Upheaval Barbarian Endgame Build Guide for Diablo 4 (Season 5)

Build Introduction

Welcome to the guide for the Upheaval Barbarian! Sunder the earth beneath your enemy’s feet and crush demons with rocks from half a screen away. This build will sear the flesh off your enemies with blazing heat and magma, making an enjoyable playstyle for Barbarian enthusiasts.

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

Optional Uniques

Hellhammer

Tuskhelm of Joritz the Mighty

Banished Lord’s Talisman

Ring of Red Furor

Required Aspects (Non-codex)

Aspect of Sundered Ground

Skill Tree Points and Skill Bar

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

Upheaval Whirlwind Wrath of the Berserker Lunging Strike Rallying Cry War Cry

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.

Weapon Technique and Weapon Selection

For the Upheaval build, we will be focused using the Technique of Two-Handed Axes for the bonus damage to Vulnerable enemies.

Barbarians have an unique mechanic in Diablo 4 where you can assign a weapon type to certain skills. For this build, we will be assigning the following weapons to our skills:

• Upheaval – Your 2-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon ideally, your Hellhammer.
• Lunging Strike – Your Dual-Wield Weapons ideally one of which is a mace to benefit from Wallop.
• Whirlwind – Your 2-Handed Slashing Weapon ideally a polearm for its implicit benefit.

Paragon Board

We recommend using these Legendary Nodes and Rare Glyphs to truly take this build into the endgame and further into The Pit. Note that each glyph’s effect is listed as it were a max-level 21 Glyph.

Starting Board

Warbringer

Rotate this board three times before attaching.

Carnage

Rotate this board twice before attaching

Blood Rage

We will connect this board to the Northern side of Carnage. Do not rotate this board.

Bone Breaker

We connect this board to the eastern gate of the Blood Rage board. Rotate this board twice before attaching

Decimator

We will connect the next board to the Eastern side of Carnage. Do not rotate this board when attaching it.

Weapons Master

We will attach this board to the Southern side of Carnage. Rotate this board three times before attaching.

To view the entire paragon board in full CLICK HERE

Legendary Aspects and Codex Power

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	Aspect/Unique	Aspect / Unique Power
Helm	Royal Ruby	Tuskhelm of Joritz the Mighty	– When you gain Berserking while already Berserk, you have a [40-60%] chance to become more enraged granting x15% increased damage, 2 Fury per second, and 10% Cooldown reduction
Chest	Royal Ruby	Iron Blood Aspect	– Gain [2-5%] Damage Reduction for each nearby Bleeding enemy up to [10-25%] maximum
Gloves	N/A	Aspect of Sundered Ground	– Every 20 seconds, your next Upheaval cast is guaranteed to Overpower and deals [15-30%] increased damage. Critical Strikes with Upheaval against Elites reduce this timer by 1 second.
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	Relentless Berserker’s Aspect	– Lucky Hit: Damaging an enemy with a Core Skill has up to a [22-40%] chance to extend the duration of Berserking by 2 seconds. Double this duration if it was a Critical Strike
Amulet	Royal Diamond	Banished Lord’s Talisman	– After you spend 275 of your Primary Resource, your next Core Skill is guaranteed to Overpower. Your critical strikes that Overpower deal [20-60%] increased damage.
Ring 1	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
Ring 2	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
2-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon	Royal Ruby	Hellhammer	– Upheaval ignites the ground, Burning enemies for an additional [X] damage over 3 seconds
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	Earthstriker’s Aspect	– After swapping weapons 8 times, your next Non-Basic Skill will Overpower and deal [15-30%] increased Overpower damage
Dual Wield Weapon 2	Royal Ruby	Aspect of Inner Calm	– Deal [5-10%] increased damage. Triple this bonus after standing still for 3 seconds.

