Diablo 4 Season 2 Tier List (1.2.2) - Best Class & Builds with Malignant Rings in D4 S2

Diablo 4 Season 2 Tier List (1.2.2) - Best Class & Builds with Malignant Rings in D4 S2

11/17/2023 11:38:44 AM

The Malignant rings added in the 1.2.2Patch brought new gameplay potential to each class, and some builds even became dominant in the game such as Ball Lightning Sorc. So in this new Diablo 4 Season 2 Tier List, let’s take a look at which are the best classes and builds with Malignant Rings after patch 1.2.2!

Diablo 4 S2 Best Class & Builds with Malignant Rings After 1.1.2 Patch

With this guide, we talk about the best highest damage build specifically after our mid-season update featuring those new Malignant Rings, all but one class is making fantastic use of their ring leading to wonderful quality of life updates so just insane DPS increases. On top of that since the original look at the top builds, some things have progressed, and we have new versions of builds to talk about after lots of testing and so on. Specifically for best builds, it needs to be one that can tackle at least a tier 100 nightmare dungeon and at least a Durial if not Uber Lilith very convincingly. So overall it's what is the best build for each class in mid-season after the new testing and new Rings that's what we're here to discuss. Let's jump into it now!

1. Necromancer - Necromancer Bone Spear Necro Build

In Diablo 2 Season 2, the Bone Spear build stands out as the Necromancer's top choice for various forms of gameplay. Despite recent nerfs and changes to damage mechanics, Bone Spear remains a formidable option. While other builds like infamous blood builds have their strengths depending on the specific content, Bone Spear excels in all formats, including single-target, speed clears, open world, and even tier 100 dungeons. The recent Malignant Ring update has significantly improved gameplay by automating Corpse Explosions and Corpse Tendrils, allowing for more efficient use of Bone Spear. Additionally, the Sacreligious effect of the Malignant Ring reduces the Essence cost of the Bone Spear, making it even more powerful. With items like the Grandfather two-handed sword that increases critical damage and the Uber unique ring Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul, which further enhances Bone Spear performance, the build reaches its peak potential.

Bone Spear Build for Mid & End-Game in Season 2:

The Bone Spear build shines as the Necromancer's best choice for mid and end-game content in Diablo 2 Season 2. Despite recent nerfs and changes, Bone Spear remains a formidable option. It offers versatility, excelling in various forms of gameplay, including single-target encounters, speed clears, open-world exploration, and even Tier 100 dungeons. The recent Malignant Ring update has significantly improved gameplay by automating Corpse Explosions and Corpse Tendrils, allowing for more efficient use of Bone Spear. Additionally, the Sacreligious effect of the Malignant Ring reduces the Essence cost of the Bone Spear, making it even more powerful. With the right items, such as the Grandfather two-handed sword and the Uber unique ring Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul, the Bone Spear build reaches its peak potential.

Bone Spear Build for T100 Dungeons:

The Bone Spear build proves its effectiveness in tier 100 dungeons. With its improved gameplay mechanics, including automated Corpse Explosions and Corpse Tendrils, Bone Spear becomes a reliable choice for clearing these challenging encounters. While other builds may offer damage immunity or tankiness, Bone Spear's higher consistent DPS and instant damage output make it a powerful option. By maintaining a medium to longer range and eliminating enemies before they reach you, the Bone Spear build compensates for its squishiness and delivers efficient clears in tier 100 dungeons.

Bone Spear Build for Killing Uber Lilith:

When it comes to taking on Uber Lilith, the Bone Spear build stands out as the most beneficial option. With its potential for Ubers and the recent Malignant Ring update, the build becomes even more formidable. By utilizing the Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul, which reduces the Essence cost of Bone Spear, the build can continuously cast the skill, maximizing its damage output. Additionally, items like the Grandfather's two-handed sword, which increases critical damage, further enhance the Bone Spear build's performance. With these advantages, the Bone Spear Necromancer excels in defeating Uber Lilith and solidifies its position as the top overall build.

