Staying alive in Sanctuary
With the newly announced Diablo 4 Hardcore Race to 100, you are probably trying to plan out your best opportunity to win the race. While many factors will come into play during your Hardcore journey, perhaps the important will be the class you choose. As such, you are probably wondering what the Best Diablo 4 Hardcore class is.
Best Diablo 4 Hardcore solo class
Sorcerer — The Sorcerer is probably overall the best class for hardcore. While each class has its own utilities that will be useful for playing in this harder difficulty, no other class has the same single advantage that Sorcerer does. This ranged, magical class eventually unlocks enhancement effects. Placing a point into your Flame Shield enhancement effect and equipping it as your enhanced skill gives you the very powerful capability to cheat death once every 120 seconds.
What this means is that when you take fatal damage, instead of killing your character — and thus resulting in permanent death, when playing Hardcore — you will trigger a two-second immunity shield that prevents you from dying. This can only trigger once every two minutes, but is the only “cheat death” skill among all the classes in Diablo 4.
Furthermore, most of the viable Sorcerer builds are ranged in nature which makes staying out of trouble a lot easier. Finally, the Sorcerer has several strong builds which with the right equipment can make them do massive damage compared to other classes. All of this combined makes the Sorcerer the best Diablo 4 Hardcore solo class.
Second Best Diablo 4 Hardcore solo class
Druid — A very strong contender for the best class for Hardcore is the Druid. For starters, the Druid has skills that activate fortify which is very strong for Hardcore. Fortify creates a shield that goes above your maximum health pool, so the next time you take damage it will reduce that pool rather than deplete your actual health. The Druid also has many defensive skills including Cyclone Armor, Earthen Bulwark, Blood Howl, Trample, and Debilitating Roar. With all of these defensive skills, the only reason the Druid is not at the top of this list is that they do not have the Sorcerer’s aforementioned “cheat death” skill.
Diablo 4 Hardcore solo class honorable mention
Barbarian — The Barbarian is also a very strong choice for attempting a Hardcore run. Like the Druid, they have the ability to obtain Fortify via the usage of various skills. They also have an arsenal of defensive skills like Ground Stomp, Iron Skin, Challenging Shout, and Rallying Cry. Unlike the Druid, it’s not just the lack of “cheat death” that puts them at the bottom of the list. The Barbarian is very up close and personal when it comes to combat style. While this is an extremely fun way to play, it also makes it harder to avoid damage, especially against certain telegraphed attacks.
These two classes are not recommended for Diablo 4 Hardcore solo
The two unmentioned classes, Rogue and Necromancer, are not recommended for Hardcore solo. While every class can certainly reach level 100 in Hardcore mode, these two will have a tougher time than the others. While Necromancer does have access to the aforementioned Fortify, they do not have very strong defensive skills. Also, they have the worst mobility of all the classes making it difficult to dodge lethal damage.
In fact, Necromancer doesn’t have any sort of mobility skills at all. As for the Rogue, they can put out some massive damage but have almost no defensive capabilities. In Hardcore it’s imperative that you have some quality defensive skills and Rogue just doesn’t have this advantage. All of this considered, it’s hard to recommend these two classes over the other three.
Best Diablo 4 Hardcore classes for group play
Druid — The Druid has a very powerful skill set when it comes to group utility. They can buff the entire party with Blood Howl and Cyclone Armor, debuff an entire group of enemies with Debilitating Roar. They also have a variety of crowd control skills and can easily apply vulnerability.
Barbarian —Barbarians are very strong in group play because of their shouts. Shouts can buff all allies or debuff entire groups of enemies. Unfortunately, they can only have one shout active at once. It is possible to stack shouts if you have multiple Barbarians, which will probably be a powerful group play option.
While the other three classes are playable in group play, they don’t bring as much group utility as the other two. Sorcerers can freeze, stun, and apply vulnerability very easily. Rogues have access to strong poison damage and also have the ability to apply vulnerability. You also have a decent amount of crowd control as a Rogue.
The Necromancer is probably the weakest class for group play. Decrepify is a strong ability that slows and weakens foes in an area. They can also apply vulnerability rather easily, but other than that have no additional utility.
Final thoughts on choosing a Diablo 4 class for Hardcore
As you can see it’s easy to recommend a Druid, Barbarian, or even Sorcerer when it comes to Hardcore. All three classes have both solo and group viability, as well as the ability to be strong in the early, mid, and late game of Diablo 4. Keep in mind that even though these are the recommended classes for Hardcore, it isn’t required to play one of them. All five classes are able to play Hardcore mode and with proper planning can reach the maximum level.
At the end of the day, it’s important to choose a class that you find fun and enjoy playing. The trek to level 100 will be long and arduous regardless of your class choice. If, at any time, you feel particularly weak don’t be afraid to lower your World Tier until you level up and get some better equipment. Just remember, you can only get one life on Hardcore!
*Update* Best Diablo 4 Hardcore class for season 1, Season of the Malignant
Diablo 4 has gone through a lot of changes since it was released, especially with patch 1.1.0. Therefore, while the information here is still accurate, there is probably a better option in terms of the best Diablo 4 Hardcore class.
The overall best Hardcore class for season 1 is probably the Druid or Rogue. While all of the classes got nerfed in both damage and survivability, these two still have some extremely powerful builds that make them viable for Hardcore.
Necromancer is probably a good honorable mention. While they still have some mobility issues, their damage and survivability have increased with recent updates. Bone Spear and Bone Storm are two of the best builds in the game.
Finally, I’d steer clear of Sorcerer and probably even Barbarian for now. Both of these classes have received some pretty brutal nerfs heading into season one, especially with their survivability which is key when choosing the best Diablo 4 Hardcore class.
