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The Barbarian is a hero class in Diablo 4. Mean killing machines, these warriors want to rush into the thick of the fray, showing their prowess in melee combat to see enemies driven before them. Here’s our Diablo 4 Barbarian leveling build guide to help you pick the best skills for the campaign.
Diablo 4 Barbarian leveling build
The Diablo 4 Barbarian leveling build focuses primarily on area-of-effect (AoE) attacks due to packs of enemies, as well as extra survivability. Also, for a more in-depth explanation of each ability, you can visit our Barbarian overviews regarding active skills, talents/passives, and Expertise/Arsenal Weapon Swapping.
Basic: Flay (Battle) – You probably won’t get a lot out of the bleed mechanic during the early stages of the game. Still, the Enhanced variant ensures that you can debuff hostiles with vulnerable, causing them to take more damage temporarily. This is further improved if you use a two-handed weapon when activating Flay.
Core: Whirlwind (Violent) – Whirlwind is ideal for the Diablo 4 Barbarian leveling build as it’s an AoE attack that can be sustained for prolonged periods. Besides, who doesn’t love seeing a Barbarian spinning around while whacking foes?
Defensive: Ground Stomp (Tactical or Strategic) – Ground Stomp is an immensely useful skill since it either stuns or knocks down enemies, with extra fury generation to boot. You can go with Tactical (i.e., fury generation) until you unlock your Ultimate skill, which is when you can switch to Strategic (i.e., Ultimate cooldown reduction).
Defensive: Challenging Shout (Tactical) – Yes, we’re going to have a couple of Defensive skills for our Diablo 4 Barbarian leveling build. The taunt from Challenging Shout is quite moot if you’re soloing, but the damage reduction is great.
Brawling: War Cry (Power) – This is another shout, and one that increases our DPS.
Weapon Mastery: Deathblow (Fighter’s or Warrior’s) – Deathblow is a powerful ability that deals a ton of damage. If you manage to kill an opponent with it, its cooldown will be reset.
Ultimate: Call of the Ancients (Prime and Supreme) – With only six ability slots to choose from, you’re going to have to drop one skill to assign your ultimate. If you don’t need it anymore, then you can drop Challenging Shout.
Passive: Booming Voice (Brawling) – Given how often you’ll use your shouts to survive, it’s imperative that you have a passive that further increases the duration.
Weapon Expertise: One-Handed Maces, Two-Handed Axes, and Two-Handed Maces – To be fair, trying to focus on a particular Weapon Expertise while leveling your Barbarian will be a tough task. That’s because you’ll often pick up new and better gear pieces, which may not be the weapon types you prefer. Still, you can’t go wrong with the following:
One-handed maces – Increased damage against stunned enemies (i.e., Ground Stomp).Two-handed axes – Increased damage against vulnerable enemies (i.e., Flay).Two-handed maces – Extra fury generation when hitting enemies; rank 10 gives bonus critical strike damage versus stunned and vulnerable enemies (i.e., Flay and Ground Stomp).
Find all of our Diablo 4 guides in the guides hub.
