The best Barbarian builds for leveling in Diablo 4 season 4 (2024)

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 4.

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.

In this Diablo 4 guide, we’ve gathered and simplified the best Diablo 4 Barbarian builds for season 4. 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 leveling build in Diablo 4 season 4

Image: Blizzard Entertainment

This build is based off Lexyu’s Barbarian leveling guide at IcyVeins, and is purely for leveling: i.e., allocating your 58 skill points between levels 1 and 50. 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 IcyVeins guide.

Best skills for leveling

Most Barbarian leveling guides you’ll find make use of Hammer of the Ancients as your primary skill, as it deals massive damage while remaining very cheap to cast. In this build, you’ll also use Frenzy, Death Blow, 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:

1. Frenzy / Enhanced Frenzy
2. Hammer of the Ancients / Enhanced Hammer of the Ancients / Furious Hammer of the Ancients
3. Combat Frenzy
4. Rallying Cry / Enhanced Rallying Cry / Tactical Rallying Cry
5. Hammer of the Ancients (ranks 2-3)
6. Leap / Enhanced Leap / Power Leap
7. Hammer of the Ancients (ranks 4-5)
8. Death Blow / Enhanced Death Blow / Warrior’s Death Blow / Death Blow (rank 2-5)
9. Wrath of the Berserker / Prime Wrath of the Berserker / Supreme Wrath of the Berserker
10. Pit Fighter (ranks 1-3)
11. Tempered Fury
12. Furious Impulse (ranks 1-3)
13. Walking Arsenal
14. Hamstring
15. No Mercy
16. Expose Vulnerability (ranks 1-3)
17. No Mercy (ranks 2-3)
18. Swiftness (ranks 1-3)
19. Thick Skin (ranks 1-3)
20. Counteroffensive (ranks 1-3)
21. Defensive Stance (ranks 1-3)
22. Slaying Strike (ranks 1-3)
23. Aggressive Resistance
24. Prolific Fury

Best Weapon Expertise setup for leveling

Once you unlock the Weapon Expertise system for your Barbarian, you’ll want to place the two-handed sword in your Technique slot. This will cause all of your Hammer of the Ancients damage to make enemies Bleed.

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, when possible). Just keep in mind that you should replace these Legendaries with new versions using the imprint system every few levels.

• Aspect of Ancestral Force (Sunken Ruins dungeon in Scosglen) — Hammer of the Ancients quakes outwards, dealing X% of its damage to enemies
• Aspect of the Expectant (Underroot dungeon in Scosglen) — Attacking enemies with a Basic Skill increases the damage of your next Core Skill cast by X% up to X%
• Edgemaster’s Aspect (Oldstones dungeon in Scosglen) — Skills deal X% increased damage based on Primary Resource when cast, receiving the maximum benefit while you have full Primary Resource

Best Barbarian endgame build for season 4 — Double Swing Twisters

This build is based off of Snail’s Double Swing Twisters Barbarian endgame 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 50, have access to all 58 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 Double Swing Twisters Barbarian build for endgame

This build utilizes Double Swing as its core skill. It also uses Leap, Rallying Cry, Charge, Bash, and Wrath of the Berserker.

Since you need all 58 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
• Double Swing (rank 1-5) / Enhanced Double Swing / Furious Double Swing
• Rallying Cry / Enhanced Rallying Cry / Tactical Rallying Cry
• Imposing Presence (rank 1-3)
• Martial Vigor (rank 1-2)
• Charge / Enhanced Charge / Power Charge
• Leap (rank 1-5) / Enhanced Leap / Power Leap
• Booming Voice (rank 1-3)
• Guttural Yell (rank 1-3)
• Aggressive Resistance (rank 1-3)
• Prolific Fury (rank 1-3)
• Battle Fervor
• Pit Fighter (rank 1-3)
• Thick Skin
• Counteroffensive (rank 1-3)
• Wrath of the Berserker / Prime Wrath of the Berserker / Supreme Wrath of the Berserker
• Wallop (rank 1-3)
• Concussion (rank 1-3)
• Unconstrained

Arsenal System for the Double Swing Twisters Barbarian build

For this build, you’ll want to take Two-Handed Axe Expertise as your Technique.

Legendary Powers and Uniques for Double Swing Twisters Barbarian 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: Tuskhelm of Joritz the Mighty (Unique) or Aspect of Concussive Strikes
• Chest: Undying Aspect
• Gloves: Aspect of Ancestral Charge
• Pants: Tibault’s Will (Unique) or Aspect of Bul-Kathos (dungeon drop)
• Boots: Yen’s Blessing (Unique) or Wind Striker Aspect (dungeon drop)
• Two-handed Bludgeoning: Aspect of Fierce Winds
• Two-handed Slashing: Windlasher Aspect
• Sword: Ramaladni’s Magnum Opus (Unique) or Aspect of Inner Calm (dungeon drop)
• Off-hand: Accelerating Aspect
• Amulet: Devilish Aspect
• Ring 1: Aspect of Giant Strides
• Ring 2: Aspect of Vocalized Empowerment (dungeon drop)

If you want to get into the nitty gritty of stat priorities, refer to Snail’s original guide.

Paragon Boards for Double Swing Twisters Barbarian build

The Paragon Board system is very complex, and you’ll want to carefully pair your Glyphs with specific boards for your class:

1. Starter Board / Twister Glyph
2. Blood Rage / Exploit Glyph
3. Warbringer / Territorial Glyph
4. Carnage / Ambidextrous Glyph
5. Decimator / Ire Glyph
6. Flawless Technique / Undaunted Glyph

You should level your Glyphs to 15 in this specific order:

1. Twister
2. Exploit
3. Ire
4. Ambidextrous
5. Undaunted
6. Territorial

You can path your own way through the Paragon Boards following these basic guidelines. However, for the best results, follow Snail’s path exactly.

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 Sorcerer, Rogue, Druid, and Necromancer classes.