Do you want to know which classes are the best and worst for beginners in Diablo 4?

In this guide, I’ll reveal my rankings. I’ll go over the different builds you can use for each class, how they feel to play, and some tips and tricks for leveling faster.

Necromancer

First up, we have Necromancer.

For starting out with Necromancer, I only have 1 personal favorite build. This build heavily relies on a mix of Bone Skills and Summoning Skills.

In the early leveling, Bone Splinters, Bone Spears, and Raise Sekeleton will be our bread and butter. Later on, add some utility skills like Decrepify for damage reduction and slow to enemies, Corpse Tendrils to group mobs together, and Bone Storm for survivability and wave clearing.

This build is super powerful at clearing out dungeons, you can even be somewhat lazy using it. Bone Splinters and Bone Spears can both proc vulnerable on enemies, which is helpful for tougher mobs. Skeletal Warriors and Mages are great at first, but they eventually need some micromanaging to survive in the later leveling. And being able to easily group mobs together is just the cherry on top for this build.

Here are some tips and tricks for the new Necromancers out there.

1. Even when you have max skeletons, get into the habit of pressing Raise Skeleton on corpses. This will summon a Skeletal Priest that will heal them up.
2. Choose minion options using the book of the dead for a more tailored build based on your playstyle.
3. For minion survivability, check out the passives Bonded in Essence and Death’s Defense. Armor can also roll an affix for Max Minion Health.
4. If you’re having an issue getting corpses, switch out Bone Splinters for reap, and get the passive Hewed Flesh.

As an added bonus, Necromancer has really great transmogs. Necromancer is definitely my number 1 pick for beginners that are looking for something strong but easy to play. Therefore, I’m giving it an S Rank. Get plenty of Diablo 4 Gold to quickly upgrade your Necromancer and craft powerful builds.

Barbarian

Up next is Barbarian.

For leveling Barbarian, I tried 2 different builds. I was super disappointed with one of them, but the other build was great.

The disappointing build was the Bleed Barbarian. This build uses Flay and Rend for its basic and core skills, Rallying Cry and War Cry make enemies flinch and give you strong buffs.

Here are some extra options to consider.

• Death Blow deals good damage, it also resets the cooldown if you land a killing blow.
• Call of the Ancients is my favorite and spawns 3 minions that do special attacks.
• And Steel Grasp can be used to draw in enemies in a cone and apply vulnerable.

My favorite build is the Whirlwind Barbarian. To play this build, pick up the basic skill Lunging Strike, and the core skill Whirlwind. Use Rallying Cry and War Cry, same as last build. Choose a mobility option like Leap or Charge. And finish it off with Call of the Ancients.

In terms of gameplay, the Bleed Barbarian felt clunky. It was frustrating waiting for mobs to die from bleeding, steel grasp has a super long recovery animation where mobs can get away before you can attack, hitting one or two enemies at a time with Death Blow felt really slow, and using Rupture, which instantly consumes bleed damage just felt redundant.

On the other hand, Whirlwind Barbarian feels weaker, but so much smoother to play. With a combination of Lunging Strike, Whirlwind and Charge, you’ll feel much more mobile. Using Rallying Cry keeps our resource topped off, and Whirlwind is a great wave clear for trash mobs. Using Call of the Ancients is used for when we run into a group of elites.

Here are some tips and tricks for playing Barbarian.

1. If you’re using shout skills, get the passives Booming Voice for more shout duration, Raid Leader for party healing, and Guttural Yell for damage reduction. The passive swiftness offers a nice movement speed bonus too.
2. Your goal should be skills or passives that increase resource generation, Barbarian is a resource hungry class. You can find some legendary aspects that help with this, too.
3. The expertise page offers bonuses to weapons that you’re currently using and an extra bonus that is active all the time regardless of weapon. Popular options for this are using a 2-handed sword for the bleed, and 2-handed axes for the extra vulnerable damage.
4. Pair the bleed damage with Hamstring to apply slow to bleeding enemies, and No Mercy to increase your crit chance vs slowed enemies.

Bleed Barbarian is getting a C rank for me, and Whirlwind Barbarian is getting a B rank. For me, it just wasn’t as fun as other classes.

Sorcerer

Our 3rd class to play is Sorcerer.

Let’s really quick look at 3 build options: Fireball Sorcerer, Ice Shard Sorcerer, and Chain Lightning Sorcerer. Most builds will use the basic skill Frozen Bolt.

On Fireball Sorcerer, our bread and butter skills are Fireball and Firewall. Throw in the ultimate Inferno for even more wave clearing.

Ice Shard Sorcerer can use a combination of Ice Shards for a single target, Blizzard for a persistent area of effect with Crowd Control, and Deep Freeze is kinda just for fun.

Our 3rd build is Chain Lightning Sorcerer. For this build, you can switch out Frozen Bolt for the basic skill Arc Lash. Chain Lightning is a wave clearing core skill that bounces off targets, and the Unstable Currents Ultimate for extra wave clear.

