Diablo 4: Hardest Classes To Master, Ranked

Diablo 4 has five classes for players to choose from when beginning their adventure in this action role-playing game. While some of them are quite easy for the player to understand and use, such as the Necromancer, others require the player to put a little more thought into their build.

While players may feel they have it all sorted out as these classes during the early game, as they progress and level up, their build is likely to get weaker if the right options haven’t been chosen. Therefore, these are by far the hardest Diablo 4 classes to master, and why players may be struggling with them.

Updated on September 24, 2024, by Rhenn Taguiam: With the Spiritborn making its way to Diablo 4 in the Vessel of Hatred expansion, fans of the franchise might be intrigued as to how this versatile Class balances hand-to-hand combat, the glaive, and their Spirit Guardians. However, fans of Diablo 4 who want to make the most out of their adventures in Sanctuary would likely seek a challenge by trying to overcome the game’s hardest difficulties with Classes that take the most effort to master. However, while some Classes do pose a challenge with caveats and level of micromanagement that players have to consider, there are ways to circumvent such difficulties – provided players understand the intricacies of each Class and how best to deal with them throughout the experience.

5 Necromancer

Promising Utility With Different Damage Options, Held Back With Challenges In Micromanagement

Fan-favorite Necromancer returns in Diablo 4 as easily one of the more manageable Classes in the game with a lot of utility to offer. Hailing as masters of life, death, and everything in between, Necromancers in Diablo 4 wield elements of Blood, Bone, Curses, and Shadows as part of their repertoire to balance crowd control, single-target, and AOE damage. Players can ease their way into survivability and sustainability with Blood Orbs, while the abundance of corpses can make summoning minions an easy way of bypassing crowds and mobs.

The Necromancer can enjoy tanking hits with the right stacks of Barrier and Fortify, as well as constantly regenerating Life. Their different damage options as well as crowd control potential allow them to stay away from most of the game’s challenges at arm’s length, with fan-favorite Corpse Explosion easily becoming a must-have in any Necromancer build.

Weaknesses Of The Necromancer

Despite the relative accessibility of the Necromancer, the Class does have some glaring setbacks that require players to actively micromanage their builds in order to maximize their efficiency. For instance, Necromancers start as relatively fragile glass cannons with a lot of core skills to depend on, making builds more complicated should players want more varied setups. This becomes even more difficult considering the Class is gear-dependent when it comes to maximizing their build’s potential. Corpses can be surprisingly difficult to generate, especially in boss fights. ​​​​​​

How To Build The Necromancer

Players who want to maximize their Necromancer’s damage are well off relying on builds that depend on Bone Spear and Blood Surge that can take their DPS to unbelievable heights even in the late game. In the case of Bone Spear, its decent early-game performance can pulverize foes with ease. Meanwhile, Blood Surge banks on the game’s tendency to have enemies cluster close to the Necromancer, making this skill a decent punishment with a nifty nova attack.

4 Barbarian

Excels When Fighting Bosses, But Is Tricky To Build For Mob Fights

Barbarians are largely favored by players in Diablo 4. However, while players find the Barbarian class to be brilliant when dealing one-on-one with the bosses of the most recent game in the Diablo franchise, it’s a lot harder to master the class when considering how it can face off against the hordes of enemies that players are commonly left to battle across not only the campaign but also when grinding for levels and loot.

Even without mastering the class, the Barbarian has the potential to be lethal in the hands of any player, but taking the time to find the right gear, focusing on upgrading the right skills, and most of all, practicing against groups of enemies may take time, but it is worth it to master this class.

Weaknesses Of The Barbarian

While the Barbarian is certainly a straightforward Class, its dependence on Fury can easily make or break encounters. This potential setback doesn’t help the fact that the Barbarian is often forced to juggle a slow early-game push with already long cooldowns. Unless players create manageable rotations with Ultimates and Shouts, the Barbarian can have a tough time juggling foes and taking care of most opponents.

How To Build The Barbarian

Builds are constantly being upgraded with the best armor drops players can find, as well as what skills work best for this Goliath class, which does have the potential to tank the hits of many smaller foes while still being able to deal with the crowd afterward. Rend is one of the most common core skills players are encouraged to use when mastering the Barbarian, especially as it makes foes vulnerable to the rest of the Barbarian’s attacks, or their team’s if they aren’t playing alone.

3 Druid

Weak Builds Are Easier To Make Than Powerful Ones

The Druid is arguably deemed one of the weakest classes in Diablo 4 when compared to the five other possible options for players to choose from. However, this may only seem like it is due to players not understanding the abilities available to them. This nature wizard has the power to turn into a werewolf or a bear, which can both deal an immense amount of damage.

