Summary
Season 9 is the Season of Horardric Powers inDiablo 4, and it comes with a rework of nightmare dungeons and a new boss to take on in Asteroth. The new season also brings a whole raft of balance changes aimed at both general scaling and some specific character balance changes. Add that to the new unique items, and the new seasonal powers to slot in, and there are a lot of character-build options to play with.
The best strategies for leveling a character have also been shaken up a little. Most previous activities, like opening chests in Helltides, Whisper Caches, and Strongholds remain good XP options while leveling. In addition, players can now take advantage of Nightmare Sigils with the “Forgotten Wisdom” affix to boost their 1-60 leveling too. Thenew seasonal powers are useful toolsto have while leveling, but for players starting their first seasonal character, they’ll have to be unlocked as you progress throughDiablo 4’s new season.
These builds are designed to get through level 1-60 content, usually on normal or hard difficulty, as quickly as possible. They are designed to work as setup without the noted aspects, but the legendary aspects noted are the most significant early game power boosts the player can aim for. Most of these builds will need to transition some skills and gear for endgame content.
The Pulverize Druid is one of the slower classes for leveling this season, not because it can’t clear content, but simply because it moves a little slower and has to stop to slam enemies with its Pulverize core skill. With that said, the build’s damage output is good from early in the game, and scales well into the endgame. In fact, this build is one of the easiest on the list to convert into an endgame variant, using the new unique for the Druid class, the Rotting Lightbringer.
As players get to the end of the 1-60 leveling curve and start to drop legendary items, the aspects above will help withpower and survivability. The Shockwave Aspect will boost the power of Pulverize even further, but players are likely to find this a little later, as they’ll have to break down a random drop legendary with this aspect to add it to the codex of power. The best seasonal power to use early with this build isCelestial Surge.This power will pull enemies in when it activates, offering some good synergy with Pulverize’s area slam. Players will want to replace this with a more reliable pull eventually though, as the cooldown will be over 10 seconds on this effect.
Despite the hugereduction in scaling for Overpowereffects this season taking away a number of builds, the Barbarian’s overall power hasn’t suffered as much as some players feared. This build will comfortably get players into the lower Torment difficulties with just a few legendary aspects, and offers good mobility via Leap and Lunging Strike.
The downsides are that this build has a very active play style. Players need to use all their skills and pay attention to timings rather than spamming moves on cooldown. That’s partially because this build makes heavy use of weapon swapping to activate various passive buffs, which also means having different weapons assigned to different skills on the player’s action bar. Additionally, until players have at least the first four legendary aspects listed above, generating enough Fury (primary resource) will be a bit of a struggle. Players can use the short cooldown of the Cosmic Anomaly seasonal power to mitigate this a littlewith the right Arcana.
Players can Leap and Lunge their way through early content with this build, taking out regular enemies with Upheaval, then eventually using the high-damage moves Ground Stomp and Mighty Throw to help with taking down elites and bosses. It’s a good build for players who like to micromanage their moves, but it’s not quite as fast for leveling as some of the top performers this season.
Dance of Knives has been a popular leveling skill for Rogues for a while, as it benefits from high movement speed stacking while being able to passively kill enemies while channeling the skill to blast through areas. This season is no different. With this setup, the Rogue can level from 1-60 very quickly, then easily transition to Torment 1 with just a few legendary aspects.
With the two Imbuement skills, Shadow and Poison, players can customize the damage of Dance of Knives to the situation. A single Imbuement will stay on Dance of Knives as long as the move is continuously channeled. Players can use Shadow Imbuement’s area explosions for dealing with mobs, and use Poison Imbuement’s higher damage for dealing with elites and bosses. Dark Shroud adds a layer of damage reduction per shadow, and can be used with the “Damage per Dark Shroud Shadow” temper for an effective way to scale damage.
