Diablo 4 Season 11 Developer Interview And Changes | Masterworking, Tempering, Sanctification, Teleport Nerfs And The Tower Explained

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• Diablo 4 Season 10 Landslide Druid Build Guide | How To Crush Infernal Hordes And Boost Your DPS?

  Due to the postponement of Compass to Carnage event, you could have freely farmed Infernal Hordes in the middle of Diablo 4 Season 10, but now you must prepare to fight until the end of the season.

  To fully utilize Infernal Horde bonus from this event before Season 10 ends, you need to choose the most suitable and efficient build to complete the event. If you mainly play Druid, consider Landslide Druid Build!

  While you might find this build somewhat outdated, combined with Chaos Perks, it can actually be quite effective in farming densely packed enemies like Infernal Hordes in Season 10. We'll now introduce how to craft this build.

  

  Landslide Druid Build Overview

  This build excels not only at clearing groups of enemies but is also effective against single bosses. It's relatively easy to master, even for new Druid players, and once mastered, it can help you progress through the season more steadily.

  Of course, no build is perfect. This build's disadvantages lie in its relatively slow speed, requiring a longer initial setup to unleash its full power, and its high gear requirements.

  However, these aren't difficult to overcome. You can buy Diablo 4 items to meet Landslide Druid Build crafting requirements and acquire additional armor with good defense or survivability enhancements, allowing you to smoothly navigate the early stages of combat.

  The Main Mechanics Of This Build

  To ensure this build functions effectively, you need Vasily's Prayer, which converts Druid earth skills into wolf-type skills, allowing you to benefit from the survival node or special passive skills, enabling you to continuously cast Landslide in combat.

  In addition, you need to equip this gear with rare affixes and upgrade it regularly to maximize its power. Of course, if you find its Chaos Armor version, even better, you can use it in the helmet slot.

  The second essential item for this build is Earthbreaker. It increases Landslide's sustained damage by increasing the ground's physical damage per second. If you place a Landslide pillar within Earth Spike's area of ​​effect, it can also duplicate it.

  To further ensure continuous Landslide casting, the third gear needs to provide infinite spirit, combined with Chao Perk Overabundance to prevent resource shortages.

  Finally, don't forget to add Aspect of the Aftershock to your amulet. This allows Landslide to attack twice, dealing additional damage with each attack, maximizing your DPS.

  While the core of Landslide Druid build revolves around gear, it's not limited to these aspects, and other elements such as skills and seasonal powers are equally important. We'll discuss these in the following sections.

  Optimal Skill Rotation

  If you're a veteran Diablo 4 Druid player, you should be familiar with the basic skill configuration of this build, as it's been in the game for a long time.

  Besides the core Landslide, other important skills include Grizzly Rage, Poison Creeper, Blood Howl, and more. However, what truly makes a build effective isn't just the skills themselves, but also the order and timing of their use.

  You need to continuously cast Landslide while using Cataclysm to gain infinite resources. Also, don't forget to use Claw to activate Wild Transformations (Chaos Perk) to further ensure the continuity of Landslide casting.

  If you encounter enemy encirclement or are low on health, remember to activate defensive skills and Cyclone Armor immediately - you can activate this by switching to humanoid form using Wild Transformations.

  More importantly, activating Cataclysm or Cyclone Armor can continuously gather enemies together, maximizing DPS.

  Based on this, further skill tree configurations are as follows:

  • 1. First, unlock Claw at the start.
  • 2. Unlock the original Landslide and Wild Impulses.
  • 3. Unlock all defensive skills.
  • 4. Unlock Innate Blood Howl and Debilitating Roar for damage bonuses.

  Overall, Landslide Druid Build's skill rotation isn't complicated, which is why we mentioned its ease of mastery from the beginning.

  More Gear Options

  We've already mentioned some gear when explaining how the build works. Beyond that, you'll need to acquire more powerful items to further enhance the build and your character's overall enemy clearing capabilities.

  The first recommended item is Heir of Perdition, which provides a 60% bonus to skill damage, and some affixes significantly increase DPS. It's worth noting that this item can also be replaced with Chaos version of Fists of Fate.

  For the chest armor, both Shroud of False Death and Insatiable Fury are good choices, but the former is better. It grants +1 to all passive skills and all attributes, helping you reach Paragon levels.

  The ring Earthbreaker's style and effects are perfectly suited to this build. It increases Landslide's level and the attack speed of Earth-type skills, since Landslide's effects are always relatively slow to materialize.

