Diablo 4 Classes Guide

Rogue

• Strength: 7
• Dexterity: 10
• Intelligence: 7
• Willpower: 8

Pros

• Jack of all trades.
• Many options. Quickly transition from one build to another by respecing.
• Allows to play ranged/melee
• Very mobile, allows you to quickly reposition on the battlefield
• Many crowd control options, as well as survivability options.
• Good amount of equipment slots, allowing you to stack many aspects.

Cons

• Very narrow or specific builds
• Requires a lot of concentration to play
• Require players to constantly move and smash keys
• Depending on the build, it might have a very "mechanic" gameplay.

Rogue Builds

• Twisting Blades (Level 25-50 Beginner Build)
• Flurry (Level 25-50 Beginner Build)
• Cold Archer (Level 25-50 Beginner Build))
• Marksman (Level 50+ Endgame Build)
• Cyclone (Level 50+ Endgame Build)

Rogue Overview

The Rogue is a stealthy assassin who’s adept at moving swiftly. So they can choose to reposition themselves to gain the upper hand in Combat or retreat when things get too precarious. Unlike Barbarians, they can quickly switch between melee and ranged Weapons such as daggers, swords, and bows, making them extremely versatile. Although at the start, bows don’t deal as much damage, these will allow you to stay at a safer distance with respect to your foes, thereby lowering the chances of frequently getting hit. You can think of Diablo IV’s Rogue as a combination of Diablo II and Diablo III’s Amazon and Demon Hunter, respectively.

Rogue Stats

Your primary Stats for this Class include Dexterity to amplify Skill Damage and improve dodge ability, Strength to enhance your Energy regeneration rate, and Intelligence to improve your crit chance and overall resistance.

Main Rogue Playstyles

Shadow Imbuement: Imbues your attack with a debuff that causes explosions dealing a ton of AoE damage. This can be played both melee and ranged and requires you to group enemies to execute the explosion. Players that like setting up a combo and exploding it at the right time to kill everyhting in a single strike will enjoy this build

Poison Imbuement: Deals very high damage in the form of poison, quickly dealing DOT. Good against group of enemies and even better against bosses. Playeres that enjoy DOT and to quickly deal with bosses will enjoy this build.

Trapper: Set down traps in the battlefield that deal poison damage and Burst damage, in combination with crowd control skills to keep yourself safe. Players that like hit and run mechanics will enjoy this build

Burst Damage Crit builds: Either for Melee/Range/Hybrid you can make burst DPS damage on single targets taking advantage of debuffs and passives. Players will need to constantly move through the battlefield to engage/disengage enemies. Players that like to "kite" will enjoy this playstyle.

Rogue Class Mechanics

The Rogue’s Unique Class Mechanic is known as Talent Specializations, which are divided into Combo Points, Inner Sight, and Preparation, each with its own questlines. Remember though that there’s no confirmation yet if you can activate all 3 specializations simultaneously or if they can only be used one at a time. Additionally, Preparation hasn’t been tested since it becomes available upon reaching Level 30.

Combo Points are accumulated by activating Basic Rogue Skills. You’ll then be able to consume these points with Core Skills to trigger additional effects. Meanwhile, Inner Sight allows you to fill up a gauge by attacking marked enemies. Doing so will allow you to make use of unlimited Energy for a brief period of time, and is proven to be effective against Bosses.

Now the Rogue’s versatility doesn’t end here since they can also imbue other attacks with specific effects such as Poison, Shadow, and Cold. These are usually applied to Core Skills and abilities that deal damage against multiple enemies such as Rapid Fire.

If you’re keen to play a lightning-fast Class that excels in dealing Physical Damage with melee and ranged Weapons, and you don’t mind shifting positions quickly to gain the advantage in Combat, then you should consider playing as the Rogue.

The Rogue is a versatile dexterity and critical class. It is a very mobile character and a sort of Jack of all trades, as it can fight Melee/Ranged/Hybrid, Crow Control Enemies and debuff them as well as perform AoE/Single-Target damage. Players that like constantly smashing buttons to quickly move through the battlefield and continuously cast skills will enjoy the playstyle, while players that get confused by many buttons will hate it. Players that like to swap between different playstyles will be able to do so, as you can quickly respec from Ranged to Melee while keeping similar mechanics. Rogues have a very wide arrange of builds, but most of them are very specific and require min/maxing, which negates the possibility to play around with them. Rogue has a somewhat higher skill cap compared to other classes to be played correctly, and will be more appreciated by users that want to be "focused" over players that enjoy just "chilling".

