Out of the five classes in Diablo 4, the Barbarian could be considered the weakest of the bunch in terms of overall usability. That means players will need a top-tier Barbarian build if they want any chance of keeping up with the other classes in Diablo 4.
While technically stronger than other classes, the skills available for the Barbarian are considerably weaker than most of the other class skills. This means that there are different types of Barbarian builds that suit different playing styles.
Quick Guide To Essential Barbarian Skills
As with any build, we’ll start things off with the best skills that you should use for your starter Barbarian build. We will list a skill from each of the six branches in addition to what upgrade you should give each of the skills.
- Basic skill: Flay
- Enhanced Flay
- Battle Flay
- Your main skill for the Barbarian should be Flay, as it deals solid damage and inflicts bleed damage over a course of five seconds. Using a two-handed weapon with Flay will cause even more damage, especially when you add the Battle upgrade. The Battle upgrade has a 10 percent chance to make the enemy vulnerable, which is doubled to 20 percent when using a two-handed weapon.
- Core skill: Whirlwind
- Enhanced Whirlwind
- Violent Whirlwind
- Next up there is Whirlwind, which is an area-of-effect (AoE) attack that players can keep going for several seconds. Your character will swing violently around the battlefield, cutting into enemies as they do so.
- Defensive skill (party): Rallying Cry
- Enhanced Rallying Cry
- Tactical Rallying Cry
- This skill should only be used by those in a party. When Rallying Cry is performed, allies will gain increased movement speed and resource generation for six seconds. When the Tactical upgrade is applied, you also receive additional resource generation and added Fury.
- Defensive skill (solo): Ground Stomp
- Enhanced Ground Stomp
- Tactical Ground Stomp
- For solo players, we recommend Ground Stomp in the Defensive skills category. Ground Stomp can stun or knock down enemies, giving you a chance to attack them with another skill, and gives you extra Fury generation when performed.
- Brawling skill: War Cry
- Enhanced War Cry
- Power War Cry
- Similar to Rallying Cry, War Cry is a shout that increases the Barbarian’s overall damage. It’s a great skill to use just before a battle or when you have a free second or two in the middle of combat.
- Weapon Mastery skill: Deathblow
- Enhanced Deathblow
- Fighter’s Deathblow
- Another DPS-focused skill, Deathblow is a powerful attack that can deal massive amounts of damage when used. Also, when you kill an enemy with Deathblow, your cooldown for the skill will be reset, allowing you to use it again.
- Ultimate skill: Wrath of the Berserker
- Prime Wrath of the Berserker
- Supreme Wrath of the Berserker
- Finally, we have the Ultimate skill, Wrath of the Berserker. This skill grants the Barbarian berserking and unstoppable buffs for five seconds. Additionally, the next 10 seconds of damaging enemies with basic skills will grant an additional five seconds of berserking, which increases your overall damage.
Now that we have the main skills out of the way, you can focus on what passive skills you’d like to assign for the Barbarian. We have a list of a few that will prove immensely useful in Diablo 4.
- Endless Fury – Basic skills generate extra Fury when using two-handed weapons.
- Cut to the Bone – Bleeding effects deal increased damage to vulnerable enemies.
- Heavy Handed – Your critical strike damage is increased when using two-handed weapons.
What is the best Barbarian build for leveling in Diablo 4?
The Rend Barbarian build is still the best Barbarian build for leveling in Season 1 of Diablo 4. This build is optimized for peak leveling efficiency, so keep that in mind when you approach the endgame.
The Rend Barbarian Build in Diablo 4 focuses on harnessing the Barbarian’s brute strength to inflict potent damage over time through the Rend skill. This build optimizes for bleeding effects and area damage, allowing the Barbarian to rend enemies apart with sweeping attacks.
- Basic skill: Lunging Strike
- Enhanced Lunging Strike
- Core skill: Rend
- Enhanced Rend
- Furious Rend
- Defensive skill (party): Rallying Cry
- Enhanced Rallying Cry
- Tactical Rallying Cry
- Brawling skill: War Cry
- Enhanced War Cry
- Power War Cry
- Weapon Mastery: Death Blow
- Enhanced Death Blow
- Fighter’s Death Blow
- Ultimate skill: Call of the Ancients
- Prime Wrath of the Berserker
- Supreme Wrath of the Berserker
The Best Thorns Barbarian Build in Diablo 4
Thorns is an unexpected barbarian build that flourishes despite the setbacks that other barbarian builds are seeing in Diablo 4’s Season 1. The reason? Thorns is absurdly tanky and doesn’t benefit from any critical damage, and many of the other damage buckets that players stack on top of each other. This build is inspired by kGAULT’s Thorns build.
