What is a Barbarian in Diablo 4? Barbarian Overview

This is our overview of the Barbarian, one of the five playable classes in Diablo 4.

Barbarian Builds

Although the upcoming Diablo 4 Open Beta will be limited to level 20, we are using this opportunity to showcase our best early-game Barbarian leveling builds and tips in preparation for the full launch of the game.

Official Class Description

The Barbarian has unparalleled strength and expertly wields an entire arsenal in battle, with a weapon for every occasion. He bellows intimidating war cries and unleashes ground-shaking slams to send approaching hordes reeling.

Barbarian Resource – Fury

Fury makes a return in Diablo 4 as the Barbarian class resource, where it is functionally identical to its Diablo 3 counterpart.

Fury has a natural cap of 100 and slowly drains while out of combat. It is generated by casting spammable Basic Skills such as Bash and expended by the more powerful Fury Skills such as Hammer of the Ancients.

Many Barbarian talents also improve Fury generation in various ways.

Unique Barbarian Class Mechanic

The primary unique class mechanic of the Barbarian is the Arsenal System, which is unlocked upon reaching level 5. The Arsenal System allows the Barbarian to equip four weapons at once and to assign specific weapons to specific skills. This causes the Barbarian to automatically swap to the appropriate weapon upon casting the skill to which it is assigned.

The Arsenal System also allows the Barbarian to grow more experienced with the different weapon classes as they are used in combat. Each weapon class starts at expertise level 1 and features a unique effect that improves linearly with every expertise level. Upon reaching the maximum expertise level of 10, a bonus effect is also unlocked. The following table lists the effects for each weapon class.

Secondary Barbarian Class Mechanics

Berserking

Berserking is a temporary positive effect that increases damage by 25% and movement speed by 30%. Being exclusive to the Barbarian, Berserking is featured prominently in many of their skills and talents.

Bleeding

Bleeding causes the target to take Physical damage over time. Many Barbarian skills and talents inflict or interact with Bleeding in various ways. Rupture is notable for consuming all instances of Bleeding on its targets to deal their total damage over time instantly.

Overpower

Overpower is a special effect that deals damage and scales with the Life and Fortified Life of the attacker. Overpower triggers when conditions linked to certain skills or talents are met. While not unique to the Barbarian, the class has a few ways to trigger Overpower, and their Strength attribute contributes to Overpower damage.

Shouts

The Barbarian retains its iconic ability to bellow mighty Shouts that provide powerful temporary effects to their party. This makes Barbarian particularly valuable in group play.

Thorns

Thorns inflict Physical damage to attackers when hit. The Barbarian can improve their Thorns through a number of skills and talents.

Vulnerable

Vulnerable is a temporary effect that increases the damage taken by the target by 20%. While Vulnerable is not uniquely available to the Barbarian, many of their skills and talents can reliably inflict it.

Barbarian Weapons and Restrictions

The Barbarian may dual wield one-handed weapons (Axes, Maces, Swords) and two-handed weapons (Axes, Maces, Polearms, Swords). The Arsenal System allows them to equip four weapons at once, whereas other classes may only equip two. The Barbarian does benefit from the stats of weapons that are equipped in those additional slots even if they are not currently holding them in their hands.

Barbarian Skills and Talents

This section provides an overview of the main skill categories for the Barbarian.

For a detailed list of all Barbarian skills and talents, refer to the pages below.

Barbarian Skills

Barbarian Talents

Barbarian Skill Categories

Basic Skills

Basic Skills are spammable skills whose primary purpose is to generate Fury for skills of the Core category. By virtue of being free and having no cooldown, they are also used to fill dead time while waiting for other, more powerful skills to be available.

The Basic Skills for the Barbarian are Bash, Flay, Lunging Strike, and Frenzy.

Core Skills

Core Skills are the main sources of damage of the Barbarian. Although they have no cooldown, the main limiting factor of Core Skills is their Fury cost.

The Core Skills for the Barbarian are Hammer of the Ancients, Rend, Upheaval, Double Swing, and Whirlwind.

Defensive Skills

Defensive Skills revolve around protecting the Barbarian and their allies through powerful protective effects or crowd control.

The Defensive Skills for the Barbarian are Challenging Shout, Ground Stomp, Iron Skin, and Rallying Cry.

Brawling Skills

Brawling Skills provide a wide array of utility, including mobility.

The Brawling Skills for the Barbarian are War Cry, Kick, Leap, and Charge.

Weapon Mastery Skills

Weapon Mastery Skills are situational but powerful offensive skills with a relatively long cooldown.

The Weapon Mastery Skills for the Barbarian are Rupture, Death Blow, and Steel Grasp.

Ultimate Skills

Ultimate Skills are extremely powerful skills with a cooldown to match. Their use is typically reserved for dispatching powerful enemies. Only one Ultimate Skill may be equipped at a time.

The Ultimate Skills for the Barbarian are Wrath of the Berserker, Iron Maelstrom, and Call of the Ancients.

Barbarian Skill Tags

In addition to the categories discussed above, Rallying Cry, Challenging Shout, and War Cry have an additional “Shout” skill tag.