2. Druid - Tornado Werewolf Druid Build

The Tornado Werewolf Druid build has become even more powerful in Diablo 4 Season 2 after the 1.2.2 patch, especially with the inclusion of the new Malignant Ring - Airidah's Inexorable Will. This update not only enhances quality of life but also provides a highly impactful ability to pull groups of enemies together. As a result, the build excels in mob clear, making it incredibly efficient and easy to group up enemies and spam tornadoes for quick clears. This improved mob clear has a direct impact on speed clearing and tier 100 pushing, making the Tornado Werewolf Druid a top choice for mid and end-game content. The build requires Spirit generators to be active, allowing for continuous tornado spamming, resulting in a straightforward and enjoyable gameplay experience. The Tornado Werewolf Druid is fast and can be played at a semi-range, allowing for swift dungeon traversal. However, it can also adapt to a medium range if necessary, especially during tier 100 encounters. The Airidah's Inexorable Will ring provides additional smashing and crowd control capabilities when enemies are grouped, avoiding any potential slowdowns. While the build remains unchanged for single-target encounters, it's recommended to switch to Blood Howl - the crit aspect - for improved single-target DPS. The Tornado Druid has shown impressive clears against Uber Lilith, surpassing the performance of the Stormclaw build. With its high DPS potential, the Tornado Werewolf Druid is the preferred choice for tackling Uber Lilith encounters. If Season 3 follows the expected path, the Druid class might become a top pick.

Tornado Werewolf Build For Mid & End-Game in Season 2:

The Tornado Werewolf build excels in mid and end-game content in Season 2. It offers fantastic quality of life improvements, efficient mob clear, and the ability to swiftly clear dungeons.

Tornado Werewolf Build For T100 Dungeons:

The Tornado Werewolf build is highly effective in tier 100 dungeons. It provides efficient mob clear and quick group dispatching, making it ideal for tackling challenging encounters.

Tornado Werewolf Build For Killing Uber Lilith:

The Tornado Werewolf build is a top choice for taking on Uber Lilith. It offers high DPS potential and effective crowd control, ensuring successful kills in these encounters.

3. Rogue - Twisting Blade Rogue Build

The Twisting Blade build for the Rogue class is designed to break the combo point cap using condemnation, maximizing its potential. This build increases the maximum number of combo points a Rogue can accumulate, resulting in significantly higher damage when consumed. Previously, players could only accumulate up to three combo points, but with this build, they can reach a maximum of 23, allowing for devastating one-shot bursts against enemies like Durial and Uber Lilith. The key factor in this build is the unique ability of condemnation, which enables faster generation of three combo points using basic skills, effectively pushing the current combo point cap to its new maximum. Recent developer discussions have indicated that this combo point bug will likely persist at least throughout Season 2, making it worthwhile to focus on maximizing this build's potential. However, while Twisting Blades is an excellent specialization, there might be better options available due to the current class-breaking mechanic.

Twisting Blade Build for Mid & End-Game in Season 2:

For mid and end-game content in Season 2, the Twisting Blade build provides a significant advantage for Rogues. By breaking the combo point cap and utilizing condemnation, players can achieve devastating burst damage, making it an excellent choice for tackling challenging encounters.

Twisting Blade Build for T100 Dungeons:

The Twisting Blade build is particularly effective in T100 dungeons. Its ability to accumulate a high number of combo points and unleash powerful burst damage allows players to tackle the toughest enemies and progress through these dungeons successfully.

Twisting Blade Build for Killing Uber Lilith:

When facing Uber Lilith, the Twisting Blade build shines. By breaking the combo point cap and utilizing condemnation's ability to generate combo points rapidly, players can unleash a devastating one-shot burst that is capable of defeating Uber Lilith with relative ease.

