In order to make progress as quickly as possible in the new Diablo 4 season, you not only need to understand all the new content and changes in the season, but also need to find powerful and suitable builds based on this.

Season 9 will be launched on July 1, 2025. If you plan to show your skills in this season, you need to know in advance whether the strength of each class build has changed after entering S9. Because if the builds you insist on utilizing are weakened in this season, your efficiency in farming Diablo 4 gold will inevitably be affected.

Based on this, this time we selected those builds that have performed well in recent Diablo 4 seasons, and arranged and introduced them from S tier to B tier according to their performance in 2.3.0 PTR, and predicted their official effects in Season 9.

S Tier - Hydra Sorcerer Build

It turns out that if the skill is not weakened after Season 9 is officially launched, then Hydra Sorcerer will definitely be the best build of this season. Hydra itself is a skill based on fire damage, but in the PTR, the game not only enhances the skill effect, but also launches a new unique item Ophidian Iris that can be paired with it.

Compared with the original single fire damage, the current Hydra allows you to combine different types of spells to enhance it, and you can further increase the damage output by increasing the number of heads of the hydra summoned by the skill.

As for Ophidian Iris, it not only increases all your elemental resistance by 30%, but also ensures that you always summon a three-headed Hydra, whose attacks will explode on impact. Each additional head of the hydra increases the damage caused by 50-100%.

It can be foreseen that through the synergy of this core item and other necessary gear, you can utilize Hydra Sorcerer Build in any way you like and earn more loot.

S Tier - Lightning Spear Sorcerer Build

It’s easy to see that Sorcerer will be the most popular class in Season 9, as not only is there a new Hydra build available, but one of the classic builds, Lightning Spear, is still available this season.

Lightning Spear, when paired with the right unique item, can provide powerful AOE damage and crowd control effects through summoning gameplay and a lot of critical hit scaling, and can quickly locate bosses in boss battles.

It’s worth noting that a large part of the power of this build in Season 8 relied on amulet Fractured Winterglass, so it is expected that you will still need to equip this item in Season 9. Or you can try other item combinations.

A Tier - Spiritborn Builds Focus On Thorns Damage

This tier is actually a collection of most Spiritborn builds. The reason why this class is so adaptable in Season 9 is mainly due to the addition of the new unique item Balazan’s Maxtlatl.

In addition to the basic stats, this item deals 200-300% of your Thorns damage to melee enemies every time you attack, and additionally poisons them over 3 seconds. If you utilize Thorns to counterattack, the poison damage will increase over 5 seconds.

With this powerful damage output, no matter what Spiritborn builds you plan to utilize in S9, as long as you have Balazan’s Maxtlatl equipped and can deal Thorns damage, you can deal with most enemies without even farming additional Mythic.

A Tier - Blood Bone Spear Or Blood Wave Necromancer Build

Honestly speaking, Necromancer builds are not worth entering A tier in terms of overall power, because many class-related mechanics have been nerfed in this season, making most available Necromancer builds relatively fragile.

However, in comparison, the damage output of Blood Bone Spear and Blood Wave builds is still very good. So if you are good at playing Necromancer and can farm gear that can enhance defense and life, you can also try to continue to utilize them.

B Tier - Poison Pool Druid Build

Druid and Rogue, which we will introduce later, both performed relatively mediocre in Season 9, so even the best builds they could have for this season were only ranked in the B tier.

Poison Pool Druid Build mainly deals poison damage to enemies through the skill Pulverize and the new unique item Rotting Lightbringer.

B Tier - Death Trap Or Dance Of Knives Rogue Build

In Season 6, these two builds, especially Dance of Knives, made Rogue shine. But with the adjustments and changes in the seasons, although they are still reliable for Rogue, the overall build strength cannot be compared with other class builds.

If you are only looking for Rogue experience, you can continue to play them in Season 9, but if you want to get more gold and gear as soon as possible and advance the game progress, S/A tier builds will be better.

The above is the ranking of the builds expected to be available in Season 9. You can decide which one to utilize based on your needs. Have fun!

Although 2.3.0 PTR has ended and Season 9 has not yet officially started, most of the new season content has been fully demonstrated through the PTR, and it also gives you the opportunity to test your commonly used class or build in advance.

If you are familiar with similar ARPGs or have been playing Diablo 4 for a long time, you should know that the change of seasons will bring a series of adjustments, so the builds suitable for different classes in the new season will also change.

So, according to the PTR test, which build is the most suitable for each of the 6 classes in the game to utilize in Season 9? We will introduce it to you in combination with the content changes in S9.