  Here are some recommended gear choices for other slots:

  • Boots: Dire Wolf's
  • Primary Weapon: Dagger
  • Amulet: Any perk that provides Willpower and Venom passive skill points

  Best Chaos Powers

  The essential perks we've already mentioned include Overabundance and Wild Transformations. Their attributes and specific effects are as follows:

  • Overabundance - Magic - Druid: For every 50 points above your maximum Spirit, your damage increases by 10-20% for 5 seconds. This bonus stacks but does not refresh.
  • Wild Transformations - Legendary - Druid: After transforming into a new form, you can use a free skill and gain an additional bonus for 5 seconds.

  Since a maximum of four powers can be used per combat, the other two recommended Chaos Perks are:

  • Brawn Over Brains - Unique - All Class: Provides maximum life, healing received, and Overpower damage bonus, while reducing your maximum resistances and armor damage reduction.
  • Purge the Infected - Rare - Druid: Your core ability inflicts a poison effect on enemies for 4 seconds, equal to 100-200% of your base damage.

  By completing Landslide Druid Build crafting based on the above, you should be able to dominate as a Druid for the remainder of Season 10, earning your character the final wave of honor and loot for the season! Give it a try!

• Diablo 4 Season 11 Dance Of Knives Rogue Build Guide: Death's Pavane Makes Rogue A Top-Tier Meta Choice

  Through the 2.5.0 PTR, we've already learned about the new exclusive items for each class in Diablo 4 Season 11. Hardcore fans know that these new Uniques will essentially determine the trend and popularity of these class builds in the upcoming season. While all data is currently based solely on PTR, some items may be buffed or nerfed, but major changes are unlikely.

  Among these new Diablo 4 items, one stands out and has the immense potential to propel Dance of Knives build to the top of the rankings in Season 11: Rogue-exclusive Death's Pavane Unique pants.

  Here, we'll discuss the impact of Death's Pavane on Dance of Knives Rogue and why this build was able to completely disrupt the game balance and dominate The Tower endgame event during PTR.

  

  Death's Pavane

  First, these unique pants allow you to deal more damage when using Dance of Knives skill, while also significantly improving your survivability.

  Death's Pavane's inherent attributes grant you a higher dodge chance when using Dance of Knives skill, which provides a substantial survivability boost. Additionally, it increases your critical strike chance and movement speed, making it very useful.

  It's important to note that this item has some unique mechanics. It works by dropping knives when you use Dance of Knives and hit an enemy. Picking them up grants a charge, increasing your damage by 10-20% for 6 seconds, stacking up to three times for a 60% damage multiplier.

  Essentially, you'll be in a charged state most of the time, giving you the opportunity to deal infinite damage. This is why Dance of Knives Rogue dominated The Pits and The Tower during the PTR.

  While this game-changing stat boost will almost certainly be nerfed after the official release of Season 11, it remains the top build choice for players, especially Rogue players, with its new unique gear.

  

  Build Gameplay

  Now let's talk about the gameplay and powerful features of Dance of Knives Rogue build.

  Skills

  In terms of skills, you'll need to use Puncture or other basic skills to increase damage and accumulate combo points. You can increase the damage and effects of your core skills by stacking combo points, including the damage bonus to your primary attack skill, Dance of Knives. Building combo points is the core mechanism for maximizing damage output, as spending more combo points will produce stronger effects when using core skills.

  Next, use Dark Shroud to reduce damage and combine it with Shadow Clone to further increase damage. Additionally, you can choose Shadow Imbuement, Cold Imbuement, or Poison Imbuement depending on your playstyle and build.

  Of these, Shadow is best suited for fast farming because it explodes and quickly clears large areas of enemy packs; Cold has very strong single-target damage; and Poison's damage output is also decent, but its damage frequency is relatively low, which is normal across various builds. However, combined with Aspect of Creeping Death, Poison Imbuement's power is quite considerable.

  Therefore, you can choose any skill; they are all pretty good now, each with its own unique characteristics.

  However, since Shadow Imbuement is better suited for clearing maps, and the latest update has made many changes, now each boss has different areas, I would recommend Shadow if you want to experience more open-world content. Plus, Dance of Knives build itself is suitable for speed runs.

  In addition, we have Dash skill, which allows us to significantly improve the build's mobility. It's also another agility skill, which we need to activate for snapshots.

  The principle of a snapshot is simple: it's about accumulating combo points. Assuming you have three combo points, you'll need to activate Shadow Clone, Dash, and Shadow Imbuement.

