Diablo 4 Beta: Class Ranking - Which Should You Choose on Launch? | MMORPG.com

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Diablo 4 Beta: Class Ranking - Which Should You Choose on Launch? | MMORPG.com

Diablo 4's highly popular Open Beta has given players a chance to explore the game's five classes. Check out our ranking to help decide what class and abilities to pick on launch to help you level quickly!

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Scot

This seems quite a solo perspective, what are the classes like from a Co-op point of view, maybe that's for a future article?

Iselin

Class rankings are not something one can opine intelligently on after being limited to playing just 25 out of 100 levels.

All we can say is how the experience was for us personally given all the RNG build-defining drops that you may or may not have gotten. And even then it's just a level 25 experience.

The POE-like paragon system that begins at level 50 has the potential of being even more class defining than anything we experienced during these level 25 and under beta weekends.

Having said that, here's my totally subjective and personal take.

I enjoyed the nero the most but that was largely influence by 2 legendary drops that made my Mist form not just give me invulnerability but also explode corpses, reduce its own cool down making it spammable, heal me and generate more corpses and the other one that removed the slowing effect of of it.

The sorcerer might have tied the necro for enjoyment if I had managed to get the legendary that allowed for two hydras instead of one but that never dropped for me.

Oddly though, I still agree with your ranking except I would swap barbarian for druid for that last spot.

This is going to be a very good ARPG. That I'm certain of.

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JeroKane

The devs have already explained that each class has a different level where they reach their power potential.

I can understand that some classes are always easier to play in the beginning than other classes. BUT!

I was struggling a bit with the Druid in the beginning, but catch my stride eventually and it's a really fun class. Especially when you start unlocking more devastating skills and able to spawn your companion wolves, it becomes a bit easier to manage.

In comparison, when I tried a Necromancer, it felt really overpowered/easy mode right off the bat due to the fact you can spawn 4-5 skeleton warriors from the start, that mow down everything fast. Your scyte swipe is also very powerful. Way more powerful than my druid skills at low level.

So they really need to do some more balance passes and tweak it a bit. I think right now, the Necromancer is just way too powerful at lower levels compared to for example Druid. As those are the two classes I tried.

I have bit of a worrying feeling they tried to balance the classes in group play setting, but that is going to rub a lot of people the wrong way. As the Diablo franchise was always a Solo experience at it's core, with multiplayer as option for those who like it.

Slapshot1188

I leveled them all except rogue.

Druid can get very good even at only level 25 once you find and incorporate Legendaries. Remember that the core class skill where you bond with an animal type is not in the beta. That is supposed to happen at 15 but the quest is in an area blocked from beta. So I would be very wary of rating it low based on the beta. Once I got my Legendaries set, even without the spirit bond, I was just wrecking stuff and totally unkillable. The class gets a really sweet self heal.

Necro... yeah by 25 I was leading an army with 7 skeletons, 3 mages and a Golem. But when you go up against a tough boss like the Worldboss you suddenly start to see the weaknesses. It's good and fun but I can see it really hurting later on in the leveling curve.

Sorc.. yeah at low level (25) they are Godlike.

And Barb... similar to Druid. Their class skill at 15 is locked outside the Beta area. At low levels definitely weak compared to the others, but longterm they have the most slots for Aspects as they can dual wield PLUS have 2, 2 handers slotted. All those stats and Aspects will be huge.

Cybersig211

Man I feel like time has stopped at blizzard after this beta. Its sort of like they 100% ignored POE exists, and is competing against them, and has been dominating Diablo since maybe the fall or oriath patch. Possibly before if you were ok with some jank in yor ARPG.

No this beta was a snoozefest for me. Chain lightning mages, whirlwind barbs, summons necros....all old tied and true mechanics that anyone who frequents APRG will see and immediately know what to expect for the next 1500 hours of play.

The fact that they kept endgame hidden is super concerning. I feel like this open beta was to showcase what they felt most confident in, the story and levelling, two things no APRG fan really cares about, no they care about what POE brings to the table, innovative content, depth to everything.

