Diablo 4 Season 5 Tier List After Nerfs in Patch 1.5.1

This updated D4 Season 5 tier list is tailored to Patch 1.5.1 after Nerfs and contains the best builds for each class in the game, no matter what style you like.

Diablo 4 Season 5 Tier List After Nerfs in Patch 1.5.1

1 - S Tier D4 S5 Builds After Patch 1.5.1 

- Andariel Rogue: one of the best Rogue builds in Diablo 4 Season 5, uses the Mythic unique item - Andariel's Visage to unleash potent poison explosions, amplifying its damage through a combination of abilities, passives, and multiplicative effects. By synergizing with the Close Quarter Combat key passive, this build capitalizes on the rapid-fire attack capabilities of Barrage, augmented by the updated Fist of the Fate, to deliver a flurry of high-luck hits. With its simplistic gameplay revolving around spamming Barrage-infused poison, this build excels at speed farming.

- Barrage Rogue: a hybrid build that allows players to adapt to different situations by choosing the optimal distance for their attacks. This build is versatile and flexible. Players can cast Barrage at mid-range to spread out their arrows and deal massive area of effect damage, or they can dash towards an elite target to shotgun all the arrows into a single target, dealing insane damage.

- Penetrating Shot Rogue: is a powerful build that scales well into the endgame. It offers a variety of tools and strategies to help players stay safe while dealing damage from multiple angles. The core skill, Penetrating Shot, fires a single massive piercing arrow that can be enhanced with the Umbracrux Dagger and Trickshot Aspect to deal a crazy amount of damage. To maximize the potential of this skill, good positioning is crucial, as the damage increases with the number of enemies hit in a line.

- Lightning Spear Sorcerer: gains benefits from the reworked Aspect of Splintering Energy, which significantly upgrades the Lightning Spear's damage from 16% to 110%, which is further increased by critical strike damage. In the late game, this equates to approximately 60,000 damage per cast.

- Fireball Sorcerer: uses the Great Balls of Fire to explode everything in its path. The build has excellent AoE damage, but it struggles against tanky, isolated mobs, particularly bosses in high-tier Nightmare dungeons. However, the build excels in all other types of content.

- Bash Barbarian: has returned to the meta after receiving a major buff, which grants Bash an extra cleave animation, increasing its AoE damage, as well as damage multipliers for players. The build also benefits greatly from aspects like Adaptability and Moonrise, although these are not immediately available from the Codex of Power.

- Rapid Fire Rogue: this is an all-around build in D4 1.5.1, suitable for any situation, with variations available for high-end content. The build's strength lies in the Rapid Fire skill, which deals massive single-target damage, making it powerful against bosses. Rapid Fire is an attack skill that unleashes a hail of arrows in a straight line, providing high damage output against single targets. However, this makes dealing with packs of mobs a bit more challenging.

- Bone Spirit Necromancer: has the strongest burst damage potential in a single attack. This setup can deal billions of billions of damage, making it incredibly powerful. The Bone Spirit skill has the largest skill damage multiplier in the entire game, and when prioritizing reaching 100% Critical Strike chance, the damage from a single Bone Spirit can even one-shot a pre-tormented boss. This build is clearly the strongest meta Necromancer build in Diablo 4 S5.

- Flay Barbarian: relies on the Flay skill to apply massive amounts of bleed damage to enemies. This build is well-suited for high-level content, as the Tempered passive skill can extend the duration of the bleed effect to over 20 seconds. The Rupture skill can be used to deal accumulative damage in a single, deadly blow. This build is best for single-target situations, such as bossing and higher-tier Pits.

- Fire Bolt Sorcerer: utilizes the Flameweaver item to turn Fire Bolt into a more damaging skill. However, the build can be clunky to use as it requires placing a Firewall and shooting enemies with fire bolts, then waiting for the damage over time to take effect. The damage is greatest when all three fire bolts hit the same enemy immediately after they split, making this build more suited for single-target combat.

- Chain Lightning Sorcerer: is now considered one of the most visually impressive options. This build utilizes a barrage of electricity to paralyze and destroy enemies, making it a great choice for farming open world events and Helltides. The Sorcerer's mobility and speed are also top-notch, allowing for efficient farming. When it comes to damage, Chain Lightning and Unstable Currents are the main sources of damage for this build, making it a popular choice for nightmare dungeon pushing.