  Once all skills are snapshotted, you'll have near-infinite damage output. However, after Shadow Clone expires, you'll need to re-execute the entire combo. This is necessary because activating the ultimate skill grants an additional bonus, and the ultimate skill's damage provides a universal damage multiplier and boosts all damage.

  Also Read: Developer Interview Reveals New Changes In Diablo 4 Season 11 | Item Upgrade, Map Unlock And The Tower Endgame

  Equipment & Stats

  As for the necessary equipment for this build, Heir of Perdition or Harlequin Crest are both good choices in Season 11. Other item options are as follows:

  • Helm: Heir of Perdition
  • Chest Armor: Shroud of False Death
  • Gloves: Grasp of Shadow
  • Pants: Death's Pavane
  • Boots: Mangler's Aspect
  • Amulet: Umbrous Aspect
  • Ring 1: Aspect of Inner Calm
  • Ring 2: Aspect of Elements
  • Ranged Weapon: Aspect of Star Shards
  • Dual-Wield Weapon 1: Aspect of Apogeic Furor
  • Dual-Wield Weapon 2: Edgemaster's Aspect

  Because the item crafting system has undergone a complete overhaul in the new season, not only has the chance of Tempering and Masterworking rolling RNGs been reduced, but another high-risk, high-reward item upgrade mechanism has also been added - Sanctification, although its reputation is not good.

  Therefore, in Diablo 4 Season 11, you can essentially regenerate attributes randomly. Ideally, you only need to focus on obtaining affixes like Critical Strike Chance, Movement Speed, and Lucky Hit Chance.

  The most important stat for your build is Movement Speed, as this prevents your Dance of Knives skills from easily becoming ineffective. Other important stats include Fortification, Resistance, and Immunity to Crowd Control every 12 seconds.

  

  Runes

  Next is the rune section for Dance of Knives Rogue build.

  • Bac and Zec: These runes reduce ultimate skill cooldowns, which is extremely useful for a Dance of Knives build that relies on high burst damage.
  • Neo: When using normal skills, this Rune of Ritual reduces ultimate skill cooldowns, making your ultimate skills easier to cast and deal continuous damage.
  • Vex: This Rune of Invocation provides extra skill points, which is very useful for improving the skill tree and maximizing damage and defense.

  Paragon Boards

  For Dance of Knives build in Season 11, key Paragon Boards include Exploit Weakness, Danse Macabre, and Headhunter. These boards provide crucial damage bonuses to active abilities, extend the duration of Vulnerable states, and increase damage against controlled enemies - the very control effects that are key to maintaining the build's Cold and Poison Imbuement mechanics.

  In short, Dance of Knives Rogue build is so powerful in Season 11 because of the perfect synergy between its core abilities, the new unique Death's Pavane pants, and the new season's mechanics. This combination allows the build to deal massive area-of-effect damage while maintaining high mobility.

• Diablo 4 Season 11 The Tower Guide | Gameplay And Newly Announced Reward Details

  While currently in a transition period between the end of 2.5.0 PTR and the yet-to-be-released Season 11, Diablo 4 development team continues to release information about Season 11 periodically.

  Interestingly, compared to previous seasons, the most appealing aspect of Season 11 isn't its seasonal Divine Gifts mechanic, but rather the updates and additions to various gear upgrade systems, and the new dungeon, The Tower.

  While The Tower itself isn't particularly innovative in terms of gameplay, its true uniqueness lies in its return to the leaderboard system - a system that previously appeared in D4 but was removed in Season 6.

  Recently, the developers' revelations about the special leaderboard rewards for The Tower have reignited the excitement of players who have been quietly awaiting the new season. We'll introduce the relevant information below.

  

  What Is The Tower?

  The Tower is an event added to Diablo 4 endgame content starting with Season 11, specifically manifested as a randomly generated, multi-stage, time-limited dungeon.

  It's worth noting that The Tower operates similarly to the permanent The Pit, and there are even more connections between them:

  For example, both require you to travel to The Artificer's Obelisk in Cerrigar to enter. Furthermore, the available The Tower levels can be re-selected, or you can directly enter the corresponding level of The Tower from an unlocked The Pit level.

  It's also worth noting that unlocking The Tower requires completing the seasonal journey's rank mission, Hellish Decent Capstone Dungeon. This dungeon system, like the leaderboard, returned to the game in Season 11.

  How To Complete The Tower?

  Each run of The Tower dungeon has 5 levels. All enemies and bosses you encounter are randomly generated, and you must clear them within 10 minutes.

