War Cry Barbarian Guide
Last Updated:February 12, 2025|Changelog
The War Cry Barbarian (or Singer Barbarian) decimates its foes with the raw power of his powerful warcry while being able to stack some of the highest Magic Find of any build in Diablo 2! With the incredible mobility of teleport granted by Enigma, and Crowd Control (CC) afforded by warcry this Barbarian can get into, and destroys every farming area in the game. Where it really shines is Elite Sniping and target farming specific Bosses. With massive Better Chance to Find Magic Items on the Weapon Swap and a high level finditem, this Barbarian build is only rivaled by even more niche Barbarian builds, as the best Magic Finder in the game!
The addition of grimward in Patch 2.4 provides an interesting tool for increasing DPS and breaking Physical Immunes!
This build guide assumes you have a Character at Level 75 before transitioning to it. It follows the progression of our Character Leveling Guide and our General Leveling Strategies to reach Level 75.
Easy Playstyle ✔
Incredible Survivability ✔
The Most Magic Find Possible ✔
Build Benefits Scale With Skill Level ✔
❌ Repetitive Playstyle
❌ Requires High APM For Efficiency
❌ Cannot Farm Act Bosses Efficiently
❌ Best In Slot Gear Is Difficult To Acquire
Sunder Charm Setup
Patch 2.5 introduces a new way of breaking Immunities: Sunder Charms. Any enemy that would be Immune to your damage type is insted reduced to 95% Resistance, before any other Resistance reductions apply. (e.g. Grimward, decrepify) The Charm also reduces YOUR Resistance against the sundered damage type! Check out our post on Sunder Charms to learn more about these new Charms. The following setup uses Bone Break, allowing you to farm anywhere you want.
Gear Changes
Bone Break drastically increases our Physical Damage against Immunes when used in combination with grimward and our mercenaries Decrepify. You don't need to worry about the Physical Damage Taken increase because every monster is Stunned and immobile while we clean up shop.
Terror Zones
The new Terror Zone mechanic combined with Sunder Charms open up a wide range of farmable areas. The following list highlights the best and worst Terror Zones for this build on the Starter or Budget setup. With the Sunder Charm Setup, more Terror Zones become accessible. Learn more about Terror Zones here and see how they stack up in our Terror Zone Tier List.
Best
✔ The Secret Cow Level - High Density, Easy Mobility, No Immunities
✔ Flayer Jungle ONLY - High Density, Easy Mobility, No Immunities
✔ Pit - High Density, Easy Mobility, Many Elite Groups
✔ Cold Plains + The Cave - High Density, Easy Mobility, Quick Access
✔ Frigid Highlands - Eldritch the Rectifier ONLY
Worst
❌ Tal Rasha's Tombs - Immunities, Slow Access, High Physical Damage, High Elemental Damage, Tanky enemies
❌ Worldstone Keep + Throne of Destruction - Immunities, Slow Access, High Elemental Damage, Tanky enemies
❌ Arcane Sanctuary - Trash Mobility, Immunities
❌ Act 2 Sewers - Trash Mobility, Immunities, Slow Access
❌ Durance of Hate - Trash Mobility, Tanky enemies
Skills
Put 1 Point into each of the following Skills:
1. finditem
2. grimward
3. increasedspeed
4. ironskin
5. naturalresistance
6. leap
Max out the following Skills in order of priority:
1. warcry
2. Battlecry
3. taunt
4. battleorders
5. howl
warcry* deals damage in a radius around the Barbarian that deals Physical Damage and also Stuns targets hit by it. With a high amount of Faster Cast Rate, this can quickly CC and kill most monster types in the game.
* Faster Cast Rate Skills (FCR)
battlecommand* increases every partied Player's Skill level by 1 for every Skill they have some form of + Skills for.
battleorders* increases every partied Player's maximum Life, Mana, and Stamina by a percentage of their current maximums.
shout* increases every partied Player's Defense Rating by a percentage of their current Defense.
battlecry* reduces target's Defense Rating and Physical Damage from attack Skills.
finditem* gives monster corpses a chance to drop items from their Loot Table again. With enough luck, you can effectively double the amount of loot you can find.