4. Sorcerer - Ball Lightning Sorc Build

Among the various builds for sorcerers, the Ball Lightning build stands out as the most dominant, especially with the Malignant Ring update. This build provides a constant 60% damage increase for sorcerers during combat when equipped with the ring. It may seem illogical for a class already excelling in consistent and effective DPS to receive such a straightforward damage boost rather than a more creatively designed ring with utility benefits or specialization-specific enhancements. However, the massive DPS increase from the Malignant Ring proves to be highly effective. The Ball Lightning build requires little setup and revolves around rotating balls that annihilate anything in their path, delivering exceptional DPS and shockingly high survivability. Sorcerers utilizing this build exhibit remarkable movement speed and teleportation capabilities. They are unparalleled in clearing Tier 100 dungeons swiftly, providing the highest consistent DPS among all builds. The DPS is instantly maximized with no build-up or fluctuations, making it the optimal choice. Whether facing packs of Elites, rare butcher spawns, or final bosses, sorcerers effortlessly eliminate all obstacles. The only debate lies in selecting the version of Ball Lightning to use, such as the Ice Shards or Arc Lash variant. Both versions are viable, but the preference is leaning towards Ball Lightning alone, as the Tal Rasha's ring and the Vampire Power change no longer accommodate the inclusion of Moonrise Vampire Power. With the build's attack speed nearing the cap and infinite Mana generation, there are currently no significant downsides to this approach.

Ball Lightning Sorc Build for Mid & End-Game in Season 2:

The Ball Lightning Sorc build is especially advantageous for mid and end-game content in Season 2. Its consistent and effective DPS, combined with high survivability and swift movement, make it an excellent choice for tackling challenging encounters and progressing through the game.

Ball Lightning Sorc Build for T100 Dungeons:

When facing Tier 100 dungeons, the Ball Lightning Sorc build truly shines. Its swift attack rotation, exceptional crowd control capabilities, and unmatched DPS allow sorcerers to clear these dungeons with ease and efficiency.

Ball Lightning Sorc Build for Killing Uber Lilith:

The Ball Lightning Sorc build is highly effective against Uber Lilith. With its superior DPS, survivability, and mobility, sorcerers utilizing this build can take on Uber Lilith and emerge victorious.

5. Barbarian - HotA Barb Build

Although the Barbarian class offers a wide range of builds in mid-season 2, the Hammer of the Ancients build still stands out as the overall best choice. The introduction of a new ring has had a significant impact, guaranteeing critical strikes for Hammer of the Ancients. Additionally, skills like Upheaval and Death Blow have become highly effective, making all three specs formidable for both single-target and Tier 100 encounters. In a vacuum, Hammer of the Ancients deals the highest damage numbers while also providing great small-range area-of-effect potential for mob clearing. The Barbarian class itself remains tanky and survivable, and although the builds may feel similar due to the skills not changing much, there is still more variety than before. With the new ring, spending 100 Fury within 3 seconds empowers the next cast of Hammer of the Ancients, Upheaval, or Death Blow with a critical strike that can deal up to 30% more damage. This enhancement significantly improves any build utilizing these three skills, elevating them above the rest. Hammer of the Ancients, in particular, stands out as our top pick. With proper setup, average damage numbers of 500 million can be achieved, and even higher damage is possible. This allows you to defeat single-target bosses in a single hit, and with the increased scaling, even world bosses can be taken down in one blow, which may seem absurd. While the builds have similar awkward area-of-effect ranges, Hammer of the Ancients benefits from an aspect that causes the damage to quake outward, providing additional assistance. Beyond the impact of the ring, the build benefits from the unique Banished Lord's Talisma, which greatly amplifies overpower damage potential. Additionally, the Blood Boil Vampiric Power guarantees an overpower every 20 seconds. Combined with shouts and other setup methods, the build becomes more and more powerful. These capabilities are more than sufficient to defeat any boss or elite encounter. As the season progresses and target farming allows for obtaining more aspects, uniques, and even Uber uniques, the Barbarian class will excel. Therefore, Hammer of the Ancients remains a safe top pick, with Death Blow and Upheaval also being excellent options.

Hammer of the Ancients Barb Build for Mid & End-Game in Season 2:

The Hammer of the Ancients Barb build excels in mid and end-game content during Season 2. It provides the highest damage numbers, versatility in skills, and effective area-of-effect potential, making it an excellent choice for challenging encounters.

Hammer of the Ancients Barb Build for T100 Dungeons:

When facing Tier 100 dungeons, the Hammer of the Ancients Barb build proves to be highly effective. Its guaranteed critical strikes, high damage output, and small-range area-of-effect potential allow Barbarians to clear these dungeons efficiently.

Hammer of the Ancients Barb Build for Killing Uber Lilith:

The Hammer of the Ancients Barb build is particularly potent against Uber Lilith. With its exceptional damage, survivability, and overpower abilities, Barbarians using this build can confidently take on and defeat Uber Lilith.