Three of Diablo IV’s developers’ favorite builds to explore the abyss

Diablo IV’s potential for adventure knows no bounds. With its remarkable replayability and highly customisable gameplay, delving into the depths of diverse builds is an integral part of the excitement. Today, we present three favorite builds personally chosen by the developers themselves.

With the official launch just around the corner, why not try one of these for yourself? Perhaps you’ll find your personal preferred playstyle within Diablo IV’s endless possibilities…

Bad to the Bone-Spirit (Necromancer)

by Adam Z. Jackson – Lead Class Designer

The first build I would like to talk about is what I’m planning to run with for Diablo IV’s launch, which is a Bone-Spirit Necromancer!

Bone Spirit is one of our bolder skill designs in that it both has a long cooldown and removes ALL of the player’s Essence when cast. In exchange, it deals a significant amount of extra damage to enemies for every point of resource spent. The Enhancement for Bone Spirit also reduces its cooldown significantly when it Critically Strikes an enemy, adding an additional goal for players to chase.

Putting this all together, the goal for this build is to get to a place where the player can both increase their maximum Essence as well as their Essence Regeneration to the point where they can cast Bone Sprit on cooldown while reliably being able to generate enough Essence to be full again for the next cast. We’ll be prioritizing Maximum Resource, Resource Regeneration, and Critical Strike Chance as the primary stats to chase. Other stats like Critical Strike Damage or effects like bonus damage to Bone skills are also desirable. One thing that’s also very interesting about this build is that I expect it to change a lot over time as I get more gear and certain Legendaries and Uniques that I’m going to target.

Among the key effects we want is Ghastly Bone Spirit, which grants an additional 10% Critical Srike Chance and helps us reliably Critically Strike enemies that is crucial to the build until our Critical Strike Chance is high enough via gear and other methods to do it without this upgrade. At that point, we can switch over to Dreadful Bone Spirit (generates 30 Essence over the next 4 seconds after each hit) to help with our Essence generation. The Ossified Essence Key Passive causes Bone Spirit to deal even more damage when cast with a lot of Essence (1% increased damage to Bone Skills for each point of Essence above 50).  Since we plan to always cast Bone Spirit at full Essence, this is going to greatly increase the damage that we’ll be able to put out.

For this build, I’m going to try only running a Bone Golem, and sacrificing my Skeleton Skirmishers for extra Critical Strike Chance (6%) and my Skeletal Mages for additional maximum Essence (18).

As far as skills, to start the game I’m going to use Bone Splinters, Bone Spear, Bone Spirit, Golem, Corpse Explosion, and Blood Wave.  This set of skills gives me a way to use Corpses effectively while also having the control tools needed via my Golem and Blood Wave to keep enemies grouped up and at bay while I annihilate them with Bone Spear and Bone Spirit.

Legendaries and Uniques will improve this build further. Blood Artisan’s Cuirass greatly upgrades the build by giving an alternative method of spawning Bone Spirits by collecting Blood Orbs. After getting this Unique, my build will also be chasing spawning Blood Orbs, which now enables new connections, such as the Tidal Doom Legendary power that spawns multiple Blood Waves, which also spawns more Blood Orbs to collect!

For a more end-game setup, I swapped out Bone Splinters and Bone Spear for Hemorrhage and Corpse Tendrils so I can get more Blood Orbs. In this version of the build, I am using Bone Sprit on cooldown to deal massive damage while creating and collecting Blood Orbs to spawn additional Bone Spirits when I can.

Wolfnado (Druid)

by Adam Z. Jackson – Lead Class Designer

A Werewolf Tornado Druid is a fun and powerful build that only gets better over time.

The goal of this build is to fill the screen with as many Tornadoes as possible.  To do this, you should prioritize maximum Spirit, Spirit generation, and effects that reward you for gaining and spending Spirit as much as possible.

One Unique really changes this build is Tempest Roar. Being able to cast Tornado as a Werewolf opens a lot of interactions that previously weren’t available. While the build can work without this item, it enables many powerful synergies that really take it to the next level as you approach the end game. Some other Legendaries that enable this build are Stormchasers Doom which allows Tornadoes to seek enemies and the Calm Breeze Legendary that enables Wind Shear to restore all your Spirit!

Some Skills, Upgrades, and Passives that you should consider are Perfect Storm (grants 1 Spirit and deals 15% increased damage when hitting a Vulnerable, Immobilized or Slowed enemy), which creates a Spirit generating engine by causing enemies to be Vulnerable and then using Tornado on them. Energize gives you a 15% chance to restore 10 Spirit when damaging enemies, and Masochistic is a Spirit Boon that will help with sustain; since Tornado becomes a Shapeshifting skill, it will now heal you 3% Maximum Life when Critically Striking enemies!

As far as which skills to use, there is some flexibility, but a good starting setup is Wind Shear, Tornado, Cyclone Armor, Ravens, Blood Howl, and Cataclysm. This group of skills allows you to heal, gain Spirit, and enables various ways to apply Vulnerable to enemies.

Imbue-llers Day Off (Rogue)

by Charles Dunn – Associate Game Designer, Classes

My favorite build, and the one I will be playing on Diablo IV’s launch is a Rogue Imbuement build.

Imbuements are special skills unique to Rogues that enhance their next 2 attacks with the power of Shadow, Poison, or Cold. There are many ways to mix and match these Imbuements when building your Rogue, but for this build, I will be using Shadow and Cold to take full advantage of the Icy Alchemist legendary power. Cold Imbuement applies Chill to enemies, so I can finish them off with a Shadow Imbued skill, causing lots of explosions and massive AoE damage! There are plenty of other legendary and unique items that work well with this playstyle, including the extremely powerful Word of Hakan unique amulet, which causes my ultimate Rain of Arrows skill to always benefit from all three Imbuements at once.

The Core skill in this build is Twisting Blades. Not only is it a great way to apply my Imbuements to large packs of enemies, but the Advanced Twisting Blades reduces the cooldown on all my Imbuements, keeping me constantly in the action. For mobility, I love pairing Dash with Twisting Blades in this build, since Dash lets me easily get to the other side of a pack of enemies to ensure Twisting Blades hits the maximum number of targets when they return. The Preparation Specialization is also a great way to ensure that I have maximum uptime on my cooldown skills, which leads to a very fast paced playstyle.

One of the most important stats to look for in this build is Lucky Hit Chance. The key legendary for this build, Icy Alchemist, is a Lucky Hit effect, as well as other skills throughout the skill tree like Innervation (10% to gain 8 Energy on Lucky Hit) and Enhanced Cold Imbuement (Cold Imbued skills have a 30% chance to make enemies vulnerable for 3 seconds). But Rogues aren’t known for playing fair, so I tip the luck in my favor with Alchemist’s Fortune (15% increased Lucky Hit Chance on Non-Psychical damage) and Primary Invigorating Strike (8% Lucky Hit Chance, 16% for Crowd Controlled or Injured enemies).  

Finally, the Momentum Key Passive works very well in this build, giving me a bunch of stats that I want like Energy Regeneration to spam Twisting Blades, Movement Speed to maneuver around the battlefield to get all optimal angles for those Twisting Blades, and Damage Reduction which is even more important since I will be in melee range of enemies most of the time. Alternatively, the Victimize Key Passive could also work well with enough Lucky Hit chance to consistently trigger Vulnerable from Enhanced Cold Imbuement.