  During the clearing process, you can collect progress orbs from defeated enemies to fill the dungeon's progress. Once full, a Tower Guardian will spawn as the final boss; defeating him completes that run of The Tower.

  The stronger the enemy, the more progress orbs they provide, thus helping you complete The Tower faster and achieve better rankings on the leaderboard. Enemy types typically include:

  • Elites
  • Champions
  • Mastery Goblins

  To gain more damage or defense against rarer The Tower enemies, you should not only equip Diablo 4 items that provide boosts, but also utilize the help of Pylons.

  What Are Pylons?

  Pylons are buff shrines that appear during The Tower dungeon runs. There are three types, each with different effects. You will encounter four each round of The Tower, with the last one having a random effect from the three types.

  • Pylon of Channeling: You don't consume resources when using skills, and skill cooldowns are reduced.
  • Pylon of Power: You can deal more damage.
  • Pylon of Speed: You gain the unstoppable and unhindered effects, and your movement speed is greatly increased.

  When you encounter Pylons, you will find that they are surrounded by shields. Only by destroying the shields can the corresponding Pylon be activated. While The Tower itself isn't difficult to complete, activating Pylons can help you climb the leaderboards.

  How Does The Tower Leaderboard Work?

  The leaderboard is broadly divided into hardcore and casual categories. Each category includes solo, duo, trio, and quad modes. Solo mode is further subdivided into six game classes.

  Based on your team and class choice when completing The Tower dungeons, your final ranking, character ID, completion date, and dungeon level will be displayed in the relevant category - provided you rank in the top 1000.

  What The Tower Rewards Are Available?

  Due to the leaderboards, you cannot earn rewards by repeatedly farming The Tower. You only receive onetime rewards upon clearing new levels.

  The development team recently revealed that regular rewards will probably include gold and gear. The higher your ranking on the leaderboard, the more numerous and rarer the rewards will be. Top players will also have the opportunity to unlock exclusive cosmetic rewards!

  These cosmetic items will likely be titles and halos with unique formats or visual effects, allowing other players to immediately see your achievements in The Tower challenge and fully demonstrate your skill level.

  Therefore, obtaining these cosmetic rewards will likely be difficult; you might need to consistently rank top in your category every time the leaderboard resets.

  It's important to note that only the character you used to complete the challenge can wear these cosmetic items, not other Diablo 4 characters in your account. Otherwise, it might cause confusion when others view the leaderboard.

  

  Since rewards are not distributed through leaderboards in 2.5.0 PTR, and the developers have stated that they will continue to optimize the leaderboard system after Season 11 launches, the final reward system is currently unclear.

  However, what is certain is that in the future, you will be able to prove your Diablo 4 skill and ability through The Tower challenge, motivating yourself to continuously improve. After all, leaderboards are inherently competitive.

  In summary, the mechanics and gameplay of The Tower itself are not complex; the challenge lies in achieving the top rankings. Dungeon time is limited, so sometimes the difference between your time and the person ahead of you can be just a matter of seconds.

  That's all for this introduction. More details will be revealed when Season 11 goes live. Let's look forward to December 9th!

• Diablo 4 Season 11 Fast Leveling Guide | How To Reach Level 60 Quickly With Boss Farming And Helltides?

  Diablo 4 Season 11 made changes to many fundamental mechanics, such as equipment drops, skills, and monster AI. These changes have increased the difficulty of leveling in the early game.

  So, did leveling speed slow down in Season 11? Actually, no. According to player testing, leveling speed in Season 11 was not only not slower, but even faster, provided you knew which enemies and events to focus on.

  

  Diablo 4 Season 11 Changes

  Season Rank And Reputation

  First, the new Season Rank system completely replaces the old reputation system. Players no longer need to grind reputation by region. Characters will gain skill points at Season Ranks 1, 2, and 3, and Paragon Points at Season Ranks 3, 4, 5, and 6.

  Lilith Shrines no longer grant permanent stat bonuses. Instead, they drop XP,  gold, Murmuring Obols, and gem shards, making them less essential.

  Capstone Dungeons

  Capstone Dungeons are no longer optional; they must be challenged to increase your World Tiers. You must complete them in order and at the specified levels and difficulties to access higher difficulties:

  • Torrid Menagerie (Level 30): Hard
  • Hellish Descent (Level 50): Penitent
  • Unseen Awakening: (Level 60, Pit 15): Torment 1
  • Tempest Oasis (Level 60, Pit 30): Torment 2
  • Sins of the Many (Level 60, Pit 35): Torment 3

  Item System

  Rare Diablo 4 items drop less frequently before level 30, and unique items before level 40. Originally, the level cap was 25, forcing players to use magic and rare items early on. For new players, the lack of powerful equipment in the early game slows down leveling and makes dungeon runs riskier.

