Barbarians are a relatively simple class in Diablo 4: They smash stuff. However, Diablo 4 is underscored by math that’s so complex that even the simple act of smashing stuff becomes a dizzying equation. That’s where we come in, with our suggestions of the best Barbarian builds for Diablo 4 season 3.
Barbarians are big, muscular, and powerful. They excel at using Bleed to kill their enemies over time. And their unique weapon-swapping system means they get to have more Legendary powers at their disposal than any other class.
In this Diablo 4 guide, we’ve gathered and simplified the best Diablo 4 Barbarian builds for season 3. If you need even more information on item affixes or other more complex ideas, we’ve been sure to link out to the more detailed versions of these builds, as well as where to find their original creators.
Best Barbarian leveling build in Diablo 4 season 3
This build is based off Lexyu’s Barbarian leveling guide at IcyVeins, and is purely for leveling: i.e., allocating your 58 skill points between levels 1 and 50. If you want more detailed information about the item affixes you want to look for on your gear, or which other Legendary powers are great for your build, check out the original IcyVeins guide.
Best skills for leveling
Most Barbarian leveling guides you’ll find make use of Hammer of the Ancients as your primary skill, as it deals massive damage while remaining very cheap to cast. In this build, you’ll also use Frenzy, Death Blow, Rallying Cry, Leap, and Wrath of the Berserker.
Here are the best skills for a Barbarian leveling build, organized by the exact order you should purchase them in — bearing in mind that some skills require you to allocate a number of skill points in the tree in order to unlock them. As such, you’ll need to unlock new skills before enhancing existing ones:
- Frenzy / Enhanced Frenzy
- Hammer of the Ancients / Enhanced Hammer of the Ancients / Furious Hammer of the Ancients
- Combat Frenzy
- Rallying Cry / Enhanced Rallying Cry / Tactical Rallying Cry
- Hammer of the Ancients (ranks 2-3)
- Leap / Enhanced Leap / Power Leap
- Hammer of the Ancients (ranks 4-5)
- Death Blow / Enhanced Death Blow / Warrior’s Death Blow / Death Blow (rank 2-5)
- Wrath of the Berserker / Prime Wrath of the Berserker / Supreme Wrath of the Berserker
- Pit Fighter (ranks 1-3)
- Tempered Fury
- Furious Impulse (ranks 1-3)
- Walking Arsenal
- Hamstring
- No Mercy
- Expose Vulnerability (ranks 1-3)
- No Mercy (ranks 2-3)
- Swiftness (ranks 1-3)
- Thick Skin (ranks 1-3)
- Counteroffensive (ranks 1-3)
- Defensive Stance (ranks 1-3)
- Slaying Strike (ranks 1-3)
- Aggressive Resistance
- Prolific Fury
Best Weapon Expertise setup for leveling
Once you unlock the Weapon Expertise system for your Barbarian, you’ll want to place the two-handed sword in your Technique slot. This will cause all of your Hammer of the Ancients damage to make enemies Bleed.
Best Legendary Aspects for Barbarian leveling build
When you first start your new character, complete these three dungeons first in order to collect their Aspects. Then place them on a piece of gear (ideally jewelry, when possible). Just keep in mind that you should replace these Legendaries with new versions using the imprint system every few levels.
- Aspect of Ancestral Force (Sunken Ruins dungeon in Scosglen) — Hammer of the Ancients quakes outwards, dealing X% of its damage to enemies
- Aspect of the Expectant (Underroot dungeon in Scosglen) — Attacking enemies with a Basic Skill increases the damage of your next Core Skill cast by X% up to X%
- Edgemaster’s Aspect (Oldstones dungeon in Scosglen) — Skills deal X% increased damage based on Primary Resource when cast, receiving the maximum benefit while you have full Primary Resource
Barbarian Season 3 build for endgame — Rend
This build is based off of Slothmaster’s Rend Barbarian endgame guide at MaxRoll.gg, and is a general endgame guide capable of finding success in all activities. This guide assumes that you’re over level 50, have access to all 58 skill points, and are making progress on your Paragon Boards. If you want more detailed information about the item affixes you want to look for on your gear, or why these Legendary powers are great for your build, check out the original MaxRoll guide.
Best skill points for Rend Barbarian build for endgame
This build utilizes Rend as its core skill. It also uses Lunging Strike, Rallying Cry, Charge, Rupture, and Wrath of the Berserker.