Grim Ward* is used on a monster corpse (cannot be used on certain Undead monster corpses). It applies a Fear Effect which Slows and reduces enemies' Physical Resistance within its Area of Effect (AoE). It's Slow effect and radius both increase with its Level, but its -x% to Enemy Physical Resistance increases with Skill Points into Find Potion. This Skill is capable of breaking Physical Immunity.
leap* is a great mobility skill that knocks back enemies within it's radius and put them into Hit Recovery.
* Faster Cast Rate Skills (FCR)
* Skills that do NOT utilize either FCR or IAS
Attributes
Note: This section provides you with the standard Stat Point allocation. Build Variants can require a different allocation!
Strength
Allocate enough Stat Points into Strength to equip all of your gear. Take into account how much Strength your gear provides when equipped.
Dexterity
Allocate enough Stat Points into Dexterity to equip all of your gear. Take into account how much Dexterity your gear provides when equipped.
Vitality
Allocate any remaining Stat Points into Vitality after meeting Strength, Dexterity and Energy requirements.
Energy
Allocate an appropriate amount of Stat Points into Energy for your Mana costs. You don't gain much Mana from your gear, and your Skills require a lot of Mana.
Essentials
While every Stat in the Desirable Stats column is useful for this Build, we highlighted the Priority Stats in Teal so you can review the recommended Items and more easily identify the Most Important Stats on them.
Hover over any Item in the Item Options to see a pop-out with the full Item description.
| Slot | Item Options | Desirable Stats |
| Weapon | Wizardspike Heart of the Oak Flail Call to Arms Suicide Branch Maelstrom Spirit Insight Scythe Echoing Short Spear | + to All Skills + xx% Faster Cast Rate Elemental Resist +xx% xx% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items + Attributes + xx% Faster Hit Recovery Level 17 meditation Aura When Equipped |
| Off-Hand | Wizardspike Heart of the Oak Flail Call to Arms Berserker Axe Suicide Branch Maelstrom Ancients' Pledge Stormshield Spirit Echoing Short Spear | + to All Skills + xx% Faster Cast Rate Elemental Resist +xx% xx% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items Damage Reduced By xx% + Attributes + xx% Faster Hit Recovery + xx% Faster Block Rate |
| Weapon-Swap | Call to Arms Crystal Sword (6x Ist Rune) Blade of Ali Baba (2x Ist Rune) Spellsteel Naj's Puzzler Long Staff of Teleportation | +x to All Skills +x to battlecommand +x to battleorders +x to battlecry xx% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items |
| Off-Hand-Swap | Heart of the Oak Flail Crystal Sword (6x Ist Rune) Blade of Ali Baba (2x Ist Rune) | +x to All Skills xx% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items |
| Helmets | Arreat's Face Rare Primal Helm Echoing Destroyer Helm of the Whale Lore Hearth Horned Helm Bulwark Horned Helm Temper Horned Helm | + to All Skills Elemental Resist +xx% xx% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items Damage Reduced By xx% + Attributes + xx% Faster Hit Recovery |
| Body Armor | Enigma Wire Fleece Skin of the Vipermagi Smoke Myth Stealth wealth Skullder's Ire | + to All Skills + xx% Faster Cast Rate Elemental Resist +xx% xx% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items Damage Reduced By xx% Teleport (From Enigma only) + Attributes |
| Gloves | trangoul'sclaws chanceguards magefist Safety Crafted Gloves | + xx% Faster Cast Rate Elemental Resist +xx% xx% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items Damage Reduced By x + Attributes |
| Belts | arachnidmesh goldwrap Cobalt Demonhide Sash of the Whale Verdungo's Hearty Cord String of Ears | + to All Skills + xx% Faster Cast Rate Elemental Resist +xx% xx% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items Damage Reduced By xx% + Attributes |
| Boots | marrowwalk sandstormtrek Aldur's Advance wartraveler Natalya's Soul | + xx% Faster Run/Walk Elemental Resist +xx% xx% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items + Attributes |
| Amulets | mara'skaleidoscope Echoing Amulet of the Apprentice Caster Crafted Amulet | + to Skills + xx% Faster Cast Rate Elemental Resist +xx% xx% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items + Attributes Teleport (From Charges) |
| Rings | thestoneofjordan bulkatho'sweddingband nagelring Rare Ring | + to All Skills + xx% Faster Cast Rate Elemental Resist +xx% xx% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items + Attributes Telekinesis (From Charges) |
| Charms | Grand Charm Large Charm Small Charm | +x to Warcries [Barbarian Only] +x% Faster Hit Recovery +x to Attribute + Life X Resist +x% x% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items |
| Unique Charms | Gheed's Fortune Hellfiretorch Annihilus Bone Break | +x to Barbarian Skill Levels +x to all Attributes All Resistances +xx% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items Reduces all Vendor Prices x% Enemies Physical Immunity is Sundered |
The areas below are efficient farming locations that make use of the build’s strengths. Other farming spots might not be as effective due to immunities or bad layouts. These areas are strong without a Sunder Charm.
