Hey folks, this is Librarian Husky with an article on the top 10 builds in Diablo I Season 5. The Mother’s Blessing event just kicked off, and there’s a 35% XP bonus for the next few days. Now is a great time to start leveling up a bunch of characters. If you haven’t tried Season 5 yet, now is a great time to jump in. If you have been playing Season 5, now is a great time to try out a new class. Here are my 10 picks for the best builds across all five classes.

Number 10: Fireball Sorcerer

Coming in at number 10, we have our first Sorcerer build on the list, the Fireball Sorcerer. When we saw the patch notes and the devs talking about this build, I was hyped for it. I wanted to try out the Fireball Sorcerer, and if you are playing Season 5, I’m sure you’ve seen a Fireball Sorcerer out in the wild at some point, with your screen filling up with a bunch of fireballs. It is a really fun build. It is not the strongest Sorcerer build; however, it’s really great at open Overworld content. It can even do very well in the new mode, The Infernal Hordes. It’s just amazing at AOE damage.

Strengths and Weaknesses

This build is also a really spammy build. It’s not difficult to play, and you never run out of Mana, even though you’re spamming Fireball, because you have a few tools in your kit to manage Mana. This build’s weakness is single target damage, and it also doesn’t scale as well as some of the other builds on this list as you go into higher and higher tier content where monsters have more life. But again, for what the vast majority of people do in this game right now, this build can destroy it.

Core Mechanics

As the name suggests, this build is all about Fireball. Not only is it the one skill you are spamming, but you are also taking the Fireball enchantment that makes it so when you defeat an enemy, they erupt in another Fireball. So it’s Fireballs upon Fireballs upon Fireballs. We’re using the Gloves of the Illuminator unique item in this build. This makes you gain Mana when Fireball explodes. This helps solve our Mana issues and makes it so when Fireball travels, it bounces, exploding each time it bounces on the ground.

Combining Gloves and Staff for Maximum Fireballs

That’s how you have these bouncing balls everywhere. You’ll want to combine these gloves with the Staff of Endless Rage, which doubles the cast of your Fireball for even more fireballs and makes every third cast of Fireball launch two additional fireballs. This is definitely a fun build to try.

Number 9: Chain Lightning Sorcerer

Moving on to number nine, we have another Sorcerer build, the Chain Lightning Sorcerer. This is just a great all-around build if you’re leveling a Sorcerer, especially from levels 50 to 100. If you don’t have all your items together yet, Chain Lightning is a solid option. But as you do get the gear for it, this build becomes even more powerful.

Strengths and Scaling

This build is better all-around than Fireball. It’s better at tackling all the content in the game and doesn’t have the same weakness against single-targets that Fireball has. It’s going to scale better and take you further into higher and more challenging content. However, to run this build at its full power, you need the item, the Axial Conduit pants.

Challenges of the Build

With the Axial Conduit, your Chain Lightning alternates between orbiting you and seeking up to three enemies. When it returns to you, it drains six Mana for each active Chain Lightning. After draining a set amount of Mana, it explodes for a bunch of lightning damage. This is a very clunky mechanic and difficult to play around. You can’t just spam it, as it’s one of the higher skill builds in the game. If you run out of Mana, it’s bad, so this build is not for those looking for an easy experience, but for those up for a challenge.

Mindful Play: The Chain Lightning Sorcerer

If you’re up for something a little bit more mindful, where you’re going to be rewarded for good play, then check out the Chain Lightning build.

Number 8: The Flea Barbarian

All right, on to number eight, the only Barbarian build that we’re going to have on our list here, and it is the Flea Barbarian. Overall, Barbarians did not rise this season as expected. We always predict someone will come and save Bar

bs, but it didn’t happen this season. In fact, Bash even ended up underperforming, so we’re left with the Flea Barb.

Strengths of the Flea Barbarian

Where the Flea Barbarian really shines is against single targets. Flea Barb is a bleed build. It’s not going to be as fast as other builds, nor will it be able to clear screens of enemies as easily. However, it excels at taking down bosses. While it can do some AOE, the nature of the bleeds deals steady damage a little slower. If you want to put together a build to tackle tormented bosses, this is a solid option. Its single target damage scales really well into higher tier content.

