As you push toward the late game of Diablo 4, the challenge will begin to ramp up out of control. The complexity of combat scales sharply from increasingly difficult World Tiers and Nightmare Dungeons, making proper mechanics critical to your survival. Even for Diablo and ARPG veterans, the combat system of Diablo 4 will eventually test every player's might.
Class skills, utility resources, battlefield positioning, and monster composition all play a part in Diablo 4’s combat system. Regardless of your class and current progression through the game, understanding these mechanics will increase your chance of successfully emerging from your next deadly situation.
10 Survey The Scene Before Rushing In
Unless you’re overpowered by the content, always enter a new area with caution. As you approach a new room or corridor, poke your head in and look around before engaging the enemies inside. Rushing in before surveying the scene is the best way to get overwhelmed and lose your head.
Take note of how many Elites are in the vicinity, the affixes they have, and the layout of the area. These variables will dictate how a fight will unfold as well as how you should respond when the combat begins.
9 Avoid Enemy AOE Indicators
Elites and bosses telegraph their powerful moves, creating area-of-effect outlines for spells that are about to land. These indicators are a warning that big damage and/or crowd control is about to hit a specific spot.
Once you see an AOE indicator on the ground, there’s only a very short delay before that spell will hit. Whenever you see one of these, you need to move immediately. Since much of the damage in Diablo 4 is unavoidable, it’s important to dodge spells when you can.
8 Group Up Enemies
For each of the classes in Diablo 4, several abilities will hit a designated area, pierce through targets, or splash damage to nearby enemies. When enemies are grouped up, they’ll take the maximum amount of damage from these spells. To clear areas as efficiently as possible, group up monsters to take advantage of this multi-target damage.
As you engage a group of enemies, run toward the ranged monsters, and the melee attackers will follow you there. Then, use crowd control abilities that help this process along and lay waste to the entire area.
7 Know Your Exits & Safe Areas
Controlling the positioning of the battlefield is one of the best ways to win every combat situation. When the enemy has the positional upper hand, be ready to slip out of a sticky situation by knowing the area's exits and safe spaces.
The entrance that you use to enter an area is usually a good exit strategy (aside from arena fights that lock you in). Take note of any spaces that aren’t currently under siege, pillars that you can hide behind, or any other environmental objects that let you regain the flow of action.
6 Use Corridors To Your Advantage
Unless you’re a whirlwind barbarian, being surrounded is the most dangerous position you can be in. When monsters overwhelm your position, they are harder to hit, and they maximize their damage output. This can happen quickly in tight corridors, but these spaces also have their own unique opportunities.
Base your combat strategy on the layout of the area you’re fighting in. Monsters can be grouped up and kited much easier in tight spaces, but you can’t circle around to avoid damage. Enemy AOE spells can be deadly in these spaces - but so can yours.
5 Engage High-priority Targets First
Ranged minions are generally high-damage low-health glass cannons that’ll melt your HP if left untouched. Summoners have the ability to spawn an inexhaustible army of minions that endlessly assault you no matter how many you kill. Enemies like these need to be irradiated as your top priority in battle.
Whenever you enter a new area, identify all ranged & summoner minions and rush to take them out first. Ignore the high-health low-damage brawlers, even if they’re Elites, run past them to the high-priority targets, and deal with them later.
4 Maximize Your Potions
When you get caught in crowd-control spells or overwhelmed by a stack of incoming damage, it can be tempting to slam a few potions until you’re topped off. If this sounds like you, or if you tend to ignore your potions in combat, work on getting the most value out of this resource.
The early game can create some bad potion use habits, ones that you need to unlearn when pushing challenging content. When you’re pushing high-level Nightmare Dungeons or any cutting-edge content, potions become crucial and scarce.
3 Never Stop Kiting
Whether you play a ranged class or you’re on a melee character pushing challenging content, kiting is an important gameplay strategy in Diablo 4. At one point or another, you’ll need to kite enemies around to separate monsters or just take a breather. If you’re having trouble clearing a room, never stop kiting.
Make sure you’re approaching combat differently while in a corridor than in a large open area by using the tight space to your advantage. It’s okay to kite in a circle if the area is big enough; otherwise, just kite backward as far as you need to.
2 Isolate Elites
If you’re overpowered for the content, melting several Elites is a walk in the park. But when you take on challenging end-game content, it can be crucial to separate Elites or eliminate them one at a time.
When 2 or more Elites are in a small space, they can quickly cover the area in AOE spells that put your life at risk. Once the affixes start adding up against you, it becomes vital to think about each Elite as its own threat rather than just seeing a group of monsters.
1 Slow & Steady Wins Every Fight
Old Diablo proverb: you win every fight that you don’t lose. As long as you don’t die, you’ll eventually kill every monster in the game. Focus on staying alive and chipping away at enemy health pools, and you will emerge victorious.
Focusing on damage rather than survivability is a fun way to play, but it’s not the most effective. Spend more time thinking about your own health pool than those of the enemies you’re fighting, and you’ll always be safe. Because it doesn’t matter how fast you are if you die.