Death Must Die: 8 Best Builds (2025)

How far have you made it in Death Must Die? Has that blue slime wave, the Necromancer, or the shield wave given you a tough time? Alternatively, have you pummeled the final boss over and over but found yourself stuck on a certain Star Crux difficulty level?

Well, wherever you are in the game, it's normal to hit walls in any Roguelike. If you don't want to spend heaps of time and effort figuring out how to break out of that stagnation, why not give these powerful builds a try? If that's still too much work, you could hop on Vampire Survivors or 20 Minutes Till Dawn instead.

8 Lifesteal Lightning Assassin

Speed Versus Damage: Why Not Both?

Do you want the speed of Sonic, coupled with a satisfying mix of flat, passive damage and powerful, auto-targeting, damage-over-time beams that shoot out at enemies every time you dash? There's no way you said no to that tantalizing question, so let's mark that as a yes.

This build works on any class, but you'll want to prioritize the Lightning Bolt and Lifelink Blessings. Beyond that, all you need is gear and passive stats that give you movement speed, spell damage, spell duration, cooldown reduction, and some kind of survivability, like evasion.

7 High Tempo "Knowledgemancer"

Wow, Knowledge Really Is Power

If you want to feel "big brain" like Hermaeus Mora from Skyrim while farming level-ups and Blessings as fast as possible, go ahead and choose the sorceress Merris, and make sure you have The Sign Of Timespace perk unlocked; it's required for this build.

For Blessings, you can choose whatever you like, but at least get Gem High since you'll have EXP shards flying into your face at all times. Gear and passives that give EXP-over-time are the most important, but beyond that, extra dice rolls are nice to give you a better chance of getting the Blessings you want.

6 On-Hit Effect Spam

A Timeless Classic

This is a build that pretty much everyone gravitates towards at some point or another, but hey, it gets the job done. You can use whatever class you want, but Merris might be the best choice simply because she has ranged attacks instead of melee.

Grab any Blessings that activate from hitting enemies with your basic attack, like Chain Lightning or Chains of War. In terms of gear and passives, prioritize attack speed, spell damage, additional spell projectiles, and whichever survivability stats you want, like armor, evasion, or life regen.

5 The Mirror

"No Really, I Want Them To Hit Me."

It might sound odd, but this build is predicated on taking hits from enemies and reflecting that damage back to them. If you have enough life regeneration, armor, spell damage, and the right Blessings, like Inner Peace, Protection, Consecration, Vehemence, and Flare, this build does pretty well.

In terms of classes, Skadi with The Sign of The Lizard for increasing life regeneration or Avoron with The Sign of The Guardian for increasing armor stats are both great choices. Keep in mind that unlocking Avoron's armor-increasing perk requires defeating the final boss with him.

4 "White Raven" Summoner

The More, The Merrier

If you've played Skadi a fair amount, you've probably already unlocked The Sign of The Beast, which gives you a white raven to fight alongside you. The kicker is, this raven never despawns, and receives eight times the value of any stat boosts you get.

This is a perfect perk for a summoner build. While added summoning damage, spell damage, and spell duration are a must, as well as summon-related Blessings like Ravens of Pestilence or Necromancy, there are gear prefixes that give you even more summons, like The Onyx Dragon.

3 100 To Zero Hero

Sending Your Enemies Back To The Grave With Expedited Shipping

Okay, it's time to finally give Kront and Nixi some love. This build is designed for one thing: defeating your enemies with as few hits as possible through massive damage. Whether you want to do that with attack or spell damage is up to you.

While gear and passives that grant attack or spell damage help, focus on prioritizing the bonus that gives added percent damage to undamaged enemies and passives that give more damage to enemies above 50 percent health. For perks, choose Kront's Sign of The Earthquake or Nixi's Sign of The Thread.

2 Ice Warden

Okay, This Build Is Actually Kind Of Mean

It feels pretty bad to get stunlocked, especially if it's to the point where you practically can't play the game. If you need to channel some of that frustration onto others, it's probably healthiest to do that to enemies rather than other people.

This build is all about keeping your enemies chilled or, ideally, frozen. Grab as many blessings from Winter as you can, and prioritize gear and passives that grant attack speed, cooldown reduction, spell damage, and spell duration. Skadi's Sign of The Apprentice and Sign of The Cosmos perks, or Nixi's Sign of The Viper, complement this build nicely.

1 "Expert" Knight

"Keep Those Basic Blessings Away From Me."

Tired of seeing mostly Novice-level Blessings? If you've beaten the final boss with every character, then you have access to Avoron's Sign of The Disciple perk, which makes all Blessings offered at least Adept rarity and, more impressively, converts any Adept rarity bonuses to Expert rarity bonuses.

With access to such potent rarities, the Blessings you choose don't matter that much, but you will want to prioritize gear and passives that give you the highest Adept rarity bonus possible in order to maximize your chance of consistently receiving Expert-level Blessings. Otherwise, it can't hurt to equip EXP shard gathering range and passive EXP gear.