- Basic skill: Flay
- Enhanced Flay: This upgrade has a 15 percent chance to make the enemy vulnerable for two seconds, which is doubled to 20 percent when using a two-handed weapon.
- Combat Flay: Your main skill for the Thorns Barbarian should always be Flay, as it deals solid damage and gives you a 3 percent gain in damage reduction and Thorns for 3 seconds. This stacks up to 4 times.
- Defensive skill: Challenging Shout
- Enhanced Challenging Shout: Gain x20% bonus Maximum Life
- Strategic Challenging Shout: Gain Thorns equal to 30% of Your Maximum Life
- Brawling: War Cry
- Enhanced War Cry: War Cry grants you Berserking for 4 seconds
- Mighty War Cry: War Cry grants you 15% Base Life as Fortify
- Weapon mastery: Steel Grasp
- Enhanced Steel Grasp: Steel Grasp also makes enemies Vulnerable for 3 seconds
- Fighter’s Steel Grasp: If Steel Grasp damages an enemy, gain Berserking for 2 seconds
I personally recommend specing into an additional skill like Death Blow because you can stack Berserk, and it pairs well with bleed abilities. With this strategy you’d be able to focus on a lower-tier enemy first and work your way down the line of enemies, which can then culminate in some ultra-effective uses of Steel Grasp.
Thorns Barbarian Passive Skills
The two most crucial passive skills you can have equipped as a Thorns Barbarian in Diablo 4 will be Outburst and Tough as Nails. With Outburst you can gain an additional amount of Thorns based on your equipment, and a guaranteed gain of 10 Thorns for each 50 Maximum Life you have. Tough as Nails will increase your Thorns, and when enemies hit you, they take an additional 10% of your Thorns as Bleeding damage over 5 seconds.
There are a couple things to keep in mind before adapting kGAULT’s build for your own character. Firstly, this build doesn’t do well in party/group settings because of its nature as a Thorns build. Second, Steel Grasp is essential to sustain vuln as a Thorns Barbarian. Many players have recommended heavily building up Fortify as the main defense of a Thorns Barbarian.
What is the best Diablo 4 endgame Barbarian build?
After reaching level 50 and witnessing the end of Diablo 4, a shift occurs as you enter the endgame phase. Your current Barbarian build may not be as effective in pre-endgame content. This means you’ll need a new endgame-oriented Barbarian setup to fully embrace the new challenges.
Remember, if you want to switch from your leveling build or thorns build, you’ll need to respec your skill points to the melee-focused Whirlwind Barbarian endgame build.
As a Whirlwind Barbarian, your attack sequence will be Challenging Shout, War Cry, and Rallying Cry. This is the preferred order, since it allows Challenging Shout to come off cooldown first thanks to Bold Chieftain’s Aspect, so you can keep a handle on your damage reduction.
Related: Which class should you choose in Diablo 4?
Best Arsenal weapons for the Barbarian in Diablo 4
The Arsenal system is a unique part of the Barbarian class. Essentially, the system allows you to rank up certain kinds of weapons, which gives them extra boosts when you level them up to certain ranks. To take advantage of the Arsenal system, you want to use a few different weapons that work in conjunction with the skills you have chosen.
As most of the skills above are centered around two-handed weapons, that’s what we recommend you rank up first. You have a two-handed sword, mace, and axe available to you in this category. If we had to pick one, though, it would be the two-handed sword, as its Arsenal bonuses give you extra bleeding damage, which works well with the Flay basic skill.
Related: All the Class Achievements in Diablo 4 and how to finish them
It’s also recommended to rank up some one-handed weapons as well so you can have complete build freedom when deciding to switch up your skills. The Barbarian can hold up to four different weapons at once, so there’s no need to strap yourself to a single weapon.