Rogues don't have high health but have better dodge mechanics than other characters, as well as having some skills that greatly reduce damage taken. The best way to stay alive is to remain mobile and keep enemies crowed controlled or far away.

The "Specialization" mechanic provides even more options, allowing you to swap between "Combo Points" which enhance your main skills, "Inner Sight" which forces you to attack specific enemies to build up a bar. Once the bar is full you'll have a "grace" period with unlimited energy. And "Preparation" which reduces your ultimates cooldown, and resets other cooldowns while using ultimate.

Barbarian

• Strength: 10
• Dexterity: 8
• Intelligence: 7
• Willpower: 7

Pros

• Fight up close
• Arsenal System (Swap between many different weapons and allowing you to theorycraft on Equipment)
• Has access to more Weapon Slots, thus more Offensive Legendary Aspects

Cons

• Doesnt Have Ranged Attacks
• Slow Start
• Requires a considerable amount of character planning.

Barbarian Builds

• Bloody (Level 25-50 Beginner Build)
• Crusher (Level 25-50 Beginner Build)
• Whirlwind (Level 25-50 Beginner Build)
• Blood-Soaked (Level 50+ Endgame Build)
• Juggernaut (Level 50+ Endgame Build)
• Vortex (Level 50+ Endgame Build)

Barbarian Overview

The Barbarian Class is suitable for players who wish to deal massive destruction in the melee range while being able to seamlessly switch from one Weapon type to the next. They’re much more Physical Damage oriented than any other Class in Diablo IV and are pretty straightforward when it comes to dishing out offensive and defensive moves.

Main Barbarian Playstyles

Whirlwind Barbarian: This allows to quickly maneuver the battlefield and defeat big packs of enemies. Its very fun for users that mainly enjoy defeating multiple enemies at the same time and don't like to stand in a single place. Instead of focusing on "combination" of skills, you simply move around the battlefield using shouts and repositioning on the best place to maximize efficiency. Since this highly rely on your equipment, you'll get a feeling of constant improvement while you get stronger and stronger

Bleeding Skills: This allows to apply massive DOT on enemies, allowing you to simply strike and run to the next thing while you see enemies die on their own. Players that enjoy to Hit and forget playstyle will enjoy this

Combo Style Damage: This playstyle revolver around combining different skills and aspects to create powerful one-shot combos that annihilate enemy groups.The arsenal system also encourages swapping weapons between different skills to gain bonuses. Its perfect for players that enjoy combo mechanics of building up a skill and then unleashing a devastating blow as well as users that like to constantly swap between different skills.

Support Playstyle: While not frequent for ARPGs, shouts allow Barbarians to greatly boost companion Abilities as well as taunting enemies and tanking them, which might be appealing to some users - although this is obviously not a meta build

Barbarian Class Mechanics

Due to their Unique Class Mechanic, which is known as the Arsenal System, Barbarians can equip and swap about 4 Weapons at a time, allowing for better customization. These include the Main Hand, Off-Hand, Bludgeoning, and Slashing Weapons. Doing so allows you to freely assign specific Equipment to certain Skills based on your needs. For instance, Bash, which lets you stun and heavily damage targets, is well-suited using a Bludgeoning Weapon but if you wish to raise this ability’s stun duration even more, then you should opt to switch to a Two-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon instead. It’s also worth noting that upon the Skill’s activation, you’ll instantly equip the best Weapon in your loadout.

Furthermore, every Weapon the Barbarian uses has a corresponding Expertise stat, thereby leveling up their ranks accordingly. For example, if you wish to boost your Critical Strike Chance then wielding a One-Handed Axe will come in handy. Because of this, it’s highly recommended to collect and prepare a wide variety of melee Weapons in order to take advantage of this Class’s Build diversity and itemization progression. In terms of Stats, you’ll mainly want to invest in Strength to amplify your damage, Willpower for improved Fury regeneration, and Dexterity to increase the chances of landing critical hits.

