options, and takes down hordes of demons in the blink of an eye. As a bonus, look out for the Glacial Aspect (summons Ice Spikes while Deep Freeze is active) and Shattered Aspects (Shatter explosions deal more damage to enemies if they die while frozen).
