Season 11 of Diablo IV shakes up the endgame in some meaningful ways. Tempering and masterworking got reworked, a new Tower activity arrived, and the way classes perform at high-tier content has shifted considerably. The game still feels familiar at its core, but you'll notice the differences once you start pushing harder content.
What's Changed in the Meta
Power levels have come down from Season 10. Those quadrillion-damage numbers are mostly gone, and that's probably fine. As long as every class can still clear Pit 100 comfortably and get level 200 glyphs, the scaling feels healthier. And yes, every class can still hit those benchmarks.
The Tower activity now serves as the main measuring stick for build power. It works almost identically to the Pit with the same tier scaling, but it has a proper leaderboard system you can check in-game. Tower clears give us the most reliable way to compare builds and classes.
Class Power Rankings
Based on Tower leaderboard performance, here's how each class stacks up:
Season 11 Class Tier Rankings
Melted Heart of Selig
Before diving into individual classes, you need to understand how the reworked Melted Heart of Selig works. This mythic unique shows up in multiple top-tier builds across several classes.
How It Works
The rework makes it function like the Mana Shield Chaos Power that Sorcerers had in Season 10, except now anyone can use it. Here's what it does:
- Each point of your primary stat increases your maximum resource by 3%
- Damage you take hits your resource pool before touching your life
- Your maximum life drops by 75%
- After 6 seconds without taking damage, your resource fully regenerates over 3 seconds
Resource Numbers in Practice
Most endgame builds end up with around 3,000 main stat when fully geared. That translates to 9,000 bonus maximum resource through Melted Heart. Barbarians can push even higher thanks to their four weapon slots, including two two-handers that provide extra main stat.
Expect all interactions converting high resource into damage bonuses to get capped at 500 resource. Beastfall Boots and other similar effects already have this limitation.
Barbarian Builds
Barbarian dominates the leaderboards right now by a wide margin. This dominance comes from uncapped resource scaling that will almost certainly get adjusted.
Hammer of the Ancients with Ramladni's Magnum Opus
HotA has bounced between dominant and middling over the past few seasons. Right now it sits firmly at the top because of two uncapped scaling interactions with Melted Heart of Selig.
Ramladni's Magnum Opus is a one-handed sword unique that gives you multiplicative damage scaling based on your current resource when you use a skill. Going from hundreds of resource to thousands through Melted Heart amplifies your damage enormously.
Furious Hammer of the Ancients grants bonus crit damage and crit chance for every 10 resource you have when casting the skill. There's no cap on this right now. Funneling thousands of resource through this interaction produces insane damage, with players reporting 150 trillion damage hits.
How It Plays
Even with all that damage, you can't just stand there and tank everything. Season 11 monsters hit much harder than before, so successful HotA Barbarians need to move around constantly, maintain range when possible, and use Hammer of the Ancients for crowd control. The build actually plays like a pseudo-ranged playstyle, which feels different from traditional melee Barb gameplay.
Other Barbarian Options
- Lunging Strike - Basic skill builds are performing well and might rise if HotA gets nerfed
- Mighty Throw - Continues to work great for Pit and Tower pushing, same as previous seasons
- Leap Barbarian - Uses the new Chain Scourge Male unique pants to mess with Brawling skill cooldowns. You can get Leap on an extremely low cooldown and just bounce around the map for speed farming
Both Ramladni's Magnum Opus and Furious Hammer of the Ancients will probably get 500 resource caps. Barbarian should still be strong after that, but predicting which build will lead becomes much harder until those caps actually go in.
Spiritborn Builds
Spiritborn has stayed near the top since the class launched. Its strength has shifted more toward speed farming rather than raw pushing power.
Evade Eagle Build
Evade comes back as the strongest Spiritborn option, though it plays differently now. Losing Chaos uniques and Chaos powers changed how the build feels.
Unyielding Hits Legendary Aspect gives you bonus weapon damage based on your total armor. The Season 11 armor rework makes it trivial to hit extremely high armor values on endgame builds. Characters easily reach 15,000+ armor, way past the conversion cap. You used to need deliberate investment to cap this benefit; now it just happens naturally, freeing up other slots for more power.
Smoothness Issues
The build isn't as smooth as it was in Season 10. Without Chaos powers giving you evade cooldown reduction, you'll need to work in Thunder Spike activations between evades if you don't have enough CDR. This adds complexity that wasn't there before. Good gear makes a big difference here. Players without premium items will feel the clunkiness more.
Staying Alive
Evade Spiritborn currently seems to be nearly immortal on the PTR. Whether that's intended or bugged isn't clear, but toughness numbers hit around 10 million in combat. You can stand in affixes and boss attacks without dying. This makes Evade Spiritborn the most forgiving option for players who want to push content without worrying about survival.
Other Spiritborn Options
Rod of Kepeleke builds are all in a good spot since the unique weapon itself performs well. The classic options include:
- Quill Volley - The most traditional choice
- Crushing Hand - Using the Gorilla core skill
- Rake - Using the Jaguar core skill
You can also modify Touch of Death or Payback to work as core skills with Rod of Kepeleke. All of these builds compete with each other, giving you real choices without sacrificing power.
