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 game. 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 Sorceress and her myriad of different elemental magics. I, however, will be locking in Diablo 4‘s Rogue when the release date rolls around, so have included my personal favorite 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.
What are the best Diablo 4 builds?
Here are the best Diablo 4 builds:
Joe Shely’s best build (Diablo 4 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 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; those kinds of things. 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 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 beta build – after all, this interview took place while the test was still fresh in our memories.
“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’s 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 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 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 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 play time 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.
If you too want to blow up swathes of demons, then I suggest seeking out all of the Altar of Lilith locations to up your skills – plus those statues look really, really cool. We also have a list of all of the Diablo 4 dungeon locations, if you fancy a challenge.