With the release of Diablo 4, Season 1, we thought it’d be the perfect time to review each class and rank them from worst to best. While every class in Diablo 4 is perfectly viable for all types of content, some are definitely more powerful than others.
We’ll be using the leveling experience to determine the order of this list. It’s by far the best metric we can use to measure the power of each class, as the leveling grind will be where the average player spends the majority of their game time.
Every class has hugely powerful builds by the end-game, so this list will be heavily weighted towards the first 70 levels or so, with less weight given to end-game performance.
Let’s get into it.
5. Barbarian
Barbarians are the bread and butter melee class of Diablo 4, specialising in high melee damage, great movement, and supreme tankiness. As martial experts, Barbarians are able to equip up to four weapons at a time, and change them during combat as they see fit.
The Barbarian relies on Fury to cast their most devastating abilities, which is generated during combat and deteriorates while out of the action. They also bring a lot of buffs to the table, making them a great asset for any team during online play.
Despite their huge damage and utility, we’re placing Barbarians at the bottom of our list because their melee focus means they can struggle greatly while leveling. Many of the boss encounters do not favour melee builds, making abilities extremely difficult to dodge.
Finally, while an end-game Barbarian is a true force to be reckoned with, low early game resource generation combined with long cooldowns means they take the longest time out of all the classes to truly get going.
Barbarian Strengths and Weaknesses
Barbarian Strengths
- Huge buffs: Barbarians can buff themselves and their party with Berserking and Shouts respectively.
- Highest damage potential in the game: If Barbarians can survive melee encounters, they have the potential for insane amounts of damage.
- Tanky: Due to needing to be up close and personal at all times, Barbarians have a great roster of damage mitigation tools.
- Loads of stats: Barbarians can equip up to four weapons, which results in more stats to draw power from.
Barbarian Weaknesses
- Very resource dependent: You need Fury to do anything effective, and your most powerful skills require a lot of it.
- Takes a long time to get going: leveling a Barbarian can feel like a chore as it takes so long to start melting faces.
- Melee only: With little to no options to deal damage at range, Barbarians can struggle, especially during boss encounters.
4. Druid
Next on our list is the Druid. Druids are hugely versatile classes that combine the elements of earth, wind, and lightning with their signature wolf and bear forms. They can also call on creatures from the wilds to aid them in battle.The Druid’s resource is Spirit, which is primarily built using basic attacks and spent with powerful, high-damage abilities.
Out of all the classes, Druids have the widest variety of play styles in the game, which ultimately means they end up being a jack of all trades, master of none. Druids perform well at both melee and range depending on their chosen build, but again, don’t particularly excel at either until much later in the game.
Druid Strengths and Weaknesses
Druid Strengths
- Can be extremely tanky: Druids have a lot of defensive options, especially if they invest into the Earth or Werebear skill lines.
- Lots of options: As alluded to above, Druids have a ton of options when it comes to playstyle.
- Hard-hitters: Druids are capable of dishing out extremely high amounts of damage when they invest in Spirit generation.
- Good CC: Druids have a lot of slows, roots, and stuns at their disposal across most of their builds.
Druid Weaknesses
- Slower stater: Druids take an extremely long time to get going, making the early game a bit of a slog.
- Poor mobility: Druids have very few built-in mobility tools, making it much harder to position and kite mobs effectively.
- Resource starved: Spirit is essential for dealing good damage, but it’s resource generation is difficult, especially in the early game.
3. Necromancer
Necromancers are known for their ability to raise swarms of minions to do most of the heavy lifting for them. However, in Diablo 4, there are many other ways to play a Necromancer. While minion builds are still absolutely viable, other builds such as the Bone Spear Necro and Sever Necro are the preferred ways to play by many.
Necromancers have many schools of magic at their disposal, such as curses, blood magic, shadow magic, and bone magic. They’re able to put out great damage in both single-target and AoE scenarios, and have good survivability to boot.
We’re putting Necromancers in the middle of the pack because their power tends to fall off quite quickly while leveling up. Indeed, your minions will practically play the game for you in the early game. Later, though, they’ll be extremely weak which forces you into more complex play styles that are powerful but much tougher to pull off.