  However, the corresponding Tempering system is completely free from level 1. Players can freely choose and apply desired tempering effects at the blacksmith, without randomness or the need for reforging. If used effectively, it can slightly increase early-game leveling speed.

  

  How To Level Up Fast?

  Helltides And Duriel

  In Season 11's Helltides, Blood Maiden was removed from it and replaced by Duriel. When Helltides progress bar is full, Hellborns no longer appear; instead, illusions of Duriel appear. Defeating them drops Baneful. Hearts, when collected in sufficient quantities, can summon the true Duriel.

  An XP bug appeared in Helltides on the PTR. Due to various events (which spawn large swarms of maggots), and Heavenly Sigil obtained after killing Duriel, which can be interacted with by finding an angel in town, equipping a Divine Gift in Corruption Slot will cause the killed maggots to drop pure experience orbs.

  A 30-second fire circle event can level you from level 55 to 59, and by chaining these events, it's theoretically possible to level from 1 to 60 in 2 hours. This bug may be fixed in the live server, but even if it is, it remains the fastest way to level up in the early game under normal circumstances.

  Infernal Hordes

  Infernal Hordes have also received a significant buff, basically granting 120 million XP per participation, with high-health monsters like Aether Lords providing particularly high amounts of experience.

  World Bosses And Wilderness Bosses

  Based on PTR 2.5.0 patch that the official update has increased the XP players gain from various events in Overworld, especially from boss battles. This makes defeating bosses the most efficient way to level up in the mid-to-late game of Season 11.

  Azmodan, The Lord Of Sin

  Azmodan, the Lord of Sin, is a new world boss in Season 11. Each kill grants approximately 70 million XP. In addition to experience, it drops a large amount of loot, including Runes, Essence of Sin, and Essence of Hellfire.

  Even The Pit 150, which is theoretically impossible to complete at the moment, only provides 15 million XP per run. Defeating Azmodan is equivalent to completing nearly five Pit 150 runs.

  It is the simplest, but not the most efficient, leveling goal, as players can easily defeat it in a group, and some can even participate semi-AFK. Furthermore, no specific materials are required to challenge it, and the treasure chest items are immediately available after the kill. Other world bosses provide significantly more XP. Both are relatively good farming targets.

  Lair Bosses

  Lair Bosses like Duriel and Andariel provide 25 to 30 million XP. Challenging lair bosses doesn't require materials; they're only needed when opening treasure chests. This means that if you just want to level up, you can summon them immediately after defeating them.

  Of all Lair bosses, Urivar is the fastest and most efficient for XP gain because it's extremely fast to kill. If your build is good enough, you can basically kill it in 20 seconds. Farming Urivar can yield approximately 4.5 billion XP per hour.

  Defeating Lilith grants a whopping 73 million XP, currently the highest known source of experience per kill. However, she doesn't drop loot and is quite difficult, making it less efficient.

  Leveling Tips

  Players can gather at boss spawn points, taking turns or fighting bosses together. Experience is shared, and there's an XP bonus for team play. For bosses like Lilith and Urivar, located in dungeons, you can quickly reset the boss and skip the waiting time by using the “escape dungeon hotkey” or leaving the game and creating a new one after defeating it.

  This is the fastest way to level up in Season 11. If you can efficiently utilize boss farming for leveling, you can reach paragon level 300 in about 12-13 hours, although this might shorten your game lifespan. However, this method of gaining XP is too fast obviously and may be nerfed.

• Diablo 4 Season 11 Class Tier List & Best Builds: Top Classes For The Tower Endgame Ranked

  Diablo fans, with the 2.5.0 PTR concluded, the release of Season 11 is drawing ever closer, and it's time to prepare.

  Through the 2.5.0 PTR, we learned about some potential changes in Diablo 4. While the core gameplay remains the same, many important gear mechanics have been completely overhauled, such as Tempering and Masterworking, the new Tower event, a brand-new season system, and a series of class balance adjustments.

  Here, we review and summarize the changes that occurred during the PTR, especially the performance of each class in Season 11, and rank the relative strength of the current strongest builds.

  However, we must make a disclaimer: the above content is based on PTR, meaning that many things are likely to change or be adjusted before the official release. Nevertheless, this will still give you a general understanding of the powerful builds the developers plan to create and the high-level gameplay that will emerge in the new season.

