Barbarian is a strange class in BG3, reliant almost entirely on a very limited daily resource in their Barbarian Rage to be effective on the frontlines. Their subclasses—or Primal Paths—offer the Barbarian different ways to access their Rage while occasionally improving out-of-rage abilities. Choosing the right subclass of Barbarian for your party is a critical decision point in changing your Barbarian from the occasionally durable doofus to a pillar that entire fights pivot around.
You unlock your Barbarian’s subclass at level three, gaining an ability that changes what type of Rage you have access to, in addition to potentially other benefits. At levels six and 10, you gain additional abilities that work in or out of rage, depending on the subclass. Some of the classes gain other very small abilities—the Wildheart at level eight and the Wild Magic Barbarian at level nine.
The best Barbarian subclass in BG3
The best subclass for a generic Barbarian in BG3 is the Wildheart Barbarian with the Bear Heart. This version of Barbarian can do something that no other class in the game can do; get resistance to elemental, sonic, and even force damage. The only damage type that is not available to the Wildheart Barbarian is Psychic, a fairly common damage type but one that can be compensated for through elixirs.
Without a build in mind, you are always benefiting the most by choosing the Wildheart. That’s because the Wildheart follows a series of “Bestial Hearts,” different animal-inspired rages that offer unique benefits to the Barbarian.
After taking the Bestial Heart, it is possible to change your mind over the course of a level. This means the Barbarian can take their pick of the litter, trying out things like the Elk’s Area of Effect attack or the Wolf’s ability to grant inherit advantage to melee attacks targeting nearby foes. This isn’t for free, exactly—you only get to change it when you level up, like a Bard changing out a spell.
However, the Barbarian does get more. Much more, actually. Animal Aspects is your second ability, and it comes with about 10 options to improve your Barbarian in and out of your Rages. Of note are Eagle for races like Human that don’t get darkvision naturally, Elk for a slight movement speed buff for allies, Honey Badger for a chance to enter rage while crowd controlled in specific ways, and Tiger for a relatively easy way to gain accuracy when attacking debuffed targets. Don’t worry too much if you like the look of more than one of these aspects; you get to choose a second one at level 10.
Your level eight ability is a modest immunity to difficult terrain. Cute, if a bit situational.
Oh, if that didn’t sell you on the class, you also get to Speak with Animals. Which is basically a free win button in a Larian game. Those creatures love to talk.
Bestial Heart rankings
By far the most powerful and potent of the Heart options is the Bear Bestial Heart. While the other hearts offer unique attacks and movement types that can benefit a Barbarian, the Bear grants resistance to all damage except psychic and the ability to heal as an action during rage.
The other Hearts are ranked as follows:
- Bear Heart. See above.
- Tiger Heart. The Tiger offers the Barbarian exceptional mobility and very easy access to a cleave with Tiger’s Bloodlust. That cleave applies Bleed, comboing beautifully with the Tiger Animal Aspect.
- Wolf Heart. A great support Barbarian, Wolf Hearts give allies an advantage on attacking enemies they are currently flanking and can howl to give allies movement speed. Admittedly, that’s as an action, so a bit hard to use in practice.
- Elk Heart. You get a huge amount of movement speed and the ability to deal area-of-effect damage with a chance of knocking prone. Prone isn’t the most consistent status, unfortunately, and the movement speed is actually not much of an issue in BG3. Haste is accessible and items like Rings and Potions of Speed can easily fix the movement speed headache.
- Eagle Heart. Dash as a bonus action, foes can’t hit you as easily if you run from them, and you can try and Plunging Attack people. The Diving Strike ability is completely hilarious and counts as an attack, but requires the environment to work with you. It doesn’t have excellent range and not all fights have easy access to rooves for your Karlach to dive off of.
Honorable mention
With a specific build in mind, and if you prefer your Barbarian to do high single-target damage rather than being more of a team-focused build, the Berserker is much better for damage. The Berserker trades the Bear Heart’s non-physical durability for easier access to bonus action damage in Enraged Throw and Frenzied Strike. It’s not low-defense, either, with access to charm, frighten, and Calm Emotion immunity by level six and the ability to even crowd control enemies by level 10.
It is difficult to express the potent power of Frenzy in BG3. That is largely because of Enraged Throw, the bonus action that lets the Barbarian throw an item or person. This action has no penalty, making it a very consistently damaging option. However, it does require the Barbarian to be near stuff to chuck around. Plan your fight around this and your Barbarian will be a very interesting damage dealer.
That being said, you do have a backup plan in Frenzied Strike. It’s not recommended to throw this around lightly, since you get a stacking attack roll penalty the more often you use this bonus action. Once or twice is fine, especially with the liberal use of Reckless Attack. More is pushing things. Try to plan around throwing something at your foes with Reckless Attack buffing you up.
The Berserker is very strong and allows you to deal a lot of damage every round. However, almost every class in the game can walk up to enemies and deal huge damage—that’s the specialty of Paladins and Rogues, for instance. Barbarians are one of the few classes in the unique situation to resist spells like Eldritch Blast or Lightning Bolt without needing ultra-specific magic items.
This quality makes the Wildheart Barbarian much lower damage than the Berserker but also gives them opportunities to stall out casters and chase down foes that would otherwise shred their health like Swiss cheese. If you don’t have a high-damage build in mind for your Barbarian, we recommend Bear Wildheart every time.
