Diablo 4 Items

Diablo 4 Lord of Hatred expansion goes live on Monday night. Because the skill trees for all classes will be reset, almost every class - except Paladin - will deliver a brand-new experience.

However, this also creates a problem: it's hard to predict which builds will be the best. So, let's analyze the changes for each class, rank them, and save you the trouble of choosing a class for Lord of Hatred.

Key Mechanic Changes

Preview Before diving into each class, we need to understand a few critical systemic changes in the new version.

Damage over Time

DoT multipliers have received an exaggerated boost in Season 13, and these values can now appear on gear affixes. From the skill tree snippets we've seen, Barbarian Bleed and Burning, Sorcerer Burning, and related builds for Rogue and Spiritborn will all benefit. It's fair to say the power of DoT builds in this version will be unprecedented in Diablo 4 history.

Item System

The gear system has changed dramatically. In the past, you would quickly be flooded with Legendary and Unique items, and stat increases on gear felt negligible. Now, you can roll multiple damage bonus affixes on gear, and gems are more powerful.

You'll feel the improvement from each gear upgrade far more clearly, rather than gaining overly explosive power early on and jumping straight into the highest Torment difficulty. This means a build that feels average in the early stages could really take off once your gear comes together in the mid-to-late game.

Skill Tree Customization Options

The skill tree reset is obviously the biggest factor driving class changes. Many skills now split into Damage and Support options. A lot of former Basic, Core, or Specialization skills can now serve as utility choices and become usable. This greatly increases build customization - for the same core damage skill, you can create five completely different skill bar setups, which hugely enriches the gameplay.

Barbarian

Strengths

Barbarians naturally wield multiple weapons, and this advantage will be amplified in the new version. More weapons mean more damage bonus affixes from gear and the ability to socket more powerful gems.

The skill tree features a lot of support for Bleed and Burning. Besides the well-known Whirlwind, Weapon Mastery skills also received massive buffs. From Basic to Core skills, almost every skill has a use, and build options are vastly expanded.

Weaknesses

Some skills can summon Ancients to fight alongside you, but the AI for this mechanic, especially the targeting logic, is currently unclear. However, this might be a minor issue since Barbarian is melee-oriented anyway.

Another point is that Barbarians lack ranged attacks and need to invest in mobility or rely on Diablo 4 items like Gohr's Devastating Grips or Runes to group enemies. Fortunately, they have skills like Leap that provide high mobility.

Overall, Barbarians could be extremely powerful, but similar to when the game first launched, they have a high endgame growth curve, meaning they might not come together quickly and tend to perform better in the endgame.

Druid

Strengths

After the skill rework, Druids can freely choose to cast almost any skill in Human, Werewolf, or Werebear form, and each form has its own inherent bonuses tied directly to the skill tree, removing the need to rely on specific Unique items.

Furthermore, spell builds using Human form like Tornado and Lightning Storm have been massively strengthened, ensuring at least a solid floor of power and offering insane combo potential.

Weaknesses

Although Druid mobility has improved, their cooldowns are still quite long. Survivability outside of Werebear form has been an issue for several seasons; while Werebear now has built-in damage reduction, other forms may still be fragile.

Druids have performed rather average in the previous Seasons, but after the rework there is a lot to explore and great potential.

Necromancer

Strengths

Necromancer arguably received the biggest improvement of all classes. The old feeling of being clunky, fragile, and slow has been completely swept away.

All minions can now be customized a second time via the skill tree, in addition to Book of the Dead. This opens up a wealth of active or passive minion build options, making them a true summoner class, whereas Warlock can only do temporary summons.

Mobility is a massive advantage for Necromancer. One of Sever's enhancement options appears to incorporate the power of Inexorable Reaper's Aspect without a cooldown, allowing you to teleport endlessly. Blood Surge could also become a second movement option. Necromancer's gameplay pace will be ten times faster than before.

Weaknesses

Necromancers lost their key Barrier passive. Although there are other ways to obtain Barrier and the protection of their minion army, survivability is no longer free - you need to build for it deliberately.