Overview Of Season 9 Changes

In summary, the most prominent changes in this season are the new dungeons Escalating Nightmares and Strongrooms, the new seasonal power Horadric Spells, and the new ultimate boss Astaroth.

Among them, the most closely related to the crafting of builds should be Horadric Spells and related Horadric Jewels. They are like the boss powers in Season 8, and can be combined with various new and old builds as seasonal elements.

Horadric Spells include Catalysts, Infusions, and Arcana, and each element includes multiple options. You can combine them as needed to create the most suitable spell for you and combine them with builds. Adding jewels can further enhance the effect of spells.

In other words, no matter what class you plan to play and what builds you utilize in Season 9, don’t ignore Horadric Spells. It can not only help you earn more Diablo 4 gold, but also improve your seasonal combat experience.

Necromancer

To be honest, this may be the most average class in Season 9. Although each class has received several new builds in the new season, Necromancer not only has an average performance in its inherent builds, but also has too fragile new builds.

As you know, this class often relies on the power of minions in combat, but the relevant AI in S9 is slow to react and is not friendly to this combat mechanism. If you really like the mage class, Sorcerer will be more suitable for you.

Sorcerer

The most suitable build for Sorcerer this season is undoubtedly Hydra Build. Although it is also a summoning skill, Hydra’s performance is much more reliable and interesting than Necromancer’s minions. It can summon a three-headed hydra in battle to deal fire damage to the enemy.

Builds centered on it can output more different types of damage to the enemy by combining skills such as Fire Bolt and Ice Shards, and attack the enemy from multiple angles. More importantly, the combat fun brought by Hydra Build is also very good.

It is worth noting that the above combat experience is based on PTR. It is difficult to say whether the game will weaken it in S9 because it thinks that this build is too powerful.

Druid

For Druid, in addition to Horadric Spells, the new content that should be added to related builds is the newly added unique item Rotting Lightbringer. The effect of this weapon is closely related to the skill Pulverize. In addition to its own damage ability, it can also increase the chance of the skill to hit twice, and increase the damage to enemies with poison damage.

Every 10 seconds in combat, Pulverize will form a puddle, causing poison damage equivalent to 200-400% of its damage in 6 seconds, and additional splash damage equivalent to 20-40% of the total damage of the puddle in and around it.

You can simply call this build Poison Pool Druid Build. Through the combination of new weapons and classic skills, it will make Druid show its prowess in Season 9.

Rogue

Due to the weakening of some mechanisms, the experience of Rogue in S9 may not be too good (but it should still be stronger than Necromancer). You can try new builds with the new unique item Deathmask of Nirmitruq helm, but this item will consume too many resources, so it is not really effective.

Based on this, if you still want to play Rogue, you can continue to utilize Death Trap Build. Although it lacks novelty, at least it won’t go wrong. However, this build is more gear-dependent, so please be sure to do the relevant farming in time.

Barbarian

The reliable build for Barbarian in Season 9 is also the old Whirlwind Build, which can still make you play most of your strength as a Barbarian on the basis of Gohr’s Devastating Grips brought by Season 8.

However, the reason why we recommend you to continue to choose this build is not entirely because it is reliable, but mainly because Whirlwind has been weakened less than other Barbarian skills or mechanisms.

Spiritborn

The build suitable for this class to utilize in the new season is still Quill Volley Build that has been well received since its launch. The difference is that Season 9 adds a unique item Balazan’s Maxtlatl pants to it, allowing you to output more thorn damage and poison damage.

Based on this, other Spiritborn Thorns builds are actually pretty good, and they become even more reliable when combined with rare gear. To be honest, Spiritborn and Sorcerer based on Hydra Build should be the most popular play styles in S9.

The above is just our classes and builds experience suggestions based on PTR experience. In fact, you can explore more play styles that suit you on Season 9! Have fun!

There is only about half a month left before the end of Diablo 4 Season 8, and you should be busy participating in the various events of the second anniversary celebration. In fact, if you have invested enough time before, the content of this season should have been almost completed.

But in addition, since Season 8 brings a lot of seasonal boss powers, and you can only equip 4 types in each battle, it is very likely that you have not had time to fully experience the power of all boss powers until now.

It is worth noting that in S8, these boss powers can be well integrated with your builds, or new builds can be crafted based on power, thereby improving your Diablo 4 gold farming efficiency, which will also help your anniversary event experience.

Based on this, this time we will take Druid class as a representative and introduce you to the build that is suitable for it with Urivar’s Lobbed Bombs as the core.

