Barbarian Leap/Earthquake Build With Might of the Earth

Strengthened by the powers of the Might of the Earth set, the Earthquake Barbarian offers a tight and satisfying rotation of synergistic abilities, disguised under a visual treat of rampaging AoE destruction, along with a hefty amount of crowd control to boot. This build is designed for Greater Rift solo progression, but we also have a speed farming variant, which you can find by clicking the link below.

The basic skill setup of the Earthquake Barbarian is displayed below. Read the dedicated Skills page for detailed information on choices, alternatives and build customization.

Active Skills
Earthquake Molten Fury Seismic Slam Rumble 1 War Cry Veteran's Warning 2 Leap Death from Above 3 Threatening Shout Falter 4 Wrath of the Berserker Insanity
Passive Skills
Rampage Earthen Might Ruthless Boon of Bul-Kathos

The required gear setup for the Earthquake Barbarian is listed below. Check the Gear page for detailed information on choices, alternatives, gemming, Kanai's Cube and Paragon distribution.

• Helm: Eyes of the Earth
• Shoulders: Spires of the Earth
• Gloves: Pull of the Earth
• Chest: Spirit of the Earth
• Belt: Girdle of Giants
• Pants: Weight of the Earth
• Boots: Foundation of the Earth
• Bracers: Ancient Parthan Defenders
• Amulet: Hellfire Amulet of Strength
• Ring 1: Focus
• Ring 2: Restraint
• Weapon: The Furnace

This Season comes with the theme of Angelic Crucibles — consumable items that empower Legendary items with perfected Ancient-level stats, as well as infuse them with one of three unique, powerful, class-specific abilities at random. In the endgame, where you are testing this build to its upper limits, the pulling utility of the Whirlwind Sanctification edges over its competitors. Thus, we recommend substituting Threatening Shout from the regular build and using Whirlwind Dust Devils to proc the following power:

• Whirlwind Sanctification: Whirlwind pulls in and holds all enemies within 25 yards.

If you decide against this alteration, you can safely fall back to the (easier to use) Wrath of the Berserker Sanctification, which reads:

• Wrath of the Berserker Sanctification: Hitting enemies generates stacks of Tempest Rhythm. Activating Wrath of the Berserker consumes 50 stacks of Tempest Rhythm and startles enemies within 16 yards, causing them to take 2% increased damage per stack for 20 seconds. Max 50 stacks.

Use Angelic Crucibles on an item that crosses over most (if not all) variants of a build, and is also an item that is relatively harder to perfect than other slots (since sanctifying an item maximizes its stats). In the case of this build, a good candidate for Sanctification is your main-hand weapon — usually The Furnace (although a combination of The Slanderer and Little Rogue is also viable in this Season-specific, Whirlwind-using alteration).

You can read more on Angelic Crucibles and the sanctification process in our dedicated Angelic Crucible Mechanics guide.

The former Season 28 theme, the Altar of Rites, has been revised and re-added to Diablo 3 as a permanent character progression mechanic. — For virtually all builds and players of all skill levels — from casual to advanced — we recommend progressing through the Altar tree using the path outlined below. The suggested path is geared towards maximum quality of life first, then amplifying damage, and then mopping up the tree with defensive and edge case utility nodes.

Note that while they require reaching them with a Seal, Legendary Potion Powers are not part of the Seal cost system; Potions unlock with a separate resource called Primordial Ashes, obtained from salvaging Legendary or Set items of Primal (red bordered) quality. Upgrade them as soon as possible, and in the order shown below (courtesy of Caleko's Altar of Rites planner).

You can read more on the Altar of Rites, Seals and Legendary Potion Powers in our dedicated Altar of Rites Mechanics guide.

• Legendary Gem 1: Bane of the Trapped
• Legendary Gem 2: Bane of the Stricken
• Legendary Gem 3: Gogok of Swiftness

• Weapon Slot: Blade of the Tribes
• Armor Slot: Lut Socks
• Jewelry Slot: Band of Might

In this section, we will briefly go over how to kickstart this build into reality; which items you should aim for with priority when farming and gambling, and what is their relative priority for the functioning of this spec. Note that these suggestions are exclusively aimed at getting you up and running into endgame farming, and might not reflect the gear you need to wear for high-end Greater Rift solo or group pushing. This section also assumes a fresh Season's start, which usually is the point where most players work on assembling their first build with a particular set.