Like in Diablo II and III, the Barbarian retains the ability to annihilate mobs of enemies extremely well. But Diablo IV pushes their capability even more by allowing them to consistently focus on single powerful targets such as Bosses by dealing Bleed damage. However, they continue to struggle with some of their Skills, which have long cooldown rates, thereby stalling their damage at times.

The Barbarian’s abilities are spread out. In some cases, you can opt to inflict Bleed, crowd control techniques, and team-based actions. Alternatively, you can also choose to enhance self-buffs in order to deal the most amount of Physical Damage possible.

Barbarians are a strength-based melee class. They are perfect for people that like to fight up close and "feel" the power of their skills on the enemies, there are no ranged weapons for the Barbarian so you are forced to fight face to face. Players that enjoy the adrenaline of constantly taking and dealing damage while getting the satisfaction to destroy everything and move really fast will enjoy the character.

Barbarians have very high health, and also provide access to the "Fortify" mechanic on may skills, which relies on playing with the amount of health left to increase damage reduction. Players that enjoy managining their health will enjoy this mechanic, but for others it may feel kind of "dull" and not rewarding.

If you’re far more comfortable obliterating enemies and challenging Bosses using a great assortment of melee Weapons, then the Barbarian is the right Class for you. 

Druid

• Strength: 9
• Dexterity: 7
• Intelligence: 10
• Willpower: 10

Pros

• Melee and Mage style of gameplay possible
• Great AoE damage
• Somewhat tanky compared to other Classes
• Great Crowd Control
• Spirit Boons can be exceptionally good
• One of 2 Classes that has Companions

Cons

• Slow leveling
• Resource management can be rough
• Less mobile than some Classes
• Somewhat gear dependent

Druid Builds

• Packleader (Level 25-50 Beginner Build)
• Stormcaller (Level 25-50 Beginner Build)
• Pulverizer (Level 25-50 Beginner Build)
• Tempest (Level 50+ Endgame Build)
• Permabear (Level 50+ Endgame Build)
• Shredder (Level 50+ Endgame Build)

Druid Overview

The next Class in Diablo IV is the Druid who has the uncanny ability to change their physical form from a human to that of a Werebear and Werewolf. Compared to Druids in Diablo II, Druids can now instantly transform when using their beast-themed Skills prior to executing the corresponding actions. Do note that your new form will only last for a short duration until you execute another move.

Moreover, this Class is also an adept wielder of magic, except that they specialize in casting Earth and Storm Spells to disable enemies while slaying forces of evil. For instance, you’re able to execute Crushing Blow to damage a target by a certain percentage of their total Life. A lot of Skills also leave them Vulnerable, which means they take a significant amount of additional damage from any succeeding hit.

Druids have Companions that do not need to be summoned but are automatically called out to attack on their behalf. They do have respective active Companion Skills to deal damage on certain targets. In terms of Stats, not much is currently known for this Class as well as the Necromancer.

Druid Stats

When it comes to Stats for the Druid you'll primarily focus on Willpower, which not only increases Core Skill Damage, but also boosts Overpower Damage. Dexterity is also good, increasing Critical Strike and Dodge Chance, both of which are great for this Build.

Main Druid Gameplay

Werewolf: Players will focus primarily on staying in Werewolf Form, granting them Movement Speed and usually Attack Speed while dealing Poison Damage, and zipping around the battlefield with their gap closer: Shred. Werewolf players are more of a hit and run style of play compared to their Werebear counterparts, which are much more tanky.

Werebear: Players will focus on staying in Werebear form using Overpowered attacks, great boosting their damage. Werebears have some of the highest burst damage in the game, but they attack rather slowly and can feel sluggish to players who like more mobility. If you like hitting things really hard, but less often then this is a great choice for you.

Storm: Players will focus on Lightning Skills and Lightning Damage in order to AoE down large groups of enemies on the screen, all without having to move much at all. This style of play has a large focus on Lucky Hits, as many Lightning Effects are triggered from then in the Druid Skill Tree. If you like playing a Lightning mage, then this Build is great for you.

Hybrd: Players will mix and match either Werebear Skills with Storm/Earth Skills to have a combination of Spells and Melee Skills. This style of play requires much more specialized equipment to pull off, and is likely to be utilized more past level 50.

