Most players in Diablo 4 are always looking for a build that simply deletes everything. One build achieved this in Season 8, and all you needed were 3 things that any class could use. And although everything worked as planned, the nerf is now here.
What kind of build is this?
- A combination of the legendary aspect “cursed touch” caused immense damage when combined with two of the new boss powers from Season 8: disturbance of the flesh cutter and Varshan’s life steal.
- The damage landed somewhere in the double-digit billion range for single targets, in the triple-digit range for multiple targets, and even reached into the trillions, as the expert Macrobioboi explains (via YouTube). That’s a 1 followed by twelve zeros.
- In the community, the combo was simply known as the “Varshan Build.” However, this specific build no longer works.
This is why the build was so strong: The combo is based on several interactions. The special aspect of the build was that these interactions condition and strengthen each other and could be used by any class.
The central role in the build is played by vulnerability, one of the most important mechanics for increased damage in Diablo 4:
- Vulnerability alone increases the damage taken by the opponent.
- The boss power disturbance of the flesh cutter consumes vulnerability and…
- Every time disturbance of the flesh cutter is activated, Varshan’s boss power also activates and applies a damage-over-time effect (“DoT”) to enemies in a radius.
The escalation of the build was due to the cursed touch aspect. This has the chance to curse opponents, making them vulnerable as a secondary effect. While the vulnerability is consumed, the curse remains – and applies vulnerability again.
In the end, it was all about dealing as much damage as quickly as possible and strengthening “damage-over-time” effects. This increases the chance of transferring the damage from Varshan’s life steal to opponents; multipliers then further enhance the damage. The more enemies you have around you, the greater the damage, because every enemy activates an area effect upon activation.
Blizzard nerfs the Varshan power, “deletes” strong builds
Already before Season 8, Blizzard announced that they would act more quickly against overly strong builds, primarily when the performance of the game is affected. It seems this has happened here.
As expert wudijo shows in the video, the Varshan build caused FPS drops because every enemy received multiple dozens – according to wudijo even hundreds – of damage instances per second.
With the patch from May 14, 2025, the flesh cutter power was nerfed. The activation now has an internal cooldown and can no longer occur constantly. The expert explains that Varshan builds have effectively been deleted and no class is good with it anymore.
As compensation, Blizzard has made all classes stronger, something that barbarians had criticized until recently. Many skills were improved; however, the overpower mechanic seems to remain the king. You can read the details here: Blizzard aims to nerf overly strong builds in Diablo 4 as quickly as possible instead of waiting weeks again – brings a ton of buffs