Plus im really getting sick of the field of view being so zoomed in I feel like im on a phone screen playing this, people hated how zoomed in POE was back in the day but this is like another step closer than that. It really makes it feel like a mobile game.

Nah I saw nothing special here, the class balance will be an ongoing issue clearly, their foundational skills are all ancient and stale, these seems to still be no depth with anything in the game either.

I dunno its a 5/10 ARPG (based on act1 keep that in mind) with a huge price tag, loaded with MTX and premium battle passes, and likely over priced expansion box prices too.

Its not awful, it plays like its D3 with better graphics and zoomed waaay in. They really didnt seem to want to innovate anything, nor add depth beyond what they did in D3 sadly. Didnt seem to copy any of the fun content POE has either. Very strange to me, like they 100% pretended competitors were doing better.

ashiru_1978

Neither, as I won't waste money on a game-as-a-service that will get bricked when they shut down the servers.

Even if it offered offline mode, after I saw some streams, I realized how much of a far cry this game is in terms of gameplay from Diablo 1 and Diablo 2. I can't imagine playing such a cartoony game with such a floaty mechanics, boring classes and such a toddler-friendly inventory system.

Diablo 1 and 2 have the best inventory system for such a game - you can only carry so much and inventory management still existed. Now everything takes the same amount of space and you can carry as much as a pack mule. Also Diablo 1 and 2 had dark graphics that looked even scarier by the lack of details, even Diablo 2 Resurrected looks like as cartoony as Diablo 3 and Diablo 4.

Just like how WoW since Cataclysm stopped being WoW, Diablo games stopped being Diablo games since Diablo 3.

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Puffpuffpassss

I did enjoy D4 the last 2 weekends, got 4 characters to 25 in that time. I will deff main necro upon release, for the last 20 years i have played diablo i have also mained necro.

Only thing i dont like is the damn camera view. I didnt get a 3080ti to view a damn phone screen's view. It is entirely too small. It looks ridiculous on a large monitor. Deff made for mobile.

Gorwe

I would choose the Earth Druid. But not on launch. I am so over the launch purchases. Bugs, queues and such ... tsk. I can wait.

k61977

If you are smart you will start off with any caster. The melee is no where near close. I was able to complete things on my necro that my barb couldn't even do when powered up. Same with sorc.

The melee needs to be looked at badly. Not saying it wasn't fun playing melee stuff, but it was like banging my head against the wall when compared to playing a caster.

The fact that I could zoom through the story at 5 times the pace should say something.

I got a feeling anyone that played will be choosing necro as the starter toon because it was hands down the strongest of the classes at this point.

k61977

ashiru_1978 said:

Neither, as I won't waste money on a game-as-a-service that will get bricked when they shut down the servers.



Even if it offered offline mode, after I saw some streams, I realized how much of a far cry this game is in terms of gameplay from Diablo 1 and Diablo 2. I can't imagine playing such a cartoony game with such a floaty mechanics, boring classes and such a toddler-friendly inventory system.



Diablo 1 and 2 have the best inventory system for such a game - you can only carry so much and inventory management still existed. Now everything takes the same amount of space and you can carry as much as a pack mule. Also Diablo 1 and 2 had dark graphics that looked even scarier by the lack of details, even Diablo 2 Resurrected looks like as cartoony as Diablo 3 and Diablo 4.



Just like how WoW since Cataclysm stopped being WoW, Diablo games stopped being Diablo games since Diablo 3.

Having an very limited inventory does not make the game any better. As far as I can remember it just made me port more often and waste time selling gear. Hell give me 1000 bag spaces and I will fill them because I like choice and being able to test different build with different gear.

Slapshot1188

k61977 said:

If you are smart you will start off with any caster. The melee is no where near close. I was able to complete things on my necro that my barb couldn't even do when powered up. Same with sorc.



The melee needs to be looked at badly. Not saying it wasn't fun playing melee stuff, but it was like banging my head against the wall when compared to playing a caster.



