The Double Swing Barbarian is the new king of Crowd Control. Blizzard and their over-tuned Elites are about to be dethroned! No more spin to win Whirlwind, Hammer of the Ancients smash, or "please hit me" Thorns; Double Swing is the new king in town!
This build focuses primarily on Crowd Control, leaving enemies in a worthless state while you slice them to death. You'll lure Elites in with Challenging Shout and then the CC chain begins. Once enemies are on top of you Aspect of Audacity will proc, and the moment this stun ends you keep them locked down with Ground Stomp. Who's the one with the infinite CC now?!
Imagine being an NPC in the Diablo realm but never being allowed to fight back. It’s your world now and they just live in it. They can not run, they can not hide, they can’t even fight. Double Swing provides insane amounts of damage with every mighty blow, utilizing everything in your kit like: Ground Stomp, Smiting Aspect, Punishing Speed and Crowd Control Duration.
Challenging Shout
Rallying Cry
War Cry
Ground Stomp
Lunging Strike
Double Swing
One-Handed Mace Expertise
Two-Handed Axe Expertise
This build guide assumes you have a Level 50 Character and finished the Campaign. Level up with our Rend Barbarian Leveling Guide. If you are looking for a different Barbarian playstyle, check out all of our Barbarian Guides.
Immense Power ✔
Simple Gameplay ✔
Not Heavily Gear Dependent ✔
Excellent for High End Content ✔
❌ Small AoE
❌ Melee Range
❌ Cooldown Dependent
❌ Requires Fury Management
Season 1 - The Malignant
Players on the Eternal Realm should ignore this section of the guide. This build is designed to work without Caged Hearts, though it can be enhanced by them.
Diablo 4 Season 1 introduces a new questline to hunt Malignant Monsters across Sanctuary. Defeating them drops Caged Hearts that are placed in Jewelry infested sockets to gain build-altering powers. Check out the full Season 1 The Malignant guide from Chewingnom to learn more!
- There are 32 Caged Hearts divided into 4 different colors, 1 color for each type:
- Vicious: Orange, Offensive Power
- Brutal: Blue, Defensive Power
- Devious: Pink, Utility Power
- Wrathful: Black, Super
- The first 3 must be socketed into their respective infested socket color, while the 4th can be placed into any infested socket.
- Once socketed, they cannot be removed. Instead they can be broken down into Invokers to target farm the Caged Hearts you want inside Malignant Tunnels.
- Higher powered Caged Hearts drop at higher levels.
With this in mind, let's look at the top 3 best Caged Hearts (and alternatives) for this build:
Best-in-Slot Caged Hearts
- Caged Heart of The Barber (Wrathful, Super-World Tier III): Works extremely well with this build since Ground Stomp, Calculated, Punishing Speed and Audacity all work while it is active.
- Caged Heart of Revenge (Brutal, Defensive-World Tier III): 20% Damage Reduction is a staple for Nightmare Dungeons.
- Use One of of these Hearts depending on what you're doing.
- Caged Heart of Punishing Speed (Devious, Utility) Provides great utility for AoE Knock Downs and Stunning targets out of range that could possibly kill you. Use this while clearing trash mobs in Nightmare Dungeons.
- Caged Heart of the Calculated (Devious, Utility-World Tier III): Extremely helpful for staggering difficult Bosses. Keep a different piece of jewelry in your inventory socketed with this, and swap to it before Boss encounters.
Alternative Caged Hearts
- Caged Heart of Focused Rage (Vicious, Offensive): Decent damage boost if you're missing one of the above Hearts.
- Caged Heart of Tempting Fate (Vicious, Offensive-World Tier III): Another good damage boost if it's all you have.
Skill Tree
Active Skills
- Double Swing - Core Skill, main damage, applies Vulnerable effect, and Fury generation while attacking Crowd Controlled mobs.
- Lunging Strike - Basic Skill used as a gap closer. Provides Damage Reduction from Aspect of Might, Berserking and Fury generation.
