The Barbarian has been a mainstay of the Diablo series since the Diablo: Hellfire. Well known for their prowess in warfare honed from millennia of battle atop Mount Arreat, Barbarians bring their weapon mastery to Diablo 4—and they’re more powerful than they have ever been with the Double Swing build.
The strength of Barbarians has always been their flexibility in terms of weapons. When you dual-wield weapons as a Barbarian, no build works better than the Double Swing in terms of elite clearing and crowd control. This is what it takes for the build to function optimally.
A guide to Double Swing Barbarian in Diablo 4
The Double Swing build brings back a classic playstyle that originated way back in the early days of Diablo 2. While more meta builds such as the Hammer of the Ancients build and the Whirlwind build dominated the early months of Diablo 4, things changed following the release of Patch 1.0.3 and the rise of season one. The Double Swing build slowly rose to prominence over time.
The build itself revolves around the Core skill of the Barbarian, Double Swing. This ability requires you to be dual-wielding as a prerequisite, following which the Barbarian swings both weapons in opposing arcs at once. Each weapon deals 50 percent damage and both of them will hit the enemies in their path, making for a great crowd control and elite culling ability if spammed well.
Like any other Core skill, the Barbarian’s Double Swing can be leveled up to increase its damage output. You can also choose from three different upgrades on two paths to customize your Double Swing by giving it additional modifications that apply on impact. The modifications can be reset when needed but for the purpose of this build, it’s best you know which one works better for you.
- Enhanced Double Swing: Gain 25 Fury whenever Double Swing damages an enemy that is either stunned or knocked down.
- Furious Double Swing: Increase your Berserking status by two more seconds each time you cast Double Swing.
- Violent Double Swing: Turn enemies vulnerable each time you hit them with both swipes of Double Swing.
Enhanced Double Swing is the mandatory upgrade to pick up but you have some leeway after that. Furious Double Swing is perfect for a build that focuses on maintaining the Berserk status by increasing its duration. For this build to work optimally, however, we pick up Vicious Double Swing to quickly take out packs of elites or make bosses vulnerable.
Double Swing Barbarian skill progression
As is with any build, we pick five other skills that synergize with Double Swing to make this build powerful. First, we choose our Core skill and our Fury generation skill.
- Double Swing: The Core skill of this build.
- Lunging Strike: Dive forward and attack an enemy for a third of your base damage.
While you constantly spam your Double Swing to clear out enemies, you will need to top up your Fury. This is where Lunging Strike comes in. Not only does it generate Fury, but it also closes the gap with key enemies in the heat of battle. Upgrades to this skill allow Lunging Strike to deal bonus damage while healing you per attack, bleed out enemies, and increase the duration of your Berserking status.
- Ground Stomp: Slams the ground, dealing minor damage to all enemies around and stunning them for four seconds.
Ground Stomp is your go-to defensive skill when you are surrounded by enemies. While the damage is quite paltry, you want this skill for its crowd-control capabilities. Having a long stun duration skill with upgrades that allow Ground Stomp to further increase its stun duration is invaluable in battle. Additionally, the next tier of upgrade also regenerates your Fury, making it a great utility skill.
- War Cry: Increase the damage output of you and your nearby allies for a short while. The duration is doubled for the casting Barbarian.
- Rallying Cry: Increase the movement speed and resource generation of you and your nearby allies for a short while. This duration is doubled for the casting Barbarian.
- Challenging Shout: Increase your damage reduction by 40 percent while you aggravate all nearby enemies to attack you instead of your allies.
And of course, no Barbarian build is ever complete without their shouts. Being natural-born leaders, War Cry and Rallying Cry are great buff skills for you and your party if you’re playing multiplayer. The damage boost from War Cry synergizes incredibly well with the movement speed and resource generation of Rallying Cry, making long fights significantly shorter.
Since all of the Barbarian’s abilities throw them into the midst of battle, Challenging Shout is the best defensive shout you can have in this build. If enemies are going to attack you anyway, you might as well draw everyone to you while you stun them with Ground Stomp and slice them down with Double Swing. The overall damage reduction you gain ensures that you will survive the fight.