Anything that has a ✔ in the "Starter" column can be farmed with the Starter Variant.
Act 1
| Area | Starter | Rewards | ||
| Mausoleum | ✔ | All Item Types Max Area Level Leveling | ||
| The Countess | - | Runes Key of Terror | ||
| The Pit | ✔ | All Item Types Max Area Level Leveling | ||
Act 3
| Area | Starter | Rewards | ||
| Travincal | ✔ | Gearing Runes Charms / Gems / Jewels Gold | ||
Act 5
| Area | Starter | Rewards | ||
| Eldritch the Rectifier | ✔ | Gearing Gold Leveling | ||
| Shenk the Overseer | ✔ | Gearing Gold Leveling | ||
| Pindleskin | ✔ | Gearing Gold Leveling | ||
Your Mercenary serves an incredibly important role to the overall success of your build. They can be a front line tank, provide a pivotal Aura, and/or deal Physical Damage to kill enemies with Immunity to your Skill set.
Act 2 Desert Mercenary
The Act 2 Desert Mercenary is hired from Greiz.
He can be equipped with a Spear or a Polearm, a Body Armor and a Helmet.
Every Act 2 Mercenary has access to an Aura and uses Jab as his base Attack. The Aura activates once the Mercenary has engaged in combat and remains active between traveling to and from town. The Auras available are based on what difficulty you hire the Mercenary from.
Reaper’s Toll, Might
Use a Desert Mercenary with Might Aura to significantly boost your Physical Damage.
Equip him with The Reaper’s Toll for a 33% Chance to cast Decrepify on striking, slowing down and increasing Physical Damage dealt to enemies. Decrepify can even break some Physical Immunities.
Mercenary Gear Options
Your Mercenary needs maximum Resistances, Life Leech, a high damage Weapon, and high Defense and/or Damage Reduction to stay alive reliably. Cannot Be Frozen is also a great stat for maintaining Mercenary DPS and leech. Ethereal gear is preferred since it doesn't lose durability.
| Slot | Early-Game | Mid-Game | End-Game |
| Weapon | Insight | Insight | The Reaper's Toll |
| Body Armor | Smoke Lionheart Skin of the Flayed One Rockfleece Venom Ward | Treachery Duress Shaftstop Duriel's Shell Guardian Angel Wealth | Fortitude Treachery Chains of Honor |
| Helmet | Bulwark Undead Crown The Face of Horror Temper Ground Cure | Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest Guillaume's Face Vampire Gaze Crown of Thieves Stealskull Kira's Guardian Rockstopper | Andariel's Visage Guillaume's Face |
The Mercenary is hard to keep alive until you have the minimum gear recommended in this guide. Remember you can drag Healing Potions onto the portrait, or shift + 1/2/3/4 to directly feed them a Healing Potion from your Belt. The Mercenary also gains bonus Resistances from Thawing Potions and Antidote Potions.
If your Mercenary dies in battle, you can revive them from any of the Mercenary NPCs in each Act. This does come with an increasing cost, capping at 50,000 Gold. Keep that in mind and decide if the Mercenary is currently worth the cost.
Solo General
- With your battlecommand, battleorders, and shout you can effectively double or even triple Life, Mana, and Skill power.
- Use taunt to manipulate Ranged monsters as well as high danger targets, which moves towards your position until they get into melee range and begin attacking again.
- Use howl to literally scare off everything other than the bosses of Elite packs to better target valuable targets and not waste time clearing through trash mobs.
- Prioritize hunting Super Uniques to get the greatest benefit from your Magic Find and finditem.