Urivar’s Lobbed Bombs Effects

As a rare boss power, Urivar’s Lobbed Bombs can only be obtained after you defeat Urivar on Torment difficulty. As for the specific effects, like all other boss powers, there are two types of modifier power and main power:

• Main power: After casting the ultimate skill, you can continue to throw 4 bombs, causing 2,800% fire damage to the enemy, and also gain 15% cooldown reduction.
• Modifier power: For each enemy killed, the utilize cooldown of the ultimate skill will be reduced by 0.58 seconds.

However, in order to obtain this power and loot such as gold or gear, you must also obtain 12 Judicator’s Masks as lair keys to open the boss hoard before starting the battle. The source of this item is Tree of Whispers, world bosses and mercenary bartering on Torment difficulty.

Other Boss Powers That Go With It

As you know, you can equip 4 boss powers in each battle in Season 8, so for this build, in addition to Urivar’s Lobbed Bombs (main power), the other three suitable modifier powers are:

• Avarice’s Explosive Ore: After activating the main boss power, consume all main resources, increasing the damage to the main power by 0.20% for every 1 resource consumption.
• Wandering Death’s Chest Beam: Causes the main boss power to instantly execute non-boss enemies with less than 25.0% health, and you will also gain 25 main resources after the execution.
• Hatred’s Embrace’s Haste: For every 1% bonus to Shadow Resistance gained, the critical strike chance will also increase by 5%, up to a maximum of 50.0%.

Related Druid Build Skills

Since Urivar’s Lobbed Bombs is the key to the entire build, the unlocking of skills and the utilization of skill points need to form good combat synergy with the boss’s power while playing their own role. Specifically include the following skills:

Basic Skills

• Earth Spike-Enhanced Earth Spike-Wild Earth Spike
• Storm Strike-Enhanced Storm Strike-Wild Storm Strike

Core Skills

• Heart of the Wild
• Abundance
• Wild Impulses
• Predatory Instinct
• Iron Fur
• Digitigrade Gait

Defensive Skills

• Earthen Bulwark-Enhanced Earthen Bulwark-Innate Earthen Bulwark
• Cyclone Armor-Enhanced Cyclone Armor-Preserving Cyclone Armor
• Vigilance
• Ancestral Fortitude
• Backlash

Companion Skills

• Feral Aptitude
• Call of the Wild
• Clarity
• Nature’s Reach
• Humanity

Wrath Skills

• Hurricane-Enhanced Hurricane-Savage Hurricane
• Rabies-Enhanced Rabies-Natural Rabies
• Endless Tempest
• Mending
• Provocation
• Envenom
• Neurotoxin

Ultimate Skills

• Petrify-Prime Petrify-Supreme Petrify
• Defensive Posture
• Catastrophe
• Quickshift
• Heightened Senses

Key Passive

• Nature’s Fury

Of course, after determining and unlocking all these skills, you still need to release them one by one in a fixed rotation order to truly play the role that all skills should play. Among them, active skills usually bear the responsibility of output damage, while passive skills can further increase the amount of damage or other support bonuses.

The uniqueness of this build is that it can fully utilize and show the role of boss power on the basis of this conventional builds operation form, making this build more reliable than ordinary Druid builds in S8.

What Are The Most Suitable Gear?

After determining the skills and all boss powers, the next thing to do is to match the gear for your Urivar Druid Build. Although many gears need to be farmed by bosses many times before they drop, as Season 8 is coming to an end, you as a Druid player should have obtained quite a few.

• Helm: Vasily’s Prayer
• Chest Armor: Shroud of False Death
• Totem: Virulent Totem
• Sword: Sword of Inner Calm
• Gloves: Vehement Brawler’s Gloves
• Pants: Stormshifter’s Pants
• Boots: Rakanoth’s Wake
• Amulet: Amulet of the Changeling’s Debt
• Ring: Airidah’s Inexorable Will & Mjölnic Ryng

With The Power Of Mercenaries

Since the mercenary mechanism was introduced in Diablo, it should have become your indispensable combat assistant. In fact, they can also be crafted as one of the elements in builds.

Among all the 4 mercenaries, the most suitable main mercenary for Urivar Druid is Varyana. Once you’ve chosen her, unlock her skill tree in the order of Cleave-Hysteria-Bloodthirst-Bloodlust. As for supporting mercenaries, Raheir’s skill Bastion can help.

Although this build is strictly for Season 8, its idea of ​​using boss power can actually be used as a reference for all subsequent Diablo 4 seasons. Taking Season 9 as an example, the appropriate Horadric Spells may also help you craft new and unique Druid builds!

Even the most experienced Diablo 4 players can hardly guarantee that they will not make any mistakes in the game since the first season - of course, this refers to mistakes that can be ignored, not the kind of behavior that is so obvious that it will ruin everything.