Tags are used by other systems, such as items and Legendary Aspects, to improve specific subsets of skills and promote specialised builds.

Barbarian Dismount Skill

While mounted, the Barbarian has access to a unique Dismount Skill which causes the Barbarian to jump off their mount and slam into the ground, dealing damage to nearby enemies.

Barbarian Attributes

The four core attributes provide benefits that are shared by all of the classes as well as secondary class-specific effects in most cases.

Strength

Each point of Strength provides 1 Armor. Armor reduces all damage taken by a percentage, but is only half as effective against non-Physical damage as it is against Physical damage. The calculations to translate Armor into damage reduction is not yet known. Armor provides less damage reduction in PvP than in PvE.

For the Barbarian only, each point of Strength also increases damage by 0.1%.

Intelligence

Each point of Intelligence increases All Resistances by 0.05%. All Resistances reduce non-Physical damage taken (Fire, Cold, Lightning, Poison, Shadow) by 50% of the percentage, reduced to 35% in PvP.

Intelligence has no additional effect for the Barbarian.

Willpower

Each point of Willpower increases Resource Generation and Healing Received by 0.1%.

For the Barbarian only, each point of Willpower also increases Overpower damage by 0.1%.

Dexterity

Each point of Dexterity increases Dodge Chance by 0.025%. Dodging an attack completely ignores its damage and associated harmful effects, such as Stun.

For the Barbarian only, each point of Dexterity also increases Critical Strike Chance by 0.02%.

Barbarian Legendary Aspects

Legendary Aspects represent Legendary Powers that can be imprinted onto items to improve them with powerful and unique effects. Certain Legendary Aspects are available to all classes, whereas others are specific to a single class.

This section lists the known Legendary Aspects that are specific to the Barbarian, arranged by category.

Defensive Barbarian Legendary Aspects

Defensive Legendary Aspects can only be imprinted onto the following item types: Helm, Chest Armor, Pants, and Amulet.

Legendary Aspect Name	Legendary Aspect Power
Bul-Kathos	Leap creates an Earthquake that deals 156 Physical damage over 4 seconds. While standing in Earthquakes, you gain 5% increased Damage Reduction.
Numbing Wrath	Each point of Fury generated while at maximum Fury grant 1.2 Fortify.
Tempering Blows	After Swapping Weapons 6 times, gain 44 Fortify.
Iron Warrior	Iron Skin also makes you Unstoppable.

Offensive Barbarian Legendary Aspects

Offensive Legendary Aspects can only be imprinted onto the following item types: Gloves, Ring, Amulet, and Weapon.

Legendary Aspect Name	Legendary Aspect Power
Ancestral Echoes	Lucky Hit: Damaging enemies with Leap, Upheaval, or Whirlwind has up to a 40% chance to summon an Ancient to perform the same Skill. Can only happen once every 5 seconds.
Ancestral Force	Hammer of the Ancients quakes outwards, dealing 32% of its damage to enemies.
Berserk Ripping	Whenever you deal direct damage while Berserking, inflict 22% if the base damage dealt as additional Bleeding damage over 5 seconds.
Brawler’s	Enemies damaged by Kick or Charge will explode if they are killed within the next 2 seconds, dealing 400 damage to nearby enemies
Death Wish	Gain 44 Thorns while Berserking.
Quickening Pulse	Lucky Strike: Up to a 20% chance to reduce the Cooldowns of your non-Ultimate Skills by 1.5 seconds when you inflict Bleeding on Elites
The Dire Whirlwind	Whirlwind’s Critical Strike Chance is increased by 5% for each second it is channeled, up to 20%.
Veteran Brawler	Each time a Core Skill deals direct damage to an enemy, your next Charge or Leap deals x15% increased damage, up to 225%.
Windstriker	After swapping weapons six times, gain +20% increased Attack Speed for 4 seconds.

Resource Barbarian Legendary Aspects

Resource Legendary Aspects can only be imprinted onto the following item types: Helm, Ring, and Amulet.

Utility Barbarian Legendary Aspects

Utility Legendary Aspects can only be imprinted onto the following item types: Helm, Chest Armor, Boots, Gloves, and Amulet.

Mobility Barbarian Legendary Aspects

Mobility Legendary Aspects can only be imprinted onto the following item types: Boots and Amulet.

Legendary Aspect Name	Legendary Aspect Power
Perpetual Stomping	Damaging an enemy with Kick or Ground Stomp resets Leap‘s Cooldown.

Barbarian Unique Items

Only one Barbarian Unique Item has been revealed so far.

The Butcher’s Cleaver (Unique One-Handed Axe)

• 2.0 – 4.5% Attack Speed
• +6.5 – 11.5% Damage to Healthy Enemies
• +4.5 – 7.5% Damage While Healthy
• Lucky Hit: 5% Chance to heal 35 – 57
• Immobilize your target for [1.0-3.0] seconds when you Critically Strike.

“A nightmarish amalgam of blood, bone, and steel, this axe is as horrific, and as deadly, as its creator.”