The fact that I could zoom through the story at 5 times the pace should say something.



I got a feeling anyone that played will be choosing necro as the starter toon because it was hands down the strongest of the classes at this point.

I think Sorc was the Godlike character class. Necros have weaknesses.

torke90

Since no Pala/Crusader, Barbarian for me ive enjoyed a lot this weekend of Beta, its a great Diablo and feels better to me than the DiabloRift3

Machkeznho

I chose none of them class balance & build depth is a joke wont be buying the game I have last epoch.

Hengist

Slapshot1188 said:

k61977 said:

If you are smart you will start off with any caster. The melee is no where near close. I was able to complete things on my necro that my barb couldn't even do when powered up. Same with sorc.



The melee needs to be looked at badly. Not saying it wasn't fun playing melee stuff, but it was like banging my head against the wall when compared to playing a caster.



The fact that I could zoom through the story at 5 times the pace should say something.



I got a feeling anyone that played will be choosing necro as the starter toon because it was hands down the strongest of the classes at this point.

I think Sorc was the Godlike character class. Necros have weaknesses.

Other way around. Necro was damn near un-killable. Sorc was tremendously fun, and was the best class after the first beta weekend, but Necro was one of the most OP classes I've ever seen in any game in this past weekends build.

While I don't expect huge changes between now and release, they definitely need to look at tweaking the characters because there were clear alpha classes. Melee especially was slow to build up, Barbarian didn't get to be fun (for me at least) until 17-18, and it still lagged behind the casters. Druid was in the same boat, it needed some of the deeper tree synergies to bring out it's best.

None of the were bad, but definitely gaps between them.

Raagnarz

1st Likely a necro as I had the most fun playing that and it was my go to in D2, and eventually D3.

2nd will be a sorc. I had way more fun playing the sorc in D4 than I did in any other iteration of Diablo.

3. Druid. I tried it out, thus far it's more lackluster than the D2 version. The earth line looks more fun than the fire did in D2. But the lightning line is what I wanted to play and it left something to be desired for sure.

Slapshot1188

Hengist said:

Slapshot1188 said:

k61977 said:

If you are smart you will start off with any caster. The melee is no where near close. I was able to complete things on my necro that my barb couldn't even do when powered up. Same with sorc.



The melee needs to be looked at badly. Not saying it wasn't fun playing melee stuff, but it was like banging my head against the wall when compared to playing a caster.



The fact that I could zoom through the story at 5 times the pace should say something.



I got a feeling anyone that played will be choosing necro as the starter toon because it was hands down the strongest of the classes at this point.

I think Sorc was the Godlike character class. Necros have weaknesses.

Other way around. Necro was damn near un-killable. Sorc was tremendously fun, and was the best class after the first beta weekend, but Necro was one of the most OP classes I've ever seen in any game in this past weekends build.

While I don't expect huge changes between now and release, they definitely need to look at tweaking the characters because there were clear alpha classes. Melee especially was slow to build up, Barbarian didn't get to be fun (for me at least) until 17-18, and it still lagged behind the casters. Druid was in the same boat, it needed some of the deeper tree synergies to bring out it's best.

None of the were bad, but definitely gaps between them.

But Necro pets can be wiped out very fast by big tough bosses. Such as the World Boss.  yes you can spec into Army of the Dead to get them back once every 70 seconds and you can try to generate corpses as well, but its a glaring weakness that will be evident as the content gets tougher.  As it rightly should.

Necro is the easiest class to play so it's going to eventually have the lower threshold of power.  Of course there is also the option to sacrifice the pets and spec for solo play but I didn't test that.

maskedweasel

Slapshot1188 said:

Hengist said:

Slapshot1188 said:

k61977 said:

If you are smart you will start off with any caster. The melee is no where near close. I was able to complete things on my necro that my barb couldn't even do when powered up. Same with sorc.



The melee needs to be looked at badly. Not saying it wasn't fun playing melee stuff, but it was like banging my head against the wall when compared to playing a caster.



