Diablo 4 is finally here and if you are starting out as a new player and have not experienced previous titles in the franchise, you’re at the right place. While those who grabbed the head start access can jump in as early as tonight, the rest will be waiting until its official June 6th launch. You can use this guide as an introduction to the game’s systems and hopefully, we help you understand things like the difficulty systems, armor stats, classes, and build-crafting a little better.
All Classes Explained
Diablo 4 allows you to choose from five classes at launch to progress through its deliciously dark story. We have Sorcerer, Barbarian, Rogue, Necromancer, and Druid.
- Barbarian: The class is a staple in the Diablo franchise and is loved by many players due to the high sustain and self-buffs. All of the builds available in Diablo 4 right now are based on melee damage and you can create builds around Leap (high-mobility) or taunting and crushing your foes with multiple moves.
- Rogue: The class featured high dexterity and is reliant on avoiding incoming damage with high mobility. The class can cater to players who enjoy a flashy playstyle as well as those who like crowd control.
- Necromancer: The class can build into self-sustain or deal massive AOE damage with debuffs or corpse explosions. Definitely one of the more fun classes to play if you are looking for something unique.
- Sorcerer: The class is similar to traditional casters you would find in other RPGs. You can go for a more control-style approach with Hydra, deal massive AOE damage using Lightning, or opt for crowd-control using Frost.
- Druid: The jack-of-all-trades class that can do it all but doesn’t hyper-specialize into one playstyle. You can call upon the elements or summon beasts to fight by your side, there are plenty of interesting ways to build Druid and plenty of fun builds available for the class.
There is no “right” class to play in the early game. Feel free to try out the classes and see what works best for you. Once you find something that you enjoy, you can focus on the meta builds to see what works best for your class.
Difficulty Modes Explained
There are various difficulty levels in Diablo 4 and it can be a bit confusing. When you first start your playthrough you can choose to play at World Tier 1 or 2. Choosing Tier 2 will grant you 20% more experience and 15% more gold, but enemies will be tougher to beat. We recommend starting at Tier 2 (Veteran) and seeing if you are comfortable with the difficulty. If things feel too difficult, you can also lower the world tier at any time.
After you reach level 50, you can unlock higher difficulty levels. Here’s how you can unlock more difficulty levels
Nightmare (World Tier 3)
How to unlock: Complete the campaign and Cathedral of Light Capstone Dungeone in Kyovashad in World Tier 2.
What you get:
- Level 50-70
- Sacred items and unique items
- Nightmare Sigils to unseal Nightmare Dungeons
- Helltides can spawn
- Champion Monsters can spawn
Hell (World Tier 4)
How to unlock: Complete the Fallen Temple Capstone Dungeon in Dry Steppes at Nightmare (World Tier 3).
What you get:
- Levels 70+
- Ancestral Items
- New Unique Items
- Enemies are significantly tougher
- 200% bonus experience from monsters
- 15% more gold from monsters
- Monsters gain 40% resistance
Torment (World Tier 5)
How to unlock: Complete the Archives of Issalia dungeons in Hell (World Tier 4).
- Ancestral Items
- New Unique items
- 250% XP bonus
- Non-physical resistances reduced by 40%
The goal of a lot of hardcore Diablo players is to beat everything at Torment difficulty. You need the right gear for it and we don’t recommend biting more than you can chew. Experience the game at whatever pace you think is enjoyable for you and you can ease into the more difficult content whenever you want to.
All Stats Explained
The most basic stats for a character are level, attack power (base damage), armor, and life (HP). The four core stats are Strength, Intelligence, Willpower, and Dexterity. These four stats work differently for different classes and you will have to spec into them depending on what you are playing. For example, Intelligence boosts Crit Chance for Rogues while the same stat boosts Skill Damage for Sorceresses.
Other stats that you will find in your gear are:
Damage Stats
- Weapon damage: Your base weapon damage
- Weapon speed: The number of attacks per second
- Critical Hit Chance: Chance to land a critical hit.
- Critical Strike Damage: The bonus damage multiplier for critical strikes.
- Overpower Chance: Works similarly to Critical Hit Chance but you deal bonus damage based on your total life and Fortify.
- Overpower Damage Bonus: Works similarly to Critical Strike Damage but it scales based on your total life and Fortify.
- Vulnerable Damage Bonus: Bonus damage based on their vulnerabilities.
- Thorns: “Reflects” damage to attackers.
Defensive Stats
- Maximum Life: Your HP pool
- Potion Charges: Number of potions you have in your inventory
- Armor: Reduces damage
- Armor Contribution: Damage mitigation value
- Dodge Chance: Your odds of completely evading an attack
- Resistances: Your damage mitigation against specific elements (Fire, Cold, Lightning, Poison, and Shadow)
Utility Stats
- Mana: The mana pool that you use to cast skills
- Mana regeneration: Your mana regeneration speed (Default 10/second)
- Movement Speed: Your traversal speed, can be boosted to a maximum of 125%.
- Cooldown Reduction: Reduces the cooldown of all your active skills
- Bonus Lucky Hit Chance: Increases the chance of landing a lucky hit
How to make your first character build
The easy way out is just to look up builds, but if you are someone who enjoys theory-crafting and coming up with your own builds, here are some basic pointers to help you get started.
The first thing you should check is how the core stats like Strength, Intelligence, Willpower, and Dexterity affect your class. They work differently for different classes and you will need to optimize your stats accordingly.
You can optimize these stats depending on how you want to build your character. You also need to allot skill points to your character and level up skills that you think suit your build well. Diablo 4 allows you to refund your skill points so don’t worry about making the wrong choices. Feel free to experiment with various skill combinations and come up with what works best for you.
We recommend investing in mobility-based skills in addition to your core buff/debuff and damage skills. At higher difficulties, dodging enemy attacks is very important and movement skills are also useful in closing the gap between you and your enemies.
Finally, there are all kinds of Legendary and Unique items that will help you create synergistic builds and unleash your character's potential. Keep an eye out for rare items and utilize rare drops to maximize your power.
Those are just some of the basic aspects of Diablo 4 to help you get started. Remember, there is no right or wrong way to play the game. Once you get a hang of the basic mechanics, you will have a blast playing through the campaign, Nightmare Dungeons, and more. While you're preparing to jump into Sanctuary, why don't you check out our 15 tips to help you in Diablo 4?
