Lord of Hatred: Diablo 4 Leaderboards in Full Chaos

Lord of Hatred Leaderboards in Full Chaos

Rob from the Rob2628 channel dropped an emergency video to break down the state of the game since the Lord of Hatred patch. To put it mildly, class balance has completely gone off the rails.

The leaderboards just came back online, and what's happening there looks like a public test server. Some classes are clearing Pit 150 thanks to bugs that generate negative damage numbers. Absurd numbers are appearing on the Necromancer, on the Warlock with its Evisceration, and players are managing to equip three different aspects on the same amulet. Not to mention infinite minion spawns and the other anomalies that have taken over the rankings since the patch launched.

Rob also explains why he hasn't published an updated class tier list recently. In this state of the game, such a ranking would only reflect one thing — what's the most bugged, what's immortal, what abuses a broken mechanic. Not very useful.

The leaderboards have been in beta for a while now, and Rob hopes a hotfix will arrive soon, in line with the recent fixes for Warlock, Resolve and Sorceress. Here's a quick rundown of what the leaderboards reveal about the actual state of the patch.

Warlock: Evisceration and Its Infinite Negative Damage

The Warlock leaderboard in Lord of Hatred has been completely taken over by an infinite DPS bug tied to Evisceration. The mechanic is straightforward. The skill applies a bleed to enemies, and that bleed never stops. Damage stacks without limit, leaving the class mechanically broken in its current state.

In practice, the top players on the leaderboard are clearing Pit 150 in four to five minutes. That's the very top tier, made possible solely because the Warlock deals theoretically unlimited damage.

The reason behind this behavior is a math error in the game engine. Damage counters display numbers like 164,000 trillion, then flip to negative values like -9 gazillion. The game doesn't know what to do with these numbers, and the practical result is an instant one-shot on everything in front of you.

At the time Rob is recording, the fix hasn't shipped yet. If Blizzard doesn't push a quick patch, this bug will hold the leaderboards for another two weeks, just like what happened with the first patch of the season.

This isn't specific to the Paladin. The bug affects virtually every class, and it's become the de facto meta for the entire season given how broken it is. The Spiritborn uses it too, even though the class is behaving more normally since the infinite damage bugs were fixed. Nothing crazy, solid builds, but the numbers remain a bit inflated by resolve stacking.

The Druid is sitting at 143 right now, also with resolve stacking. The mechanic is so powerful that it pushes stacks even higher than normal, producing impressive numbers. Outside of that, the Druid has nothing particularly devastating going on, much like the Paladin and Spiritborn.

When Blizzard fixes this bug, these three classes will likely drop several tiers, just like the previous Glynn's Anvil fix in Season 13. The current rankings reflect the resolve exploit more than any genuine class power.

Rogue and Sorceress: Umbracrux and Ball Lightning Still Dominant

The Rogue is in an absurd position. The Umbracrux received a targeted nerf, but the build keeps dealing infinite damage in the Pit. On the beta leaderboards, Rogues are chaining Pit 150 and virtually every player at the top of the board is running this build.

What's particularly striking is that some players are clearing Pit 150 without any special gems. Just the base gems, and the Pit falls anyway. The Umbracrux double-dipping scaling creates an infinite damage loop that the nerf failed to address. The bug re-triggered after the initial fix, and the result is the same. Infinite damage, Pit 150, Rogue on top.

On the Sorceress side, the situation is different but equally interesting. Recent hotfixes have "killed" the build according to many players. The Sorceress that was clearing Pit 150 in 4 minutes now runs around 7 minutes. The nerf on Ball Lightning is firmly in place.

But this is probably temporary. Blizzard confirmed on Reddit that this nerf, introduced with patch 3.0.2, will be reverted. The Sorceress should get her 4-minute Pit 150 back as soon as the corresponding hotfix goes live, which could happen very quickly.

In the meantime, even nerfed, the Sorceress stays competitive. She keeps the permanent teleport and still chains Pit 150 in 7 minutes. Ball Lightning remains one of the best builds in the game, and once the nerf is reverted, it will reclaim its spot among the fastest builds of the season.

The result is a build that can wipe packs in a fraction of a second but spends minutes hitting the boss. Let's hope Blizzard patches this quickly.

Barbarian: The Entire "Bar Nation" in One Game

On the Barbarian side, the best build right now revolves around Call of the Ancients. And for about three days now, an infinite summon bug has been discovered, which the community now calls "infinite ancient spawning" or simply "bar bros".

The mechanic is simple. By entering and exiting a training dummy, you can summon an unlimited number of Ancients in the same instance. They never despawn. They just stack up. You can literally bring the entire "bar nation" into a single game until the server crashes.

Players are already exploiting this in the Pit and Tower, dragging this permanent army of Ancients through all content. It's visually absurd. It's clearly a bug introduced with the latest patch.

Needless to say, this isn't recommended either.

Impossible Items: 5 Affixes and 3 Aspects on a Single Amulet

The Lord of Hatred patch fixed 200 bugs, but it also introduced new ones, and the beta leaderboards are paying the price right now.

Among the spotted anomalies, some players have managed to get items that simply shouldn't exist. Rob can't understand how these items can be on the leaderboards without being removed immediately.

The most egregious example is an amulet with five Greater Affixes — critical strike chance, vulnerable, critical strike damage, ancestral, all skills. Five base affixes, all in Greater version. That alone is already out of bounds.

But that's not all. The item also stacks a double sanctification — physical and quality — plus a cooldown reduction temper.

And then there are the aspects. Not one, not two, but three legendary aspects on the same amulet. Double damage while Fortified, 30x Overpower, 30x Berserking. All on a single item.

Rob insists this is not a display bug, according to him. These items appear to actually function, and their presence on the leaderboards poses a real problem for the integrity of the beta.

Rob's Verdict: What to Play While Waiting for the Hotfix

Rob hasn't published an official tier list yet, but he does share a mini-tier for farming in Torment 12. At the top, Ball Lightning on the Sorceress side, and Call of the Ancients on the Barbarian side. Both builds perform very well at this difficulty tier.

On Call of the Ancients, one interesting note. Player PXX is currently pushing Pit 148 without snapshot bugs, without infinite engines and without double Sigils. For Rob, he's the real number one on the leaderboard right now, because he's playing clean. Pit 150 remains doable without bugs — it's just very hard.

Regarding the Lord of Hatred beta leaderboards in general, Rob advises not to take them too seriously. Too much is happening right now — between snapshots, infinite damage, and abusive double and triple tempers. He's waiting to see what Blizzard fixes in an upcoming hotfix, and hopes that leaving beta will clean things up.

His main advice stays simple. Don't re-roll all your gear to max resolve to exploit the bugs. Blizzard will patch it, and you'll waste hours of triple tempers and triple masterwork for nothing. This is exactly what happened with the Spiritborn at the launch of Vessel of Hatred. Being immortal on every build thanks to a single temper modifier is clearly too broken to stay in the game.

For the 99% of players not chasing world-top leaderboards, a normal build in Torment 12 does the job perfectly. No need to aim for Pit 150. Rob himself is currently running a Barbarian Spin to Win at 300% movement speed, and he's having a blast. Blizzard raised the movement speed cap beyond 200%, which makes speed farming genuinely fun right now.

There's also a new event running that's worth checking out. Farm, move fast, enjoy the game. That's all Rob recommends for now.