Gems

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

Weapon Gems	Armor Gems	Jewelry Gems
Royal Ruby for bonus 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 for a specific type such as Royal Sapphire to ensure all of your resistances are capped at 70%

Elixirs

When in town you can visit the Alchemist to craft helpful elixirs which will provide a special effect and increase your experience gain. Crafting has been simplified in Patch 1.4.0, and there are fewer specific flowers to harvest; instead, almost all herbs in the world drop as Bundles of Dried Herbs, allowing you to craft the Elixirs you want. Some Elixirs cannot be crafted and only drop from things like Helltides or Nightmare Dungeons. 

For this Upheaval build, we recommend Elixir of Advantage for the increased attack speed to spam more Upheaval ‘s at our foes. Craft the highest value Elixir of Advantage you can to get the most attack speed possible.

Gear, Stats, Tempering and Masterworking

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	Tempers
Helm	1. Maximum Life 2. Cooldown Reduction 3. Needed Resistance	1. Maximum Life Worldly Endurance 2. Lucky Hit: Chance to Immobilize on Hit for 2 Seconds Worldly Fortune
Chest	1. Maximum Life 2. Strength 3. Needed Resistance	1. Maximum Life Worldly Endurance 2. Lucky Hit: Chance to Freeze on Hit for 2 Seconds Worldly Fortune
Gloves	1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Lucky Hit Chance 3. Attack Speed	1. Crowd Control Duration Natural Schemes 2. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse
Pants	1. Maximum Life 2. Strength. 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. Strength 3. Ranks to Counteroffensive	1. War Cry Cooldown Reduction Brawling Efficiency 2. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse
Rings	1. Attack Speed 2. Strength 3. Lucky Hit: Chance to make enemies Vulnerable	1. War Cry Cooldown Reduction Brawling Efficiency 2. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse
Two-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon	1. Fury on Kill 2. Strength 3. Maximum Life	1. Upheaval Size Furious Augments 2. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse
Two-Handed Slashing Weapon	1. Fury on Kill 2. Strength 3. Maximum Life	1. Upheaval Size Furious Augments 2. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse
Dual-Wield Weapons	1. Critical Strike Damage 2. Strength 3. Maximum Life	1. Whirlwind Size Berserking Augments 2. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse

Rotation and Playstyle

Let’s examine our skills and how we’ll use them to carve a path through the demonic hordes in our way

• Engage with Lunging Strike
• Generate Fury through your Rallying Cry and Lunging Strike
• Spend Fury with Whirlwind and alternate between Lunging Strike and Whirlwind to proc various Weapon Swap effects from Paragon, Talents and Aspects in order to build huge overpowering Upheaval slams
• Use Wrath of the Berserker against bosses and tough elites

Unique Items

Here you will find the uniques useful to this build. Let’s dive in!

• Tibault’s Will – A strong offensive option for our pants slot. You will be a bit squishier losing Aspect of Bul-Kathos but your damage will improve a lot.
• Ring of Red Furor – A powerful ring that allows our Upheavals to hit huge overpowers. This will replace the ring using Bold Chieftain’s Aspect once you acquire it.
• Hellhammer – The mace build just for Upheaval. Adding ranks to it and leaving burning ground and providing a rare damage reduction affix on your weapon.
• Banished Lord’s Talisman – Even with the nerfs to this item in Patch 1.4.0 it is still worth using here to ensure more Upheaval overpowers for big damage
• Tuskhelm of Joritz the Mighty – A powerful helm rivaling even the infamous “Shako” in terms of its power for certain Barbarian builds. As often as we’re able to trigger Berserking through our shouts, Wrath of the Berserker this provides a large bonus to our sustain resources and strikes.

Mythic Uniques

If you are fortunate enough to acquire some mythic uniques, they can be very useful to this build. If a mythic unique is NOT listed, it does not provide anything meaningful for this build and is not used.