- War Cry - Cast in combat to get an immediate damage multiplier, Berserking and Fury generation
- Ground Stomp - 4 second Stun that increases with Crowd Control Duration, helping with Fury generation while using Enhanced Double Swing.
- Rallying Cry - Movement Speed boost, source of Unstoppable and Fury generation. It allows you to achieve Fortify.
- Challenging Shout - Provides Damage Reduction, increased maximum life, taunts enemies into Ground Stomp range.
Arsenal System
The Arsenal System allows you to use a specific weapon for every attack skill, with each weapon granting different bonuses. You also have what is called the Technique Slot. With this, you can use any weapon of your choosing to always reap the benefit from, regardless of which weapon is equipped.
For the purpose of this guide, the One-Handed Mace Expertise is chosen. This provides you with the best damage buff. At Rank 10 Lucky Hit grants a chance to gain Berserking for 1.5 seconds when you hit a Stunned enemy. Double this chance when using two Maces!
In the Technique Slot, the Two-Handed Axe increases your damage to Vulnerable enemies. Unfortunately, its secondary effect does not apply here - the limitation of the Technique Slot is that it does not allow you to benefit from the second bonus that is normally gained from reaching rank 10 with any weapon expertise.
Learn more details and how to unlock this class specification in our full Arsenal System Guide.
Paragon Board
Level the Paragon Board by scrolling. Each step optimizes progression.
Glyphs
You need to level up your Glyphs to activate their Additional Bonus with surrounding nodes. For some Glyphs, you max the bonuses by allocating every relevant node in range, while on others you take the minimum required for the Additional Bonus only. Because Glyphs at level 15 increase their radius, you need to prioritize leveling them by completing Nightmare Dungeons. After that, prioritize leveling your strongest Glyphs to level 21.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
Level 15
- Exploit
- Marshal
- Wrath
- Ambidextrous
- Territorial
Level 21
- Marshal
- Ambidextrous
- Exploit
- Wrath
- Territorial
There are a total of 225 Paragon Points. Starting with level 50 you gain 4 Paragon Points per level, plus 20 from Renown, and 4 from Altars of Lilith.
Gameplay
The Double Swing Barbarian dual wields Maces, Axes or Swords to destroy everything. Maces have the highest damage output and in this guide you'll take passives that enhance Maces as well, other weapons can get the job done as place holders if you have a hard time finding great Maces. The bulk of your damage comes from hitting the targets directly in front of you so make sure you’re the center of attention in battle. The gameplay loop goes something like this:
- Lead into battle with Lunging Strike to gain Berserking, and surround yourself with enemies to maximize the effect of Challenging Shout. Follow up with Rallying Cry and War Cry. Using these shouts boosts your Damage Reduction, Fortify, maximum life, and Fury generation.
- Once enemies are on top of you, Aspect of Audacity will proc. Double Swing your foes to death and transition into Ground Stomp, or vice versa, to keep the CC lock.
- Use Lunging Strike as a gap closer or Fury generator as needed. Use it in between Double Swings to get full value out of the Aspect of Might.
- Play around your cooldowns of Ground Stomp and Shouts. You never want to face elite packs when they aren’t available. Kiting and separating packs can be your best friend.
- Enjoy being a CC god while your enemies vaporize into the abyss.
Resource & Cooldown Management
Double Swing relies tremendously on resource and cooldown since you are dumping endless amounts of Fury with your fast attack speed. You rely on all the CC in your kit to maintain Fury with Enhanced Double Swing. You want to pair Cooldown Reduction with Crowd Control Duration on your Helm and Amulet. This lowers the cooldown of Ground Stomp, Challenging Shout, and Tactical Rallying Cry. Here are the essentials for managing Resource and Cooldown with this build:
Bold Chieftain's Aspect
Solves a lot of your Cooldown issues with Shouts. It shaves up to 6 seconds off each Shout, and is a staple for every Barbarian build. Easily obtainable in the Codex of Power, thanks to the Seasonal Journey.
