Death Blow Barbarian Endgame Build Guide for Diablo 4 (Season 5)

Build Introduction

This is your comprehensive guide to building the Death Blow Barbarian! A powerful execution-style skill that deals huge damage, costs no resources, and brings down any demon in your path. This build requires a bit of setup to get the most out of your Death Blow, but brings the reward of extremely high damage, and the ability to nearly one-shot most enemies, even bosses, that dare stand in your way.

Strengths and Weaknesses

To see how this build compares to the other builds on our site, you can check out our build tier lists.

Build Requirements

Required Uniques

Overkill

Ring of Red Furor

Tibault’s Will

Required Aspects (Non-codex)

Aspect of Encroaching Wrath

Skill Bar and Skill Points

Skill Bar Setup for the Death Blow Build (Order does not matter)

Death Blow War Cry Rallying Cry Whirlwind Iron Skin Challenging Shout

Follow the points allocated in the image above for the complete 58-point build. The additional 10 skill points are completed using the Renown system.

Arsenal System and Weapon Selection

For this build, we be choosing Two-Handed Axe for our Technique due to its increase in damage to Vulnerable enemies.

Barbarians have a unique mechanic where they can assign specific weapons to specific skills. We want to assign Death Blow to the Highest DPS 2-Handed Weapon we have. We want to assign Whirlwind to our Dual-Wield Weapons so we can trigger some weapon swaps between it and Death Blow for certain aspect powers and paragon nodes.

Paragon Board

We recommend using the following Legendary nodes and Rare Glyphs to truly take this build into the endgame. Note that each Rare Glyph’s information and radius listed below is for the Level 21 version.

Starting Board

Warbringer

Rotate this board three times before attaching it.

Carnage

Rotate this board twice before attaching it.

Blood Rage

Attach Blood Rage to the Northern gate of the Carnage Board. Do not rotate this board.

Decimator

Attach Decimator to the Western Gate of Carnage. Rotate this board three times before attaching it.

Weapons Master

Attach this board to the southern gate of the Carnage board. Rotate this board three times before attaching it.

To view the paragon boards in their entirety, CLICK HERE!

Gear, Gems, Elixirs, and Stats

The Season of Loot Reborn brought us an incredible shift in how gear and itemization are done. It is major and will affect the game beyond Season 4’s confines. For further details, make sure to read our Tempering and Masterworking section below.

Legendary Aspects

Below you will find all of the best-in-slot Aspects found on Legendary items that are important for this build. Remember that with Patch 1.4.0 all Legendary powers can be added into your Codex once you salvage or extract the item. You can still find some aspects through dungeons as you could in previous seasons but now you have the option to upgrade these affixes if you find a higher roll of that affix. Let us go over what aspects you will need.

Slot	Gems	Legendary Aspect / Unique	Aspect / Unique Effect
Helm	Royal Ruby	Aspect of Concussive Strikes	– Lucky Hit: Damaging an enemy has up to a 20% chance to Daze them for 2 seconds. You deal x[5-20%] increased damage to Dazed Enemies
Chest	Royal Ruby	Aspect of the Iron Warrior	– Iron Skin grants Unstoppable and [25-35%] damage reduction.
Gloves	N/A	Edgemaster’s Aspect	– Skills deal up to [5-20%] increased damage based on your available Primary Resource when you cast, receiving the maximum benefit while you have full primary resource
Pants	Royal Ruby	Tibault’s Will	– You deal [10-20%] increased damage while Unstoppable and for 5 seconds after. When you become Unstoppable, gain 50 of your Primary Resource
Boots	N/A	Rakanoth’s Wake Alternative: Ghostwalker Aspect	– When you cast a skill with a Cooldown, you explode dealing [X] Fire damage.
Amulet	Royal Diamond	Aspect of Encroaching Wrath	– After spending 100 Fury, your next Weapon Mastery skill within 5 seconds deals [40-70%] increased damage
Ring 1	Royal Diamond	Bold Chieftain’s Aspect	– Whenever you cast a Shout Skill, its Cooldown is reduced by [1.0-2.0] seconds per nearby enemy up to a maximum of 6 seconds.
Ring 2	Royal Diamond	Ring of Red Furor	– After spending 100 Fury within 3 seconds, your next cast of Hammer of the Ancients, Upheaval, or Death Blow within 5 seconds is a guaranteed Critical Strike and deals [10-30%] bonus Critical Strike Damage
2-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon	Royal Ruby	Overkill	– Death Blow creates a shockwave dealing [25-45%] of its base damage to enemies. Enemies who die to this effect also reset Death Blow‘s cooldown.
2-Handed Slashing Weapon	Royal Ruby	Accelerating Aspect	– Critical Strikes with Core Skills increase your Attack Speed by [10-25%] for 5 seconds.
Dual Wield Weapon 1	Royal Ruby	The Third Blade	– Your Weapon Mastery skills are now also Core Skills that have no Cooldown but cost Fury, dealing [50-70%] of normal damage. Their fury costs are reduced by 5 for any additional charges the skill would have had.
Dual Wield Weapon 2	Royal Ruby	Aspect of Elements	– Gain + [20-30%] increased damage to a set of two types for 7 seconds. This effect alternates between 2 sets: Fire, Lightning, and Physical. Cold, Poison, and Shadow

Gems

Listed below are the best gems to socket into gear for each slot type.

