Diablo 4 Beta Best Barbarian Build Guide - Skills, Strengths/Weaknesses, Class Mechanics, Gameplay Tips

Diablo 4 Beta Best Barbarian Build Guide - Skills, Strengths/Weaknesses, Class Mechanics, Gameplay Tips

3/21/2023 7:13:22 PM

Today we go over a strong build for the Barbarian class in the beta Diablo 4, a versatile and powerful class that is ideal for players who enjoy fast-paced, melee-focused combat and dealing massive amounts of damage to enemies. This builds focuses on big damage bursts with your Upheaval skill, mixed in with tons of survivability with your Iron Skin skill. This D4 Barbarian build will allow you to easily solo any content available in these beta tests. We go over the skill trees, pros/cons, legendary weapons, armor, and jewelry.

Diablo 4 Barbarian Class Overview

- The Barbarian is a playable class in Diablo 4, specializing in melee combat and physical strength. Barbarians are known for their powerful attacks and resilience in battle, making them ideal for engaging enemies in close combat and dealing massive amounts of damage.

- Barbarians have access to a variety of abilities and weapons that allow them to take on hordes of enemies and survive even in the toughest battles. They can wield weapons such as two-handed swords, axes, and maces, and also have access to a variety of powerful abilities such as Whirlwind, Rend, and Leap.

- Barbarians also have a rage resource that builds up as they deal and take damage in combat. This resource can be spent to use powerful abilities and unleash devastating attacks, making the Barbarian a formidable force on the battlefield.

- In addition to their combat abilities, Barbarians in Diablo 4 also have a range of customization options available to them, such as skill trees and item customization. This allows players to tailor their Barbarian to their preferred playstyle and combat strategy.

Diablo 4 Beta Best Barbarian Build Guide: Skills, Pros/Cons, Class Mechanics & More

We primarily go over the skill tree and then go over the legendaries, playstyle and best D4 Barbarian builds for open beta.

Best Barbarian Build Skills

Basic skills

Frenzy: This is the best theory generator out of all the basic skills and this is just a basic attack, but hitting an enemy with it increases its attack speed by 20% for 3 seconds stacking up to three times for a total of 60% attack speed increase, which means after those first three hits, you're just going to be hitting ridiculously quickly giving you quite a lot of Fury very quickly as well.
Enhanced Frenzy: While you have that full 60% attack speed buff, you're going to get an additional two Fury for every single hit. So it's 6 per hit, so you're just generating a lot more Fury.
Combat Frenzy: You gain 8% damage reduction for each stack of frenzy you currently have, so up to 3, 24% damage reduction is pretty massive and you're going to be weaving frenzy with core skill.

Core Skills

Upheaval: If your max level in the beta, put 5 points into this, this is going to be your main damage and you want it as strong as you can possibly get it. This is a fury spender and it just does a big cone attack in front of you, has a pretty decent range does really big damage, it is a slow to cast ability but really high damage.
Enhanced Upheaval: It is a 20% chance to stun all enemies at damages for 2.5 seconds. Massive can just be an AOE stun if you get the procs.
Furious Upheaval: This is going to synergize very well with frenzy, doing direct damage to an enemy with a skill that is not upheaval causes your next cast of upheaval to deal 8% increase damage, stacking up to 8 times.

The really good thing about Frenzy is that if you're using this with dual-wielded weapons, it procs Furious Upheaval two times every time you use frenzy on an enemy because it's hitting with both your weapons gives you those two stacks, so you only need to hit a target 4 times, then you cast an upheaval and you have a max damage upheaval with that 80% damage increase. This is going to do quite a lot of damage and it puts you in a good rhythm of hitting a few frenzies, hitting an upheaval, hitting a few frenzies, hitting an upheaval and it synergizes together very well.

Defensive Skills

Rallying Cry: This has a base 25 second cooldown, fellow a rallying cry, increasing your movement speed by 30% and resource generation by 50%. At a baseline, this lasts for 6 seconds for you and 3 seconds for your allies.
Enhanced Rallying Cry: It grants you unstoppable while it's active and unstoppable is actually very strong because if you're already cc'd, you can still use an unstoppable ability and it removes that CC as well.
Tactical Rallying Cry: This automatically generates 25 fury on cast and grants you an additional 50% resource generation.

Main Defensive Skills

Iron Skin: It has a 14 second cooldown on a baseline, steel yourself gaining a barrier that absorbs 50% of your missing life 5 seconds.
Enhanced Iron Skin: It absorbs 5% more of your maximum life.
Tactical Iron Skin: While iron skin is active, heal for 10% of the barrier's original amount as life per second.

Once you heal with the massive barrier on you, the main way you want to use this is you want to get as low as possible before you use this, because it's going to give you a bigger barrier, the lower health you are, and that means the bigger the barrier, the more you're going to get healed from tactical iron skin. This is an incredibly strong defensive skill.

Brawling Skills

Leap: Has around a 17 second cooldown on baseline, lucky hit chance at 35% and you just leap in a direction, dealing damage if you hit any enemies and knock back those enemies if you happen to hit them with it.
Enhanced Leap: If leap doesn’t damage any enemies, Its cooldown is reduced by 4 seconds. So you can use this more as a movement skill outside of combat.
Power Leap: If leap damages at least one enemy, you gain 40 Fury which is pretty massive and it's going to be very strong with one of our legendary powers.
Booming Voice: Your shots go durations are increased by 10%, that's to help with rallying cry, make it last on us a bit longer.