- Landslide Druid: is the last S-tier build, utilizing the Nature's Fury passive and the improved Earthbreaker and Unsung Ascetic's Wraps. This setup generates a large number of lightning storms, amplified by both storm and Earth multipliers. With the right gear, the Landslide Druid becomes a powerful and efficient build, capable of taking on tough bosses and excelling in pit pushing. Its game-leveling abilities make it a versatile and formidable choice for players.

2 - A Tier D4 S5 Builds After Patch 1.5.1

- Minion Necromancer: primarily focuses on the damage output of minions. This Summoner build utilizes the Army of the Dead skill to quickly resurrect all Undead allies, providing a significant damage boost during its duration. The build is well-suited for players who prefer a hands-off approach, as the minions do most of the work. With the right gear and skills, the Minion Necromancer can be a powerful and effective build for taking on high-level content.

- Blood Lance Necromancer: excels at single-target damage, particularly against bosses. It uses blood orbs and the Lance mechanic to generate AoE attacks that can clear the screen of mobs. The build's peak damage comes from the overpower abilities provided by blood skills, which also offer built-in tankiness through the fortifying effect. The low essence cost of these abilities allows for spam casting and high DPS output.

- Frozen Orb Sorcerer: utilizes an endless barrage of Frozen Orbs to decimate enemies from a distance. This build offers high mobility and is effective at farming open world events and Helltides. While it is not primarily a single-target build, it can still deal decent damage as long as the player maintains the right distance.

- Blizzard Sorcerer: utilizes the signature spell Blizzard, enhanced by the Glacial Aspect, to unleash a storm of ice spikes on enemies. This build deals both single target and AoE damage, allowing it to excel in farming pits. However, it requires building up damage on single targets and some enemies may move out of the damage zone.

- Bone Spear Necromancer: is a formidable setup that leverages the Bone Spear's piercing ability, which can penetrate multiple enemies. Upon impact with an object, the spear shatters, releasing a barrage of 3-5 bone shards that ricochet back. This skill's sheer potency enables players to pick off enemies from a distance, pursue and defeat Treasure Goblins, and unleash devastating damage to annihilate any opposition.

- Boulder Druid: requires top-tier gear and a highly engaged playstyle. This build's potency hinges on the Dolmen Stone, which amplifies the Boulder skill to unprecedented levels in the endgame, yielding astronomical damage output. Nevertheless, it's crucial to recognize that without the Dolmen Stone and sufficient Nature cooldown reductions, paired with the Endless Tempest, this build will falter.

- Wind Shear Druid: focuses on high damage output and is well-suited for pushing pits and defeating bosses in Season 5. This build utilizes the reworked Aspect of the Calm Breeze, which inflicts poison damage over time on all enemies it passes through. The damage over time from the aspect also inherits the storm and base skills from the initial cast of Wind Shear, but this build lacks area of effect damage and requires precise positioning to maximize damage output.

- Companion Druid: emphasizes the power of companions, particularly the wolves, as the main source of damage in the end game. This build has a unique item called the Storm's Companion, allowing the entire squad to join through the updated Shepherd's Aspect. The new addition of  Moonrage brings even more companions, and the Spirit Boons aspect ensures that the companion friend cannot die.

- Death Blow Barbarian: underwent a significant transformation in the season with the introduction of the Third Blade, effectively rendering it a spammable core ability by eliminating its natural cooldown. This, combined with its exceptionally high base damage, makes it a formidable force. Additionally, it receives an extremely strong aspect multiplier via the Aspect of Encroaching Wrath, as well as its own unique Overkill, which substantially amplifies its damage and provides a small area of effect damage bonus. Unfortunately, most of the power provided to this build is not unlocked until much later in the game, making it a strictly endgame setup.

- Rend Barbarian: has undergone significant changes this season, with Rend being a core skill that quickly inflicts a large bleed on enemies in front of the Barbarian. Its high base damage and Fury efficiency make it a strong choice. However, its small AoE and damage dealt over time can be drawbacks. To solve these issues, the Rupture skill is used to instantly damage enemies for the total bleeding amount, resulting in high DPS.

