Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian Endgame Build Guide
The build described in this guide is intended to be played as a "pure" Hammer of the Ancients build that focuses on maximizing its damage via Overpower scaling. We have a dedicated guide for the Earthquake-themed setup introduced in Season 7. Check it out here!
Welcome to the Diablo 4 Hammer of the Ancients (HotA) Barbarian Endgame Build Guide! This is a fan-favorite skill that returns to the franchise for Barbarians. While it naturally has a very small area of effect, we solve this by using Tempered Hammer of the Ancients Size and the Aspect of Ancestral Force (which, conveniently, can always be imprinted via the Codex of Power). These drastically increase the radius of the impact, allowing us to obliterate almost full screens of enemies.
To support Hammer of the Ancients, we take a lot of the standard tools for the endgame. Our main generator, Combat Bash, is used to keep our Fury levels high and strengthen our bonks with its inherent utility in granting guaranteed Overpower hits.
To help keep things comfy, we also pick up two powerful shouts: Challenging Shout for a massive chunk of damage reduction and increased Maximum Life, and Rallying Cry for Unstoppable status and Fortify generation. We also have Call of the Ancients as an Ultimate to fall back on for a multiplicative damage boost, Fury generation, and a very generous Attack Speed buff.
With all of this at our disposal, as well as Steel Grasp for those foolish enough to try and escape, nothing can withstand the pure power that Hammer of the Ancients can deliver. And with that... let's start smashing!
Requirements for this build
- Tec (our only source of Earthquakes to activate Mantle of Mountain's Fury).
- Non-Expansion users can improvise with Executioner's Aspect.
This build guide assumes you have a Level 60 Character and unlocked Torment 1. To get there, level up with one of our Barbarian Leveling Guides. See how this Build compares against others with our various Build Tier Lists.
Witchcraft Powers
Season 7 is the Season of Witchcraft. It features two separate borrowed power mechanics in the forms of Witchcraft Powers and Occult Gems. Both Seasonal mechanics are unlocked and improved by new NPCs found at the Tree of Whispers after collecting resources from Headhunt Zones, Seasonal areas similar to Helltide that appear across Sanctuary.
There are 25 Witchcraft Powers, 6 of which can be equipped at a time. Each Power belongs to one of four Schools (Eldritch, Growth & Decay, Psyche, and Lost), tags that promote synergies within themselves and with Occult Gems. Each School has a single Unique Witchcraft Power, only one of which can be equipped at a time. These Unique Powers max out and gain an additional effect at rank 5, while the other Powers max at rank 21 and gain their bonus effects at various levels. To unlock and improve Witchcraft Powers, defeat Headrotten or complete Whispers within the Headhunt Zones to collect Restless Rot. Lost Powers are an exception, requiring you to randomly encounter a Forgotten Altar in Dungeons to unlock them.
Best-in-Slot Witchcraft Powers
- Piranhado - This is a fantastic ability that passively and automatically groups up enemies for us.
- Soul Harvest - This Power dramatically increases Core Stats based on monster density and is a reliably strong choice, especially since we are pretty much always casting a skill that has a cooldown.
- Shaken Soul - This is used in combination with Aura of Siphoning to constantly apply Vulnerable to all enemies in its radius.
- Aura of Siphoning - As mentioned above, this is our primary source of Vulnerable. Aside from that, it synergizes with Dust Stone to give us some extra multiplicative damage. The additional healing this Power gives is also a very welcome defensive buff.
- Aura Specialization - The extra area of effect that it grants our Aura is nice, but the Critical Strike Damage multiplier that comes with leveling it makes this an even better choice.
- Hex of Whispers - This is another buff to Dust Stone, and also serves as our third Growth & Decay Power, which is necessary in order to activate Friend of the Bog.
Alternate Witchcraft Powers
- Doom Orb - This power can be used as a replacement Growth & Decay Power for Aura of Siphoning. If this is used, it's wise to socket the Hungering Void Occult Gem to keep some grouping utility.
- Aura of Misfortune - The alternative to Aura of Siphoning, this Power mitigates some incoming damage while boosting Movement Speed. Unfortunately, it's ineffective against Bosses.
Occult Gems
Rarely, Headrotten Bosses appear with a still-attached Fugitive Head stolen from the Tree of Whispers. Slay these enemies and return the Heads to Gelena to unlock and upgrade Occult Gems. These Gems are socketable in Jewelry and each provide +160 Armor and +8% Resistance to All Elements. More importantly, each Occult Gem grants a unique effect that synergizes with your equipped Witchcraft Powers to provide a variety of Offensive, Defensive, and Utility-based bonuses.