Late Game and Gear Requirements

This build requires a lot to get going and properly set up; it’s not a build you’re going to start running at level 50. You’ll want to have everything together—all the gear set up—before you transition to it. For example, the Fields of Crimson is pretty important as it gives more damage to bleeding enemies. You can also work in the Rage of Harith, which makes inflicting bleeds reduce your cooldowns, helping you stay in Wrath of the Berserker form more often. Another item to use is The Shard of Veral, one of the new uniques, which makes basic skills deal more damage but consume resources. This build also benefits a lot from mythics, as Barbarian has a ton of equipment slots.

The Fay Barb’s Party Utility

As a Barbarian, the Fay Barb can fit in a lot more items in general, making it an excellent choice to shine in a party. This brings us to number seven, the only Necromancer build on our list, the Bone Spirit Necromancer.

Number 7: Bone Spirit Necromancer

The Bone Spirit Necromancer is an excellent single-target build, much like the Barbarian. However, it handles AOE better than the Fay Barb. If you want to deal possibly more damage in one hit than any other build in the game, the Bone Spirit build is for you. This build is all about setting up the biggest possible nuke you can land, with hits capable of dealing billions of damage.

Core Mechanics of Bone Spirit

The only issue with Bone Spirit is that it deals this massive damage in a very small area. This is why it relies on Corpse Tendrils to first scoop in enemies into a small area and then release the nuke on them. This is an overpower build, and you’ll want to use Banish Lord’s Talisman, which changes the overpower mechanic from something that happens randomly to something you can deterministically trigger, buffing your overpower damage.

Challenges and Payoffs

This build is also very reliant on stacking a ton of crit chance to ensure you’re critting all the time. Overall, this build is more challenging to gear and much more challenging to play than a minion Necromancer, but if you do it well, it will pay off. If you want to delete tormented bosses, Bone Spirit is an excellent option.

Number 6: Rapid Fire Rogue

Now on to number six, we have our first Rogue build, the Rapid Fire Rogue. Rapid Fire Rogue is a great all-around build for the Rogue, but it specializes in single-target damage. It uses the Scoundrel’s Kiss unique item to turn Rapid Fire into a skill that lobs exploding arrows, making it a bit more of an AOE skill. Rogues, in general, are a class that is a little harder to play.

Challenges of Playing Rogue Builds

Compared to other classes, Rogues are generally harder to play, and this certainly isn’t one of their easier builds. Your positioning is going to be crucial, especially with Rogues. This is also a combo points build. Combo points is a Rogue specialization where you build up three combo points—ideally, you want to build up three combo points before using a spender. You generate combo points with a generator and then use your spender to maximize your damage.

Understanding the Combo Points Mechanic

It’s like a rhythm game where you need to pay attention to how many combo points you have and avoid using Rapid Fire when you’re not fully stacked. We incorporate the Combination Dagger, which makes skills deal even more damage when spending three combo points. It also gives your basic skills a 50% chance to instantly grant you three combo points. This mechanic changes the rhythm, making you pay even more attention because it could disrupt the usual flow. However, when played well, this build shines.

Number 5: Barrage Rogue

That brings us to number five, another Rogue build—the Barrage Rogue. I know it might be unpopular to place the Barrage Rogue ahead of the Rapid Fire Rogue since they are really close in power. However, Barrage is very versatile and great for building up to the absolute best Rogue builds. While it may not be the best Rogue build, it’s a lot of fun to play.

Barrage Rogue vs. Rapid Fire Rogue

I vastly prefer the playstyle of Barrage to Rapid Fire, though that’s a matter of personal preference. Similar to Rapid Fire, it’s another combo

point build, and there’s actually a lot of overlap in gear between these two builds, making it easy to swap between them depending on what items you find. Barrage is significantly easier to play than Rapid Fire. While positioning is still important, Barrage allows your arrows to shoot everywhere without needing precise aim, making it better for speed farming. However, Rapid Fire is better for single-target damage.