The fact that I could zoom through the story at 5 times the pace should say something.



I got a feeling anyone that played will be choosing necro as the starter toon because it was hands down the strongest of the classes at this point.

I think Sorc was the Godlike character class. Necros have weaknesses.

Other way around. Necro was damn near un-killable. Sorc was tremendously fun, and was the best class after the first beta weekend, but Necro was one of the most OP classes I've ever seen in any game in this past weekends build.

While I don't expect huge changes between now and release, they definitely need to look at tweaking the characters because there were clear alpha classes. Melee especially was slow to build up, Barbarian didn't get to be fun (for me at least) until 17-18, and it still lagged behind the casters. Druid was in the same boat, it needed some of the deeper tree synergies to bring out it's best.

None of the were bad, but definitely gaps between them.

But Necro pets can be wiped out very fast by big tough bosses. Such as the World Boss.  yes you can spec into Army of the Dead to get them back once every 70 seconds and you can try to generate corpses as well, but its a glaring weakness that will be evident as the content gets tougher.  As it rightly should.

Necro is the easiest class to play so it's going to eventually have the lower threshold of power.  Of course there is also the option to sacrifice the pets and spec for solo play but I didn't test that.

In think the only trade off is keeping corpses for explosions or to resummon if they get killed. But I specd into summons and never had a problem with any bosses. Not even the butcher on necromancer. Took a long time to kill him because I had to kite and resummon a lot but I also killed him way faster than I did kiting him on rogue. 

Traps are crazy strong. 

Raagnarz

Slapshot1188 said:

Hengist said:

Slapshot1188 said:

k61977 said:

If you are smart you will start off with any caster. The melee is no where near close. I was able to complete things on my necro that my barb couldn't even do when powered up. Same with sorc.





The melee needs to be looked at badly. Not saying it wasn't fun playing melee stuff, but it was like banging my head against the wall when compared to playing a caster.





The fact that I could zoom through the story at 5 times the pace should say something.





I got a feeling anyone that played will be choosing necro as the starter toon because it was hands down the strongest of the classes at this point.

I think Sorc was the Godlike character class. Necros have weaknesses.

Other way around. Necro was damn near un-killable. Sorc was tremendously fun, and was the best class after the first beta weekend, but Necro was one of the most OP classes I've ever seen in any game in this past weekends build.

While I don't expect huge changes between now and release, they definitely need to look at tweaking the characters because there were clear alpha classes. Melee especially was slow to build up, Barbarian didn't get to be fun (for me at least) until 17-18, and it still lagged behind the casters. Druid was in the same boat, it needed some of the deeper tree synergies to bring out it's best.

None of the were bad, but definitely gaps between them.

But Necro pets can be wiped out very fast by big tough bosses. Such as the World Boss.  yes you can spec into Army of the Dead to get them back once every 70 seconds and you can try to generate corpses as well, but its a glaring weakness that will be evident as the content gets tougher.  As it rightly should.

Necro is the easiest class to play so it's going to eventually have the lower threshold of power.  Of course there is also the option to sacrifice the pets and spec for solo play but I didn't test that.

Yeah I was tempted to try that but ran out of time. Even the skill tree had nodes like Lone Wolf that boosted your power when you had no pets. So i wonder if that line, plus all the pet sacrifices, could turn you into a solo powerhouse.

Elthium

My one and only encounter with the Butcher was with my L15 Necro with full legendary gear upgraded a bit. My minions took him out in less than 10 seconds without me taking any damage. Definitely op.

Slapshot1188

Elthium said:

My one and only encounter with the Butcher was with my L15 Necro with full legendary gear upgraded a bit. My minions took him out in less than 10 seconds without me taking any damage. Definitely op.

Do not forget that due to scaling, your level 15 character with full legendaries was far more powerful than a level 25 character in full legendaries.