Best-in-Slot Occult Gems
- Dust Stone - This Gem is a set-and-forget damage multiplier; it is enabled by Aura of Siphoning and Hex of Whispers.
- Friend of the Bog - Extra Core Stats improve our damage output, as Strength is its own separate multiplier. Maximum Life naturally gives us more defense, but also scales our Overpower damage. Unhindered is a great added bonus that allows us to move through enemies in the event that Rallying Cry has downtime.
- Phantom String - Our build focuses on Overpower damage, so this Gem is a solid choice when paired with Hex of Whispers.
Alternate Occult Gems
- Killing Wind - Provides some extra Critical Strike Chance and Movement Speed. It has some use in the early gearing process.
- Hungering Void - Another way to pull mobs together. Can be used as a replacement for Piranhado or just as an extra source of grouping.
- Moonlight Ward - A pretty decent chunk of damage reduction and resistances. Use it if some extra defense is needed.
- Toadling's Wish - Has one purpose, and that is to boost the effect of the already extremely powerful Soul Harvest.
Learn more details about the season theme in our full Season Guide.
Skills & Gameplay
- Bash is our Fury generator of choice; it is taken to utilize the guaranteed Overpower hits provided by its upgraded version, Combat Bash.
- Hammer of the Ancients is a heavy-hitting Core skill with a moderately high Fury cost. It shines most when it becomes Violent Hammer of the Ancients, which is essentially a permanent 40% damage bonus. The Ancestral Force Aspect further transforms this skill into an omni-directional shockwave that blasts most of the room to pieces.
- Rallying Cry gives us the ability to become Unstoppable and is also our primary way of generating Fortify. Additionally, it provides us some extra Movement Speed and increases the rate at which we recoup Fury.
- War Cry is a buff that grants us Berserking and acts as a generic damage multiplier. Even though this isn't on our active skill bar, we can activate it frequently with the Ohm Rune.
- Challenging Shout bolsters our defenses. The bonus to Maximum Life that it provides is also a damage increase for us, since it is factored into the equation for Overpower damage.
- Charge occupies our flexible utility slot; it's a great choice for closing distances or escaping dangerous situations. Steel Grasp for grouping or Leap for terrain traversal are also solid choices here.
- Call of the Ancients is a skill we fall back on when we need a bit of extra damage during tougher encounters. The Ancients themselves don't do much damage in this setup, but the buffs provided while they are active are quite substantial.
Skill Rotation
- Ensure that any Shout buffs are active whenever possible. With Rakanoth's Wake and the high Cooldown Reduction provided by Bold Chieftain's, uptime in most cases is generally not an issue.
- Starting with Bash, alternate between casting Bash and Hammer of the Ancients with a 1:1 ratio. As long as Bash Critically Strikes 4 enemies, the following Hammer of the Ancients cast is a guaranteed Overpower.
- Note that this is only possible if the "Bash Cleaves" affix is tempered on a weapon, as this allows Combat Bash to activate per enemy hit, instead of per cast.
- Use Call of the Ancients whenever it is off cooldown, especially during longer fights, for more damage and Fury generation.
- Against Bosses: Since these are typically single-target fights, Bash needs to score 4 Critical Strikes before it grants its guaranteed Overpower. In most cases, this means the ratio of Bash to Hammer of the Ancients casts becomes 4:1.
Arsenal System
The Arsenal System allows us to use a specific weapon for every attack skill, with each weapon granting different bonuses. We also have what is called the Technique Slot. With this, we can use any weapon of our choosing to always reap the benefit from, regardless of which weapon we have equipped.
The Two-Handed Mace is our main (and only) weapon of choice, since Hammer of the Ancients requires a Two-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon. It has a great secondary effect that increases our Critical Strike Damage multiplier, and since we are built to cap our Critical Strike Chance, we are benefitting from this essentially always.
In the Technique Slot, the Two-Handed Axe allows us to deal 10% more damage to Vulnerable enemies. This build naturally has high Vulnerable uptime thanks to Shaken Soul. Unfortunately, its secondary effect does not apply here - the limitation of the Technique Slot is that it does not allow us 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 & Glyphs
Carefully check your Paragon Boards to ensure correct board rotation. Glyphs go from a radius of 3 to 4 at level 15 and from 4 to 5 at level 46. Some of them cannot be activated before reaching these thresholds! Progress through The Pit to rank up your Glyphs.
Use the slider to see the 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.
Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian Endgame Paragon
Some Glyph position swaps, board changes and other pathing adjustments may occur as you unlock your full potential. The setup displayed by default is the final version of the build before spending additional points that do not significantly impact your character's power.
Placeholder Glyphs
- Territorial
- Changes to Wrath later in progression.