Choosing Between Rapid Fire and Barrage

If you care more about bossing, Rapid Fire might be better, but if you aren’t as concerned with bossing, then Barrage, in my opinion, is the slightly better pick over Rapid Fire. However, this brings us to number four, the Rogue build that beats both of them: the Heartseeker Rogue.

Number 4: Heartseeker Rogue

I ran Heartseeker in Season 4, and it was the final Rogue build I used. I loved it, but then it was nerfed through a bug fix in Season 5, and we thought Heartseeker was dead. However, Heartseeker rises again thanks to new interactions and a new unique item, The Shard of Veral. This unique focuses on basic attacks and turns Heartseeker from a generator into a spender.

Late Game Requirements

This is a very late-game build, and you’ll need to have a lot of gear before you can swap to Heartseeker. Otherwise, you’ll constantly run out of resources and be unable to do anything. I suggest using Barrage or Rapid Fire until you have the necessary gear. You need to solve your resource issues before switching to this build, and one of the key items is the Mythic unique, the Ring of Starless Skies. This item won’t completely solve your resource issues, but it will be a significant contribution.

Heartseeker’s Playstyle and Gearing

Outside of that, you’ll want to temper the Innovation passive onto your rings and amulet. Overall, I think this has once again risen to be my favorite Rogue build. It’s a lot of fun and also pretty easy to play. While it’s very difficult to gear for, it’s easier to play than probably any other Rogue build.

Number 3: Landslide Druid

That brings us to number three, the only Druid build on this list: the Landslide Druid. This build does huge AOE damage. You’re shooting out landslides, and lightning bolts are just coming down, deleting everything. While it’s called a Landslide build, Landslide is really just a delivery system for Lightning Storm, which is where all our damage comes from.

Core Mechanics of Landslide Druid

Interestingly, we don’t even keep Lightning Storm on our skill bar; we’re just activating it via Landslide. There are a few interactions going on here, particularly with Nature’s Fury key passive, where casting an Earth skill has a chance to trigger a free Storm skill. These free skills count as both Storm and Earth skills.

Synergies in the Landslide Druid Build

We’re using the newly buffed Earth Breaker unique ring. Casts of Landslide leave behind tectonic spikes that continue to deal damage. Spawning a Landslide pillar within tectonic spikes has a chance to spawn two instead. More Landslides mean more Lightning Storms. We’re also using The Unsung Atic’s Wraps, where Lightning Storm gains one additional strike each time it grows. Lightning Storm crits cause lightning to strike twice and deal increased damage, resulting in tons of spamming of Lightning Storm—it’s great.

Versatility and Requirements

This build has lots of synergistic bonuses to shapeshifting. To really get it going, you need a few uniques, but it’s an excellent all-rounder for the Druid. It can handle all content in the game and is particularly great at speed farming Infernal Hordes.

Number 2: The Andariel Rogue

All right, onto build number two, the best Rogue build in Season 5: the Andariel Rogue. Some even say this is the best build in the game. While it’s not my number one choice, it’s definitely the strongest in terms of consistent damage output. However, it requires an Andariel’s Visage Mythic—it’s not optional. You cannot run this build without it because this build is all about triggering the poison attack of the Andariel’s Visage Mythic.

Gearing and Playstyle

You’re also going to need a good amount of Lucky Hit chance on your gear to trigger Andariel’s

as much as possible. Barrage, for instance, transitions really well into the Andariel Rogue. You’ll want to use another build to farm up what you need for Andariel’s. We’re also working in the Fist of Fate unique item for its massive Lucky Hit chance. This is an up-close, almost melee playstyle—you’re technically a ranged build, but you’ll be playing very close to the enemies. You’re using Barrage with poison as a vehicle to trigger Andariel’s Poison Nova. Overall, this build has very steep requirements, and its playstyle is a little tricky, but it delivers big staggers against bosses.