Rogue

Strengths

With resource generation being nerfed across all classes, Rogue's Combo Points and Inner Sight specializations are indirectly buffed. More importantly, Imbuement skills have been reworked from a charge limit to a duration limit. With high attack speed, you can keep Imbuement effects active constantly, providing a huge and stable damage boost. Now you can even grant Imbuement effects to Basic or non-Imbued skills.

Weaknesses

Previously relied-upon barrier passives like Second Wind have been removed. While Rogue has Dark Shroud, the built-in defenses on the skill tree are relatively sparse, so you may need to deliberately invest in survival stats.

Sorcerer

Strengths

Sorcerer will break away from the situation of having only one top-tier build each season. Both Core skills and Mastery skills will be able to stand on their own. Since skill tree customization options have increased dramatically, even if Enchantment effects themselves haven't changed, the utility they carry is much richer. For example, Ball Lightning Enchantment can now summon a black hole that pulls entire screens of enemies together.

Weaknesses

However, Sorcerer might be the class hit hardest in terms of survivability. Mana Shield, Protection, and Align the Elements - three powerful defensive passives that nearly every build took - have all been removed. While their effects may have been moved to gear, the early game without defensive skills will be very tough.

Spiritborn

We don't know much about the changes to Spiritborn, but overall, it has received buffs. Spiritborn has lost almost nothing on the defensive side, which used to be its biggest weakness. We see skills like Vortex and Scourge now have built-in damage reduction. The long-underdeveloped Centipede skill line is receiving major upgrades. Powerful mechanics like Noxious Resonance are returning, and Spiritborn also boasts high Unstoppable uptime and 100% block chance.

Warlock

Strengths

The developers have clearly stated that to promote the expansion, new classes are intentionally designed to be strong to encourage players to try all builds. Therefore, Warlock is likely one of the strongest classes in Season 13.

Weaknesses

However, Warlock skill tree has numerous interactions and tags, making its mechanics the most complex and not very beginner-friendly. Additionally, Warlock skill tree has almost no defensive capabilities; you must plan your survivability through gear. If you overlook this, you will be extremely fragile.

Paladin

Paladin remains powerful and straightforward. It was released in Season 12 and was almost overwhelmingly strong. Although it will be nerfed in Season 13, as one of Lord of Hatred expansion classes, it still maintains its dominance.

Class Ranking

So, combining the strengths of each class above with their performance in previous Seasons, let's rank them.

Leveling

• S-Tier: Rogue, Spiritborn, Necromancer
• A-Tier: Paladin, Warlock
• B-Tier: Druid, Sorcerer, Barbarian

Endgame

• S-Tier: Spiritborn, Paladin, Warlock
• A-Tier: Druid, Necromancer, Barbarian
• B-Tier: Rogue, Sorcerer

That concludes the conclusion drawn from in-depth analysis and research of all known information. No matter which class you choose, it will be a fantastic experience, because every class will have multiple builds capable of tackling the highest difficulty content.

With only 3 days left until release, all content for Diablo 4 Season 13 and Lord of Hatred has finally been officially revealed! Not only is there new content, but also significant optimizations to several regular mechanics!

While some new features are exclusive to Lord of Hatred owners, systemic changes are available to all Diablo 4 players, such as adjustments to the skill trees.

Different classes have different available skills and related builds, and this update includes further adjustments for Druid and Necromancer beyond the main changes.

Therefore, regardless of which class you want to play in Season 13/LoH, you must understand these changes to ultimately master the best skill tree setup and build crafting strategies. Below is a detailed guide.

What is the skill tree?

The skill tree is a progression system in Diablo 4 that allows you to unlock and upgrade active, passive, and ultimate skills using points earned during leveling.

While the system stops leveling your character after they reach the level cap, with Paragon board taking over, skills are the foundation of your crafting character and builds and cannot be replaced.

General changes to the skill tree

Season 13's skill tree changes can be divided into generic and Druid/Necromancer-specific changes, but the actual impact of these generic changes varies across different skill tree classes.