• Harlequin Crest – The most famous helm in all of Diablo 4. This will replace your Tuskhelm of Joritz the Mighty if you’re lucky enough to find one. With its newly buffed cooldown reduction your shouts should have incredible uptime allowing you to churn through your weapon swaps and resources with ease for savage upheavals.
• The Grandfather – An extremely powerful two-handed slashing weapon that provides a massive increase to your damage causing your Upheavals to crunch demons to dust.
• Ring of Starless Skies – A ring that gives us potent damage and resource management. If you’re fortunate enough to find one, you will wear it alongside Ring of Red Furor and drop both ring aspects entirely.
• Tyrael’s Might – An extremely potent chest that was buffed midway through Season 4. With its revamp in Season 5, it proves once again to have more defensive value than any other chest you may find, while also granting some damage through divine bolt procs. This is a great pick-up if you’re lucky enough to find one.

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.

• Upheaval‘s damage increased by 15%
• Enhanced Upheaval ‘s stun chance increased from 20% to 35%, stun duration increased from 2.5 seconds to 3 seconds
• Violent Upheaval ‘s base berserking duration increased from 2 to 3 seconds, and bonus duration increased from 3 to 5 seconds.
• Imposing Presence ‘s health bonus reduced from 6/12/18% to 5/10/15%
• Unbridled Rage ‘s damage bonus reduced from 100% to 45%
• Aspect of Sundered Ground now triggers every 20 seconds instead of every 25 and adds a cooldown reduction effect for critical strikes against elites, lowering the time between overpowers by 1 second per critical hit on elites.

Advanced Information

Mechanics and Playstyle

This build uses Lunging Strike for mobility and to get around as well as swapping to our other weapon so that when we then use our Upheaval we’re swapping weapons for Earthstriker’s Aspect to get more overpowers. The tempers will allow us to be farther away from other enemies than before. We want to guarantee as many Overpowers for our Upheaval as possible. Spending resources will charge up our Ring of Red Furor so we get guaranteed critical hits and then smash for big damage.

Berserking

Berserking is a way for us to gain damage, damage reduction, and resource generation, and is something we will be able to maintain an extremely high uptime. Always keep in mind, that if you need to enter the Berserking state you can trigger it on demand via Wrath of the Berserker, which is our Ultimate Skill of choice.

Defensive Aspects

Upheaval is in a unique position to have some damage reduction as an affix as well on our weapon of choice the Hellhammer as we will gain damage reduction against the enemies it burns. Defensiveness is harder to come by in Patch 1.4.0 so this is much appreciated. We use defensive layers with berserking triggered by our shouts and upheaval strikes to maintain our tankiness.

Paragon Details

Rare Glyphs and Legendary Nodes	Effect
Exploit	– For every 5 Dexterity purchased within range, you deal + [8%] increased damage to Vulnerable targets – Additional bonus once 25 Dexterity has been purchased within the glyph’s radius: When an enemy is damaged by you, they become Vulnerable for 3 seconds. This cannot happen more than once every 20 seconds per enemy
Crusher	– For every 5 Strength purchased within range, you deal + [5.3%] increased damage while wielding a mace – Additional bonus once 40 Strength has been purchased within the glyph’s radius: While wielding a mace, you deal x20% increased Overpower damage
Ire	– For every 5 Strength purchased within range, you deal + [5.3%] increased damage while Berserking – Additional bonus once 40 Strength has been purchased within the glyph’s radius: While Berserking, you take 10% reduced damage from Elites
Marshal	– Grants + [125%] bonus to all Magic Nodes within range – Additional bonus once 40 Strength has been purchased within the glyph’s radius: After casting a Shout Skill, the active Cooldown of every other Non-Shout Skill is reduced by 2 seconds.
Dominate	– For every 5 Willpower purchased within range, you deal + [14.85%] increased Overpower damage – Additional bonus after 25 Willpower has been purchased within the glyph’s radius: Every 20 seconds, your next attack will Overpower
Warbringer	– For every 75 Fury you spend, gain 15% of your Maximum Life as Fortify
Carnage	– While Berserking, Critical Strikes increase your Attack Speed by 2%, up to +16% for 6 seconds
Decimator	– Each time you make enemy Vulnerable, your damage is increased by 10% for 5 seconds. Overpowering a Vulnerable enemy grants an additional x10% bonus for 5 seconds
Blood Rage	– Killing a Bleeding enemy has a 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%
Bone Breaker	– Every 12 seconds, your next Skill is guaranteed to Overpower
Weapons Master	– Swapping Weapons grants you 8% of your Maximum Fury

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, so 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 below.
• 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 start by going left and grabbing Tenacity on our way up the board.
2. We head right for the glyph socket and slot in Exploit and begin grabbing the Dexterity nodes as well as the rare node in its radius Iron Strength.
3. We complete the board by heading up the right side and connecting Warbringer.