But 10 seconds is impressive.  I only fight him once on my Barb.  After 30 seconds I gave up and ran like a baby.

k61977

Slapshot1188 said:

Hengist said:

Slapshot1188 said:

k61977 said:

If you are smart you will start off with any caster. The melee is no where near close. I was able to complete things on my necro that my barb couldn't even do when powered up. Same with sorc.





The melee needs to be looked at badly. Not saying it wasn't fun playing melee stuff, but it was like banging my head against the wall when compared to playing a caster.





The fact that I could zoom through the story at 5 times the pace should say something.





I got a feeling anyone that played will be choosing necro as the starter toon because it was hands down the strongest of the classes at this point.

I think Sorc was the Godlike character class. Necros have weaknesses.

Other way around. Necro was damn near un-killable. Sorc was tremendously fun, and was the best class after the first beta weekend, but Necro was one of the most OP classes I've ever seen in any game in this past weekends build.

While I don't expect huge changes between now and release, they definitely need to look at tweaking the characters because there were clear alpha classes. Melee especially was slow to build up, Barbarian didn't get to be fun (for me at least) until 17-18, and it still lagged behind the casters. Druid was in the same boat, it needed some of the deeper tree synergies to bring out it's best.

None of the were bad, but definitely gaps between them.

But Necro pets can be wiped out very fast by big tough bosses. Such as the World Boss.  yes you can spec into Army of the Dead to get them back once every 70 seconds and you can try to generate corpses as well, but its a glaring weakness that will be evident as the content gets tougher.  As it rightly should.

Necro is the easiest class to play so it's going to eventually have the lower threshold of power.  Of course there is also the option to sacrifice the pets and spec for solo play but I didn't test that.

There was no problem if you went the corpses. I actually did that one. You can produce corpses at a rate that you will almost always have one. Now at end game this may be different, but will not know till June.

You just can't expect to use the corpses for anything but summoning though. If you tried to use them for explosion you would most likely fail.

Valdheim

Slapshot1188 said:

Hengist said:

Slapshot1188 said:

k61977 said:

If you are smart you will start off with any caster. The melee is no where near close. I was able to complete things on my necro that my barb couldn't even do when powered up. Same with sorc.





The melee needs to be looked at badly. Not saying it wasn't fun playing melee stuff, but it was like banging my head against the wall when compared to playing a caster.





The fact that I could zoom through the story at 5 times the pace should say something.





I got a feeling anyone that played will be choosing necro as the starter toon because it was hands down the strongest of the classes at this point.

I think Sorc was the Godlike character class. Necros have weaknesses.

Other way around. Necro was damn near un-killable. Sorc was tremendously fun, and was the best class after the first beta weekend, but Necro was one of the most OP classes I've ever seen in any game in this past weekends build.

While I don't expect huge changes between now and release, they definitely need to look at tweaking the characters because there were clear alpha classes. Melee especially was slow to build up, Barbarian didn't get to be fun (for me at least) until 17-18, and it still lagged behind the casters. Druid was in the same boat, it needed some of the deeper tree synergies to bring out it's best.

None of the were bad, but definitely gaps between them.

But Necro pets can be wiped out very fast by big tough bosses. Such as the World Boss.  yes you can spec into Army of the Dead to get them back once every 70 seconds and you can try to generate corpses as well, but its a glaring weakness that will be evident as the content gets tougher.  As it rightly should.

Necro is the easiest class to play so it's going to eventually have the lower threshold of power.  Of course there is also the option to sacrifice the pets and spec for solo play but I didn't test that.

I've tested necro as a solo build aswell. Went all blood skills + corpse explosion. I got so much temporay shields/health while still doing decent damage. Felt like I was unkillable. Definitely also a fun way to play necro.

Valdheim

Elthium said:

My one and only encounter with the Butcher was with my L15 Necro with full legendary gear upgraded a bit. My minions took him out in less than 10 seconds without me taking any damage. Definitely op.

I've only encountered the butcher with my druid (I think I was around lvl 15 aswell with maybe just 1 or 2 legendaries) It took me just 20 minutes of kiting and letting thorny vine poke him to death...