Shades of the Nephalem – Top classes to begin your next adventure
Introduction
This is my personal list of favorite classes to begin the next Season 32 – Shades of the Nephalem, based on the Patch notes (2.7.8) and Haedrig’s gift rewards. This guide is not intended for the mid-end season and only aims for the fresh day one/level 1 start.
Season 33 Start Date is October 25, 2024. Confirmed post here
In case you are new to seasonal themes, you can check out my old video here where I show one little trick on how to get free bounty materials to ease your fresh start with a level 1 character.
Revisiting Previous Themes
Unfortunately, Season 33 doesn’t introduce anything new, since the support of Diablo 3 has ended. Instead, the developers now use seasonal rotations from the previous seasons. The next season is bringing back the Shades of the Nephalem from Season 22.
In this theme, your priority would be pylons and shrines as activating them will spawn a shadow clone of your class, who will also deal plenty of damage and assist you in battles. Unfortunately, this shade lasts only one minute, but it might be enough to turn the odds in your favor.
And there is one more thing in this theme – Kanai’s cube. For the duration of Season 33 it will have 4th slot. You can put anything in there – weapon, ring or armor. It’s a nice addition for your builds to empower them and get to higher Greater rifts.
The rest of the Themed content stays the same – Altar of Rites and Portals of Enmity are available at any time and you can access all that straight from level 1.
Video Guide
TBA
Rank 7 – Barbarian
Might of the Earth isn’t the weakest build on this list, but its playstyle is definitely one of the most tedious. It takes a lot of time and effort to gather all the necessary pieces before you can start dealing meaningful damage. If you plan to use this set, get ready to press a lot of skills and constantly check your active buffs to maximize the damage.
The set is superior at clearing large groups of enemies, particularly in solo Greater Rifts, but its “piano” playstyle makes it slow and inefficient for regular Rifts and bounties. You can use Charge or Leap to navigate through dense or walled-off areas, but it still won’t compete with faster classes and other barbarian’s sets in terms of mobility and speed.
To unlock this set’s damage potential, you’ll need key items like Blade of the Tribes, Girdle of Giants, Bracers of Destruction, Fury of the Vanished Peak, and possibly Fjord Cutter if you’re focusing on Seismic Slam. These legendaries will help you push higher difficulties, but we are not done yet. You’ll also need the Band of Might ring for damage reduction and Lut Socks to improve mobility.
In summary, while Might of the Earth can be fun for those who enjoy maintaining multiple buffs and cooldowns, it can feel tedious for others. Finding the necessary legendaries is time-consuming, and if your goal isn’t pushing high-tier Greater Rifts, you may want to consider a different set.
Rank 6 – Witch Doctor
Jade Harvester is a powerful set capable of instantly killing elites and bosses with its Soul Harvest ability. However, to unlock its full potential, you’ll need several items like Shukrani’s Triumph, Ring of Emptiness, Quetzalcoatl, The Furnace, Sacred Harvester, and Lakumba’s Ornament.
The core mechanic of the set revolves around stacking Haunt and Locust Swarm on every enemy. Once applied, Soul Harvest can often one-shot them. However, this playstyle significantly hampers your mobility, and it’s not the most user-friendly. It takes time to apply all the necessary debuffs, and you must get up close to unleash your Soul Harvest. If your target survives, you’ll need to reapply everything until they’re dead.
Because of this, Jade Harvester is inefficient in Nephalem Rifts or Bounties, where speed is essential. However, it shines in Greater Rifts, where you have a lot of enemies and time to push the leaderboards. If you still want to farm casually with this build, I recommend using Wormwood, which automatically casts Locust Swarm on nearby enemies, speeding up the process.
Overall, Jade Harvester can be very strong early on, especially against bosses and elites. For regular enemies, though, you’ll be doing a lot of pixel hunting, debuffing them, and applying Soul Harvest, assuming you can survive long enough to do so.