Aspect of Echoing Fury
Helps solve some of your Fury generation issues. It grants up to 4 Fury per second while a Shout is active, and 12 if all three Shouts are active. Can be obtained in the Codex of Power.
Skills & Stats on Gear
- Use Tactical Rallying Cry. This is one of your main sources of Fury generation and you make sure this is active during any major fight.
- Ground Stomp is vital to keeping enemies Stunned to generate Fury with Double Swing.
- Tactical Challenging Shout grants 3 Fury every time you're hit while it's active.
- Lunging Strike acts as a Fury generator when used.
- The Marshal Glyph.
- Fury Cost Reduction on your Boots and Amulet.
- Resource Generation on Rings. While damage stats are always more appealing, they mean nothing if you can't cast your skill.
- Cooldown Reduction on the Helm and Amulet.
Endgame Gear & Skill Progression
When you start diving into the Endgame, you don't have all the tools available to achieve the final build versions. Let us guide you through different progression points to give you a smooth transition from our Leveling Guides to the final build version.
Progression Goals
Many of your Skill choices depend on what Legendary Aspects and Unique items are available. While you can guarantee that everyone has access to the same Codex of Power Aspects, the progression might be different for everyone!
- Unlock the following Aspects in your Codex of Power by completing the Dungeons linked below, search them on our World Map Tool for easy navigation:
- Berserk Ripping in Mournfield
- Disobedience in Halls of the Damned
- Edgemaster’s in Oldstones
- Echoing Fury in Siroccos Caverns
- Ghostwalker in Broken Bulwark
- Might in Dark Ravine
- Numbing Wrath in Heathen's Keep
- Rapid in Buried Halls
- Relentless Berserker's in Hakan's Refuge
- Retribution in Abandoned Mineworks
- Shared Misery in Oblivion
- Unrelenting Fury in Hallowed Ossuary
- Find the following Legendary Aspects by farming in Dungeons, Nightmare Dungeons, Helltides, through the Tree of Whispers, or gambling with Obols:
- Accelerating: Gamble Two-Handed Weapons
- Audacity: Gamble Gloves
- Bold Chieftain's: Gamble Rings
- During Season 1, this can be obtained by completing Chapter 2 of the Season Journey.
- Exploiter's: Gamble Boots
- Limitless Rage: Gamble One-Handed Weapons
- Smiting: Gamble One-Handed Weapons
- Another Variant of this build uses Ramaladni's Magnum Opus. You can check out the Variants tab below if you want to try out this build.
Learn more details and how to farm Legendary Aspects and Uniques in our General Farming Guide.
Progression Setups
Once you have completed the leveling guide, only the Codex of Power Aspects are guaranteed. With this setup you can farm the Legendary Aspects and Unique items you need for the next progression point.
Upon finishing the leveling process and approaching the endgame grind, many of the Aspects you use are already available to us from the Codex of Power. There is no reason you shouldn't put them to immediate use, since they can be imprinted as often as needed as you upgrade your gear. Start by doing the following:
Gear
Some of the Codex Aspects below are placeholders until you find the better choices on the following Early Endgame Tab. Go through the Dungeons to get all these Aspects so can progress into the Endgame Build with ease.
- Berserk Ripping
- Disobedience
- Edgemaster’s
- Echoing Fury
- Ghostwalker
- Might
- Numbing Wrath
- Rapid
- Relentless Berserker's
- Retribution
- Shared Misery
- Unrelenting Fury
This gives us a functional build to begin farming with. Some Fury issues will likely be present early on until you find the required gear to solve them, but you have to start somewhere - don't let this be discouraging.
Skills
Early on, drop War Cry and pick up Call of the Ancients. This will help with your single target damage tremendously. Use it when you fight Elites and Bosses.
Gameplay
The gameplay early on is a bit more sluggish, you'll struggle with Fury more in the early stages of Endgame and have less uptime on your Shouts. Save your Call of the Ancients for when you fight big Elites and Bosses to take them down quickly. As you progress into the early Endgame gear drop Call of the Ancients to pick up War Cry. This will grant you Fortify and Berserking which becomes more powerful the further you progress into you Paragon.
