Best Diablo 4 builds from Blizzard devs and our experts

What are the best Diablo 4 builds? From the haunted forests of Scosglen to the whispering winter winds of the Fractured Peaks, choosing the best Diablo 4 builds is a must for avid fans of Blizzard’s RPG. While I could bore you with horrible, mid-tier troll builds, I’ve got something better. From PCGamesN’s exclusive interviews with some of Sanctuary’s finest, I have a list of the builds that the developers are obsessed with so that you can try them, too.

Of the five current Diablo 4 classes, the developers lean very much towards the enchanting Sorcerer and their myriad of different elemental magics. I, however, will be locking in Diablo 4‘s Rogue, so have included my personal favorite Diablo build for those who prefer to spend their time scheming away in the shadows. Additionally, we’ve also got all of the links out to our dedicated build guides down below, which we created after many hours of hands-on time. You can read more about that in our Diablo 4 review for a full rundown.

The best Diablo 4 builds

Here are the best D4 builds for the Necromancer, Barbarian, Druid, Rogue, and Sorcerer:

• Shadow Army – explosive corpses, bone spears, quick AoE
• Whirlwind Barbarian – spin-to-win, survivability, resource generation
  • This Diablo 4 Barbarian build uses the Whirlwind along with various buffing Cry abilities to chop enemies to pieces.
• Landslide Druid – crowd-control, Werebear stun, elemental damage
  • This Diablo 4 Druid build tramples through enemies before using Landslide to do damage over time and kept in place with hurricanes.
• Penetrating Shot Rogue – debuffs, building combos, massive single-target damage
  • This Diablo 4 Rogue build focuses on freezing and slowing enemies, letting you take them out from a distance.
• Lightning Sorcerer – shock skills, Arc Lash, high DPS

Joe Shely’s best Diablo 4 build (game director)

As the man who has spearheaded Diablo 4’s development, it would be madness to create a list that doesn’t include his favorite D4 build. When talking about all things Witch Doctor Angry Chicken at an exclusive interview in London, he told PCGamesN, “one of the builds that I like is the Frost Sorcerer.”

“In previous Diablo games, there’s been a mechanic where if you’ve frozen a monster, it’ll shatter, and lots of monsters have behaviors that will happen upon death – they’ll explode, or they can be resurrected. It was sort of present in previous Diablo games as a thematic element because the way that monsters die needs to be glorious in any Diablo game.

“With Diablo 4, the Frost build for the Sorcerer is particularly fun because we really embraced [the frozen] mechanic,” he continues. “You can use cold damage mechanically to prevent all kinds of nefarious death behaviors from monsters – including explosions and the likes.”

Adam Z. Jackson’s best Diablo 4 build (lead class designer)

Of course, this was always going to be a hard question for Fletcher, who described it as “trying to choose [his] favorite baby” because he “loves them all.” So, he chose to go for his most recently used build.

“The Druids have this fantasy of being a storm caster, and they use storm magic, which is like wind or lightning. One of their skills is called Tornado, and the way that it works is that you cast a tornado, and it starts in front of you, and it’s kind of slow; it just swirls around and meanders around the battlefield for a certain amount of time, and then it goes away.” Please note Fletcher’s accompanying hand actions are absolutely priceless.

“The thing about the tornado is that it’s sort of random; you can kind of tell the direction it’s going to go in, but you can’t be like, ‘hit that enemy right there.’ So, because it’s really hard to target what you want, we put you on this quest as a player of ‘well, Tornado is not super precise, but I really want to fill the screen up with tornadoes because then it doesn’t matter because there are tornadoes everywhere and everything’s getting hit anyway!’

“It’s a really cool journey because, at the beginning, it’s really hard to manage,” he continues. “But as you keep getting those [upgrades], you get to fulfill that [storm caster] fantasy. When you get to the endgame – and I’ve played it in the endgame – we fulfill that fantasy where you’re just spamming tornadoes everywhere, and everything is dying. It’s really cool, and it’s really fun.”

Melissa Corning’s best Diablo 4 build (lead game producer, story, and narrative)

In a similar vein to Shely, Corning’s favorite build is Frozen Orb Sorceress. “I just love Frozen Orb,” she says with a smile. “I’m just one of those people who wants everything to wrap around Frozen Orb – that’s going to be my main skill. I just want to be able to spam Frozen Orb and have it do amazing things!

“There are a lot of Legendaries that allow your Frozen Orb to apply a chill effect or frozen effect, and there’s other stuff that actually affects the frozen and the chill effects, so you just end up having these amazing combinations going off every single time you’re using your Frozen Orb. So, that’s currently the one I go for every time I make a new Sorceress.”

Ash Sweetring Vickey’s best Diablo 4 build (dungeon producer)

A woman after my own heart, Ash’s two favorite builds revolve around doing huge amounts of damage from afar. “I really enjoy range marksman builds with the Sorceress and Rogue,” she tells me on Twitter. “My favorite Sorceress build is Hydra Fireball, and I love playing our Rapid Fire Rogue!

Lauren Bergin’s best Diablo 4 build (not a dev, just a writer)

So while I may not be a Blizzard developer, I do have many years of Diablo experience under my belt – just check my playtime on Diablo 3. My personal favorite build is the Shadow Twisting Blades Rogue, which satisfied my melee needs while also allowing for some decent peel. It’s perfect for players who like to one-shot enemies, and it provides great AoE damage that helps with early leveling.

Pairing Twisting Blades with Shadow Imbuement further down the line means that your attacks inflict Shadow damage, which looks awesome given the Shadow symbol is a deep purple pentagram and your weapons are encased in a thick violet fog. If you kill an enemy when they’re inflicted with Shadow, they explode – trust me when I say it’s so damn satisfying.

How to make the best Diablo 4 build

To make the best D4 build, you’ll want to consider things like your own playstyle and the situations you expect to face. If you know you’ll be hunting down the endgame activities, prepare to go in aggressively and focus on seeking out the most powerful Diablo 4 aspects to really elevate any build.

If you’re looking to play defensively, then aspects can also come into play, but looking in-depth at the skill tree is where your build will really come into its own. Utilizing things such as imbuement can create devastating tick damage, which makes the difference between survival or getting drowned by the demon hordes.

Some of the best players in the world are creating incredible Diablo 4 builds for endgame use. One of our favorites is this variant on the Druid Pulverize Werebear build from Toyhouze that exploits Overpower and armor for a bulky Druid that still smashes through foes.

If you want to blow up swathes of demons, I suggest seeking out all of the Altar of Lilith locations to improve your skills – plus, those statues look really cool. We also have a list of the Diablo 4 dungeon locations if you fancy a challenge, plus everything you need to know about world bosses, whether you can play Diablo 4 solo and the best Diablo 4 settings for PC users. If you’re just starting out, you might also wonder about the Diablo 4 quests and acts you’ll tackle during your adventure.