Rank 5 – Necromancer
Grace of Inarius is much easier to play than the previous two sets combined. It offers a fast, deadly, and tanky playstyle. While there are several variations, the Blood Nova build stands out as a favorite for Greater Rifts, regular Rifts, and bounties.
Once you acquire Bloodtide Blade and Iron Rose, you can start dealing some serious damage. For extra power, aim to find Funerary Pick, Krysbin’s Sentence, and Mantle of Channeling.
The gameplay is straightforward: simply stack Bone Armor, which creates a swirling tornado that makes enemies vulnerable to your Blood Nova. This build requires you to cast Siphon Blood to trigger both your weapon and off-hand effects, amplifying your damage. Since it’s a close-range build, Dayntee’s Binding is essential for survivability.
For mobility and efficient Rift farming, Steuart’s Greaves are a must-have. With Blood Rush, you’ll move incredibly fast, allowing you to dodge threats or navigate the map quickly.
What makes this set appealing is its simplicity—you don’t need to manage multiple skills or buffs. Stack your Bone Armor, curse enemies to trigger the belt, and use your primary ability, which will auto-cast Blood Nova, killing everything around you. It’s simple, fast, strong, and reliable.
However, if you plan to push higher Greater Rifts, you might want to switch to Rathma or Trag’Oul later on, as these sets offer higher damage potential while keeping you at a safer distance from enemies.
Rank 4 – Wizard
Firebird’s Finery is a flexible build, offering 7 pieces instead of the usual 6 found in most other starter sets. This gives you some extra versatility in your playstyle.
You can opt for a melee approach with Spectral Blades, or go with the deadliest variation using Meteors. To maximize this build, key items to look for include Smoldering Core, Grand Vizier, Mempo of Twilight, and Nilfur’s Boots.
While the set can feel squishy early on, especially without Halo of Karini, Firebird can still melt enemies quickly. Casting Disintegrate gives you an 80% damage reduction, making it much easier to survive. Plus, the set reduces the cooldown of Teleport, which improves mobility, allowing you to skip enemies, move faster, and gain extra toughness.
Firebird’s Finery performs well in both Nephalem and Greater Rifts, but staying alive can become a challenge at higher difficulty levels. To boost your survivability, crafting two pieces of the Guardian’s set is highly recommended, as it provides significant damage reduction for your hero.
Rank 3 – Crusader
Invoker is a spiky, Thorns-based build that revolves entirely around stacking Thorns on your gear. It’s a simple and fun playstyle where enemies essentially kill themselves without much effort—unless you’re pushing high-tier Greater Rifts. This build is extremely tanky and can survive almost anything, especially in solo play. One of the biggest advantages is that you don’t need to chase traditional damage stats like base damage, crit chance, or crit damage. Instead, your best friends are attack speed, cooldown reduction, and of course, Thorns.
In terms of gear, you’ll need essential items like Aquilla’s Cuirass for extra toughness, Akarat’s Awakening for cooldowns, Echoing Fury and Pig Sticker for attack speed, and Omnislash for extra hits. The Captain Crimson’s set, Endless Walk, and Convention of Elements are also crucial to maximize your Thorns damage during the physical damage rotation.
The gameplay is straightforward—use your horse for mobility, hit enemies with Bombardment, and keep spamming Slash until they’re dead.
While Invoker isn’t the best choice for bounties or Nephalem Rifts due to its mostly indirect and melee damage, it excels in tankiness and doesn’t require a ton of legendaries to make the set work effectively.
Rank 2 – Monk
Next is Sunwuko. This is a fast, reliable set capable of handling everything—from Nephalem Rifts and bounties to Greater Rifts, Ubers, and Echoing Nightmares—thanks to its Wave of Light ability, which covers large areas, and Dashing Strike paired with In-geom for mobility.
