Diablo 4 Red Dust

Around the time before a new Diablo 4 season launches, builds focusing on new unique items or seasonal mechanics often become popular in the community. However, some classic builds, while perhaps slightly nerfed, remain worth using.

With Season 11's release date fast approaching, you're probably considering which builds to choose for the new season. If you're used to playing Sorcerer in most seasons, consider continuing with Frozen Orb Build.

Below, we'll introduce how to craft this classic Sorcerer build this season, based on the known content and changes in Season 11.

Frozen Orb Build Overview

This build performed only moderately in the still-unfinished Season 10, perhaps because there were too many builds that could overshadow it with Chaos Armor. However, it's expected to continue its strength in Season 11.

This build primarily utilizes summoning skills, enabling it to deal extremely high AoE damage in combat. It also provides crowd control to manage large groups of enemies and gains an advantage in boss fights due to its high movement speed.

However, to maintain this build's effectiveness, you'll need to buy Diablo 4 items and ensure your mana regeneration is reliable. Therefore, the deeper you progress in the game, the more suitable Frozen Orb Build becomes.

How To Choose Skills?

In Season 11, to make this build work, simply choose enough summoning skills and continuously cast them. Generally, the following Sorcerer skills are recommended:

• Familiar: Summons a familiar with the same element as your last cast skill. For 8 seconds, it tracks enemies and periodically explodes, dealing 70% of its elemental damage. You can have up to 6 familiars active at a time.
• Lightning Spear: Summons a lightning spear that tracks enemies, dealing 15% damage to each enemy hit over 6 seconds. A critical hit will also inflict a 3-second vulnerability status on the target.
• Ice Blades: Summons a pair of ice blades that deal 23% damage with rapid slashes over 6 seconds, and has a 40% chance of inflicting a 2-second vulnerability status on the target.
• Frozen Orb: Releases a frozen orb that inflicts a 34% freeze effect and fires piercing shards at enemies, dealing 52% damage. The frozen orb explodes upon disappearing, dealing additional damage and inflicting the frozen effect.

If possible, it's best to unlock enchantments for all skills to maximize damage output. For example, with Frozen Orb, when enchanted, it has a 30% chance to fire an additional frozen orb at nearby enemies when you cast a non-basic skill.

Generally, the more summoning skills you have, the higher the damage your frozen orbs will deal. By continuously using summoning skills to fire more frozen orbs with each explosion, you can achieve near-perpetual damage output.

How To Pair It With Gear?

It's important to note that Season 11 significantly changed Tempering and Masterworking mechanics, which enhance gear affix effects more stable, and added a new Sanctification system.

These changes mean that after configuring your gear for your build, your affix upgrade choices will become more consistent as the season progresses. However, be aware that gear cannot be modified after Sanctification.

With these Season 11 tips in mind, you can start choosing gear for your Frozen Orb Build. We recommend Heir of Perdition first, as it increases your damage by 60% and offers a chance to steal Lilith's Favor from allies during combat.

Due to its unique effects and its irreplaceable nature in this build, you should continuously farm Tormented bosses after Season 11 begins until you obtain its drop.

The second recommended gear is Shroud of False Death. Its key effect is granting invisibility and a 40% movement speed bonus if you haven't attacked in the past 2 seconds.

Next, add Aspect of Frozen Memories to activate Avalanche Key passive an additional time, increasing damage against multiple enemies. Note that this item is only usable by Sorcerers.

If you want to use Sanctification on these gear for even greater benefits, you need to proceed with caution. Sanctification results are not only unchangeable but also random, meaning a bad buff could ruin your gear.

This is why the mechanic was initially popular, but PTR testing quickly revealed it wasn't as effective as expected. Perhaps Sanctification will be changed after Season 11.

Skill Tree Unlocking

First, you should allocate all points to Frozen Orb to maximize damage. Simultaneously unlock Elemental Dominance to further enhance Frozen Orb's damage and the build's overall resilience.

Elemental Dominance allows your core and mastery abilities to be cast when you have more than 50 mana, and increases their final damage by 3%.

Next, allocate some points to Frost Nova and Hydra to deal more damage. While the latter is a combustion skill and might seem out of place with this build, its burning effect provides resilience, increased damage, and cooldown reduction.

Notably, don't forget to enchant Frost Nova, which affects your Lucky Strike, giving summoning abilities a 30% chance to cast Frost Nova on hit.

Finally, don't forget to unlock Ice Blades and activate Lightning Spear to complement it.

How Effective Is This Build In Practice?

We first tested The Pit in 2.5.0 PTR as an example. With all gear maintaining normal upgrade effects, Frozen Orb Build can help you quickly reach level 75, but it starts to struggle after level 80.

However, this is also related to the damage nerf in Diablo 4, so if you only want to farm resources through The Pit, this level of depth is sufficient.

As for dealing with Tormented bosses, since Sorcerers have been weakened in terms of mobility and damage output, this class is inherently difficult. Frozen Orb Build is one of the best options to maximize its potential.

Overall, Sorcerers are not expected to be a dominant class in Diablo 4 Season 11, but Frozen Orb Build gives you the opportunity to continue experimenting with it. So if you're interested, you can try it out following our guide!

The new unique items added in Diablo 4 Season 11 often influence one or more builds in a class, and Gravebloom, the new unique item for Necromancer, brings a new available summoning build to Necromancer.

