With the Barbarian’s weapon masteries, a lot of builds shine in the Diablo 4 endgame. Compared to popular builds like Hammer of the Ancients, the Frenzy Barbarian build isn’t as well-known, but it is quite scary in the right hands.
This guide will show you how best to play a Frenzy Barbarian in Diablo 4.
Frenzy Barbarian guide in Diablo 4
Unlike other more popular builds, the Frenzy Barbarian build is a relatively niche option. Before season two, the build was practically non-existent and the main use of Frenzy was to build up Fury. After recent buffs to certain Aspects and skills, however, centering a build on the Basic skill Frenzy is more than viable.
Frenzy is a skill that uses Dual Wield weapons. The Barbarian swings both weapons one after another in a series of blows, dealing 22-percent damage with each hit. Every time Frenzy hits an enemy, its attack speed increases by 20 percent, scaling up all the way to 60 percent, for three seconds. Since it is a Basic skill, it does not consume Fury but generates it instead.
Like any other skill in the game, Frenzy has two optional upgrades and one mandatory upgrade. For this build to really shine, these are the upgrades that we have chosen.
- Enhanced Frenzy: The mandatory upgrade. Each time Frenzy’s attack speed bonus increases to 60 percent, it also generates a bonus of three additional Fury.
- Combat Frenzy: The optional upgrade we chose. You gain an 8-percent increase in overall damage reduction for each stack of Frenzy you currently possess.
Enhanced Frenzy, while mandatory, is the perfect upgrade for Frenzy since it enhances the skill’s generator capabilities by granting more Fury. This effect is going to be maxed out as long as you stay at max attack speed with Frenzy, which naturally happens when you’re fighting a bunch of enemies.
Combat Frenzy is what we choose over Battle Frenzy. The reasoning behind this is that Frenzy also turns into a defensive skill with this upgrade. Since you’re always going to be in the midst of combat, your damage reduction is going to be at its maximum as long as you’re spamming Frenzy.
Frenzy Barbarian skill progression
The next part of this build focuses on the rest of the skills needed to fill up our skill slots. Every skill mentioned here will allow us to take Frenzy to its limits.
- Frenzy: Our Basic skill and the main skill of this build.
- Kick: Kick enemies in front of you, dealing minor damage and knocking back all enemies. If knocked into an obstacle, they take bonus damage and are stunned.
Kick is a great choice of Brawling skill to have in this build. Since we’re going to upgrade the skill with Power Kick, we sacrifice its knockback potential for massive damage instead, consuming all of your Fury which you generate with Frenzy. Enhanced Kick also leaves all enemies that are affected by the skill in a Vulnerable status, increasing your damage even further.
The Frenzy build also picks up all three Shout skills.
- Challenging Shout: A Shout skill that taunts all nearby enemies to attack the casting Barbarian.
- Rallying Cry: A Shout skill that increases movement speed and resource generation.
- War Cry: A Shout skill that increases damage.
Since your Barbarian is going to be in the midst of battle at all times, Challenging Shout will draw in enemies to you, and away from your allies in party play, forcing them to attack you. To survive the assault, we pick up Enhanced Challenging Shout for a bonus in maximum life. We also turn the damage taken into Fury gained by leveling up Tactical Challenging Shout.
On the other hand, Rallying Cry lets you shred enemies with a bonus to movement speed and Fury generation. To make it easier to tear through your enemies, we pick up Enhanced Rallying Cry to make you Unstoppable and improve your mobility. For even more Fury generation, Tactical Rallying Cry will let you recover lost Fury from your Kick and increase how much Fury you generate.
The final Shout is War Cry, which goes great in tandem with Rallying Cry, granting you a flat damage boost. Using both these skills together turns you into a boss-killing monster while Enhanced War Cry also grants you the Berserking status. Finally, Power War Cry makes you a great density destroyer by granting you even more damage when you’re surrounded by six or more enemies.
Rallying Cry and War Cry also affect allies for half the duration, making them great to have in a party.
- Wrath of the Berserker: You knock back all enemies around you, gaining Unstoppable and Berserking. Every time you deal damage with a Basic skill, you extend your Berserking duration.
