What classes do you definitely want to lock in, as there are definitely some outliers for low DPS, or what are the top-tier builds in Diablo 4 Season 9? In this Diablo 4 Season 9 tier list, we’re going to rank the best builds in the PTR and focus on the brand new uniques and the newer tools that we have gotten for the different classes. The point of playing a new season is to play with the new toys.

Diablo 4 Season 9 Build Tier List - Ranking Best Builds in D4 S9

S Tier - Sorcerer

• Zero setup: Drop Hydras and let them clear screens.

• Mythic-independent: Works without rare gear.

• Massive scaling: Hydras benefit from all player stats (crit, attack speed).

The Sorc has cleared a 120 with the new Hydra build. There's a mechanic where you will use shatter to get like a crazy amount of damage. However, it does require a lot of fishing. Even if this does get nerfed, it is still a super S-tier Diablo 4 Season 9 build. It is fantastic. If you are interested in playing Lightning Spear, that build is still pretty good. It’s going to be at S tier on D4 Season 9 tier list. Anything that can do 100 to be definitely viable. So, the Sorc is still sitting and eating pretty good. Even if we get the shadow nerfs, this is probably going to be the fan favorite and the build that the majority of players play. There are two different ways that you can play it. You can play it based on crit or dot. They're both fantastic because the new unique gives you a crazy thousand multiplier. You're going to be absolutely deleting things like tomblord over in the new nightmare dungeon escalation. It's probably going to be the fan favorite simply because it's a new play style.

S Tier - Spiritborn

• Tanky + mobile: High survivability with constant repositioning.

• Build-agnostic: Works with ANY skill (Quill Volley recommended).

• No mythics needed: Relies on easy-to-farm uniques (Razorplate chest).

Spiritborn is recommended for everyone to play. The reason why Spirit is so good is that you have a brand new pair of pants. These brand new pair of pants applies a huge amount of thorns damage on every attack. This build also does not require any mythics because it instead runs the Shroud of False Death. Like the Air of Prediction, you run a bunch of uniques like the razor plate and the loyalty mantle. These are easy to acquire. It does not require mythics, which is a huge relief because of farming the mythics. The spirit's new build applies your thorns on the attack, and then it'll also apply the poison damage based on the thorns, and you only have to attack. You can play anything, as in you can play rake, you can play the quill volley, and you can play the gorilla fist.

Quill is the number one Diablo 4 S9 best Spiritborn build at the moment. This has cleared Pit 115 so far. This is the highest that it's cleared. It’s right up there with Sorc. The cool thing with the spiritborn build is you need to swap your weapon so that skill activates two times, and you get more builds out of it. You can again play anything as long as it hits the enemy. You're going to be applying that thorns. So, it's really cool. Highly,   highly recommend it.

A Tier - Barbarian

• Viable endgame: Clears Pit 100 reliably.

• Smooth gameplay: No complex rotations.

Barbarian has cleared Pit 150, and it's because there is a bug where you can get infinite damage. As far as the classes go, no class competes with the barbarian, specifically the Flay build. This build will probably get nerfed, but you remember how the Bloodwave Necromancer came out and people were like, "It's going to get nerfed.” After it came out for the first time with no nerfs, it has been getting nerfed ever since. Now, this build, though, is hitting for negative damage numbers, and that's probably not intended. However, if this does slip by, it will be 100% the best Diablo 4 Season 9 build.

There is a Whirlwind variant, but a brand new, unique one, which is about boots; it's supposed to help boost your basic skills. You can maybe run it in the A tier. It depends on how hard they hit it. Maybe they will hit it in terms of numbers. Because of the negative damage numbers, it's basically multiplying off of one of the powers, and it keeps on doing it infinitely. That's what's causing the infinite and negative damage. That’s why Barbarian is going to be in the A or B tier. If you want to play Whirlwind, Whirlwind is quite strong as well. Highly want to recommend that.

A Tier - Necromancer

• Terrible AI: Minions attack slowly and ignore threats.

• Squishy: Dies instantly in high-tier content.

• Power gap: 30-40 Pit tiers behind Hydra Sorc.

Bloodwave Necromancer is clear to 107. You also have the blood spear that's done 100. So, it's still a pretty decent class in terms of at least being able to be in the A or S tier category. However, if we were considering the brand new build, it's all about the Skelly majors, which is actually cleared at 94. There's a big problem with the build; it is squishy with the Skelly mages. If you like a minion build, we recommend playing the hydra build. Blood spear and blood wave are still good; there is one thing that you lose out on, and that is tankiness in general, because you lose out on your soul rift, which is a thing that a lot of necromancers used to use for barrier. You're relying on a lot of other sources to grant yourself barriers, which could be the new powers. You can also run the rune combo; the necromancer is kind of in a squishy spot.

B Tier - Druid

• Clunky design: Puddles spawn behind you as you move forward.

• Outclassed: Shockwave aspect (non-seasonal) outperforms the new unique.

• Forced playstyle: Must use Overpower builds to be viable.

Druid is in the weakest spot on the Diablo 4 Season 9 build ranking. You could really push towards 80 if you got everything perfect. The one problem is that the brand new unique for the druid specifically has a resource cost reduction, which is counterintuitive to having ancestral guidance activate. That's a problem because the more affixes you have on the item, the higher the chance for the power to roll higher. And this power has a very big variance. So you want greater affixes. But if you get the greater AICs for resource cost reduction, you can make your pulverize cost zero. That's bad because then ancestral guidance doesn't activate as frequently, and that means you lose out on a big multiplier. 

How it works is you're spawning these poison pools. This poison puddle activates when you hit an enemy. Every 10 seconds, it spawns in one pool. And the way it works is when you pulverize inside the pool, it will splash and do splash damage, which actually does good damage. The problem is that you're relying on a once-in-10-second ability. It lingers on the floor. When you want to go attack another target, it has a cool-down of 10 seconds. This is why it's so far behind, and it's in the B or C tier. You get more value by putting that shockwave aspect on a two-hander and not even playing the new unique. If you do that, the druid is in a much better spot and you're looking at cleaning like 85s,   maybe even pushing towards the '9s. Now, the best build is a Shred Druid,   which you could put in the B tier.

If you want to play the death trap, it has cleared a 100, which is that's pretty good. What about flurry, though? Well, Flurry is a little bit further behind. You can maybe put it in the A tier list. The thing that got really nerfed was the close quarters, for which you had a crazy multiplier. On top of that, the new flurry is unique; what it does is you have to spend all your resources and then cut into your HP, and then you will get a multiplier that can go up to 50x damage and attack speed. But if Air of Predition already gives you the 60x plus, you get crit on it.

B Tier - Rogue

• Universal nerfs: All builds dropped ~10 Pit tiers.

• New Flurry unique: Helm forces HP spending (suicidal in endgame).

• No innovation: Death Trap remains the "best" but is stale.

In the current state of the rogue, they didn't want Death Trap to be the same thing that we played for three seasons in a row, being the best build. If they nerf Death Trap, we have to put it down by the druid, because the new toy doesn't really even do like the highest, at least tier 100, with any of the builds. So that could be a problem on its own. If they make Flurry Rogue a little bit stronger, Rogue is in a much better spot. It's just a small amount. If they instead of 50x damage and 50% attack speed, if they crank up the numbers a little bit on that, you need a lot more DPS as the game starts to scale.