Warbringer

1. We start by swinging left and grabbing Hungering Fury and some Magic Fury nodes around it for resource.
2. We then circle up and grab the legendary node Warbringer.
3. Next we head back right and grab the socket, slotting in Crusher and picking up the nearby strength nodes including Conditioned.
4. Lastly we head out and connect the Carnage board to the eastern gate.

Carnage

1. The most complex and central board to many Barbarian builds, we start by rushing to glyph socket and slotting it Ire.
2. We grab the two rare nodes in the radius Brash and Fierce.
3. Next we’ll head south and pick up the legendary node Carnage and then continue south to the southern gate where we’ll connect the Weapons Master Board. Once the Weapons Master board is finished, return to the Carnage Board.
4. After returning, head north from the glyph socket and grab Enraged and the three magic nodes in front of it. Head out of the northern gate and connect the Blood Rage Board to it. Once finished with Blood Rage and Bone Breaker, we’ll return to the Carnage Board for a final time.
5. From the Legendary Node, head right and grab Berserker and the surrounding magic nodes. Finally connect the Decimator board to the eastern gate and at long last we’re done with this complex central board.

Weapons Master

1. A fairly straightforward board. We start by heading south and picking up Denial.
2. We finish this board off by grabbing the namesake legendary node Weapons Master which should help our fury sustain significantly. We head back to the Carnage Board after this.

Blood Rage

1. We begin by heading straight up and rushing to the glyph socket while grabbing Revel on the path.
2. With the glyph socket unlocked, slot in Marshal and start grabbing the strength nodes around it to activate its secondary effects. We head up and grab Grit and exit the radius to the north.
3. We make our way to the board’s namesake, the Legendary node Blood Rage.
4. We make the next stop to the top left of the board and grab Enraged and a cluster of Magic nodes nearby to enhance both our Berserk duration and damage while berserking.
5. Lastly we take a small detour to the north and unlock Restorative and a few life increasing magic nodes. Then we connect the eastern gate and attach the Bone Breaker board.

Bone Breaker

1. Another straightforward board, we simply head straight south and snag Bulwark.
2. We finish the board off by continuing down from Bulwark and grabbing the legendary node Bone Breaker. Once we’re done here, head back to the Carnage board.

Decimator

1. Instantly rush the glyph socket and pick it up slotting in Dominate.
2. Grab the rare node Arrogance and the nearby magic nodes.
3. We complete our paragon journey by heading south and unlocking our final legendary node, Decimator.

Obol Gambling

A final point on acquiring gear in Season 5 and beyond 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. With Patch 1.4.0 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 and Patch 1.5.0
• May 5th, 2024: Ownership of page transferred, guide restructured and updated for season 4
• February 5th 2024: Changed Marshal Glyph to Disembowel.
• January 30th 2024: Marshal Glyph changes.
• January 21st 2024: Season 3 speculative changes.
• October 22th 2023: Build revamped for Season 2.
• October 13th 2023: Build Adjusted to prepare for Season 2 launch.
• August 12th 2023: Full build update and review for Season 1.
• August 8th 2023: Added notes about Patch 1.1.1.
• August 5th 2023: Malignant Hearts and Paragon updated for clarity.
• July 23rd, 2023: Adjusted Aspects for performance in Season 1.
• July 19th, 2023: Season of the Malignant section added.
• July 18th, 2023: Reviewed and altered build with Season One Patch Notes.