Firstly, all skill trees have been redesigned with reset/addition options, while existing passive skill nodes have been moved out, becoming more associated with legendary aspects or unique items.

To fill this gap, some legendary aspects that were previously similar to skills have been moved into the skill tree.

Based on this, you can think of the reworked Diablo 4 skill tree as primarily driven by active skills, with each active skill having three branches that can be unlocked by leveling up the skill itself.

The first two branches provide general trainer effects, while the last one introduces three additional variants, which may be based on legendary aspects or offer entirely new surprises!

These variations can even directly change skill categories, making it easier to create synergies with the corresponding types of effects from your acquired gear.

It's important to note that only two of the three skill variations offered by the third branch can be unlocked and used without Lord of Hatred. To maximize the impact of this new mechanic, it's best to acquire the new expansion immediately!

Overall, these changes strengthen the skill system through branches and variations while streamlining it through additions and removals, making skill unlocking and combination more efficient.

This way, even during the early stages of a season, when rare gear is scarce, you can leverage the skill tree to craft simple yet reliable builds, allowing you to farm more Diablo 4 gold than you could at the same stage in previous seasons.

It's also worth mentioning that, perhaps to better complement the new skill tree, the character level cap has been raised to 70 starting with Season 13, allowing you to gain more skill points.

Druid additional changes

In addition to the general changes mentioned above, Druid and Necromancer have received "extra attention."

As you know, Druid is a class that can gain different benefits through transformation. With this in mind, the game has added additional node switching functionality to some Druid skills.

More specifically, you can switch between different transformation forms at any time between the second and third branches as needed, simply by changing skill points, and this switching requires no consumption.

Of course, switching Druid nodes isn't without its limitations, as that would disrupt class balance. For example, some skills cannot be applied to multiple forms, or cannot be used to transform into a human based on the native Werewolf/Werebear skills.

Necromancer additional changes

This class includes multiple skill types: blood, bone, darkness, and summoning magic, and can utilize the unique mechanic, Book of the Dead.

This mechanic allows you to customize your minions' abilities and deployment methods, using them to deal more damage. Available minion types include skeletal warriors/mages and golems.

Each type of minion has two different upgrade paths and a sacrifice option. Sacrifice results in losing the minion but gaining permanent buffs.

Based on this, the new skill tree system incorporates these three types of minions, while the original Book of the Dead remains largely unchanged, but sacrifice can be used with minions active due to the corresponding skill.

As for the sacrifice skill itself, while it reduces the number of minions and damage, it's still quite effective for some support functions.

Detailed changes to the other 6 classes

Paladin is the only class that provides three enhancement options for each skill at the end of the skill tree, and most of the new variants are derived from these enhancement designs.

Based on this, the actual changes to Paladin are not significant; only some modifiers are entirely new. However, considering it's still a new class, this is quite normal.

After the Barbarian skill tree was reworked, you can specialize it to be more focused on single-target or AoE damage based on your preferences and needs. Many skill variants allow you to trigger fire damage more frequently.

As for Rogue, besides various new nodes and variants, the most prominent change to this class's skill tree is that Dance of Knives has been reworked and become a core skill.

One variant of this skill now directly replaces the throwing knife thrown while spinning with a grenade. This not only effectively turns it into a grenade skill but also gives it new synergies and more combo possibilities.

The core of Sorcerer skill tree changes lies in elemental switching, giving almost every skill the ability to switch elements. While this isn't unique to Sorcerer, the class does have many unique elemental synergy mechanisms.

Spiritborn, on the other hand, combines the reworked skill variant mechanics with a mix of Spirit Skill Tags, allowing skills to interact more deeply with the class's core mechanics, making Spiritborn skill system feel more cohesive.

As for Warlock, it's a completely new class that will only be available after Lord of Hatred opens, so the skill tree rework doesn't bring changes to it, but rather represents a completely new system.

In short, mastering the skills and skill tree setup of your chosen class will allow you to level up your character faster in the early season, complete progression, and lay a solid foundation for endgame. Wishing you all the best on your Season 13/LoH journey!