This, alongside the regular Druid spells, gives the player a lot to work with. Unlike the other classes mentioned that are hard to master, Druids have a fairly decent amount of health. That means even if a player struggles to fully master the maximum damage output of the class, they can still be sure that they are going to survive.

Weaknesses Of The Druid

The lack of natural mobility on the Druid’s part can make them sitting ducks when caught off-guard. Not only that, but the two skills that do naturally reposition the Druid either have a long cooldown (Trample) or require a targeted enemy (Shred), making the Druid rather position-dependent when it comes to overall combat. Taking their position as crowd control specialists to the extreme, Druids need to be in control of situations at all times – whether maintaining high DPS, staying safe at a distance, or attacking the right foes to stay in position for more AOEs.

How To Build The Druid

With the help of builds, this large character has the potential to be highly mobile and a great idea for grinding in the PVE mode of the ARPG. With max points being put into the Wolf companion, Maul, and Pulverize, the Druid is likely to quickly deal with many of its foes without the worry of being attacked. An important thing a player should consider, no matter what Class they play, is to have stunning abilities available. That is why Trample is another great choice for knocking over a group of enemies and giving the player the chance to dodge away.

2 Rogue

Has The Potential To Deal High Damage With The Right Build

As mentioned, the other difficult classes to master all cause players to struggle with health management. Rogues are one of them due to a playstyle that forces them to stay away from groups of enemies and, therefore, they have less health, not to mention usually weaker armor. This can make playing this class even harder when exploring solo, though it is possible especially for veterans of Diablo, to master.

Besides the lack of health, players may feel far more on edge when playing rogue, as almost every good ability of theirs requires them to have a decent amount of energy to use. When the player’s energy runs out, the Rogue is essentially defenseless and more likely to fall to the onslaught of attacks.

Weaknesses Of The Rogue

Despite their high DPS potential, Rogues are natural glass cannons that need intensive care to optimize their damage output. This weak nature can be exacerbated by the Rogue’s dependence on conditional kits, especially with their reliance on Vulnerable and other effects in order to sustain damage. As many of their skills are dependent on where enemies or traps are placed, Rogues need a certain level of precision when it comes to baiting foes to positions where they can punish them.

How To Build The Rogue

As for abilities, for a player to truly master this lethal class, they should focus on builds that take advantage of the smoke grenade and the poison or cold imbuements to turn themselves into a lethal blade within the blinding fog. The only issue with this build is that it’s unlikely to work on bosses as they usually can’t be stunned as easily.

Alternatively, Rogues can also make great archers, although keeping this distance while playing solo is quite a challenge, though arrows can easily deal with multiple enemies at once. This build would instead use caltrops instead of smoke grenades to slow down enemies instead of blinding them.

1 Sorcerer

A Glass Canon The Player Must Master To Succeed

Out of all the available classes in Diablo 4, by far one of the hardest any player has attempted to master has to be the Sorcerer. While the class itself is already extremely physically weak with only a few hits from harder enemies downing the poor wizard, one of its best skills causes the player to risk taking even more damage from their opponents if they are likely to be hit. Besides the initial weakness of the Sorcerer, this class has plenty of elemental spells for the player to experiment with, which can then be combined to create a deadly master caster.

However, knowing which synergies of spells work the best and maybe even considering sticking to one element is where the difficulty lies. While a player may be tempted to test the other elements, those who are looking to master the class should focus on the unrelenting damage caused by fire spells. When following a fire sorcerer build, one of the most important spells for a player will be Fireball. This does an extreme amount of damage to a group of enemies which will keep them at their distance.

Weaknesses Of The Sorcerer

The Sorcerer’s heavy dependence on Mana leaves them open for punishments when used with the wrong rotations. Their buffs being reliant on crowd control can also close the Sorcerer’s combat options. While Sorcerers enjoy some degree of melee damage resistance, overconfident players can see their characters dying rather quickly when these defensive options are mismanaged. Likewise, Sorcerers have little to offer in terms of party synergies, making them unideal companions for multiplayer experiences that need more synchronized buffs that synergize with one another.

How To Build The Sorcerer

Like a Rogue, players will need to keep on edge to remain out of reach of enemies while also balancing the use of their Mana. Thankfully, Sorcerers do specialize in AOE damage, with Teleport being a nifty way of escaping enemies before they start overwhelming the Class. Efficient builds include the usage of Chain Lightning to rake up high damage while maintaining decent defenses, whereas Firewall relies on damage-over-time with a lot of room for mobility. With all this in mind, Sorcerer may be one of the hardest classes to master, but still one of the best for players to enjoy if they are looking for a challenge.