In a few weeks, Diablo 4 will officially launch Season 9 on July 1, which also marks the end of Season 8 and the two-year anniversary event. It’s too late to save your mediocre Season 8 from now, but for Season 9, everything has not yet begun.

Based on this, we will point out several wrong decisions that you may still make even in Season 9 to avoid wasting the gameplay value of the new gameplay provided by the new season.

Improper Difficulty Selection

As you know, Diablo 4 has a clearly graded difficulty system, including Standard difficulty and Torment difficulty. Both difficulties have 4 levels and different unlocking conditions. They are:

Standard Difficulty

• Normal: Unlocked by Default
• Hard: Unlocked by Default
• Expert: Complete the Prologue
• Penitent: Reach Level 50

Torment Difficulty

• Torment I: Complete Pit Tier 20 (-250 Armor and -25% All Resist)
• Torment II: Complete Pit Tier 35 (-500 Armor and -50% All Resist)
• Torment III: Complete Pit Tier 50 (-750 Armor and -75% All Resist)
• Torment IV: Complete Pit Tier 65 (-1000 Armor and -100% All Resist)

Not only do the difficulty levels increase in challenge in the order above, but the amount, chance, and rarity of Diablo 4 gold, XP, and gear you can get after completing battles of the corresponding difficulty will also increase.

As a result, you may rush to challenge the new difficulty level just after unlocking it because you are eager to accumulate loot. This may lead to two results:

• 1. The strength does not match the difficulty level and is killed by the enemy, resulting in losses.
• 2. The victory is achieved, but it takes too much time, and the overall efficiency is not as good as completing the level with lower difficulty.

Or there is another possibility, that is, you are too cautious after considering the above situation, and stay in the low difficulty for too long, which delays the character growth process and the opportunity to earn rare items faster.

Therefore, you need to arrange the timing of entering the next difficulty reasonably on the premise of fully understanding your own abilities and the conditions of each difficulty level.

Usually, you will reach level 50 after completing the campaign. At this time, don’t rush to enter Penitent, but fully farm all available resources at Expert difficulty to complete Penitent more safely, and this strategy also applies to the subsequent Torment difficulty.

Lack Of Flexibility In Skill Selection & Rotation

Admittedly, when dealing with those small soldiers or low-level bosses, you can directly turn on automatic combat or press a few keys corresponding to common skills to quickly complete the battle. But it’s hard to say whether this will make you dependent.

For example, Sorcerer may ignore Ice Armor because of Fireball, and overcasting Rapid Fire will cause Rogue to miss the combat effect of Rain of Vengeance - no single skill is always reliable.

In addition, automatic combat is not completely intelligent. At least from the perspective of boss mechanism, especially those high-level bosses, they require you to develop more flexible skill selection and rotation strategies on your own, and improvise in battle to be defeated.

In fact, flexible combat strategies can not only help you win faster and more safely, but also save lives and resources so that you can gain an advantage in long battles.

Improper Exploration Progress Of The Pit

The principle of this misunderstanding is actually the same as the difficulty selection. As a special Diablo 4 endgame dungeon, The Pit has a total of 150 levels, and the difficulty and loot quality are gradually increasing.

If you are a player who makes mistakes in choosing the game difficulty and no one corrects you, then you are likely to make the same mistakes when exploring The Pit.

In addition, based on properly arranging the exploration route of The Pit, to improve the efficiency of clearing, you can focus on concentrated enemy clusters and use glyph bonuses to increase combat speed or item drop probability.

Blindly Equip Rare Gear

Although in general, the higher the level or rarity of gear, the better, you cannot stack rare gear on your character indiscriminately. Each gear has its own characteristics, suitable for different classes, builds and combat styles, and some have significant resistance to specific bosses.

Therefore, the choice and equipment of gear requires you to make reasonable arrangements after fully considering the above factors. Sometimes it is more important to suit you than whether the gear is rare.

Ignore The Plot And Cutscenes

Perhaps you will choose to skip all narrative plots and Cutscenes when completing the prologue or campaign of Diablo 4 because you are eager to farm gold and XP, but to be honest, this has almost no benefit except saving time.

For any MMORPG with a complete story, the details and foreshadowing in the plot development are actually likely to have certain inspirations for you to complete the difficult content, which can improve your efficiency in completing related battles.

From a literary and aesthetic point of view, these plots also echo the aesthetic style of the game. Watching them will allow you to more personally experience the formation of the background and the changes in the character’s personality in Diablo 4, and even the stories of various regions.

Of course, it does not mean that avoiding the above misunderstandings will make your Diablo 4 Season 9 journey smooth, but it will definitely be better than not knowing this information! In any case, your core task after entering the new season is always to strengthen your character.