- Double Swing Barbarian: is a high-impact, fast-paced melee setup that excels in all aspects of the game. Although its small hit zone may seem unimpressive at first, once the attack speed buffs start stacking and the Twisters begin spinning, the Double Swing rapidly transforms into a lethal force capable of annihilating anyone who dares to stand in its way. This hit-and-run style of play, which also makes quick work of bosses, is both exhilarating and entertaining.

- Twisting Blades Rogue: is a top-tier speed farming setup that can clear content at an incredible pace, outperforming most other builds in the game. However, it also comes with a high skill ceiling, requiring players to master its intricacies. If you're looking for a fun and agile Rogue build that allows you to dart around the battlefield with ease, then this might be the perfect fit for you.

3 - B Tier D4 S5 Builds After Patch 1.5.1

- Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian: is a popular choice, but it has a small AoE by default. To overcome this, the build uses the Tempered Hammer of the Ancients and the Aspect of Ancestral Force to significantly increase the impact radius. This allows for almost full-screen clearance of enemies. The build is well-suited for farming open world events and Helltides. However, it requires high-level gearing and an active playstyle.

- Ball Lightning Sorcerer: leverages the Gravitational aspect to create a mesmerizing display of lightning orbs orbiting around the player. This build boasts respectable single-target damage and decent area of effect coverage, capable of vaporizing even the toughest enemies in the game. However, its major drawbacks are its melee range, which can leave the player vulnerable, and the lack of burst damage, which can make it less effective in certain situations.

- Ice Shard Sorcerer: converts your sorcerer into an ice-based machine gun, firing off ice shards at an astonishing rate of around 1,000 rounds per minute. With its exceptional single-target DPS and relatively long-range, this build can perform admirably in the Nightmare dungeons, making it a viable choice for players seeking to tackle challenging content.

- Hurricane Druid: emerges as one of the Druid's most effective pit pushers and bosses, but it is heavily reliant on the endgame temper. However, once the necessary setup is acquired, the Hurricane is guaranteed to critically strike and overpower, resulting in a prolonged damage boost.

- Whirlwind Barbarian: offers great versatility, whether it's for speed farming, pushing nightmare dungeons, or anything in between. This build is centered around the Whirlwind skill, which allows the Barbarian to spin and deal damage to enemies in a wide area. The build is highly customizable and can be tailored to the player's preferred playstyle.

- Pulverize Druid: leverages the combination of the Pulverized and Shockwave aspects to deal damage in a large, cone-shaped area in front of the player. To maximize single-target damage, the goal is to find the sweet spot between the radius and the created shockwave, allowing enemies to be hit twice as hard with each cast. This build takes advantage of up to three guaranteed Overpower sources and multiplies their damage using the Ursine Strength key passive.

4 - C Tier D4 S5 Builds After Patch 1.5.1

- Blight Necromancer: combines the overwhelming power of darkness damage over time with crippling crowd control, one of the advantages of this build is that it's great for early progression, as it doesn't require any unique items and many of its best legendary aspects can be found in the Codex of Power.

- Sever Necromancer: is the coolest-looking Necro build in Diablo 4, thanks to the skill that sends a spectral Reaper screaming across the battlefield to eviscerate enemies up to four times. Coupled with its amazing damage output and consistent crowd control, the build is a powerhouse that absolutely annihilates anyone who crosses your path.

5 - D Tier D4 S5 Builds After Patch 1.5.1

- Infinimist Necromancer: combines the highest survivability rates with massive AoE Shadow damage, making it excel at outlasting even the most dangerous content. At first glance, this setup may seem like a typical Darkness build, but it's the unique combination of spamming Corpse Explosion and relying on Lucky Hit procs for crowd control that allows for infinite uptime on the skill.

- Shadow Step Rogue: features a new archetype and unique playstyle, designed to quickly zoom through all the content in the game. The purpose of this build is to utilize the Shadow Step as the main damage ability, which allows for rapid movement and damage dealing. Additionally, the build relies on stacking cooldown reduction to instantly jump from enemy to enemy, with each hit also boosted by conditional multipliers.