Double Swing Barbarian Leveling Guide

Season 8 is the Season of Belial's Return. It allows you to tap into Boss Powers obtained from World, Event, and Lair Bosses throughout Sanctuary. The new seasonal mechanic, Apparition Incursions, is available at any difficulty level and gives you the opportunity to unlock a subset of these powers very early on. Various Apparition Monsters appear in these special timed events throughout Sanctuary. Defeating these monsters spawns 1 of 10 Apparition Bosses to hunt you down and defeating them grants you their Boss Power. After defeating the first Boss, continue the event for a chance to fight a second Apparition Boss, after which Belial himself joins the fray.

There are 24 Boss Powers available and the first time you defeat one of these Bosses, you claim their power for yourself. Boss Powers each have Main and Modifier effects to boost your build. 13 are available in all difficulties (from Apparition Incursions and World Bosses), while 11 can only be acquired in Torment 1 difficulty or higher from Lair Bosses and Lilith. You can equip 1 Main Power and 3 Modifiers, and all powers can be upgraded up to Rank 20, increasing the potency of both the Main and Modifier effect. You use Spectral Ash to upgrade these powers, dropped from Apparition Incursions and by defeating any Bosses. Boss Powers also scale with your Paragon Level, growing stronger as you progress.

Leveling/Best-in-Slot Boss Powers

Alternate Boss Powers

• Allek's Talons - [Main] - Good replacement before you get your hands on Ashava's Poison Breath.
• Torusk's Rage - [Modifier] - If you ever feel like attacking twice per second is not fast enough, take this power. Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies can be tempered on your offensive slot to make this power even stronger.
• Flesh Reaper's Disruption - [Modifier] - Double Swing Barbarians can apply Vulnerable effortlessly, so this Power is a good substitute for other Modifiers if you ever need more damage instead of Quality of Life bonuses. Temper Crowd Control Duration in Utility slots and watch your damage skyrocket!

Ground Stomp

Ground Stomp with its upgrade, Tactical Ground Stomp, deals tons of damage and also applies Vulnerable effect on enemies. Consider it your single target ability to deal with Elites and Bosses. Later on, it will be one of your sources of Berserking.

Leap

We'll be using Leap for some added mobility and additional Fury generation. With enough ranks, it has a relatively low cooldown and can be used frequently as a traversal tool.

Mighty Throw

Mighty Throw is one of the strongest hitting abilities in the Barbarian kit and the main reason behind Earthstriker's. Guaranteed Overpower works with both the hit and the pulse part of this skill, which results in tremendous damage.

Key Passive

We finally pick up our Key Passive Unconstrained, which has great synergy with Prolific Fury to keep our Fury generation as high as possible. We activate this power by using Ground Stomp or Leap. Next, you can keep Berserking uptime permanent by using Double Swing. All of these things combined drastically speed up our leveling process and help alleviate any resource issues that may be present early on.

Final Journey to Level 60

At this point, most of the key synergies are unlocked and the gameplay loop is almost complete. As you level up, you unlock a lot of extra points that go into various offensive and defensive passives or max out certain skills. Check out the skills progression above to see where to put your points as you go, but feel free to deviate from the order displayed as necessary. For example, if you need extra defense or healing, you may pick up Iron Skin instead of Rallying Cry.

Barbarian Arsenal System

The Arsenal System allows Barbarians to use a specific weapon for every attack skill, each granting different Bonuses. The Technique Slot grants us 1 additional Arsenal Power of our choosing for every attack. The Weapon Expertise bonus we get from our currently equipped weapon and the Weapon Expertise bonus we get from the Weapon Technique slot stack with each other.

Unlocking the Arsenal System

The Arsenal System automatically unlocks when you reach Level 5. Opening the Expertise tab (Shift + C) shows all the different weapon types and their bonuses when using them. The Technique Slot unlocks at Level 15 via the Masters of Battle quest in the Dry Steppes which is very easy to complete. Simply walk northeast of town, kill some enemies, then walk west to a cave to slay the beast. After returning to town the Technique Slot will be yours!

How the Arsenal System Impacts Leveling

Weapon Type - Two One-Handed Maces are the best weapons for leveling as a Double Swing Barbarian. One-Handed Mace Expertise gives us a large bonus to our damage against Stunned enemies, and we will frequently Stun enemies with this build.

We assign Lunging Strike to our Two-Handed Slashin weapon to be able to weapon swap between Lunging Strike and Double Swing.

Keep your Leap and even more important, Mighty Throw, on Auto-Select. This way they will always be assigned to your highest hitting weapon.