The final skill in this build is our Ultimate skill of choice, Wrath of the Berserker. The skill grants you Berserking and Unstoppable by default when you use it while Prime Wrath of the Berserker grants you bonus movement speed and Fury generation. Supreme Wrath of the Berserker is the final upgrade that also increases the damage you deal when Berserking depending on the Fury you spent.
Frenzy Barbarian passive choices
The passives for this build can be divided into the Key Passive and the secondary passives that support your active skills.
- Imposing Presence: You gain an increase in your maximum life.
- Martial Vigor: You gain increased damage reduction against Elite enemies.
- Booming Voice: You gain increased duration on all of your Shout skills.
- Raid Leader: You heal yourself and your allies by casting a Shout skill.
- Guttural Yell: You reduce enemies’ outgoing damage by casting a Shout skill.
- Battle Fervor: You gain Berserking when a Brawling skill damages an enemy.
- Aggressive Resistance: You gain increased damage reduction while Berserking.
- Prolific Fury: You gain increased Fury generation while Berserking.
- Swiftness: You gain an increase in your movement speed.
- Thick Skin: You gain Fortify each time you take direct damage from enemies.
- Counteroffensive: You deal increased damage when your Fortify exceeds 50 percent of your maximum life.
- Pit Fighter: You deal increased damage to close enemies and take reduced damage from distant enemies.
Finally, we choose the Key Passive ability that works as the backbone of this build.
- Unconstrained: You gain a 60 percent increase in your outgoing damage while Berserking. Additionally, all Berserking durations are increased by five seconds.
Frenzy Barbarian Arsenal choices
Next, we discuss the Barbarian’s unique class mechanic, the Arsenal system. This mechanic unlocks at level five and grants you bonus passive abilities depending on your weapon expertise. Constantly using a certain weapon type will increase its rank ranging from rank one to rank 10. The final rank provides additional bonuses to your passives.
For the sake of this build, these are the choices we focus on.
- 2H Axe Expertise: You deal increased damage to Vulnerable enemies. You also have an increased critical strike chance when you attack Vulnerable enemies.
- 2H Mace Expertise: You deal increased critical strike damage to enemies that are either stunned or Vulnerable. This bonus applies when you are Berserking.
Since we will be focusing on turning enemies Vulnerable, the Two-handed Axe Expertise bonus will improve our damage against them. We also rely a lot on Berserking, which makes Two-Handed Mace Expertise our secondary Arsenal choice.
Frenzy Barbarian Aspect options
The last part of this build focuses on our gear, and the Aspects we need to imbue onto them to really power them up. First, we talk about the main Aspects of this build.
- Aspect of Might: You gain damage reduction whenever you use a Basic skill.
- Rapid Aspect: You gain increased attack speed when you use a Basic skill.
Since we will be spamming Frenzy constantly, we pick up two Aspects that buff Basic skills. You can’t go wrong with more damage reduction and even more increased attack speed during Frenzy casts.
The rest of the Aspects work well to supplement this build.
- Aspect of Berserk Ripping: You deal additional bleeding damage along with your base damage while Berserking.
- Aspect of Disobedience: You gain increased armor per attack every time you deal damage.
- Aspect of Echoing Fury: You gain additional Fury when you cast a Shout skill.
- Bear Clan Berserker’s Aspect: You have a chance to reduce the cooldown of your Brawling skills when you kill enemies while Berserking.
- Bold Chieftain’s Aspect: You gain cooldown reduction on your Shout skills when you cast one while surrounded by enemies. The cooldown reduction caps at six seconds.
- Edgemaster’s Aspect: You deal increased damage with your skills depending on how much Fury you currently have. More Fury equals more damage.
- Ghostwalker Aspect: You gain increased movement speed and can move through enemies while Unstoppable.
Along with these Aspects, three pieces of gear work perfectly with this build.
- Battle Trance: All of your skills gain increased attack speed when you have maximum stacks of Frenzy. Additionally, your Frenzy’s maximum stacks are increased by two.
- Tibault’s Will: While Unstoppable, you deal bonus damage and restore 50 Fury.
- Tuskhelm of Joritz the Mighty: When you gain the Berserking status while already Berserk, you have a chance to deal increased damage, gain more Fury per second, and an increased cooldown reduction on all your skills.