Since you need all 58 points for this build, the order you select these skills in doesn’t matter as long as you have the pre-requisite points in the earlier Skill Tree tiers. Here is how you should spend your Skill Points for this build:
- Lunging Strike / Enhanced Lunging Strike
- Rend (rank 1-5) / Enhanced Rend / Violent Rend
- Rallying Cry / Enhanced Rallying Cry / Tactical Rallying Cry
- Imposing Presence (rank 1-3)
- Martial Vigor (rank 1-3)
- Charge (rank 1-5) / Enhanced Charge / Power Charge
- Swiftness (rank 1-3)
- Aggressive Resistance (rank 1-3)
- Prolific Fury (rank 1-3)
- Battle Fervor (rank 1-3)
- Rupture / Enhanced Rupture / Warrior’s Rupture
- Pit Fighter (rank 1-3)
- Hamstring
- Cut to the Bone (rank 1-3)
- Thick Skin
- Counteroffensive (rank 1-3)
- Wrath of the Berserker / Prime Wrath of the Berserker / Supreme Wrath of the Berserker
- Wallop (rank 1-3)
- Unconstrained
Arsenal System for the Rend Barbarian build
For this build, you’ll want to take Two-Handed Axe Expertise as your Technique.
Governing and Tuning Stones for Rend Barbarian build
Season 3 adds the new Seneschal Construct, which is a fun little companion who follows you around and casts abilities based on which Governing and Tuning Stones you apply to it. Governing Stones determine the Seneschal’s abilities while Tuning Stones amplify those abilities with new effects.
Slothmaster recommends these Governing and Tuning Stones:
Tempest
- Registered Damage Support
- Bleeding Support
- Voluminous Support
Flash of Adrenaline
- Tactical Support
- Duration Support
- Fortify Support
Legendary Powers and Uniques for Rend Barbarian build
To make this build work, you’re going to need powerful Legendary Powers and Unique items to augment your build.
Slothmaster recommends these items:
- Helm: Tuskhelm of Joritz the Mighty (unique) or Steadfast Berserker’s Aspect
- Chest: Juggernaut Aspect
- Gloves: Weapon Master’s Aspect
- Pants: Tibault’s Will (unique) or Aspect of Might (dungeon drop)
- Boots: Ghostwalker (dungeon drop)
- Two-handed Bludgeoning: Edgemaster’s Aspect (dungeon drop)
- Two-handed Slashing: Aspect of Limitless Rage
- Mace: Aspect of Ancestral Charge (dungeon drop)
- Off-hand: Ramaladni’s Magnum Opus (unique) sword or Wanton Rupture Aspect axe
- Amulet: Iron Blood (dungeon drop)
- Ring 1: Ring of Starless Skies (unique) or Aspect of Unrelenting Fury (dungeon drop)
- Ring 2: Ring of the Ravenous (unique) or Slaking Aspect (dungeon drop)
If you want to get into the nitty gritty of stat priorities, refer to Slothmaster’s original guide.
Paragon Boards for Rend Barbarian build
The Paragon Board system is very complex, and you’ll want to carefully pair your Glyphs with specific boards for your class:
- Starter Board / Exploit Glyph
- Blood Rage / Ire Glyph
- Carnage / Marshal Glyph
- Warbringer / Territorial Glyph
- Hemorrhage
You should level your Glyphs to 15 in this specific order:
- Marshal
- Ire
- Exploit
- Territorial
You can path your own way through the Paragon Boards following these basic guidelines. However, for the best results, follow Slothmaster’s path exactly.
How to make a great Barbarian build
Barbarians are Diablo 4’s only pure melee class, with the other classes having hybrid builds for multiple ranges. There are four main ideas that all Barbarian builds stem from:
- Fury dumping (most popular in Diablo 4’s pre-season)
- Weapon swapping
- Bleed
- Berserk
Fury dump builds make use of the Unbridled Rage Key Passive, which causes your Fury spenders to cost double the Fury but deal more than double the damage. These kinds of builds obviously require very steady Fury generation, as it’s easy to starve yourself. Berserk builds that use the Unconstrained Key Passive are all about keeping your Barbarian in the Berserk stage at all times, which nets you a hefty bonus. All Barbarian builds will likely use some skills that make them go Berserk, the Unconstrained Key Passive just enhances the effect.
Bleed builds use the Gushing Wounds Key Passive to create a critical strike heavy build that’s great for whittling down groups of enemies with damage over time and explosions. Weapon swapping builds offer what is almost certainly the most unique playstyle for Barbarians and takes advantage of the Walking Arsenal Key Passive. The idea here is that you’re constantly swapping between your skills and weapons to give yourself massive damage buffs.
When making a build, you want to have one of these Key Passives in mind and choose your skills accordingly. Thankfully skills that share certain aspects (like Bleed) are color-coded on the skill tree, and you can even use the in-game search function to find them all. Other Barbarian builds let you take advantage of mechanics like Thorns or Shouts. But they still typically end with one of these Key Passives.
Looking for other Diablo 4 builds? We have explainers on the Sorcerer, Rogue, Druid, and Necromancer classes.