For every Sorcerer build I mentioned, it’s recommended you fit in at least 3 of these utility skills. Flame Shield for a 2 second invincible, movement speed, mana and extra damage. Teleport for mobility, breaks out of CC, and damage reduction. Frozen Nova freezes all nearby enemies and applies vulnerable. And Frozen Armor for a barrier and resource.

Sorcerer is definitely one of the most interesting wave clear classes in Diablo 4. The uniqueness between the Fire, Ice, and Lightning builds make this class really fun. Sorcerer had some changes in recent patches that make it much more fun to play.

The least smooth build for me was the Chain Lightning Build. But this was mostly because I didn’t use the proper legendary aspects. The main problem you’ll come across with Sorcerer is how squishy it feels. To be successful with any of these builds, you’ll need to be quick at using potions, and have quick reactions for using skills off cooldown.

1. My number one tip for playing sorcerer is to take advantage of your Codex of Power and choose your enchantments wisely. Take time to read them. Your key passives on Sorcerer also makes a huge difference in playstyle.
2. Earlier I recommended picking 3 utility skills, these are really meant to help keep you alive and add mobility. Ultimate skills might be really cool to look at, but make sure you’re being practical above all else.

I’m giving Ice and Fire Sorcerers an A rank, while Chain Lightning is getting a B rank. Sorcerer overall is difficult to play and squishy, so keep that in mind.

Rogue

For our next class, we’re playing Rogue.

If you’re looking for a Rogue build that will dominate the leveling process, it’s the Twisting Blades Rogue. Pick up the basic skill puncture for vulnerable, and the core skill Twisting Blades. Twisting blades impales an enemy, and returns to you after 1.5 seconds.

For your mobility options, you have Dash, which naturally has two charges and can be used out of combat for mobility, and Shadow Step, that jumps behind enemies and does some damage. Dark Shroud is a favorite defensive option, each hit depletes an orb and gives you damage reduction based on number of orbs.

Extra options that are great to have are Imbuements, Poison Imbuement for incredible single target boss killing, Shadow Imbuement for extra bursts of area damage, and Cold Imbuement for crowd control and survivability.

In terms of traps, either go poison trap for CC and synergy options, and Death Trap for gathering mobs together with a long cooldown. Rogue, for me, has one of the highest skill ceilings in the game. The fast-paced rhythm of using Puncture and Twisting Blades is hard to get used to.

In the beginning, I felt like I wasn’t making decisions on where to go fast enough, and I had a hard time using my cooldowns appropriately. If you want to learn how to play Twisting Blades Rogue, it’s going to take a lot of practice, so don’t get discouraged.

I found Rogue to be the most versatile class. You can really choose any 4 skills that you really like and do fine with any of them. Rogue also has a lot of movement speed options using aspects, passives, and skills, making it one of the best speed farming classes in the game. As long as you’re good at understanding the damage formula for the game, you’ll do great.

1. My number one tip for new Rogues is getting the Bladedancer’s Aspect immediately. In the early game, just throw it on your amulet and call it a day. This makes your Twisting Blades orbit around you, making wave clearing so much faster. Get into the habit of doing 2 to 3 Twisting Blades before you dash to a high value target to get the most out of your damage.
2. To really maxing out the potential of Rogue, look at guides online to find the synergies between passives, aspects and skills. This is something that’s going to take a lot of time researching and understanding how everything compliments each other.

In general, you’ll want to use Inner Sight for resource management, but combo points will eventually give you the most burst damage, but not without the proper build. Twisting Blades Rogue is a firm S rank for me, insanely strong, fast, single target, wave clear. It has everything you’d want.

Druid

Lastly, we have the Druid.

Druids are very popular for their Storm Wolf endgame build, but for the leveling process, Pulverize Druid comes out on top.

Our basic skill is Storm Strike for the vulnerable, and Pulverize for our core skill that does overpower damage in a large area.

Extra pick up options are Poison Creeper for better trash clearing, Companion Wolf if you need more single target and sustain, Earthen Bulwark for fortify and survivability, Trample is a mobility option, Grizzly Rage for survivability and damage, Blood Howl is another popular utility option.

The ground pound nature of Druid was kind of boring to me, but it is very strong. Waiting for stacks to guarantee overpower sometimes made the build feel clunky. Poison Creeper is an option that I would recommend that everyone go, as this makes trash disappear. Companion Wolves have an aspect that will give you more damage but are very underwhelming for damage output.

Similar to Rogue, Storm Strike and Pulverize are your wombo combo and pretty much all you need to be successful. The smoothness of the gameplay mostly comes from the legendary aspects that fill in the gaps for the gameplay loop. If you go with Earthern Bulwark and Grizzly Rage, this is a very tanky and strong build.

1. My personal tips for new Druids are to get the new Shockwave aspect. With Pulverize, this will add an extra line damage area in front of you.
2. Don’t forget to fully unlock your spirit boon. Having 5 spirit boons instead of 4 is stronger than you think.
3. Make sure to use 2-handed maces. These will have an inherent affix that adds a huge amount of overpower damage. You can also roll a 2nd overpower affix, vulnerable damage, and gems for more overpower damage. Stacking overpower and vulnerable is going to make your overpowers completely broken.

For me, Druid was easy to play, strong, but kinda boring. Pulverize Druid gets an A rank.