Sunwuko also offers multiple playstyles, including Tempest Rush, Wave of Light, and Lashing Tail Kick. Each of these builds requires specific legendary items. For the most efficient setup, you’ll need Kyoshiro’s Blade, Vengeful Wind, Pinto’s Pride, Incense Torch of the Grand Temple, Crudest Boots, and Tzo Krin’s Gaze. This requires quite a bit of gear farming, but once it’s all in place, the build really shines. If you’re struggling to maintain your Sweeping Wind stacks, Kyoshiro’s Soul belt will help.
Despite the loot requirements, the build is pretty straightforward. Your main goal is to keep Sweeping Wind active to boost your damage, while Wave of Light or another secondary ability will take care of the enemies. Once you have all the key items, especially In-geom, you can breeze through Greater Rifts and farm loot much faster than other classes.
For even more damage and toughness, consider adding the Captain Crimson’s set to your gear.
Rank 1 – Demon Hunter
And final place number one is Shadow’s Mantle. Demon Hunter. This is one of the strongest builds you can use in the early hours of a season. It’s incredibly mobile, deadly, and easy to gear up for. You only need two key items to get going: Holy Point Shot and Karlei’s Point, both of which can be easily obtained by rolling yellow daggers and quivers in cube. For defense, aim to get the Elusive Ring, craftable Captain Crimson’s set, Endless Walk, and Aquilla’s Cuirass—these will keep your Demon Hunter safe, even in Torment 16. For extra mobility, add the Chain of Shadows, which removes the Vault cost after using Impale.
The playstyle is simple: equip your dagger, activate Shadow Power, and one-shot elites and bosses with Impale. However, there’s one catch. If you one-shot an enemy, you don’t regain Hatred, which can create resource management issues. The solution is to raise the difficulty to increase enemy toughness, allowing you to balance damage output with Hatred recovery. Finding this balance early on can be tricky, but once mastered, you’ll quickly reach Torment 16 and dominate high-tier Greater Rifts.
Overall, Shadow’s Mantle is a powerful and easy-to-use build that deals massive damage, even with subpar gear. With its high mobility and insane damage output, this set lets you join higher leagues without much effort.
Class table Performance (personal preference)
Time for the summary. I have provided a table below which shows what classes in general are the most efficient in farming and playing certain activities in Season 33. One plus (+) represents the possibility to run a certain activity and up to Three pluses (+++) for strongly capable classes.
This table is just my prediction of certain classes. It is based on their set performance, previous PTR tests, and leaderboards. This table may not reflect the actual S33 capabilities.
| Class | Speeds | Meta Play | Solo Push |
| Wizard | ++ | +++ | +++ |
| Monk | +++ | + | ++ |
| Barbarian | ++ | ++ | +++ |
| Witch Doctor | ++ | + | ++ |
| Demon Hunter | +++ | ++ | +++ |
| Necromancer | +++ | ++ | +++ |
| Crusader | ++ | + | +++ |
Some conclusions
Season 33 offers many different options to improve your character: Altar of Rites, Extra cube slot and shadow clones which appear after using any shrine. Most of these starter sets can be useful early on, depending on what content you pursue. If you are a solo pusher, consider demon hunter, wizard, witch doctor, crusader, or barbarian. And for farming: Necromancer, Monk, or demon hunter.
As for the seasonal conquests, here we have The Curses! conquest to defeat 350 or more enemies. This would require some practice or assistance from other players. I have a video guide on How to Find the Best Cursed Chest and a guide on How to kill over 350 enemies Solo.
Sprinter to finish an entire story in one hour, Avarice to get 50 million gold streak outside of the Vault. Here’s my video on How to get over 130 Million Gold Streak Solo. The Thrill, to finish Greater Rift level 45 without any set pieces equipped and classic Speed Demon, which can be done simply by playing Nephalem Rifts.
I have a Complete Conquests guide on my website, check it out if you plan to finish Season Journey fast!
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Thank you for reading this Season 33 Starter Guide article. Have a nice day!