  Furthermore, since The Tower replaced The Pits as a new endgame event in Season 11, the new standard for measuring strength in this class tier list will no longer be The Pits, but The Tower.

  The Tower operates very similarly to The Pit, even sharing the same difficulty level, and it comes with its own complete leaderboard system. This means we can at least see the specific strength of different classes through data.

  

  6. Rogue

  First, let's start with the lowest completion record on the Tower leaderboard, which belongs to Rogue.

  Rogue is currently in a very awkward position. Frankly, I think Rogue is the class most likely to receive significant changes after the release of Season 11, because in the early PTR, Dance of Knives build was too powerful, almost breaking the game balance and completely crushing the top events of The Pits and The Tower.

  And this powerful force stemmed from the new legendary item centered around Dance of Knives, Death's Pavane. However, the official patch fixed this issue, which is why Dance of Knives build performed poorly in most subsequent dungeon events.

  In the PTR, the strongest Rogue build is Death Trap Rogue, with the highest clear count on The Tower Leaderboard being 94 floors. The Trap Rogue build has held the top spot for several seasons, so seeing it replace Dance of Knives' dominance is truly regrettable.

  That said, I've seen some top players experiment with various skill combinations, such as Heartseeker and even Twisting Blades. Therefore, Rogue still has a chance to avoid being forever stuck in Death Trap.

  5. Sorcerer

  Next, let's talk about Sorcerer class, currently the most efficient tower clearer, with a clear level of 103. However, Sorcerer is also in a somewhat awkward position now. Teleport Enchantment mechanism has been completely nerfed, so you can no longer have the super-fast teleportation ability as before.

  In addition, Sorcerer's actual damage output was significantly inflated by Chaos Perks last season. Now that Chaos Powers have been removed, Sorcerer's strength has dropped considerably.

  However, on the other hand, we've gained a brand new and unique piece of equipment for Sorcerer: Orsivane. This equipment is incredibly powerful, granting any defensive skill not on the skill bar a corresponding enchantment effect.

  Furthermore, these off-skill defensive skills also receive a damage bonus, allowing Sorcerers to reduce reliance on actual defensive skills on the skill bar and enabling some very interesting playstyles through enchantments.

  But these benefits cannot compensate for the loss of Chaos Perks, nor can they undo the overpowered Teleport Enchantment. Therefore, compared to before, Sorcerer is currently in a more difficult position.

  Currently, the best-performing Sorcerer build on Tower Leaderboard is Crackling Energy & Lightning Spear. This is a classic Sorcerer build, featuring numerous lightning bolts streaking across the screen, piercing enemies, and significantly boosting Crackling Energy damage with Esadora's Overflowing Cameo enchantment. Combined with Galvanic Azurite Unique Ring, it generates even more energy, further enhancing its damage.

  In addition, Frozen Orb build also looks competitive, and with the rework of Sorcerer's exclusive Diablo 4 items, the potential damage of Frozen Orb can be greatly increased.

  Also Read: Diablo 4 Season 10 Compass To Carnage Event And Patch 2.4.3 Delayed | New Dates, Details And Player Reactions

  4. Necromancer

  Next in fourth place is Necromancer, whose highest clear time is also a level 103 tower, but about 7 seconds faster than Sorcerer's record. Therefore, currently, these two classes are very close in strength.

  Last season, Necromancer's Blood Wave build performed exceptionally well, mainly due to its exclusive Chaos Perks, which allowed its ultimate ability to be converted into a core ability. However, with the removal of these Chaos Perks, the relative strength of Blood Wave build has decreased.

  Currently, Necromancer build, centered around Shadowblight passive ability, dominates the leaderboard and has maintained considerable strength for several seasons.

  However, a new build is emerging: Golem Necromancer. This build utilizes Necromancer's new and unique item - Gravebloom - which replaces your single Golem with three smaller Golems. These smaller Golems deal up to 60% more damage and have a 30% bonus attack speed. Furthermore, it speeds up Golem respawns.

  But frankly, the most crucial element is that one of the affixes grants Golems a chance to attack twice, which is vital for boosting the build's damage output; combined with two Golem Mastery points, this build has received a significant boost in Diablo 4 Season 11.

  3. Druid

  Next up is third place today, Druid build that cleared 105 floors of the tower.

  For Druid builds, Cataclysm has been consistently strong over the past few seasons, sometimes even ranking among the best builds in its class. Its core gameplay revolves around the concept of Snapshotting.