- Revenge
- Used in Pit Pushing variant.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
Level 15
- Territorial
- Ire
- Dominate
- Challenger
- Crusher
Level 21
- Challenger
- Ire
- Dominate
- Wrath
- Crusher
There are a total of 328 Paragon Points. After reaching level 60, you gain up to 300 Paragon Levels, 24 from Renown and 4 from Altars of Lilith. Check out our dedicated in-depth guides to learn more about Paragon Boards and Glyphs.
Runes
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 Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian focuses on the following combos:
Best in Slot
- Lith + Tec - While in combat, this Runeword casts Earthquakes for us. This allows us to utilize the damage bonus implicit from Mantle of Mountain's Fury.
- Igni + Ohm - Gives us a way to cast War Cry without having it on our skill bar. For Barbarians, this Rune scales with any additional ranks we have in the skill tree or on gear.
Alternative choices
If you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top runes, you can also benefit from these options:
- Bac - A good alternative/substitution for Lith.
- Vex - The extra skill ranks help with Shout buff effects and skill damage, as well as reduce some of our cooldowns.
- Gar - Helps cover gear options when trying to reach 100% Critical Strike Chance.
Learn more about Runes and how they work in our dedicated Runewords Overview and Runewords Tier List.
Mercenaries
Mercenaries are unlocked during the Vessel of Hatred campaign and assist you in battle. There are 4 separate Mercenaries to choose from, each with their own skill trees and abilities. You can have one hired (permanent) mercenary during solo play and a reinforcement who assists you from time to time in certain situations.
Hired: Subo
He's mainly used for his Seeker ability, which is just incredibly useful in all content since it reveals enemies on the mini-map; the value this has can not be understated. Aside from that, he just kinda shoots stuff and occasionally applies Stuns. His Iconic Skill, Cover Fire, gives us a pretty decent 25% damage multiplier as well when linked with Opening Fire.
Reinforcement: Raheir
He uses the Crater skill, which helps keep enemies grouped up. This can act as an extra defensive layer as well since it has the ability to inflict Stun.
Learn more about Mercenaries and how they work in our dedicated Mercenaries Overview.
Stat Priorities & Item Progression
To enable the Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian to perform optimally, hunt for these stats on your gear with good rolls and aim to Temper ⚒️ & Masterwork Crit ↑ them accordingly. Keep in mind that certain stats, such as Armor, Resistances, Extra Size Tempers, Attack Speed and more, have caps that may affect your priorities according to the items and Paragon points available at that moment.
Recommended Endgame Stat Thresholds
- 90%+ Critical Strike Chance
- 70%+ Chance for HotA to Deal Double Damage
- 50%+ Hammer of the Ancients Size
- 60%+ Attack Speed
- 450%+ Damage while Berserking (Blood Rage)
- 4500%+ Overpower Damage
- 3500+ Strength
- Armor Capped 1,000
- Resistance Capped 70%
- 30,000+ Life
- 160%+ Movement Speed
- 50%+ Ultimate Cooldown Reduction
Item Progression Goals
Before you dive into the Endgame with the Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian, take a look at this overview of the items used in the build. See below for further details about the different progression steps and variants. Some of your Skill Tree choices depend on what Legendary Aspects and Unique items are available to you. Keep in mind that while we can guarantee that everyone has access to the same Codex of Power Aspects, the exact progression is different for everyone.
Learn more details and how to farm Legendary Aspects and Uniques in our General Farming Guide.
Build Variants
This section is designed to guide your Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian from a fresh level 60 into the very late endgame using the three variants Starter, Ancestral and Mythic. At the final step, you should be fully decked out with a great all-rounder build. From there, follow the other min/max variants if you want to optimize around certain activities such as Pit Pushing, Speedfarming and more.
If you are fresh in Torment 1 coming from a leveling guide, this is where you begin. Since only some Aspects can be guaranteed from Dungeon unlocks for the Codex of Power, focus on acquiring the additional Aspects via gambling with Murmuring Obols.
Gear & Skills
- Note: If you have arrived here after following the Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian Leveling Guide, it's perfectly fine to continue using the Starter variant described in that guide if there are no issues. There is often more than one way to play a build successfully; feel free to choose or even combine ideas from both to customize the experience!
- During early progression, Armor & Resistances should be prioritized in order to survive. Each Torment difficulty adds a penalty of -250 Armor and -25% to all Resistances and it's recommended to keep both capped at all times; this means having a value of 1,000 for Armor and 70% for each Resistance. As masterworking levels and Paragon points are unlocked, character power naturally scales into the higher difficulties. As this happens, most of these stats can start being replaced with utility or offensive-oriented ones.