Druid Class Mechanics

The Druid’s Unique Class Mechanic is tied to acquiring special loot, which should be offered to spirit animals. Doing so will grant different passive bonuses based on the spirit’s type called Spirit Boons. These Boons have a wide range of effects such as: Critical Chance, Critical Damage, Thorns Damage, Max Life, Damage Reduction vs Elites, and more. Players can have up to 5 of these at once, and they can we swapped at any time.

If you’re the type of player who wants to experiment with various playstyles that allow you to transform to another form and unleash elemental fury, then the Druid Class is the best choice there is!

Sorceress

• Strength: 7
• Dexterity: 7
• Intelligence: 10
• Willpower: 8

Pros

• Control Battlefield
• Skills provide many options without requiring aspects
• Different types of elemental damage
• High damage
• Guided Gameplay: It's easy for new users to keep track of what they should do with their skills, like for example sticking to a single element.

Cons

• Limited Equipment space, limiting the amount of Aspects you can use.
• Low health, depends on skills (or barriers) to stay alive
• Some builds might get repetitive, since you can control the field so well it's a bit like shooting fish in a barrel.
• Less source genration mechanics than other classes, and higher element consumption often ends in "wait time" inbetween pulls.

Sorc Builds

• Elementalist (Level 25-50 Beginner Build)
• Ice Barrage (Level 25-50 Beginner Build)
• Fire & Ice (Level 25-50 Beginner Build)
• Battlemage (Level 50+ Endgame Build)
• Pyromancer (Level 50+ Endgame Build)
• Permafrost (Level 50+ Endgame Build)
• Lightning Speed (Level 50+ Endgame Build)

Sorceress Overview

The Sorceress is your typical high-risk, high-reward type of Class because although they’re very fragile, they deal excellent elemental damage by casting Fire, Cold, and Lightning Spells. Fire Spells synergize well with the Burning status effect to inflict damage over time but beyond this, they aren’t able to control the battlefield as effectively in the early game. The same couldn’t be said for Cold Spells where crowd control abilities shine the most. What you have here is a variety of Skills that will either Chill or completely Freeze your enemies, making it exceptionally potent against boss fights. Not only will you slow them down, but you can potentially freeze them in place when enough stacks are accumulated.

Finally, you have Lightning Spells that are well-balanced in terms of dealing a decent amount of damage and controlling encounters to your advantage. Some abilities that are tagged as “Crackling Energy”, leave behind a ball of energy that either inflicts damage against enemies or replenishes your own Mana.

Sorceress Stats

When it comes to Stats, you’ll want to allocate points into Intelligence to boost the damage of your Spells, Dexterity to raise Mana recovery, and lastly, Willpower to improve your crit chance.

Main Sorcerer Gameplay

Pyromancer: Focusing on pyromancy skills for low health but high regen and burst DPS damage that pairs up with AoEs, this is a thrilling kind of gameplay with plenty of spectable

Freeze & Control: Focus on controlling the battlefield by freezing and slowing enemies. Players that want to dominate the battlefield with control spells will be able to freeze everything on screen and deal massive damage to them.

Lightning & Speed: The sorceress teleport has always been a coveted and unique mechanic of the class, and Diablo 4 makes lightning sorceres masters of speed by giving special legendaries that benefit from movement speed bonus. The lightning sorceress is a speedclear rusher's dream.

Master of the Elements: Players that enjoy inflicting different types of status ailments and combine them together and use plenty of barriers to become essentially immortal.

Sorceress Class Mechanics

The Sorceress’s Unique Class Mechanic called the Enchantment System, changes how a Skill works. In total, there are several active ability slots together with dedicated Enchantment slots. Should you decide to place a skill in an Enchantment slot, it can no longer be activated and will instead transform into a secondary passive bonus. For instance, you’re able to trigger Meteor to blast multiple targets with heavy Fire Damage while momentarily setting the ground on fire.