Weapon Gems	Armor Gems	Jewelry Gems
Royal Ruby for increased Overpower damage	Royal Ruby for increased maximum life	Royal Diamond for all resistances

For your jewelry, it may be necessary to change the Royal Diamond for another gem of a specific type such as Royal Sapphire to ensure all of your resistances are capped at 70%

Which Elixir Should You Use?

Visit the Alchemist in any main town to craft helpful Elixirs that increase stats, and experience gain for 30 minutes. Make sure to forage plants and pick up the necessary crafting materials during your adventures; they randomly spawn around the world. Use Elixir of Advantage at the highest level you can craft due to its increase to your attack speed.

Return to the Alchemist again when you reach Level 20, 30, 45, 60, 70, 80, and 90, to upgrade your potion. The extra healing is essential to survival.

Stat Priority and Tempering Affixes

Below are the affixes to prioritize on gear. Each line of affixes is listed in order of importance. Tempering Manuals and their recommended affixes are provided in the second column, and the bolded yellow affixes are the most important targets for Masterworking upgrades. To masterwork, you will need rare materials that only drop from The Pit. Be sure to check our Tempering guide, our Masterworking guide, as well as our guide about The Pit for more details about these topics.

Slot	Gear Affixes	Tempering Affixes
Helm	1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Strength 3. Ranks to Death Blow	1. Maximum Life Worldly Endurance 2. Crowd Control Duration Natural Schemes
Chest	1. Strength 2. Armor 3. Needed Resistance	1. Iron Skin Cooldown Reduction Barbarian Strategy 2. Crowd Control Duration Natural Schemes
Gloves	1. Strength 2. Attack Speed 3. Ranks to Core Skills	1. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse 2. Crowd Control Duration Natural Schemes
Pants	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Needed Resistance	1. Maximum Life Worldly Endurance 2. Crowd Control Duration Natural Schemes
Boots	1. Movement Speed 2. Strength 3. Fury Per Second	1. Movement Speed Natural Motion 2. Crowd Control Duration Natural Schemes
Amulet	1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Maximum Life 3. Fury On Kill	1. Death Blow Damage Demolition Finesse 2. War Cry Cooldown Reduction Brawling Efficiency
Rings	1. Strength 2. Attack Speed 3. Fury On Kill	1. Death Blow Damage Demolition Finesse 2. War Cry Cooldown Reduction Brawling Efficiency
2-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon	1. Strength 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Maximum Life	1. Death Blow Damage Demolition Finesse 2. Critical Strike Damage – Worldly Finesse
2-Handed Slashing Weapon	1. Strength 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Maximum Life	1. Death Blow Damage Demolition Finesse 2. Critical Strike Damage – Worldly Finesse
Dual-Wield Weapon 1	1. Strength 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Maximum Life	1. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse 2. Critical Strike Damage – Worldly Finesse
Dual-Wield Weapon 2	1. Strength 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Maximum Life	1. Death Blow Damage Demolition Finesse 2. Critical Strike Damage – Worldly Finesse

Rotation and Playstyle

This is a setu- based build to get the most out of Death Blow in order to cut down demons in our path. Let’s review our skills and where we’re using them.

• Use Rallying Cry and War Cry to generate resources and for their buffs
• Cast Whirlwind to move between packs of enemies and use its passability to move through any obstacles or clumps
• Spam Death Blow as often as possible with our new Third Blade
• Use Iron Skin and Challenging Shout to survive

Uniques and Mythic Uniques

Below you will find information on Uniques and Mythic Uniques that are useful for this build. Moreover, if you are interested in target farming Mythic Uniques, check out our How to Farm Mythic Uniques guide.

Unique Items

Below, you will find the unique items useful to this build.