Druid Builds
Druid benefits heavily from Melted Heart of Selig interactions, putting it among the top performers when those mechanics stay uncapped.
Cataclysm Druid
Cataclysm Druid has moved between top-tier and just "strong" across recent seasons. Specific interactions push it back to the front in Season 11.
Cataclysm builds rely on snapshotting. You stack up multiple damage buffs, wait until they're all active, then cast Cataclysm. The ultimate keeps those buffs for its entire duration, and you repeat the process to maintain essentially permanent buff uptime. The playstyle rewards preparation and timing over button mashing.
The Melted Heart Interaction
The big interaction happens with the Ancestral Guidance legendary paragon node. It gives you increased damage after spending resource, plus 1% increased ultimate skill damage per Spirit you have when casting the ultimate.
With Melted Heart easily providing 10,000+ resource, that translates to massive ultimate damage. Combined with snapshotting, Cataclysm ticks can reach up to a trillion damage.
Survivability limits this build's ceiling, not damage output. The Melted Heart bug preventing toughness stats from working properly means Cataclysm Druids take more damage than intended. With proper defensive functionality, the build could probably push higher tiers.
Other Druid Options
- Pulverize Druid - The poison puddle-splashing style that dominated previous seasons remains strong. If Cataclysm gets hit hard with nerfs, Pulverize will likely take over the top spot
- Boulder builds - Reportedly performing well and offer another viable path
- Shred - Still works great for speed farming, though it's weaker than Season 10 due to losing Chaos perks
Group Play Potential
Druid shows real promise as a support class. A support Druid can pull enemies together for cleave damage, apply Debilitating Roar for massive damage reduction on monsters, and provide attack speed and crit buffs. Paired with a high-damage dealer like HotA Barbarian, support Druid makes Tier 122 content look trivial. This group synergy feels reminiscent of Diablo 3's support meta.
Necromancer Builds
Necromancer sits in a stable spot. The class hasn't been weak or dominant for several seasons, consistently landing in the upper-middle of the pack.
Shadow Blight Build
Shadow Blight builds focusing on the Blight key passive remain near the top for Necromancer. This build type has performed well across multiple seasons.
Shadow Blight Necromancer uses Soul Rift and Blight skills to stack damage on enemies. You apply damage over time effects, ramp up damage through repeated applications, and hit big burst windows. The build also uses Melted Heart of Selig, though the interaction isn't as exploitable as what Barbarian and Druid achieve.
Golem Necromancer
The new Gravebloom unique finally enables a competitive summoner build.
Golems have a chance to hit twice. Faster golem respawning enables constant uptime on active abilities.
Several item affixes boost Golem performance. Your golem can get chances to reduce its active cooldown, spawn on corpses when attacking, or erupt to deal bonus physical damage while consuming corpses to lower the remaining cooldown by 1 second.
The goal is spamming Golem activations as often as possible. It creates a satisfying summoner fantasy that actually competes at high levels.
- Tankier than HotA Barbarian with competitive damage
- More forgiving gear requirements
- Actually new for the season - fresh gameplay
- Satisfying summoner fantasy
- Not the absolute highest tier clear
- Requires Gravebloom unique
- Minion AI can be inconsistent
- Slightly slower clear speed than top DPS builds
Blood Wave builds dominated Season 10 thanks to Necromancer Chaos perks that converted ultimate skills into core skills. Those perks are gone now, so Blood Wave has dropped in relative power. It's still viable if you enjoyed the playstyle before.
Sorcerer Builds
Sorcerer is in a tough spot this season. The class lost two major advantages: the Mana Shield Chaos power (now available to everyone through Melted Heart) and infinite Teleport enchantment.
Crackling Energy Lightning Spear
The classic Crackling Energy setup leads Sorcerer performance. Lots of lightning effects dashing across the screen and flowing through enemies.
Important Items
Esadora's Overflowing Cameo significantly increases Crackling Energy damage and serves as the build's foundation.
Galvanic Azerite Ring creates additional Crackling Energy and increases its damage further, providing both generation and scaling.
Starless Skies is a mythic that gives ranks to core skills, with each rank providing a 10x damage multiplier. For Crackling Energy builds using Charged Bolts, Chain Lightning, and Ball Lightning (which counts as a core skill), this means massive damage gains. You need the correct Greater Affix on this item though, which adds to the gear requirements.
New Unique: Orsavane
Season 11 brings Orsavane, a new Sorcerer unique. Any defensive skill not on your action bar grants its enchantment effect, plus you get an extra damage multiplier for each defensive skill not on your bar. This frees you from needing defensive skills on your action bar while still gaining their benefits through enchantments. The gains don't fully make up for losing Chaos perks, though.
