The best Diablo 4 Season 13 builds are better with the help of 'Friends'

Some of the best builds Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred and Season 13 share a common trait that didn't really factor into the meta in past seasons. Minion builds suddenly shot to the top of the meta in Diablo 4 Season 13, thanks in large part to a revamped skill tree that improved the viability of individual summoning skills. There are three classes with built-in meta invocations Diablo 4 this season, so it almost feels like a “Season of Summons” more than a Season of Reckoning.

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

One Horadric Cube Transformation Broke the Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred Meta

Horadric Cube turned the Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred meta on its head with this Transfiguration that deals insane damage.

Minion builds are the highest levels in Diablo 4 Season 13

Minion Barbarian
Minion Necromancer
Minion Warlock

While other classes like 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 summoning different types of minions as the build's primary damage dealers while reducing the pressure on the players themselves. For the most part, there are a few specific pieces of gear that are needed to make these builds work, but players can also fine-tune them to suit their preferred playstyle needs.

What kind of weapon is that?

Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.

What kind of weapon is that?

Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.

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

Barbarians can summon ancient minions to smash enemies

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

+[251.0 – 350.0]% Ultimate Damage
+[23.5 – 32.5]% Call of the Ancients cooldown reduction
+[638 – 873] Maximum service life
+[26.0 – 35.0]% Resistance to all elements

Your imperfect skills that spawn Ancients will now spawn others. Skills that Summon Ancients deal with [30 – 40%] increased damage.

Barbarian

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

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

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

600 armor

Your max number of Skeleton Warriors increases by 6. Skeleton Warriors slash with their attacks and deal x[30 – 40%] increased damage. Commanding a target increases the damage the target takes from your skeleton warriors, or[30 – 40%].

Necromancer

The Necromancer can also use Deathgrip and The Undercrown Uniques to further increase the maximum number of summons they can have active. Additionally, the Pact of Bone Unique Ring reduces the damage of these minions and empowers them when one dies. The result is a build that can overwhelm enemies with a massive amount of active summons.

Although the Necromancer's minions are now mostly governed by the Skill Tree, Book of the Dead still allows players to choose what type of individual minions they can summon.

Warlocks have a crazy minion built in Diablo 4

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

+[94-157] Weapon damage
+X Maximum lifetime
x[6-10%] Multiplier of all damage
x[15-30%] Damage multiplier over time

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

Wizard

Uniques like The Blade of Sight Aflame and Ae'grom's Schism are also great additions to this deck to help feed the demonic meat grinder. Blade of Sight Aflame will increase the power of the bombardment when it hits a Lesser Demon with less than three seconds of duration left, while Ae'grom's Schism will summon a second version of the Greater Demon that will also create Lesser Demons that can be used as fodder. The goal of this build is then to keep the demon summoning spam active and an empowered Legion Shard to overwhelm enemies with numbers, similar to a necromancer minion build.

No matter which one Diablo 4 class players who choose to play in season 13 will have an easier time reaching the highest levels of Torment if they bring some summons with them. There are some drawbacks to building around minions like these builds, such as less direct control over damage. However, the benefits of mitigating aggregation and cascading damage as the number of summons increases more than make up for these shortcomings.