• The Third Blade – A new unique introduced in Season 5. This makes Death Blow spammable by making it cost Fury instead of having a Cooldown. This finally allows us to have a true Death Blow build viable in the end-game. A must have for this setup.
• Tibault’s Will – Despite the nerfs in the previous season, Patch 1.4.0, these pants remain powerful with a large bonus to our damage. Additionally, they come with a damage reduction affix.
• Overkill – A core item for this build. Almost a MUST HAVE. It adds a shockwave to our Death Blow as well as providing ranks to it and tons of damage allowing us to reset it much easier.
• Ring of Red Furor – A powerful ring to help us guarantee overpowers for our Death Blow so we can ensure we kill with it.
• Rakanoth’s Wake – A new set of boots introduced in season 5. They have good stats and provide some extra damage whenever we use skills with cooldowns which is all of our shouts and our Iron Skin.

Mythic Uniques

Here you will find the mythic unique items that are useful to this build. If a mythic unique is NOT listed here, it is not useful to this build and does not provide any meaningful increase or effect.

• The Grandfather – The most powerful two-handed sword in the game. If you find yourself lucky enough to grab this legendary item, equip it replacing Accelerating Aspect. The massive bonus to your critical hits will make your Death Blow a force to be reckoned with
• Harlequin Crest – The infamous “shako” helm that provides a large damage reduction and +4 to all skill ranks. New in season 5 is a simply titanic amount of cooldown reduction with the unique rebalance in patch 1.5.0. If you’re lucky enough to grab one, replace your helm with it without a second thought

Season 5: Season of the Infernal Hordes

The biggest new activity in Season 5 is, of course, the titular Infernal Hordes. A new endgame activity where you can earn powerful rewards for surviving waves of enemies and defeating a new boss, The Fell Council, at the end of these waves. There will also be a reputation to be gained with the season which provides numerous rewards and even a Resplendent Spark at maximum reputation! Below, you will find the changes in Patch 1.5.0 that affect this build.

• Enhanced Iron Skin ‘s barrier amount increased from 20% to 25% of maximum life
• Tactical Challenging Shout ‘s fury generation when taking damage increased from 3 to 6
• Imposing Presence‘s increase to health reduced from 6/12/18% to 5/10/15%
• Unbridled Rage ‘s damage bonus reduced from 100% to 45%

Advanced Information

Below, you will find every additional piece of information you need to know for a more in-depth look at this build.

Build Mechanics

This build has shifted a lot with Patch 1.5.0 and instead of requiring a ton of swapping around for not a lot of gain, thanks to The Third Blade we can now spam Death Blow to our heart’s content as if it were a Core skill. This has simplified the gameplay a lot. We still want to spend a lot of Fury to proc Aspect of Encroaching Wrath and that’s where Whirlwind comes in as we move between packs.

For survival, we want to be popping Iron Skin as often as possible as well as Challenging Shout whenever we’re surrounded. The new buffs to Tactical Challenging Shout should provide us with much more Fury sustain than previous patches and allow us to really keep spamming our Death Blow.

Whereas before the Death Blow Barbarian relied a lot on weapon swaps and guaranteed overpowers we can now play this similar to a HotA Barb where Overpowers and crits can be guaranteed through items but we no longer have to hold the build’s namesake skill until we hit the perfect setup, we can just keep smashing away with it and thanks to Overkill and the buffs it received for patch 1.5.0 we can slam groups down with it and just keep tearing through the hordes of hell with no problems.

Paragon

We recommend using these Legendary nodes and Rare Glyphs to truly take this build into the endgame. Note that each Rare Glyph’s information listed below is for the Level 21 version.

Rare Glyphs and Legendary Nodes	Effects
Exploit	– For every 5 Dexterity purchased within range, you deal + [8%] increased damage to Vulnerable targets. – Additional Bonus once 25 Dexterity points are purchased within the glyph’s range: When an enemy is damaged by you, they become Vulnerable for 3 seconds. This cannot happen more than once every 20 seconds per enemy.
Wrath	– For every 5 Dexterity purchased within range, you deal + [15%] increased Critical Strike Damage – Additional Bonus once 25 Dexterity points are purchased within the glyph’s range: Skills that Critically Strike generate 3 Fury
Ire	– For every 5 Strength purchased within range, you deal + [5.3%] increased damage while Berserking – Additional Bonus once 40 Strength points are purchased within the glyph’s range: While Berserking, you take 10% reduced damage from Elites
Marshal	– Grants a + [125%] bonus to all magic nodes within range – Additional Bonus once 40 Strength points are purchased within the glyph’s range: After casting a Shout Skill, the active cooldown of every other non-shout skill is reduced by 2 seconds.
Might	– Grants + [125%] bonus to all Magic Nodes within range – Additional Bonus once 40 Strength points are purchased within the glyph’s range: You deal x8% increased damage while wielding Two-Handed Weapons
Carnage	– While Berserking, Critical Strikes increase your Attack Speed +2%, up to +16% for 6 seconds
Blood Rage	– Killing a Bleeding enemy has 10% chance to grant Berserking for 5 seconds. Your damage is increased by x10% of your Damage While Berserking bonus, up to a maximum of x30%
Decimator	– Each time you make an enemy Vulnerable, your damage is increased by 10% for 5 seconds. Overpowering a Vulnerable enemy grants an additional x10% bonus for 5 seconds
Weapons Master	– Swapping weapons grants you 8% of your Maximum Fury
Warbringer	– For every 75 Fury you spend, gain 15% of your Maximum Life as Fortify