Necromancer Strengths and Weaknesses
Necromancer Strengths
- Minion army: Your summons make early sections of the game an absolute breeze, making Necros great for first-timers.
- Great crowd control: You can do practically everything to halt enemies in the path, regardless of the build you’re playing.
- Great survivability: Not only will minions tank most of the damage for you, but you also have lots of CC and other methods of survivability to stay alive.
- Blood Orbs: A unique passive that allows for diverse play styles through the collection of orbs during combat.
Necromancer Weaknesses
- Minions fall off: While your minion horde will feel extremely overpowered in the early levels, they’ll soon fall off, forcing you into other builds.
- Gear dependent: As time ticks on, Necromancers are heavily reliant on gear, meaning you’ll need to spend a lot of time farming to stay powerful.
- Less customisation than other classes: Most Necromancer builds rely heavily on core skills, so you’ll have fewer ways to diversify your build with other abilities.
2. Sorcerer
Sorcerers are extraordinary powerful magic wielders that are the true glass cannons of the Diablo universe. Masters of elemental spellcraft (fire, frost, and electric), sorcerers are capable of obliterating targets in both AoE and single target scenarios, regardless of the build they’re running.
As the squishiest class in Diablo 4, Sorcerers have a vast array of shields, crowd control, and movement abilities to help them stay alive during heated moments. That said, even their defensive options can’t withstand a heavy onslaught, so keeping enemies out of melee range is your best option.
We’re placing sorcerers second on this list simply because of the sheer amount of damage they can put out with very little effort. While they do suffer late game, leveling a Sorcerer is incredibly fast and incredibly simple.
Sorcerer Strengths and Weaknesses
Sorcerer Strengths
- Melt your enemies: Sorcerers have the capability to delete a bosses’ health bar or obliterate an entire screen of enemies with hugely powerful abilities.
- Shields: Sorcerers have access to a wide range of magic shields to protect them from harm. They can also be customised with offensive or utility options.
- Built for CC: Slow, freeze, and stun your enemies, and deal extra damage while doing so.
- Move freely: With many builds, Sorcerers don’t have to stay still to deal damage, nor do they need to channel many of their spells.
Sorcerer Weaknesses
- Very squishy: Despite having shields, Sorcerer’s are unable to withstand a lot of damage, especially as enemies grow more powerful.
- Resource dependant: Sorcerers are useless without mana. While they have many ways of generating it, finding yourself without can spell disaster.
- Bosses can’t be CC’d: Most bosses can’t be crowd controlled in Diablo 4, which limits the amount of damage you can do to them.
1. Rogue
Rogues are highly versatile damage dealers and are probably the best all-round class in Diablo 4 right now. Not only are they capable of dealing massive damage at both melee and range depending on their build, they’re also powerhouses at taking down both single targets and multiple enemies.
With few damage mitigation tools in their box, Rogues are more difficult than other classes to play well and survive. That said, in the right hands, Rogues are unstoppable machines that can dart around the battlefield and cause havoc everywhere they go.
We’re ranking Rogues as the best class in Diablo 4 because of their amazing performance at all stages of the game. With the options to go flying in or do damage from afar, lay traps or enhance your attacks, Rogues have the highest number of powerful builds in the game, as long as you have the skill to use them.
Rogue Strengths and Weaknesses
Rogue Strengths
- Slippery: Rogues can move around incredibly quickly, allowing you to reposition and kite with ease.
- Great CC: This strength compliments their fast movement speed. Slowing and stunning your enemies makes it even harder for them to get hold of you.
- Melee / Range Hybrid: Rogues are devastating at both melee and range, and can switch damage types on the fly.
- Lots of playstyles: Rogues can use cold, poison, and shadow damage, as well as traps, to dish out massive damage.
Rogue Weaknesses
- Few defensive capabilities: Rogues have very few damage mitigation tools, making melee builds high-risk, high-reward.
- High skill-floor: After the early levels, Rogues are difficult to play when using their most effective builds.
Which Class Are You Playing In Diablo 4?
Which class do you main in Diablo 4? Are you going to roll something brand new for the new season, or stick with what you know to gain a competitive edge? Let us know!