Build Scaling & Stat Priorities
The answer to many questions can be found in the following section. Learn all you need to know about how to scale this build in the endgame.
Critical Strike Damage:
- You have many sources of this. All Critical Strike Damage rolls on your weapons apply even if you are not using them, including the Royal Emeralds socketed within.
- The Wrath Glyph.
Critical Strike Chance:
- Critical Strike Chance is a priority roll on Gloves and Rings.
- No Mercy is used as a source of Critical Strike Chance in various stages of the build.
Vulnerable Damage:
- The window in which enemies are Vulnerable is generally when you deal the most damage, because this effect acts as its own separate damage multiplier. You can increase this multiplier drastically through gear and the passive tree.
- The Two-Handed Axe Expertise is another multiplier to your Vulnerable damage.
- Exploit allows you to inflict Vulnerable whenever you initiate combat, and is your main source of application. However, once its duration ends, you have to wait quite a while for its effect to activate again.
Damage from Stuns:
- The One-Handed Mace Expertise increases our damage to Stunned enemies.
- Wallop does the same if the enemy is also Vulnerable.
This build benefits heavily from inflicting Stun, and you aim to do so as often as you can with help from Ground Stomp and Aspect of Audacity.
Limitless Rage and Edgemaster’s:
- These Aspects are damage multipliers that significantly increase their effectiveness when you are capped or overcapped on Fury, another reason why your resource management becomes so important.
Our Damage Explained article explains how to scale your Offense.
Learn all you need to know to scale Defense with our Defense Explained Article.
Stat Priorities & Gear Options
There are many stats and status effects that generate on gear, but many are not important for your build. See below for a general breakdown as well as a per slot priority list in the list.
Put in the following Gems into your gear:
- Royal Rubies in Helm, Chest Armor, and Pants.
- Caged Hearts or Royal Skulls in Jewelry.
- Royal Emeralds in all weapon slots.
This build benefits a lot from the following Consumables:
- Elixirs: Iron Skin Elixir, Elixir of Fortitude, Precision Elixir, Elixir of Savagery, Elixir of Combatant Fortune, Elixir of Resourcefulness
- Incenses: Song of the Mountain or Reddamine Buzz
Refer to the table below to see the best rolls for every slot ranked in order of importance:
| SLOT | ASPECT | STAT PRIORITY |
| Two-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon | One of: Smiting Aspect Accelerating Aspect | 1. Vulnerable Damage 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Strength 4. All Stats 5. Damage to Close Enemies 6. Damage with Core Skills |
| Dual Wield Weapon 1 (Sword) | One of: Aspect of Berserk Ripping Edgemaster’s Aspect | 1. High Damage per Second 2. Vulnerable Damage 3. Critical Strike Damage 4. Strength 5. All Stats 6. Damage to Close Enemies 7. Damage with Core Skills |
| Dual Wield Weapon 2 (Sword) | One of: Aspect of Berserk Ripping Edgemaster’s Aspect | 1. High Damage per Second 2. Vulnerable Damage 3. Critical Strike Damage 4. Strength 5. All Stats 6. Damage to Close Enemies 7. Damage with Core Skills |
| Two-Handed Slashing Weapon (Sword) | One of: Smiting Aspect Accelerating Aspect | 1. Vulnerable Damage 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Strength 4. All Stats 5. Damage to Close Enemies 6. Damage with Core Skills |
| Helm | One of: Aspect of Might Aspect of Disobedience Numbing Wrath | 1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Crowd Control Duration 3. % Total Armor 4. Maximum Life 5. Strength 6. All Stats |
| Chest | One of: Aspect of Might Aspect of Disobedience Numbing Wrath | 1. % Total Armor 2. Damage Reduction while Fortified 3. Damage Reduction from Close Enemies 4. Damage Reduction 5. Damage Reduction from Bleeding 6. Maximum Life |