Let’s break down each of these beneficial nodes and where our Paragon Points are positioned in each of the Paragon Boards we use. This part of the build is presented in order of importance. If you do not have enough Paragon Points for use in your Paragon Tree, just slowly work towards each step.

Important Notes

• Make sure you select the correct Legendary Boards and rotate them into the correct orientation to match the images shown above.
• Attach the boards in the order shown as bonus requirements of Rare Nodes increase with their placement order.
• Additional bonuses on Rare Glyphs may not be obtainable until they gain the increased radius at level 15.

Starting Board

1. We want to begin this journey by heading right and grabbing Brawn and some Magic nodes nearby.
2. Next step is going left and grabbing Tenacity and the surrounding Magic nodes, and then make our way up to the glyph socket.
3. Slot in Wrath and start grabbing the Dexterity nodes to activate the secondary effect.
4. Lastly we head up and out of the right side through Raw Power and then connect the Warbringer board at the top.

Warbringer

1. Begin by heading up and left and grabbing Hungering Fury and the surrounding magic nodes
2. Next head right and unlock the glyph socket, slotting in Exploit and grab the nearby dexterity nodes as well as Conditioned
3. Head up and take a detour left grabbing Core Reserve and the surrounding magic nodes
4. Continue left and down to head to the board’s namesake, and unlock Warbringer
5. Finally exit the board to the east and connect the Carnage board

Carnage

1. This is an important and central board for this build so we’ll be coming back to it multiple times as we make our journey. Start by heading in on the upper right path to the glyph socket.
2. Slot in Marshal and grab the surrounding magic nodes and the two rare nodes Brash and Fierce
3. Head north and grab Enraged and its three magic nodes nearby
4. Take a small detour south east and grab the board’s namesake node, the legendary Carnage
5. Connect the Blood Rage board to the Northern Gate. Return to this board once Blood Rage is complete.
6. Returning to this board, from the Carnage node, head right and grab Berserker and the surrounding magic nodes. Head out to the eastern gate and connect the Decimator board. When Decimator is finished, return to this board
7. Finally march south and unlock the southern gate, connect Weapons Master to this gate and at last you’ve finished this central board.

Blood Rage

1. Start by going straight north and take a small detour to grab Revel and then right to the glyph socket.
2. Slot in Might and then march north to Grit and out of the radius.
3. We take a left turn after heading north and make our way to the Legendary Node, Blood Rage.
4. Finally we head to the north west and grab Enraged and then return to the Carnage board

Decimator

1. Head in to the right and take the northern right path to the glyph socket.
2. Slot in Ire once it is unlocked.
3. Grab the necessary Strength nodes to unlock the secondary effect on our glyph and be sure to grab Arrogance and Demolish
4. Next we make our way right to the Legendary Node, Decimator
5. Finally we finish this board by taking a small trip north of Decimator to grab Restorative and a few life increasing magic nodes. Then return to the Carnage board.

Weapons Master

1. We only have a few points left so we’ll make the most of them here, head immediately south and grab Denial and the magic nodes along the way
2. We finish our Paragon Journey by heading right from Denial and grabbing the board’s legendary node Weapons Master

Obol Gambling

A final point on acquiring gear is using your Obols to target farm specific slots instead of randomly spending them on random drops. Similar to Kadala in Diablo 3, you can use Obol vendors in town to try and get what you’re missing. When a Level 100 Character spends Obols, all gear from that vendor will be 925 item power, the highest in the game, allowing you to fill out gear with the affixes or Legendary Aspects you need.

Check out our Obol Gambling Tool HERE!

Changelog

• August 4th, 2024: Guide updated for season 5.
• May 9th 2024: Ownership of page transferred, guide restructured, updated for season 4.
• January 30th 2024: Marshal Glyph changes.
• January 21st 2024: Season 3 speculative changes.
• November 13th, 2023: Build Revamp
• October 16th 2023: Build adjusted to prepare for Season 2 launch.
• August 12th 2023: Updated Build for Season 1.
• August 8th 2023: Added notes about Patch 1.1.1.
• August 5th 2023: Malignant Hearts and Paragon updated for clarity.
• July 19th, 2023: Season of the Malignant section added.