- leaping onto a pack like Pindleskin gives you just enough time to begin using warcry to quickly CC and begin damaging your targets. This typically gives your mercenary enough time to finish approaching and they should be able to get a few hits in before the boss of the pack dies.
Multiplayer General
- In Multiplayer games your primary concerns are buffing and Crowd Control (CC).
- With your battlecommand, battleorders, and shout you can effectively double or even triple your team member's defensives.
- Using leap by targeting right on top of your Barbarian initiates very fast "short hops" which get the full benefit of your leap radius. At high Skill levels this pushes every monster on the visible screen and put them into Hit Recovery.
- After your team finishes mopping up the Elite packs, you can use finditem for an extra chance of finding good loot.
- If you're partied with a lot of Attack Skill users and there is no Necromancer for curses, you can use your battlecry to reduce monster's Physical Damage and Defense to increase your parties' Hit Chance.
- Use taunt to manipulate Ranged monsters as well as high danger targets, which moves towards your position until they get into melee range and begin attacking again.
- Once you kill your targets, make sure to finditem for chances at extra loot.
Immunities
- grimward can break barely Immune to Physical monsters (exactly 100% Resistant) unless you increase your Skill allocation to findpotion. Cast on the first corpse of a pack you're fighting to apply its Curse to all the other minions. Cannot be cast on Undead monster corpses.
- Our Mercenary will apply decrepify once you have enough Mana to swap over to a The Reaper’s Toll
- bonebreak allows this build to begin dealing damage while Stunning monsters and then grimward or the Mercenaries decrepify further decreases their Physical Damage Reduction.
Late-Game
- Once you have access to teleport you can begin Telestomping Elite packs, howl to clear minions if things get dicey, but typically just spam warcry because the Stun effect permanently CC's most monsters.
- Because of your lower DPS potential you want to focus clearing densely packed areas and ignore act Bosses. Their Physical Damage Reduction and high Life totals typically make them inefficient targets.
Breakpoints in Diablo 2 are the minimum values required to reduce the frames of an action. Below are the important breakpoints considered for this build. For more information on the mechanics involved, check out our in-depth Resource: Breakpoints.
Faster Cast Rate (FCR)
Faster Cast Rate speeds up your casting animation for spells. Aim for at least the 200% FCR Breakpoint. Note: FCR only controls the animation speed of the Character, and not any internal Cooldowns spells have.
| Frames | 13 | 12 | 11 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 |
| FCR | 0 | 9 | 20 | 37 | 63 | 105 | 200 |
Faster Hit Recovery (FHR)
Faster Hit Recovery increases survivability. Aim for at least the 48% FHR Breakpoint.
| Frames | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 |
| FHR | 0 | 7 | 15 | 27 | 48 | 86 | 200 |
For all Hardcore gameplay, your primary focus is increasing your Resistances, Damage Reduction, Chance to Block and Maximum Life. This can mean sacrificing overall power level for a more secure playstyle.
This build can become Hardcore viable with key changes to the Skills, Stat Point allocation, and items. Review the changes below before building this character, as they may differ significantly from the normal build.
Stat Point Changes
- We place 130 points into Dexterity to hit 75% Chance to Block with Stormshield
Skill Point Changes
- We put 20 points into ironskin for Defense instead of howl.
Item Changes
- We swap out key pieces for more survivability. Stormshield for Physical Damage Reduction and Chance to Block.
- Corruption Clasp Amulet for more Life, Resistance, and Dexterity over Faster Cast Rate.
- bonebreak can be used safely with the normal Hardcore setup.
Build Variants
Setup
The Starter build easily stacks Faster Hit Recovery, Faster Cast Rate, Resistances, and decent +x to Skills since the Barbarian can dual-wield Spirit Crystal Sword. The rest of the gear adds Magic Find, additional Life/Mana and any lacking Resistances. Due to the high Mana cost, and lower Damage output of warcry you're restricted to the Starter farming areas.
Mercenary
Since we are at the 105% FCR BP we drain Mana at exceptionally high rates and the Insight helps to mitigate that, from its meditation Aura.
Skills
Put 1 Point into each of the following Skills:
1. finditem
2. grimward
3. increasedspeed
4. ironskin
5. naturalresistance
6. leap
7. leapattack
Max out the following Skills in this order:
1. warcry
2. battlecry
3. battleorders
4. taunt
5. howl
Attributes
Allocate enough points into Strength to wear your gear then put the rest of your points into Vitality.
