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 6.
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. Not to your taste? We also have builds for the Sorcerer, Rogue, Druid, Spiritborn, and Necromancer classes.
In this Diablo 4 guide, we’ve gathered and simplified the best Diablo 4 Barbarian builds for season 6. 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 build for leveling in Diablo 4 season 6
Image: Blizzard Entertainment
This build is based off Kondyss’ Barbarian leveling guide at Maxroll.gg, and is purely for leveling (i.e., allocating your 71 skill points between levels 1 and 60) and early Torment I. 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 Maxroll.gg guide.
Best skills for leveling
In this build, you’ll use Rend as your Core skill of choice. You’ll also use Flay, Ground Stomp, 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:
- Flay/ Enhanced Flay / Battle Flay
- Rend / Enhanced Rend / Furious Rend
- Ground Stomp / Enhanced Ground Stomp / Tactical Ground Stomp
- Rallying Cry / Enhanced Rallying Cry / Tactical Rallying Cry
- Charge / Enhanced Charge / Power Charge
- Leap / Enhanced Leap / Power Leap
- Rend (rank 2-5)
- Pit Fighter (rank 1-3)
- Ground Stomp (rank 2-5)
- Leap (rank 2-5)
- Wrath of the Berserker / Prime Wrath of the Berserker / Supreme Wrath of the Berserker
- Unconstrained
- Aggressive Resistance
- Battle Fervor (rank 1-3)
- Wrath of the Berserker (rank 2-5)
- Prolific Fury (rank 1-3)
- Cut to the Bone (rank 1-3)
- Hamstring
- Swap to Violent Rend
- Imposing Presence (rank 1-3)
- Swiftness (rank 1-3)
- Belligerence (rank 1-3)
- Thick Skin
- Counteroffensive (rank 1-3)
- Defensive Stance (rank 1-3)
- Martial Vigor (rank 1-3)
- Invigorating Fury (rank 1-3)
Best Weapon Expertise setup for leveling
Once you unlock the Weapon Expertise system for your Barbarian, you’ll want to place the two-handed axe in your Technique slot.
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 and never weapons).
- Slaking (Maulwood, Fractured Peaks)
- Numbing Wrath (Heathen’s Keep, Hawezar)
- Disobedience (Halls of the Damned, Kehjistan)
- Vocalized Empowerment (Sirocco Caverns, Kehjistan)
Best Barbarian build for endgame season 6
This build is based off of Snail’s Mighty Throw 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 60, have access to all 71 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 Mighty Throw build for endgame
This build utilizes Mighty Throw as its core skill. It also uses Bash, Rallying Cry, Steel Grasp, Charge, and Call of the Ancients.
Since you need all 71 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:
- Bash / Enhanced Bash / Combat Bash
- Warpath (rank 1-3)
- Pressure Point
- Endless Fury
- Rallying Cry / Enhanced Rallying Cry / Tactical Rallying Cry
- Challenging Shout / Enhanced Challenging Shout
- Martial Vigor (rank 1-3)
- Imposing Presence (rank 1-3)
- Belligerence (rank 1-3)
- Charge
- Raid Leader (rank 1-3)
- Booming Voice (rank 1-3)
- Guttural Yell
- Aggressive Resistance (rank 1-3)
- Prolific Fury (rank 1-3)
- Mighty Throw (rank 1-5) / Enhanced Mighty Throw / Fighter’s Mighty Throw
- Steel Grasp
- Pit Fighter (rank 1-3)
- Expose Vulnerability
- Slaying Strike (rank 1-3)
- Thick Skin
- Counteroffensive (rank 1-3)
- Irrepressible
- Call of the Ancients (rank 1-5) / Prime Call of the Ancients / Supreme Call of the Ancients
- Heavy Handed (rank 1-3)
- Brute Force (rank 1-3)
- Furious Impulse (rank 1-3)
- Unbridled Rage
Barbarian Technique setup for Mighty Throw build
The primary Expertise Technique you want to subscribe to for this build is the Two-Handed Axe.
Legendary Powers and Uniques for Mighty Throw build
To make this build work, you’re going to need powerful Legendary Powers and Unique items to augment your build.
Snail recommends these Aspects:
- Helm: Juggernaut’s
- Chest: Might (dungeon)
- Gloves: Anger Management
- Pants: The Fortress
- Boots: Ghostwalker (dungeon)
- Two-handed Mace: Herculean Spectacle
- Polearm: Limitless Rage
- Sword 1: The Third Blade (Unique)
- Sword 2: Conceited
- Amulet: Edgemaster’s (dungeon)
- Ring 1: Bold Chieftain’s
- Ring 2: Inner Calm (dungeon)
If you want to get into the nitty gritty of stat priorities, refer to Snail’s guide.
Paragon Boards for Barbarian Mighty Throw 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 / Territorial
- Blood Rage / Ire
- Bone Breaker / Challenger
- Decimator / Dominate
- Carnage / Executioner
You should level your Glyphs to 15 in this specific order:
- Territorial
- Ire
- Challenger
- Dominate
- Executioner
You can path your own way through the Paragon Boards most efficiently by following Snail’s path.
How to make a great Barbarian build
Image: Blizzard/Activision via Polygon
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
- 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 Spiritborn, Sorcerer, Rogue, Druid, and Necromancer classes.
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