Diablo 4 Season 13's Best Buildings Are Better With "Friends"

Some of the best built-ins Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred and Season 13 share a common trait that hasn't really factored into the meta in previous seasons. Minion builds have suddenly shot to the top of the meta in Diablo 4 Season 13, thanks in large part to the reworked Skill Tree that has improved the profitability of individual summoning skills. There are three classes with built-in meta-sum Diablo 4 this season, making it almost feel like “Season of Summons” more than Season of Reckoning.

Previous, Diablo 4The main summoner archetype was the Necromancer, but the Druid and to some extent the Barbarian have also been able to summon allies to aid them in battle. With the release of Lord of Hatred, the Warlock joins the Necromancer as a pure summoner build class. In addition to this new class, a change to some of the Diablo 4's Uniques with the Lord of Hatred update has created a new build archetype for the barbarian that allows it to join in on the summoning fun.

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Minion Builds are the top tier in Diablo 4 Season 13

Minion Barbarian
Minion Necromancer
Minion Warlock

While other classes like the Druid can summon minions Diablo 4Barbarian, Necromancer, and Warlock have the best minion build options in the Season 13 meta. Each of these builds emphasizes calling different types of minions as the primary damage dealers of the build while taking some of the pressure off the players themselves. For the most part, there is some specific gear required to make these builds work, but players can also tweak them to suit their preferred playstyle needs.

What kind of weapon is that?

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What kind of weapon is that?

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Easy (7.5s) Medium (5.0s) Hard (2.5s) Permadeath (2.5s)

Barbarians can summon ancient minions to crush enemies

The change to Arreat's Bearing Unique Barbarian Pants has allowed the class to form its own minion archetype that focuses on summoning Barbarian Ancients. Call of the Ancients is the primary means of accomplishing this, but with Arreat's Bearing, Barbarians can now summon additional Ancients when using an Ancient summoning skill other than Call of the Ancients. With the Madawc upgrade for Rallying Cry, players can use the skill to summon two Ancients with Arreat's Bearing, as well as use Call of the Ancients to summon three more Ancients and keep the summon going.

+[251.0 – 350.0]% ultimate damage
+[23.5 – 32.5]% Call of the Ancients Cooldown Reduction
+[638 – 873] Maximum life
+[26.0 – 35.0]% resistance to all elements

Your non-ultimate skills that summon Ancients will now summon an additional one. Skills that invoke Ancients deal [30 – 40%] increased damage.

Barbarian

Hellbent Commander Aspect, Progenitor Aspect, and Bold Chieftain's Aspect are all great legendary aspects to use on this build. Hellbent Commander and Progenitor increase damage dealt by summons, while Bold Chieftain's Aspect reduces the cooldown of Barbarian's Shout skills, allowing them to cast Rallying Cry more often.

Minion Necromancers can take full advantage of the new Diablo 4 skill tree

Necromancers were the big winners of Diablo 4s Skill Tree update, which moves their minion skills from the Book of the Dead into the Skill Tree itself and gives them more versatile upgrade options. For example, the Necromancer's Golem can now use the Gargantua upgrade to increase its size and give it an aura that increases the attack and movement speed of the class' other minions. There are also ways to drastically increase the number of summons the Necromancer can have active at a time, with the Skeletal Mage's Coven upgrade and the Skeletal Warrior's Master of Puppets upgrade increasing their maximum summon numbers.

600 armor

Your maximum number of Skeleton Warriors is increased by 6. Skeleton Warriors split with their attacks and deal x[30 – 40%] increased damage. Commanding them on a target increases the damage the target takes from your Skeleton Warriors by x[30 – 40%].

Necromancer

Necromancer can also use both Deathgrip and The Undercrown Uniques to further increase the maximum number of summons they can have active. In addition, the Pact of Bone Unique Ring mitigates the damage of these minions and gives them power when one dies. The result is a build that can undo enemies through an overwhelming number of active summons.

Although the Necromancer's minions are mostly controlled by the skill tree now, Book of the Dead still allows players to choose the type of each minion they can summon.

Warlocks have a crazy minion build in Diablo 4

Bombardment is a powerful Warlock skill i Diablo 4 Season 13, and it could help turn Warlock into a demon meat grinder. With Bombardment, players constantly spam enemies with summoned demons that explode for massive damage. With the Summon Hellwyrm upgrade for Sigil of Summons, the Warlock can basically get a second cast of Bombardment when he completes the ritual. All of these skills feed into the Legion Shard's ability to grant the Warlock a free Greater Demon summon for every 200 demons (friendly or enemy) the Warlock kills, resulting in a summon like Fiend of Abaddon being almost constantly available.

+[94-157] Weapon damage
+X maximum lifespan
x[6-10%] Multiplier for all damage
x[15-30%] Damage over time multiplier

Hitting a smaller demon with bombardment explodes it for 400% of a bombardment effect if the demon has less than 3 seconds left. Bombing offers x [100 – 120%] increased damage.

Wizard

Uniques like The Blade of Sight Aflame and Ae'grom's Schism are also good additions to this build to help feed the demon meat grinder. The Blade of Sight Aflame boosts the power of the bombardment when hitting a lesser demon that has less than three seconds of duration left, while Ae'grom's schism summons a second version of the greater demon that will also produce lesser demons, which can be used as fodder. The goal of this build is to then keep the demon called spam active and empowered by the Legion Shard to overwhelm enemies with numbers, much like Necromancer's minion build.

Regardless of which of these Diablo 4 class players choose to play in Season 13, they will have an easier time reaching the highest Torment levels if they bring any summons with them. Building around minions like these builds has some drawbacks, like less direct damage control. However, the benefits of aggro reduction and cascading damage when the number of summons increases more than make up for these shortcomings.