Weapon Technique - Two-Handed Axe Expertise is the best choice for this build since it grants increased damage to Vulnerable enemies. Both Double Swing and Ground Stomp are reliable sources of this status, so focus on applying it to tougher enemies to get rid of them quicker.

To get started as a Double Swing Barbarian, always use your highest DPS One-Handed Weapons. Your Two-Handed weapons are mostly stat sticks, but their DPS should not be fully neglected. For easier time, follow the priority list below. While you don't have all of the desired temper manuals available, simply try to get anything useful on your gear until you acquire the right ones. For example, % Damage, Damage to Close, Vulnerable Damage, etc. all work as long as you activate their conditions. Likewise, you can temper multiple defensive options such as Resistances, Life, Armor to fill gaps in your survivability. Tempering low level gear is relatively cheap and the results can be very impactful!

Tip: For the early game, Elemental Surge Weapon Tempers are very powerful due to their high base damage, especially if you are twinking. If you find these, you may want to keep imprinting them on your weapons for an easy time.

The Codex of Power is a collection of Legendary Aspects you can imprint onto Rare or Legendary items at the Occultist. They unlock after completing specific Dungeons located around Sanctuary or salvaging items with these powers. Check out our Map Tool to locate these Dungeons.

For leveling, there are a few powers that can significantly help us if we have the funds to imprint them. In addition, keep an eye out for powerful Unique items you may find for this or other builds.

Must-have Dungeon unlocks

1. Berserk Ripping (Mournfield - Dry Steppes)
2. Slaking (Maulwood - Fractured Peaks)

Nice-to-have Dungeon unlocks

1. Earthstriker's (Maugan's Works - Hawezar)
2. Numbing Wrath (Heathen's Keep - Hawezar)
3. Retribution (Abandoned Mineworks - Kehjistan)
4. Bul-Kathos (Light's Refuge - Hawezar)

Great Uniques for this build

1. Twin Strikes
2. Ramaladni's Magnum Opus
3. Yen's Blessing

Jackpot Drops

As you level up, you may get lucky and find some great random drops. Some of these can massively amplify your power and speed up the leveling by switching to another build. Keep in mind that there are many more Aspects and Uniques that can be useful to multiple builds; this just lists some of the most impactful ones. While we usually recommend starting with Endgame Builds at level 60, you often can make them work earlier with these drops:

Build-defining Combinations

1. Executioner's + Incendiary Fissures + Tec (enables the Endgame Earthquake Barbarian and Endgame Whirlwind Barbarian)
2. Moonrise + Adaptability + Shard of Verathiel (enables the Endgame Bash Barbarian)
3. Rage of Harrogath + Ring of the Ravenous (enables the Endgame Rend Barbarian)
4. The Third Blade (enables the Endgame Mighty Throw Barbarian)

You can have up to two Runewords in your setup, each consisting of one Ritual and one Invocation Rune. Socket them in Two-Handed Weapons if your build calls for them, otherwise place them into your Armor pieces to replace normal gems. The Whirlwind Barbarian focuses on the following combos:

Best in Slot

• Moni + Tec - Potent mixture to add even more damage to our setup. Jump into the heat of the battle with Lunging Strike to spawn Earthquake.
• Cir + Ceh - This setup relies a lot on scaling damage against Vulnerable enemies. Spawning some helpful wolves to aid us in the battle is heavily recommended.

Alternative choices

As long as you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top Runes, you can also benefit from these options:

• Lum - Good replacement for Ceh if you feel like you run out of Fury too much.
• Mot - Generates Dark Shroud.
• Wat - Spawns Decrepify to lower the damage dealt by enemies around you.
• Gar - Potent source of Critical Strike Chance.

In Diablo 4, you can level by completing the Campaign, collecting Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers, completing Helltide activities, grinding Dungeons, clearing Strongholds, fighting in the Undercity of Kurast or interacting with the Seasonal Mechanics. While there are many ways to level up in Diablo 4, not all of them are equal.

Paragon & Glyphs

Use the slider to see progression steps. At around Paragon 200, leveling slows down significantly and all important Rare clusters, Legendary nodes and Glyph sockets should be unlocked. Afterwards, you can min/max your build with minor tweaks and by picking up additional smaller nodes.

Glyph Leveling Priorities

Coming Soon!

The Double Swing Barbarian is a fun to play leveling build that scales very well into the lategame.

• Constantly swap to the highest DPS One-Handed weapon you find.
• Focus on scaling generic damage modifiers instead of skill-specific effects to boost your damage.
• Gather Critical Strike Chance, Attack Speed & Strength on your gear.
• Slice every enemy in half!

Written by Kondyss