  Snapshotting involves pre-preparing and activating a series of buffs that increase the damage of your next skill, then waiting a specific time to apply these buffs to a long-duration skill, repeating this process over and over. Therefore, you can permanently activate all buffs to enhance a single skill.

  The main reason Cataclysm builds consistently rank among the top Druid builds is the rework of Melted Heart of Selig. It now provides a 3% bonus to maximum resources based on your primary attribute. This synergizes with Druid's Ancestral Guidance Paragon Node, allowing you to increase damage after expending resources. More importantly, when casting an ultimate skill, each Spirit you possess increases ultimate skill damage by 1%.

  With the new Melted Heart of Selig and its mechanics, you can easily acquire approximately 10,000 resources. Combining these two points, it's easy to understand why this build is so powerful.

  2. Spiritborn

  Next is Spiritborn, whose highest clear record on the leaderboard is 109 floors, achieved using Evade Eagle Spiritborn build.

  This Evade Eagle build has consistently been among the top builds in Spiritborn class since its inception. However, it excels more at fast farming than high-intensity endgame activities, as it progresses extremely quickly throughout the overall game content.

  Regardless, its damage output is the highest of all builds in the class. This is partly because it's the only top-tier Spiritborn build that can effectively utilize Aspect of Unyielding Hits. This aspect provides a weapon damage bonus based on your total armor value. Furthermore, due to the redesigned armor system, this build easily achieves extremely high armor values ​​in the late game.

  1. Barbarian

  Finally, currently ranked number one is Barbarian. But before delving deeper into this section, we must state that the current Barbarian build will not be released in PTR for the live version.

  Barbarian is the only class to have cleared more than 109 floors on the Tower Leaderboard, with a current highest clear count of 124 floors. The main reason for this is similar to the Druid situation we discussed earlier.

  Barbarian benefits immensely from the reworked Melted Heart of Selig. Furthermore, the class's biggest advantage is that each point in primary attribute translates into an additional 3% of maximum resource value. Since Barbarian has four weapon slots, two of which are two-handed weapons, it can achieve the highest primary attribute damage of any class.

  In addition, it has two sources of damage bonuses that are not capped. The first bonus applies to most Barbarian builds: Ramaladni's Magnum Opus, a unique one-handed sword that grants a damage bonus based on current resource value when using abilities. From a few hundred resources to tens of thousands from Melted Heart of Selig, this significantly increases the damage bonus.

  The other key bonus is Hammer of the Ancients ability itself, which is why HOTA Barbarian build far surpasses other builds on PTR. This skill provides additional critical strike damage and critical strike chance for every 10 resources you have at the time of casting, currently with no cap. This means thousands of resources can flood into this enhancement, and it can be amplified to an astonishing degree.

  It is this combination that allows the Hammer of the Ancients build to easily reach T124. While this build won't be as dominant as before after the official release of Season 11, it will probably remain a mainstream build.

  In any case, the above is a summary of the performance of each class in PTR, ranked according to their leaderboard results in Tower endgame event. But will their performance in Diablo 4 Season 11 be the same? Only time will tell!

• Diablo 4 Season 10 Rake Spiritborn Build Guide | Speed Through The Pit And Other Events

  Even as the youngest class in Diablo 4, Spiritborn has been around for over a year, resulting in numerous powerful builds created by players, who update these builds according to the season.

  Different Spiritborn builds have different strengths; some focus on single-target damage, while others help you level up faster. However, for quickly clearing multi-layered endgame events like The Pit, Rake Spiritborn build is the most reliable.

  Based on this, we'll show you how to craft this build in the still-running Diablo 4 Season 10 and utilize it to progress quickly within The Pit, farming more rewards.

  

  Rake Spiritborn Build Overview

  This build relies on a variety of unique items and Spiritborn-specific mechanic, Spirit Hall, to function. It excels at dealing AoE damage, making it better suited for dealing with groups of enemies rather than single bosses.

  However, because it requires multiple damage-dealing gear, this build cannot be paired with enough armor, resulting in a lack of defensive capabilities.

  Another tricky aspect of Rake Spiritborn Build is the need for precise timing of triggering various effects to maximize the value of skills and gear, making it somewhat difficult to use.

  However, once you overcome these challenges, you can deal primary damage by triggering Jaguar's Spirit Hall multiple times per second, then utilize the stacking buffs from various gear to further increase damage output.

  Building upon this, choosing Eagle as the secondary Spirit Hall increases clearing speed. Through continuous dodging and instant repositioning, you can quickly unleash burst damage, even in Torment 4 difficulty, rapidly clearing large groups of monsters.

