Barbarian Build: Death Blow

Welcome to our Diablo 4 Barbarian build guide focused around Death Blow.

If you're looking for a build that excels at stacking mobs together to finish them with high burst damage, you've come to the right place.

With the right Aspects, don't be surprised if it rises to be an S-tier build shortly after launch.

Be sure to also check out our Barbarian class overview or leveling guide!

The Spiritborn class is set to join Diablo 4 in the Vessel of Hatred expansion. Dive into our Spiritborn guide for a sneak peek.

This guide was written by Ruse_Cruize.

TLDR: Make big groups of mobs and blast them with massive AOE damage with Death Blow while bringing the best utility in the game for your team.

Overall, your goal with this build is to get large groups of enemies on top of Elites so that you can spam Death Blow and constantly reset its cooldown. To achieve this you will use Rallying Cry to quickly move and generate loads of Fury. You then use that Fury on Whirlwind, which will allow you to move through mobs and also drag them with you.

You want to create a situation where every time Death Blow is off cooldown you can do a lot of damage with it, and while it's on cooldown you want to be making these groups.

Your Whirlwind also serves the purpose of spending Fury to build up your Aspect of Encroaching Wrath, which makes your Death Blow do bonus damage after spending 100 Fury. Make sure that you abuse this Aspect as much as you can, as your ability to do damage is heavily limited by Death Blow’s Cooldown.

Defensively the main things you need to focus on are keeping up Challenging Shout and Frenzy. In this build, you should aim to have enough CDR to keep 100% uptime on Challenging Shout, which is just an absurd tankiness buff. I believe that this build, like most Barbarian builds, will probably be one of the tankiest builds in the game.

It’s important to keep track of a few buffs with this build, and there is a bit of maintenance you have to do. You need to make sure to keep up Frenzy, all of your Shouts, and Walking Arsenal. Walking Arsenal is particularly important to keep up as it gives a massive damage multiplier, and you want to make sure that it's always at 3 stacks before you Death Blow.

Remember that this build is all about getting the most value possible out of each Death Blow usage. When you’re clearing with this setup, always put thought into where you are going to spend each Death Blow and do what you can to optimize its value.

1. Use Rallying Cry and Challenging Shout to stack up mobs with Whirlwind while also stacking your Aspect of Encroaching Wrath. You should aim to keep both of these Shouts up 100% of the time.
   
2. Pop War Cry and then use Death Blow until you go down to one charge. Always try to have War Cry running when you are going to use Death Blow.
   
3. While at one charge of Death Blow you need to be very aware of nearby enemies' health. If they are low enough that you can kill them with Death Blow without stacking Aspect of Encroaching Wrath, then you should use it. However if they have too much health then it is significantly better to stack your Aspect of Encroaching Wrath again before you use your last charge of Death Blow.
   
4. Make sure to always keep your Frenzy at maximum stats for the Damage Reduction. Also make sure to keep up Walking Arsenal by using Whirlwind, Frenzy, and Death Blow at least once every 6 seconds.

This build can be quite difficult to assemble as none of the legendary aspects it needs are in the Codex of Power. Death Blow also requires many uniques to work properly and those cannot be accessed until World Tier 2.

The most important Powers are Weapon Master's Aspect and Aspect of Encroaching Wrath, with Overkill being a bit behind those two. I would encourage you to run another build until you have at least 2/3 of those Aspects, and for leveling, I would recommend a different build entirely.

Arsenal

For our Weapon Expertise we want to take Two-Handed Axe Expertise. This represents a massive damage increase against vulnerable enemies, giving both 15% damage and 10% Crit Chance. Because of the Expose Vulnerability passive we are able to permanently make enemies vulnerable, giving us a great damage increase.

Aspects and Uniques

Image from d4planner

• Harlequin Crest
• Rage of Harrogath
• Aspect of Grasping Whirlwind
• Aspect of Might
• Weapon Master's Aspect
• Overkill
• Battle Trance
• Bold Chieftain's Aspect
• Aspect of Echoing Fury
• Aspect of Retribution
• Aspect of Berserk Ripping
• Aspect of Encroaching Wrath

Stat Priority

• Strength
• Damage to CC
• Damage to Close
• Damage Reduction from Close
• Crit Chance
• Crit Damage
• Health
• Resistances
• Cooldown Reduction

Gems

• Weapon - Emerald (Damage to Elites)
• Armor - Emeralds (% Life)
• Jewelry - Diamond (Resist All)

For the Paragon Board, none of the Legendary Nodes are that exciting. However, there are a lot of Rare Nodes that work well with this build. With that in mind, I recommend taking boards in this order:

1. Warbringer: This paragon board gives lots of tankiness, Fury Generation, and a little bit of damage. It's a great starting board as it can help solve almost any problem you are having with the build
2. Carnage: While the Legendary node won’t help you that much, the Rare Nodes on this tree are quite powerful. You are able to buff your Berserking, giving it higher Damage and Duration. This tree also has some damage mitigation if you feel like you need it.
3. Blood Rage: Again with Blood Rage the Legendary Node doesn’t do a lot for this build but this tree does have strong nodes, offering both high damage and high tankiness.

I suggest that you treat the Paragon Board as a way to solve whatever problem you are having with the build. You should choose your path based on what you’re missing, whether it be tankiness, damage, Fury, or Berserking uptime.

Thanks for reading our Diablo 4 Death Blow Barbarian build! For more, check out our other Diablo 4 builds here.