Other Sorcerer Options
- Hydra builds - Might actually be stronger than Crackling Energy on live servers according to some players, though Crackling Energy holds the highest leaderboard position right now
- Frozen Orb - Got a rework to Fractured Winterglass that adds multipliers to its damage. But Frozen Orb builds are only hitting Tier 75-80 compared to Crackling Energy's 103. That gap is too large to recommend Frozen Orb for competitive play, though it works fine if you just enjoy the playstyle
Sorcerer needs specific mythic items to compete at high levels. Starless Skies with the right Greater Affixes is particularly important. If you don't have access to these items, you'll feel the class's weaknesses more than other players.
Rogue Builds
Rogue sits at the bottom, the only class unable to clear Tier 100 on the PTR. That's disappointing given all the buffs the class received in Season 10.
Death Trap Rogue
Death Trap Rogue has stayed near the top of the class for multiple seasons. It's disappointing to see it take prominence over Dance of Knives again, but the build delivers reliable results.
Death Trap gets strong through Beastfall Boots. When you cast an ultimate skill, your next core skill consumes up to 500 energy for increased damage per energy consumed. Melted Heart of Selig provides the easiest way to hit that 500 energy cap. A separate unique makes Death Trap count as a core skill, completing the interaction.
This combination has made Death Trap strictly stronger than before, even if Rogue can't match other classes' power levels.
Other Rogue Options
- Heartseeker/Forceful Arrow - Basic skill builds using Pain Gorger's and Tir Vals remain competitive
- Orphan Maker hybrid - Still works but falls far behind the current meta
- Dual Basic Skill builds - Getting experimentation from top players, showing potential for innovation
- Flurry - Works well for leveling and speed farming but can't compete for high-tier pushing
- Rain of Arrows - Exists as a viable variant, adding some build diversity
- Dance of Knives - Plays as a spin-to-win style Rogue after the nerf. Not strong for pushing, but fun for speed content
The class clearly needs more help. Being unable to reach Tier 100 when every other class clears it comfortably represents a real balance problem. If you're interested in Rogue, watch the patch notes closely. Adjustments seem likely.
Season 11 System Changes
Tower Activity
The Tower serves as Season 11's main endgame activity. It features identical tier scaling to the Pit, full leaderboard integration viewable in-game, progress orbs you need to collect, and goblins that give significant progression when killed. Tower runs reward efficient play and monster control, making builds with good AoE damage and pull effects valuable.
Tempering and Masterworking Reworks
Both systems got changes that reduce their RNG dependency. Tempering feels more approachable for most players, and masterworking is less random than before. Neither system is perfectly deterministic, but the improvements are noticeable.
Enchanting Changes
Changes to affixes and item structure have made enchanting trickier. Legendary items now have four affixes, and you can only change one through enchanting. Finding good item bases to work with is harder, and rolling specific affixes feels more difficult because of the new toughness system and reshuffled affix pools. You might find enchanting more frustrating than in recent seasons despite RNG reduction elsewhere.
Toughness System
The new toughness stat represents a significant mechanical change. Endgame builds reach much higher armor values than before, often hitting 15,000+. This makes Unyielding Hits trivial to cap when it used to require deliberate investment.
Monster Danger
Enemies deal significantly more damage in Season 11. Face-tanking that worked in previous seasons will get you killed. Builds need mobility, crowd control, or extreme damage mitigation to succeed.
Build Recommendations by Player Type
| Player Priority | Recommended Build | Why This Build |
|---|---|---|
| Maximum Survivability | Golem Necromancer or Evade Spiritborn | Best balance of damage and staying alive; near-immortality on Spiritborn |
| Maximum Damage | HotA Barbarian | Highest tier clears; expect nerfs and squishy playstyle |
| Fresh Gameplay | Golem Necromancer | Only genuinely new top-tier build this season |
| Limited Gear | Golem Necromancer or Death Trap Rogue | More flexible itemization requirements |
| Speed Farming | Evade Spiritborn or Leap Barbarian | Fastest movement and clear speeds |
| Group Play | Support Druid + HotA Barbarian | Trivializes high-tier content with strategic synergy |
Final Thoughts
Season 11 brings meaningful changes through system reworks and Melted Heart of Selig becoming universally relevant. Barbarian dominates right now, but expected nerfs to uncapped resource scaling will probably compress the class gap before or shortly after launch.
For most players, Necromancer is the safest pick. The Golem build offers something new, competitive performance, great survivability, and forgiving gear requirements. Sorcerer works as an alternative if you haven't tried Crackling Energy builds before.
Approach Barbarian and Druid with some caution despite their current dominance. The uncapped Melted Heart interactions will almost certainly get addressed, potentially reducing these classes' power substantially.
Rogue players should wait for additional balance passes since the class can't compete at the highest levels right now. Given the Dance of Knives bug fix history, positive changes seem likely.
Whatever you pick, Season 11's increased monster danger and system changes reward thoughtful play over face-tanking. Builds with mobility, crowd control, and strategic positioning will do well in this more challenging environment.