D4 Season 8 Leveling Tier List - Best Leveling Class & Build in Diablo 4 2.2

If you're looking for a class in Diablo 4 Season 8 to quickly reach Torment difficulty in style, you've come to the right place. We've been testing builds inside and out for over a month, based on our overall experience with the game and the days spent on the test realm, to bring you this D4 Season 8 leveling class and build tier list for 2.2 patch.

Diablo 4 Season 8 Leveling Tier List - Best Leveling Classes & Builds in D4 2.2

The increased difficulty of Blizzard’s hack-and-slash, the lack of early-game legendaries, the inability to access the most powerful seasonal powers right away, and the absence of orange runes all make the journey quite different from the previous Season of Malignant. Luckily, now that we have the final 2.2 patch notes, we can lock in a tier list focused on speed leveling to help you decide which archetype to choose on April 29.

Reaching Paragon levels quickly in Diablo 4 opens the door to substantial gains in materials, gold, legendary and unique items, and especially mythic items from stronghold bosses. But the transition phase also needs to be fun—otherwise, there’s no way to reach that screen-side hedonism that drives us to pour hours into a virtual passion. That's why everything that follows mixes both efficiency and enjoyment. And if you don't find your happiness in our builds, we'll also suggest alternative paths for each class. Without further ado, let's start this D4 Season 8 leveling rankings.

S Tier

Necromancer

• Top Builds: Minions Summoner, Blood Surge Sacrifice

First up is the Necromancer. The summon rework from Season 7 still dominates leveling in Season 8. The gameplay is extremely beginner-friendly: Golems offer outstanding protection, while skeletal minions deal heavy damage at range, allowing you to play almost passively during fights.

Sure, mobility remains an issue, but since your summons do the work, you can start moving toward the next pack while your minions finish off the current one.

Our second featured build for Necro is Blood Surge, a one-against-hundred style where you sacrifice all your summons to get massive AoE damage. The Necromancer also has many ways to sustain resources, making single-skill-focused leveling builds even more effective.

If neither summons nor Blood Surge sound appealing, Necro can also level extremely well with Bone Spear or Blood Lance builds—or even a hybrid Summon/Bone Spear build like we used in Season 2 for a more active playstyle.

In short, the Necromancer fully deserves its S-rank: not only does it have efficient speed-leveling builds, but it also offers enough variety to appeal to many players.

Rogue

• Top Builds: Twisting Blades, Flurry, Rapid Fire

Rogue, who almost always dominates any speed-leveling competition. Currently holding the speed-leveling record post Vessel of Hatred with a sub-3-hour timer, Rogue's Flurry build absolutely crushes early game leveling. It’s essentially a two-button class: you dash everywhere, hit enemies instantly with imbues, and cloak yourself for perfect survivability.

Flurry Rogue embodies what Whirlwind Barbarian should feel like. If spinning around isn’t your thing, Lethal Blade, Rapid Fire, and Barrage builds are also extremely effective. Celerity (Movement Speed) with its minimal cooldown supports fast map-clearing for all of these options.

Lastly, if you enjoy unconventional setups, all Trap-related skills have been buffed in patch 2.2, offering new ways to build a Rogue this season.

A Tier 

Sorcerer

• Top Builds: Firewall, Incinerate Burn

Firewall remains a divine skill for levels 1–25 but falls off quickly without the right legendary aspects — a real risk this season for first characters.

Lightning archetypes, especially Chain Lightning, are also very disappointing: their damage scaling is terrible at both low and high levels, and Blizzard hasn’t addressed this at all in the 2.2 patch.

Thus, we recommend either a Frost build or an Incinerate/Burn-focused build instead. Our channel features a very fun burn-focused Sorcerer where monsters literally ignite and die offscreen without you even needing to finish them off.

Barbarian

• Top Builds: Whirlwind + Earthquake, HOTA (Hammer of the Ancients)

the Barbarian, who loses his S-rank placement due to the nerf to Earthquake. Barbarian still boasts powerful shouts that immediately boost movement speed, brute strength, and survivability, plus great mobility skills like Leap.

Even after the nerfs, Earthquake remains a solid leveling tool. Our build for Season 8 focuses on using Whirlwind to soften up enemies and Earthquake to finish them off. The build is close to S-tier but requires a lot of legendary aspects due to the Barbarian’s multiple weapon setup—up to 12 aspects needed compared to just 9 for a Necromancer. That’s both a strength and a weakness depending on your luck.

If you’re not a fan of Earthquake builds, Blizzard’s 2.2 patch buffed Mighty Throw (Weapon Toss), suggesting it might become a strong leveling option too

B Tier 

Spiritborn 

• Top Builds: Poison Spiritborn, Feather Volley (needs setup)

While the latest class addition to Diablo has great mobility, Spiritborn unfortunately suffers from horrible scaling at early levels. Feather Volley is hard to spam and unimpressive without the right aspects — many of which aren’t even dungeon-available, thus this ranking.

However, once you hit Torment difficulty and get some lucky drops, Spiritborn regains its strength and dynamism across all areas of the game. Its versatility, blending mobility, damage, and survivability, becomes its biggest asset—but it takes time to get there.

To smooth out the early experience, we’re moving away from Feather Volley and proposing a Poison Spirit build instead, offering insane area damage, linear power scaling, and an original playstyle where every skill contributes meaningfully. We also wanted to include the impressive Devourer Ultimate for its great design and utility.

Of course, you can still insist on a Feather Volley route or even explore Crushing Hand builds — which is part of the beauty of Diablo 4: many viable ways to enjoy the game.

Why? Fun and versatile. Poison build in particular has linear progression.

C Tier 

Druid

• Top Builds: Pulverize, Storm Companions

Druid still suffers from the same issues when leveling up in Sanctuary. He lacks mobility and area damage early on, making early XP gains feel clunky. While Season 7's high density during headhunt events made up for this, in Season 8, with more dungeon running and Infernal Waves, moving like a packed RATP bus at rush hour won’t make leveling feel any smoother.

Plus, the increased time it now takes to go from level 1 to 25 in patch 2.2 makes these weaknesses even more punishing compared to other classes. From our side, we suggest one of our favorite archetypes to get through all 60 levels in Diablo 4: Pulverize Druid. Even if it's not the most efficient leveling build, it's tons of fun with its easy-going playstyle. Slamming enemies with giant cone-shaped strikes becomes quickly addictive and efficient for clearing maps.

To counter the Druid’s lack of movement skills, we recommend prioritizing gear with movement speed bonuses as early as possible. You’ll find more detailed tips in our video guide dedicated to Pulverize Druid for Season 8.

If Pulverize doesn’t sound appealing, there's also a Storm/Companion Druid archetype focused much more on area damage, though it plays a bit slower due to its channeling nature. There's also an interesting path to explore with Earth-based skills like Landslide, Boulder, and Earthen Bulwark if you’re feeling adventurous.

Summary