Sorceress are an intelligence-based caster class. They perfect for players that enjoy controlling the battlefield and that like to deal elemental damage. Players that enjoy having plenty of effects on screen, such as freezing and then exploding something, or burning something, or electrocuting and stunning enemies will love this class. Users that like to use "stationary" spells that deal damage over an area of effect while using another skill to focus on a single target will also enjoy it. The soreceress relies heavily on a smart combination of Skills and equipment, and usually require to spend a couple of skills on survivavility because of their low health. Players that enjoy glasscannon builds might enjoy for this reason as well.

The Sorceress doesn't have high health, but provides one of the highest survivavility thanks to barriers and defensive spells.

The Enchantment System allow players to enjoy the effect of skills even while not directly using them, providing a lot of "gameplay varierty". This also allow users to enjoy benefits of skills they might like, even while not playing that specific build.

If you’ve been wanting to master the art of casting powerful elemental magic that not only deals great damage from any distance but also impairs targets, then the Sorceress Class is perfect for you!

Necromancer

• Strength: 9
• Dexterity: 7
• Intelligence: 12
• Willpower: 8

Pros

• Very safe playstyle, use minions while staying behind
• A variety of very distinct builds
• Good early game and noob friendly, since your minions will do the work for you while you learn.

Cons

• Can get overwhelming to manage all resources and mechanics
• Usually long cooldowns
• For high level play, it requires a good comprehension of build mechanics when using minions.
• Highly dependent on equipment to make some builds work
• Limited amount of aspects due to Equipment Slots.

Necro Builds

• Blightmaster (Level 25-50 Beginner Build)
• Blood Burst (Level 25-50 Beginner Build)
• Detonator (Level 25-50 Beginner Build)
• Defiler (Level 50+ Endgame Build)
• Vampire (Level 50+ Endgame Build)
• Blightlord (Level 50+ Endgame Build)

Necromancer Overview

The final Class in Diablo IV is the Necromancer who is a renowned summoner, often resurrecting corpses to fight with them in battle. Like Barbarians and Rogues, a wide variety of Weapons are available to them such as swords, daggers, Wands, and more importantly, Scythes, which only they can wield. Diablo IV’s Necromancer will remind veterans of the Necromancer in Diablo III because of the Essence resource to activate potent Skills. Another useful resource is Corpses, which are created from the remains of fallen enemies or other Spell effects. In fact, you can even make use of the fan-favorite Corpse Explosion!

Necromancers have 4 distinct playstyles, namely, Bone, Darkness, Blood, and The Army. Bone Skills primarily focus on dealing Physical Damage while consuming the Essence resource. One of its most notable Spells is Bone Prison, which ensnares multiple enemies and can be used in conjunction with offensive-based Skills. Next is Darkness that makes use of dealing damage over time, making it the ideal choice for those who intend to torture foes who dare fight them.

Third is Blood, which allows the Necromancer to become a bloodthirsty vampire to restore their own Life. One notable Spell is Blood Surge, which not only absorbs the HP of enemies but also gains their strength. An explosion will soon follow to deal additional damage. And last but not least is the Army, which lets you bring skeletons back to life as well as construct golems.

Necromancer Main Playstyles

While it doesn't have as much build variety as other classes, each build completely changes how the Necromancer plays.

Solo-Overpower-Burst Damage: This build sacrifice your minions for increased health and damage. You'll use the "overpower" mechanic to quickly annihilate all enemies while boosting your own stats to stay alive.

Corpse Explosion: This build generates as many corpses as possible and explodes them to deal either static damage, or damage over time. Players will need to control the battlefield and use the minions to stay safe.

Summoner: This build focuses around your minions and increasing their damage by debuffing enemies and inserting aspects that increase their power.

Mage DPS: This can be either a solo player or a Hybrid between minions and spells (using the minions as a shield). Use bone spells that focus around critical damage to quickly destroy elites and bosses.

Necromancer Class Mechanics

The Necromancer’s Unique Class Mechanic is the Book of the Dead. This lets them further customize their undead armies such as Skeleton Warriors, Skeleton Mages, and Golems. For instance, Skeleton Warriors can become Skirmishers who deal greater damage but at the expense of maintaining a lower health pool, or Defenders who inflict lesser damage but are expert tanks. What’s more, is that you can choose to ‘Sacrifice’ a specific minion to gain a permanent buff to further improve your Build.

If you want to summon armies of corpses to destroy enemies effectively, then look no further because the Necromancer is certainly the right Class for you!