  As an additional reminder, the skill choices for this build in Season 10 can largely follow the strategies used in previous seasons, primarily including the following skills:

  • Rake
  • Ravager
  • Armored Hide
  • Vortex
  • Toxic Skin
  • The Hunter

  Which Gear Is Needed?

  As we've already mentioned, this build is gear-intensive, so you'd better follow our recommendations for farming and equipping Diablo 4 items, and don't easily change your item lineup.

  Let's start from top to bottom, beginning with the helmet. Fortunately, Season 10 introduced Chaos Armor, so just choose the best Spiritborn-available Chaos Armor you can get - don't forget to add affixes that provide damage and agility boosts.

  As for the chest armor, Razorplate is actually an essential item for the entire build to function. It can be obtained by farming the boss Lord Zir, and equipping it increases your Thorns damage.

  For the gloves slot, we recommend Aspect of the Moonrise, which allows you to increase your attack speed by dealing damage to enemies. Combined with the massive damage from your abilities, you'll become a high-speed monster-killing machine on the field.

  Here's a list of more gear pieces and the corresponding affixes or Masterworking effects:

  • Pants - Harmony of Ebewaka (Chaos Armor version): Provides all attributes, movement speed, and damage reduction with advanced affixes.
  • Boots - Hesha E Kesungi: The affix needs to increase the gorilla's skill level and attack speed, and reduce ultimate skill cooldown.
  • Weapon - Aspect of Wild Claws: Ensures free damage and extra hit chance trigger.
  • Amulet - Aspect of Adaptability: The affix needs to increase resource bonuses.
  • Ring 1 - Aspect of Redirected Force: The affix needs to increase dexterity, maximum health, and overpower damage.
  • Ring 2 - Aspect of Unyielding Hits: The affix needs to increase dexterity, elemental resistance, and damage, and reduce resource consumption and skill cooldown.

  Besides the gear pieces mentioned above, another essential item is Rod of Kepeleke.

  As a Spiritborn-exclusive quarterstaff, this gear's Chaos Armor version receives a 0.90% critical strike damage boost, allowing it to unleash even greater power when paired with other gear.

  Best Chaos Perks

  As another core seasonal mechanic of Season 10, every build available in that season should have a best Chaos Perks combination (maximum 4 can be combined.).

  Combined Strikes

  For Rake Spiritborn build, the core perk should be Combined Strikes. It allows core abilities to not only attack multiple times but also deal a 40% damage boost.

  While this perk also increases the core ability cooldown by 10 seconds, the core ability cooldown is reset when the basic ability attacks for the third time based on Rod of Kepeleke.

  This allows you to continuously unleash wide-area core abilities, combining damage and attack speed boosts to quickly clear enemy groups.

  Brawn Over Brains

  This perk instantly grants you 200% increased maximum health, 100% increased healing received, and 125% overpower damage. The downside is a 25% reduction in maximum resistances, with armor providing a maximum damage reduction of 60%.

  While the reduced resistances make you more vulnerable, enemies will practically never get close, as your survivability and damage output are significantly increased, allowing you to eliminate enemies before the resistance debuff takes effect.

  Unstable Power

  This perk unleashes chaotic magic on your basic abilities, guaranteeing a Critically Strike and Overpower effect, while increasing damage output by 50-100%. However, there is a 3-second cooldown on this power.

  Combined with Rod of Kepeleke, your core abilities are treated as basic abilities, thus guaranteeing all your spells will crit.

  Back Off

  When you cast any skill, this perk reduces damage taken by nearby enemies by 30% while increasing your damage to all other enemies by 100-200%, making it suitable for ranged combat.

  Based on this, as long as you maintain a mid-to-long range from enemy groups and ensure accurate positioning, you can deal double damage to all enemies.

  Practical Effect Of This Build

  Pit of the Artificers is a timed endgame event that requires you to kill a sufficient number of enemies within 15 minutes to summon a boss. Only after killing the boss is a level completed, so speed and damage output are crucial.

  While Rake Spiritborn Build is somewhat lacking in dealing with single-target bosses, our recommended crafting strategy is sufficient until level 140. After that, if you want to use this build to delve deeper into The Pit, you will need to upgrade your gear and affixes.

  And it's not just effective at The Pit, Rake Spiritborn Build also performs well in clearing Infernal Hordes, which also have timed and progress bar mechanics, or in the high-monster-density Season 10 Chaos Rifts.

  In short, whether you want to delve deeper into The Pit or farm more loot through Infernal Hordes after Compass to Carnage event begins, Rake Spiritborn Build will be very useful!