Defensive skills become much more essential as you go through higher-level areas like Nightmare Dungeons, where enemies can dispose of you quickly if you aren’t careful.
Next, we pick the perfect passive abilities that help the active skills shine.
Best Double Swing Barbarian passives
These passives are great for offense and defense.
- Martial Vigor: Increases your damage resistance against elites.
- Aggressive Resistance: Increases your damage resistance when Berserking.
- Pit Fighter: Increases your damage output against close enemies and your damage resistance against distant enemies.
- No Mercy: Increases your critical strike chance when you hit a crowd-controlled target.
- Thick Skin: Gains Fortify each time you take direct damage.
- Counteroffensive: Increases your damage output when you have over half of your maximum health as Fortify.
- Duelist: Increases your attack speed when wielding one-handed weapons.
- Wallop: Increases the damage of Bludgeoning weapons if the target is stunned or vulnerable.
These passives are more utility and healing-based.
- Imposing Presence: Increases your max health pool.
- Booming Voice: Increases the duration of all your shout skills.
- Guttural Yell: Decreases the damage of nearby enemies when you use a shout skill.
- Raid Leader: Heals nearby allies for a percentage of their max health when you use a shout skill.
- Prolific Fury: Increases your Fury generation when Berserking.
- Tempered Fury: Increases your max Fury.
- Invigorating Fury: Heal for a percentage of your max health each time you spend 100 Fury.
The key passive is the backbone of the build.
- Unbridled Rage: All your Core skills deal 135 percent increased damage in exchange for costing 100 percent more Fury.
Double Swing Barbarian Arsenal choices
The Barbarian’s unique mechanic is the Arsenal system which makes full use of the class’ weapon masteries. The Arsenal system is automatically unlocked when the Barbarian hits level five and you can explore the weapon bonuses you have. As you level up, you will gain more choices and your build will really start to take off.
In the Double Swing build, we focus on two choices in the Arsenal system.
- 1H Mace Expertise: Deals increased damage to stunned enemies. The bonus doubles when you use two maces.
- 2H Axe Expertise: Deals increased damage to vulnerable enemies. Additionally, your critical strike chance against vulnerable enemies also increases when you use an axe.
Since we will be mostly using mace weapons in this build, picking up the one-handed Mace Expertise is a no-brainer. If you get a lucky hit, you also gain Berserking for a short time. The two-handed Axe Expertise is only picked up for its increased damage against vulnerable enemies since you won’t be wielding an axe.
Best Double Swing Barbarian Aspects
Choosing the best aspects for your Barbarian is the final step to making this build flourish.
- Accelerating Aspect: Your critical hit chance and critical hit damage also provide increased attack speed.
- Aspect of Berserk Ripping: You deal additional bleeding damage along with your base damage while you are Berserking.
- Aspect of Disobedience: Dealing damage grants you increased armor per attack.
- Aspect of Echoing Fury: Your shout skills generate Fury while their bonuses are active.
- Aspect of Limitless Rage: When your Fury is at its maximum, each point of extra Fury generated increases the damage of your next Core skill.
- Aspect of Might: You gain increased damage reduction when you use a Basic skill.
- Aspect of Numbing Wrath: When your Fury is at its maximum, each point of extra Fury generated grants you additional Fortify.
- Aspect of Unrelenting Fury: You regain a part of your Core skill’s Fury cost each time the skill kills an enemy or damages a boss.
- Bold Chieftain’s Aspect: Casting a shout skill decreases its cooldown based on how many nearby enemies were affected. The cooldown reduction can go up to a total of six seconds.
- Edgemaster’s Aspect: Your skills deal increased damage depending on how much Fury you have. The bigger your Fury pool, the more damage you deal.
- Rapid Aspect: You gain increased attack speed when you use a Basic skill.
- Relentless Berserker’s Aspect: Your Berserking duration increases each time you damage an enemy with a Core skill.
Imbue your best Barbarian weapons and armor with these aspects to get the most out of them. And that’s all you need to know to run a powerful Double Swing endgame build.