Then putting 3 points into the 3 other passives in the brawling tree:

Aggressive Resistance: Gain 4% damage reduction while berserking, so anytime we're berserking which is going to be able to be activated off a handful of our skills, we're taking damage reduction.
Battle Fervor: When a brawling skill damages at least one enemy, gain berserking for one second.
Prolific Fury: While berserking, Fury generation is increased by 6%. You could remove this Fury generation point and put it into battle fervor which means you'll be berserking for two seconds every time you hit something things leave.

Ultimate Skills

Wrath of the Berserker: 60 second base cooldown, gain berserking and unstoppable for 5 seconds. For the next 10 seconds, dealing direct damage with basic skills grants berserking for an additional 5 seconds. So you're going to be able to get berserking up for quite a long time with Wrath of the Berserker.
Prime Wrath of the Berserker: While Wrath of berserker is active, gain 20% increase movement speed and 30% increas Fury generation.

So this is going to be a massive buff to your character. Anytime you use this ultimate, you're going to be moving around crazy quickly, doing more damage, you're going to be unstoppable, you're going to constantly be gaining Berserker which also gives us increased Fury generation, you're basically buffing everything with this one ultimate.

Barbarian Unique Class Mechanic in Diablo 4

The Barbarian's Unique Class Mechanic is the Arsenal System. The Arsenal System lets Barbarians use four different weapons simultaneously to fully utilize their skill toolkit based on different weapon requirements. These are their four weapon slots:

- Two-Hand Bludgeoning Weapon

- Two-Hand Slashing Weapon

- Main Hand

- Off-Hand

Best Legendary Gear for Barbarian Build Diablo 4 Beta

- Weapon: Devilish Marauder Axe

- Armor: Boneweave Armor of the Iron Warrior

- Pants: Adventurer’s Pants of the Deflecting Barrier

- Boots: Relentless Berserker’s Adventurer’s Boots

- Amulet: Choker of the Protector

- Armor: Boneweave Armor of the Iron Warrior

- Ring: Ring of Giant Strides

Diablo 4 Beta Best Barbarian Build Guide

Diablo 4 Barbarian Strengths

High Damage Output: Barbarians in Diablo 4 are known for their ability to deal massive amounts of damage in close combat. With their powerful attacks and abilities, Barbarians can quickly take down even the toughest enemies.
Resilience: Barbarians are also known for their resilience in battle. They have high health and defense, allowing them to withstand significant punishment from enemies.
Versatility: Barbarians can be built in a variety of ways to suit different playstyles and combat situations. Whether you prefer a more aggressive, damage-focused playstyle or a more defensive and survivable approach, the Barbarian can accommodate your preferences.
Area of Effect (AoE) Abilities: Many of the Barbarian's abilities in Diablo 4 have a wide area of effect, allowing them to hit multiple enemies at once. This can be especially useful in large groups of enemies and can help the Barbarian to quickly take down large numbers of foes.
Synergies: Barbarians in Diablo 4 can combine different abilities and skills to create powerful synergies. For example, using Rend to apply a bleed effect to enemies and then following up with Whirlwind to deal additional damage can be a devastating combo.

Diablo 4 Barbarian Weaknesses

Vulnerability to Ranged Attacks: While Barbarians excel in close combat, they may struggle against ranged attackers who can keep their distance and attack from afar.
Slow Movement: Barbarians can be slow and sluggish compared to other classes, making them vulnerable to fast-moving enemies and attacks.
Resource Management: Barbarians rely on the Rage resource to use their most powerful abilities, and managing this resource effectively can be challenging. If a Barbarian runs out of Rage in the middle of a battle, they may struggle to deal damage and survive.
Limited Crowd Control: While Barbarians have some abilities that can disrupt and control groups of enemies, they may struggle to deal with large crowds of enemies on their own.

Diablo 4 Best Barbarian Builds for Open Beta

Whirlwind Build: This build focuses on the Whirlwind ability, which allows the Barbarian to rapidly spin and deal damage to all nearby enemies. To maximize the effectiveness of this build, players can focus on increasing critical hit chance, attack speed, and damage bonuses for Whirlwind.
Rend Build: This build focuses on the Rend ability, which deals damage to enemies in a cone-shaped area and also applies a bleed effect that causes additional damage over time. To maximize the effectiveness of this build, players can focus on increasing critical hit chance, bleed damage, and bonuses to Rend.
Tank Build: This build focuses on survivability and damage absorption to allow the Barbarian to take on large groups of enemies without being overwhelmed. Skills such as Ground Stomp, War Cry, and Ignore Pain can be useful in this build.
Hybrid Build: This build combines aspects of different builds to create a versatile and adaptable character. This build may include skills from the melee, ranged, and control categories, allowing you to switch between different combat styles as needed.

So that's about this Barbarian Build for the Diablo 4 beta weekends. You're actually able to survive a lot and Barbarians seem to very much be the weakest class out of the 3 in this first beta weekend, but with this field, you're actually able to do everything much more easily. You're able to survive a lot which has definitely still been an issue for Barbarians and are able to set up these very big upheavals with the 80% damage increase so you proc all the time. You're going to be berserking a lot anytime you pop your ultimate you're just going to be generating Fury, getting massive damage increases the whole time. So it’s actually a pretty strong build.