The first three legendary aspects listed above will be essential as players get to the end of the leveling curve to step up into torment and gear for an endgame character. These aspects will increase Dance of Knives' damage and area coverage, and create arrow storms that will help a lot with area damage if players can get them early. Corruption will help with Imbuement effectiveness, and the rest of the aspects add a layer of defense that makes the build more comfortable. Disintegrate is used as the seasonal power, as its tether will follow the Rogue and apply its effects to enemies in their wake.
The full Hydra Sorcerer with the new unique amulet, Ophidian Iris, is one of the strongest endgame builds this season. This leveling build can get players ready to transition there with ease. Even without the new unique item, Hydra remains a strong skill for leveling, as players can use this along with Familiar to benefit from multiple elemental synergies and clear mobs passively while using Teleport for mobility. This means that, like the Rogue, the Sorcerer can use Disintegrate’s tether to damage and apply catalyst effects on foes they leave behind as they move.
The build benefits from multiple sources of unstoppable and damage mitigation with Ice Armor and Fire Shield. Players can potentially use the seasonal arcana powers to extend this survivability even further. Once players have the Serpentine legendary aspect, this build will start to do a lot of damage for the lower difficulties. However, players will then need to solve mana generation with seasonal arcana, runes, or alternative aspects. The other aspects listed here enhance damage and survivability, and can be added one-by-one as players gear up.
This build doesn’t need to use an ultimate skill while leveling, but can transition to Inferno once they have a full set of legendary aspects to get some high burst damage and make use of Vehement Brawler’s aspect. Eventually, players will want to use this build to farm for the Ophidian Iris, so they can start equipping theirendgame Hydra Sorcerer.
The Minion Necromancer is an easy build for leveling. While it’s not the fastest movement-wise, it is one of the fastest for clearing enemies, especially when minion damage starts to scale with legendary aspects. This leveling version of the build also uses Sever and Soulrift, which allow the Necromancer to output some supporting damage themselves, as opposed to passively supporting their minions. Later in the leveling curve, the player will transition to the Blight skill and mostly sit back while their minions do the work.
Decrepify is used with the Abhorrent modifier here for cooldown reduction, which will be important while leveling to keep up damage. The seasonal power isn’t particularly important for damage. Players can either use Disintegrate for the ease of activating catalyst effects with its tether, or Cosmic Anomaly for its short cooldown, which can help proc Arcana effects like increased resource generation.
The legendary aspects to aim for first are Reanimation and Aspect of the Damned, which will both provide a massive boost to minions. This build gains decent survivability from its passive tree, but the Hardened Bones aspect also adds significant damage reduction and can be a good addition for farming in early torment difficulties. The rest of the aspects listed are focused around increasing minion effectiveness even further.
TheSpiritbornEvade build does it all: it’s fast, it destroys lower difficulties, and it’s easy to put together without a single legendary aspect required. The first thing to note is that the Evade part of the build won’t come online until the spirit hall is unlocked at level 15, at which point players will want to select Eagle as both primary and secondary spirit. That’s why the build has Quill Volley invested. This will be the player’s starting skill from level 1-15, after which it can be dropped to invest the points elsewhere.
After this, all the player needs to do is evade through enemies to gain the bonuses and killing power of storm feathers, use Thunderspike to reset Evade’s cooldown, and repeat. That means players will always want boots with the “Attacks reduce Evade’s cooldown” affix, but that’s the only restriction. Counter Attack and Reinforced Armored Hide provide significant defense, while Soar is used for movement. The Hunter ultimate can be used to increase the player’s damage via passive abilities and Ferocity Stacks.
It’s possible to use this build with no legendary aspects and get all the way to Penitent difficulty, but once players want to move into the Torment difficulties, they’ll want to take Aspect of Disobedience and Aspect of Might for additional survivability. Aspects like Redirected Force, Unyeilding Hits, and Vehement Brawler can all help when players want to add additional damage. The Aspect of Alacrity can be useful to add in early as this will reduce defensive cooldowns, but there’s a lot of freedom with aspects here due to the innate power of the build.