Setup
This Setup sacrifices 1 Frame off our cast speed, and some Magic Find to gain a much higher + to All Skill and ends up increasing our warcry DPS by ~1,000. This is typically better suited for target farming a particular Super Unique pack, as you kill more quickly, but also need to reset games faster.
Bone Break drastically increases our Physical Damage against Immunes when used in combination with grimward. You don't need to worry about the Physical Damage Taken increase because every monster is Stunned and immobile while we clean up shop.
Mercenary
Use a Desert Mercenary with Might Aura to significantly boost his Physical Damage. Equip him with The Reaper’s Toll for a 33% Chance to cast Decrepify on striking, slowing down and increasing Physical Damage dealt to enemies. Decrepify can even break some Physical Immunities.
Skills
Put 1 Point into each of the following Skills:
1. finditem
2. grimward
3. increasedspeed
4. ironskin
5. naturalresistance
6. leap
Max out the following Skills in this order:
1. warcray
2. battlecry
3. battleorders
4. taunt
5. howl
Attributes
Allocate enough points into Strength to wear your gear, enough into Vitality to reach 2500-3500 Life, then shift click Energy sustain your casting costs.
Setup
This Setup reaches the 200 FCR BP (max cast speed) and stacks incredibly high amounts of Magic Find on the primary weapon swap, and additional Magic Find on the secondary swap for using finditem on Super Unique monsters. It also maintains high + to All Skills for warcry damage and battleorders buffing.
Bone Break drastically increases our Physical Damage against Immunes when used in combination with grimward. You don't need to worry about the Physical Damage Taken increase because every monster is Stunned and immobile while we clean up shop.
Mercenary
Since we are at the 200% FCR BP we drain Mana at exceptionally high rates and the Insight Thresher helps to mitigate that.
Skills
Put 1 Point into each of the following Skills:
1. finditem
2. grimward
3. increasedspeed
4. ironskin
5. naturalresistance
6. leap
Max out the following Skills in this order:
1. warcry
2. battlecry
3. battleorders
4. taunt
5. findpotion
Attributes
Allocate enough points into Strength to wear your gear, enough into Vitality to reach 2500-3500 Life, then shift click Energy sustain your casting costs.
Setup
The biggest changes in this Variant are prioritizing Physical Damage Reduction, 75% Chance to Block, overcapped Resistances, and Faster Hit Recovery. We use a Stormshield to achieve many of these goals while maintaining high + to All Skills. We also swap to a Caster Crafted Amulet to shore up some of our Dexterity and Life.
Bone Break drastically increases our Physical Damage against Immunes when used in combination with grimward. You don't need to worry about the Physical Damage Taken increase because every monster is Stunned and immobile while we clean up shop.
Mercenary
Since we are at the 105% FCR BP we drain Mana at exceptionally high rates and the Insight Thresher helps to mitigate that.
Skills
Put 1 Point into each of the following Skills:
1. finditem
2. grimward
3. increasedspeed
4. naturalresistance
5. leapattack
Max out the following Skills in this order:
1. battleorders
2. warcry
3. Battlecry
4. taunt
5. ironskin
Attributes
With our gear we need 130 Dexterity to reach 75% Chance to Block. The remainder of our points get put into Vitality.
Summary
- warcry applies a very powerful stun once it lands on monsters. Committing to spamming the Skill if often safer than kiting or moving.
- At high FCR breakpoints warcry DPS is truly impressive and mops up Elites quickly.
- The Barbarian is nearly unkillable once fully buffed. Don't be afraid to jump into danger to offer your team that vital support.
- The Singer Barbarian is a powerful support in Multiplayer, even when fully committing to damage output.
- finditem nearly doubles the amount of drops you get off monsters, and benefits from Magic Find.
I hope this guide inspires you to try the "Singer Barbarian". If Karaoke isn't your thing, at least you'll enjoy the benefits of the fastest casting frames, and highest Magic Find Diablo 2 has to offer. Once you begin raking in the GG drops you'll understand why this build is just so unbelievably strong.
Good luck! In Bocca al Lupo
Credits
Written by MacroBioBoi
Reviewed by Teo1904