If the Might of the Earth set is part of the Haedrig's Gift for the Season, your simplest and most straightforward path to assembling the build is to complete the Seasonal Journey chapters up to Chapter IV. The Seasonal Journey chapters will gradually give you a complete class-specific set, giving 2-3 pieces for Chapters II, III and IV.

From the pre-game menu, choose and do this week's Challenge Rift. When successfully completed, this weekly event will grant you 5,1 million Gold, 475 Blood Shards, 370 Reusable Parts, 350 Arcane Dust, 125 Veiled Crystals, 35 Death's Breaths, and 15 of each Bounty cache material: Khanduran Rune, Caldeum Nightshade, Arreat War Tapestry, Corrupted Angel Flesh, and Westmarch Holy Water. This will allow you some early Seasonal leeway to extract and reforge items in Kanai's Cube, speeding up the assembly of this build with the items recommended below.

Having some materials at your disposal, either from farming or the Challenge Rift, is particularly important when you get duplicate pieces of your desired set. When you do, you can use Kanai's Cube Skill of Nilfur recipe (10x Forgotten Souls, 10x Death's Breaths, 1x Set item) to convert into another item from the same set. You should never salvage duplicate pieces of a desired set before you have it assembled.

In order to assemble a MotE Leapquake Barbarian, you should do the following.

• Gather the full 6-piece Shadow set using the advice above, or by spending Blood Shards at Kadala. In order of gamble chance, you should spend for: Pants, Shoulders, Boots, Gloves, Helm, and Chest. A trick you can also use is to gamble for duplicate pieces with an easier gamble chance (i.e., Pants) and convert them into another piece from the same set using the Skill of Nilfur recipe in Kanai's Cube.
• Upgrade rare (Hope of Cain recipe in Kanai's Cube) Two-Handed Mighty Weapons to get Blade of the Tribes; this is a build-defining legendary weapon that increases Earthquake damage and provides two additional sources that trigger its effect from War Cry and Threatening Shout.
• Gamble Boots on a Level 1 Barbarian (either your starting character or an alt) to get Lut Socks. This is a crucial piece for Leapquake Barbs, allowing you to triple Leap before the cooldown triggers and enabling your whole rotation from the 4-piece bonus onwards.
• Gamble Rings on a Level 1 Barbarian (either your starting character or an alt) to get Band of Might, a massive source of damage reduction and a universally useful item for Barbarians. It is the only legendary ring available to level 1 Barbarians, making the gamble significantly easier.
• Upgrade rare One-handed Swords to get In-geom; doing this on a level 1 Demon Hunter alt will improve your chances due to their lowest loot pool of legendary swords. In-geom greatly benefits early game Leapquake Barbarians, since it makes Wrath of the Berserker a much more readily available buff.
• Gamble or upgrade rare Bracers to get Mortick's Brace; this legendary piece gives you all the runes of Wrath of the Berserker, adding the toughness of Striding Giant and the sustain of Thrive on Chaos to the universally desirable Insanity buff, which we usually take on the skill bar anyway. As a bonus, gambling or upgrading this slot can yield Nemesis Bracers, which are a staple farming item for your Follower.
• Do Act I bounties to attain the act-specific Ring of Royal Grandeur from Bounty caches. This will be helpful either in completing the basic set bonus, or mixing other helpful legendaries in the build as described in the dedicated endgame Leapquake Barbarian guide. Bounties will net you craftable set recipes as well, so you will be killing two birds with one stone. Bounties will also net you Avarice Band (Act III), another farming-oriented staple for most builds and classes, this one included.
• While largely undesirable due to high costs, gambling or upgrading rare Jewelry is also possible; Convention of Elements, the Bastions of Will set ( Focus and Restraint) and the Endless Walk set ( The Traveler's Pledge and The Compass Rose) will all drastically improve this and other builds, with other standout pieces that can also substitute or be temporarily helpful in the face of Unity, or Oculus Ring and The Flavor of Time for your Follower.