Challenges of Rogue Builds

Rogue builds, by their nature, are generally trickier to play than most other classes, and this one is no exception. If you manage to meet all the requirements and master the playstyle, it arguably delivers the biggest damage in the game. However, the reason we’re not giving this build the number one spot is due to its difficulty in building and playing. It has very steep requirements, but some people will say this is the best build in the game.

Number 1: The Lightning Spear Sorcerer

This brings us to our number one pick, which many of you have guessed by now: the Lightning Spear Sorcerer. While the Andariel Rogue might be technically stronger on paper, for the vast majority of players, Lightning Spear will perform better than any build in the game. It’s easier to put together, though you still have a gearing journey ahead. You’ll experience the build growing stronger as you get your gear closer and closer to perfect stats. Once it’s there, near a certain threshold, it just absolutely destroys everything in the game with ease.

Simplicity and Power of the Lightning Spear Sorcerer

This is almost a brainless build—you can basically just spam all your buttons. It’s super easy to play, doesn’t require any Mythic uniques, and is tons of fun. You don’t even have to aim at enemies; you can close your eyes, spam your buttons, and finish Infernal Hordes. For the average player, this is the best build in the game right now by a mile. In fact, I’m expecting it to be nerfed in Season 6.

Core Mechanics of the Build

While this build is technically a Lightning Spear build, we’re actually not putting more than one point into Lightning Spear itself because we’re not scaling our own damage. Instead, we’re using an aspect that deals its own fixed amount of damage, which scales based on our crit damage. This build is all about stacking a bunch of crit chance and crit damage to maximize output. The only thing you really need to get this build going is the Fractured Winter Glass Amulet.

Optimizing the Lightning Spear Build

As soon as you get a Fractured Winter Glass with at least a two-roll, and you masterwork it to a three-roll, you really want that three-roll to get things going. We’re talking about the aspect where conjuration cooldowns are reduced by three seconds when a Frozen Orb explodes. Since Lightning Spear is a conjuration, you’re basically spamming Frozen Orb to reset the cooldown on your Lightning Spear, allowing you to launch more Lightning Spears. Cooldown reduction is very important for this build.

Scaling and Synergy

At lower gearing levels, this build will only be able to spawn Lightning Spears every several seconds. But once you’re really geared, you can hit Lightning Spear maybe once every second. The Fractured Winter Glass also makes Frozen Orb have a chance to launch other conjurations at the end, allowing you to get into a cycle of self-sustaining damage where you shoot Frozen Orbs, they shoot their own Lightning Spears, and then conjurations have a chance to launch Frozen Orbs when they end. This can result in a chain of Frozen Orb and Lightning Spear cycles.

Rogue’s Dominance in the Meta

To wrap up, let’s discuss how this aligns with our tier list. In our class tier list, we placed Rogue in S-tier, and as predicted, Rogue features heavily in our top 10 list. It has more builds—four out of 10 builds on this list are Rogue builds. Rogue remains in S-tier.

Sorcerer and Rogue Tier Placement

I had placed Sorcerer in A-tier, and I stand by that. Sorcerer is carried hard by Lightning Spear. While we do have three Sorcerer builds on this list, Fireball and Chain Lightning are way down compared to those Rogue builds, which are much higher up. Overall, I believe Rogue edges out Sorcerer in terms of power. If you were to nerf Lightning Spear or take away its power, no one would say Sorcerer is stronger than Rogue.

Druid and Necromancer Performance

I had placed Druid in B-tier, and I stand by that. Druid is carried hard by Landslide, which is its best-performing build and the only Druid build on this list. I placed Necromancer in C-tier, and again, we just have one Necromancer build on this list. It’s very niche, at least relative to other builds. Bone Spirit specializes in single-target damage.

Revising Barbarian’s Placement

The only thing I would revise from the tier list is the Barbarian. I had placed Barbarian in A-tier, but I think I’m going to bump him down to C-tier. Bash didn’t perform as well as expected, and Flea is really the only thing saving the Barbarian, but it’s also quite niche, similar to the Necromancer.

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