Gravebloom significantly enhances Necromancer's golems, and compared to traditional minion builds, this playstyle is much more proactive. This is because you need to frequently trigger the golems' active abilities, rather than letting minions attack automatically.

This new build is viable in Season 11 not only because it deals more damage than a Skeleton Army Necromancer, but also because it is very tanky, thus becoming a meta build for Necromancer in Season 11.

Gravebloom

The new unique item, Gravebloom, is a new unique mace. It allows you to summon multiple golems. While the damage of a single golem is reduced, the increased number of golems boosts overall damage. It's also an essential Diablo 4 item for this build; the build won't function properly without it.

Gravebloom provides a total of 40% attack speed, which is incredibly high for a one-handed weapon. It also has a 75% chance for the golem to attack twice.

Golem Necromancer Skills

Active Skills

• Blight: Provides a buff as a Darkness Skill; no active casting required.
• Sever: Also a Darkness Skill that triggers a damage bonus; no active casting required.
• Golem: Summons a golem; you need to cast it to allow the golem to use its active skill.
• Reap: Used to spawn a corpse.
• Soulrift: As an ultimate skill, provides a vulnerability debuff and Essence.
• Decompose: When fighting bosses, if Reap goes on cooldown, you can hold down Decompose to wait for Golem skill to cool down.
• Iron Maiden: Increases damage taken by enemies. Does not need to be placed on the skill bar.
• Decrepify: Curses enemies, slowing them. Does not need to be placed on the skill bar.

Book Of The Dead

Choose to sacrifice all minions, providing Necromancer with additional survivability and damage.

• Skeletal Warriors Defenders: Cannot summon Skeletal Warriors. Gains 25% all elemental resistance.
• Skeletal Mages Cold: Cannot summon Skeletal Mages. Increases damage against vulnerable enemies.
• Golems Blood: Blood Golem allows Necromancer to regenerate health when using active skills. Necromancer reduces damage taken by the golems when they are healthy.

Passive Skills

• Hewed Flesh (3)
• Necrotic Fortitude (3)
• Titan's Fall (3)
• Spiked Armor (3)
• Grim Harvest (1)
• Fueled by Death (3)
• Death's Embrace (3)
• Amplify Damage (3)
• Coalesced Blood (3)
• Reaper's Pursuit (3)
• Necrotic Carapace (1)
• Finality (3)
• Golem Mastery (3)
• Memento Mori (3)
• Stand Alone (3)
• Inspiring Leader (3)
• Kalan's Edict (1)
• Hellbent Commander (3)
• Death's Approach (3)

Death's Embrace is very powerful in Season 11. When an enemy affected by Iron Maiden dies, it automatically restores 7% of the player's Life, providing a continuous source of healing.

Hellbent Commander grants a massive damage bonus when you have 7 or more minions. To trigger this effect, you also need to summon wolves to supplement the number of minions besides the 3 golems.

Golem Necromancer Equipment

• Helm: Heir of Perdition
• Chest armor: Shroud of False Death
• Gloves: Aspect of the Cursed Aura
• Pants: Blood Moon Breeches
• Boots: Hulking Aspect
• Amulet: Aspect of Fel Gluttony
• Ring 1: Aspect of Reanimation
• Ring 2: Aspect of the Great Feast
• Weapon: Gravebloom
• Offhand: Sacrificial Aspect

Aspect of the Cursed Aura automatically applies Decrepify and Iron Maiden curses to nearby enemies. Combined with the healing effect of Iron Maiden, this makes your Necromancer extremely tanky.

Hulking Aspect gives golem attacks a chance to reduce their cooldown and spawn a corpse upon attacking. Aspect of Fel Gluttony allows golems to consume corpses for a damage bonus, and all golem builds require this Aspect.

Other Diablo 4 items, such as Aspect of the Great Feast, directly provide damage bonuses to your golems. You should prioritize affixes for your gear that increase attack speed, critical strike chance, and golem cooldown reduction.

Paragon Board Nodes

• Essence: Provides more critical strike damage.
• Hulking Monstrosity: Through Deadraiser node, makes minion attacks deal more damage to enemies.
• Scent of Death: Provides damage reduction and critical strike damage, enhancing survivability.
• Frailty: Increases the damage of necromancers and minions.
• Corporeal: Increases physical damage.
• Cult Leader & Amplify: Increases the minion's damage based on its attack speed.

Golem Necro Advantages In Season 11

Overall game difficulty has increased, and character survivability and damage have been reduced. Percentage bonuses to main stats (such as Intelligence) have been removed. In this generally harder environment, Golem Necromancer build offers excellent tankiness and damage, with no survivability issues.

In Tormented 4's Open World, the golem's auto-attacks are sufficient for most situations, allowing players to AFK. However, at higher levels of The Pit, you must actively control your Golems. They can face-tank and deal damage in most situations, and even solo new bosses.

You don't need to create a Seasonal Character to experience this build, as all new gear drops in Eternal Realm, and the additional bonuses from Season Journey offer little benefit to this already established build.

Golem Necromancer build may still have some room for improvement, but it surpasses almost every other necromancer summoning build in every aspect. Moreover, the golem's damage can reach over 1 billion, and combined with its tanking capabilities, it is enough to place it in the Tier S build category of Season 11.