| Gloves | One of: Aspect of Audacity Exploiter's | 1. + Ranks of Double Swing 2. Critical Strike Chance 3. Attack Speed 4. Lucky Hit Chance 5. Strength 6. All Stats 7. Critical Strike Chance Against Injured Enemies |
| Pants | One of: Aspect of Might Aspect of Disobedience Numbing Wrath | 1. % Total Armor 2. Damage Reduction while Fortified 3. Damage Reduction from Close Enemies 4. Damage Reduction While Injured 5. Damage Reduction 6. Damage Reduction from Bleeding 7. Maximum Life |
| Boots | Aspect of Audacity Exploiter's | 1. Movement Speed / + Max Evade Charges 2. Fury Cost Reduction 3. Damage Reduction while Injured 4. Fortify Generation 5. Strength 6. All Stats 7. Movement Speed for 4 Seconds After Killing an Elite |
| Amulet | Limitless Rage | 1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Fury Cost Reduction 3. Crowd Control Duration 4. + Ranks of the Wallop Passive 5. + Ranks of the Counteroffensive Passive 6. + Ranks of the No Mercy Passive 7. + Ranks of All Defensive Skills 8. Movement Speed |
| Rings | Bold Chieftain's Echoing Fury | 1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Vulnerable Damage 3. Resource Generation 4. Critical Strike Damage 5. Maximum Life |
Hardcore Adjustments
- You can swap out War Cry for Iron Skin. If you do this add and move around the following aspects:
- Put Iron Warrior on your Chest.
- Move Disobedience from your Chest to the Amulet.
- Replace Edgemaster’s on a 1-handed weapon with Limitless Rage from your Amulet.
- Prioritize more defensive rolls on gear, you can drop Critical Hit Damage on Rings for Maximum Life. DO NOT drop Resource Generation!
Level 100 Endgame Variants
You can optimize your build further for certain endgame activities, such as Speedfarming, Nightmare Dungeon Pushing, etc. Let's take a look at the changes you need to make to achieve the best results in them.
The Speedfarming setup makes you more efficient in farming the Open World, Helltide zones, Tree of Whispers, regular Dungeons, and Nightmare Dungeons below Tier 50.
Our optimized endgame build is already pretty well-suited for speedfarming most content, but if more speed is desired and losing some damage or utility isn't too much of a hindrance, there are some small adjustments we can make. The gameplay loop doesn't change, we're just trying to speed it up.
Gear
- Replace Exploiter's Aspect with Wind Striker Aspect for more movement speed
- Drop Smiting Aspect to pick up Ghostwalker Aspect.
Skill Tree
- Drop Tempered Fury, Tempered Fury and 1 point from Tempered Fury to pick up 3 points in Swiftness for more Movement Speed.
FAQ
Maces, Axes or Swords?
Ramaladni's Magnum Opus
Why am I running out of Fury?
I wanna use Steel Grasp.
Why are you using Unbridled Rage over Gushing Wounds?
Berserk Ripping Bugged?
Mechanics
Fortify
Unbridled Rage
Video Guide
Summary
- The Double Swing Barbarian is a fast, tanky and powerful build that can decimate all content Diablo 4 has to offer.
- It dual wields Maces to destroy everything in its path, using Lunging Strike to dash between enemies and a plethora of Stuns to keep them in place.
- Your build revolves around Aspect of Audacity, Ground Stomp, Punishing Speed, and Calculated working together to provide even more CC.
- Using the standard 3 Shout setup (Challenging Shout, Rallying Cry & War Cry) you constantly CC your enemies, allowing you to generate tons of Fury.
- Tossing on Wind Striker Aspect and Ghostwalker Aspect allows the build to do quite well in Speedfarming content as well, making it a truly great all around Barbarian Endgame Build.
- Ramaladni's Magnum Opus. Ramaladni’s is a viable option if you are lucky enough to find one with 0.3 as the passive. Maximize your Fury on your Helm, Rings and Paragon to get the most out of this item with this build.
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Credits
Written by Wario
Contributions by snail
Reviewed by Facefoot, snail