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 5.
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 5. 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 5
This build is based off Slothmaster’s Barbarian leveling guide at Maxroll.gg, 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 Maxroll.gg guide.
Best skills for leveling
In this build, you’ll use Upheaval as your Core skill of choice. You’ll also use Bash, Charge, Rallying Cry, Leap, and Iron Maelstrom.
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:
- Bash / Enhanced Bash
- Upheaval / Enhanced Upheaval / Violent Upheaval / Upheaval (rank 2-5)
- Endless Fury (rank 1-3)
- Rallying Cry
- Charge
- Leap / Enhanced Leap
- Swiftness (rank 1-3)
- Aggressive Resistance
- Prolific Fury (rank 1-3)
- Iron Maelstrom / Prime Iron Maelstrom / Supreme Iron Maelstrom
- Tempered Fury
- Furious Impulse (rank 1-3)
- Enhanced Charge / Power Charge
- Power Leap
- Walking Arsenal
- Charge (rank 2-5)
- Leap (rank 2-5)
- Enhanced Rallying Cry / Tactical Rallying Cry
- Imposing Presence (rank 1-3)
- Martial Vigor (rank 1-2)
- Aggressive Resistance (rank 2-3)
- Pit Fighter (rank 1-3)
- Thick Skin
- Counteroffensive (rank 1-3)
Best Weapon Expertise setup for leveling
Once you unlock the Weapon Expertise system for your Barbarian, you’ll want to place the one-handed mace in your Technique slot.
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 and never weapons). The random drop Aspects are all nice to add to your Codex and your gear if you’re lucky enough to find them on your leveling journey.
- Aspect of the Relentless Armsmaster (Calibel’s Mine, Scosglen)
- Aspect of Fierce Winds (random drop)
- Devilish Aspect (random drop)
- Aspect of Ancestral Charge (random drop)
- Brawler’s Aspect (random drop)
- Veteran Brawler (random drop)
- Bear Clan Berserker’s Aspect (random drop)
Best Barbarian endgame build for season 4 — Double Swing Twisters
Note: This build was designed for season 4, Loot Reborn, and doesn’t take into account any of the upgrades to Uniques that came in season 5. However, this build is still viable if you’re looking to transition out of the leveling build above. We’ll update this section with a season 5 build once the dust settles on the new Diablo 4 update.
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:
- Starter Board / Twister Glyph
- Blood Rage / Exploit Glyph
- Warbringer / Territorial Glyph
- Carnage / Ambidextrous Glyph
- Decimator / Ire Glyph
- Flawless Technique / Undaunted Glyph
You should level your Glyphs to 15 in this specific order:
- Twister
- Exploit
- Ire
- Ambidextrous
- Undaunted
- 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
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.