- Ancestral Force should be the first priority, since it gives Hammer of the Ancients some much needed area of effect and boosts its damage significantly.
- Juggernaut's, Steadfast Berserker's, and Anger Management are all extremely important, especially at this progression point. The former is very helpful for reaching Armor cap, while the latter two enable worry-free Berserking and Fortify uptime.
- Bold Chieftain's helps keep our Shouts off cooldown so we can benefit from them as much as possible.
- The combination of Ancestral Charge and Brawler's is helpful for clearing early on, and is a great way to supplement our damage while staying mobile.
- Edgemaster's, Limitless Rage, and Inner Calm are all generic multipliers that increase our damage.
- Ghostwalker is the best way to keep our Movement Speed high; we activate it by using both Charge and Rallying Cry.
The goal here is to progress through the Torment difficulties as you unlock Ancestrals, Paragon points, all Legendary Aspects, Temper mods and the most important Uniques to pilot this build. Some Legendary Aspects are used temporarily to fill slots that may be replaced with more Unique items later on.
Gear & Skills
- As gear is upgraded to Ancestral and more masterworking levels and Paragon points are unlocked, we can focus on replacing Armor and Resistance rolls with more desirable stats; however, staying capped at 1,000 Armor and 70% for all Resistances should always remain a priority for the current difficulty level.
- Ugly Bastard Helm is an incredibly strong item that gives a ton of damage reduction from ranks of Aggressive Resistance, as well as a hefty damage multiplier via its Unique effect. The Wrath of the Berserker Cooldown Reduction can be completely ignored; even though this is a wasted stat, everything else is too good to pass up.
- Tibault's Will works in combination with Rallying Cry to provide a decent damage boost, as well as a fairly high amount of damage reduction while Unstoppable.
- Rakanoth's Wake is a solid choice for patching up Resistances, but its main draw is the large amount of Cooldown Reduction it gives. This stat should be the priority, since we have a number of skills that we want to stay off cooldown as much as possible.
- We don't have room for the Charge Aspects in this setup, so we pick up Accelerating for some more Attack Speed.
- Ancients' Oath is another solid item that comes with a ton of Cooldown Reduction. Alongside well-rolled Rakanoth's Wake and Bold Chieftain's, we can achieve permanent Shout uptime, even on Bosses.
This is the final version of the build's progression, including all regular Unique items, Mythic Uniques, Legendary Aspects, Temper mods and Masterworking, leaving you with a great all-rounder build for all content in the game. Additional variants use this as a baseline to optimize around certain activities.
Gear & Skills
- Heir of Perdition is loaded with great stats for this build and is pretty much a no-brainer. It easily lets us hit Critical Strike Chance cap, gives a ton of ranks to Hammer of the Ancients, and comes with a built-in 60% damage multiplier.
- Doombringer is amazing for Overpower builds since Maximum Life naturally scales Overpower damage. Aside from that, it gives an incredible amount of extra damage mitigation and helps us face-tank.
- The The Grandfather is used in this setup to help maximize damage. The massive boost to our Maximum life substantially increases our Overpower damage, and its Unique effect serves as a permanent 2x damage multiplier since we have 100% Critical Strike Chance.
- Ring of Starless Skies is another no-brainer; it gives a bunch of Critical Strike Chance, Attack Speed, Hammer of the Ancients ranks, and a large damage multiplier that is very simple to keep active.
This setup optimizes the build to push the highest possible Tiers in The Pit after you have finished the Mythic variant and reached a plateau in your progression.
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Gear & Skills
- Not much changes here - we pick up Edgemaster's for a little extra damage and take Steel Grasp to help pull multiple screens of enemies together.
- Berserking Duration is rolled on Gloves to help offset the loss of Anger Management.
- Elixirs and Incenses:
- Elixir of Fortitude II.
- Chorus of War.
- Reddamine Buzz.
- Ancient Times.
- Outburst and Tough as Nails are taken so that we have a way of activating Revenge. This Glyph has two separate damage multipliers and is a strong choice for longer fights, and is especially good against most Bosses.
- When all relevant paragon nodes below are taken, allocate any remaining points into Strength.
FAQ & Mechanics
Once a guide is released, many players have questions on why and how we are approaching certain choices. In this section you can find the answers to the questions that have been asked the most.
Why take Blood Rage with no source of Bleed?
How do I assign skills to the correct weapon?
Mechanics
Learn about the mechanical details which makes the build tick.
Coming Soon
Summary
The Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian is an absolute beast in pretty much all content. Here's why it is a great build:
- High damage output from its guaranteed Overpowers provided by Bash.
- High defense from Doombringer and additional Maximum Life scaling.
- High utility in being able to group enemies via Steel Grasp.
- High uptime on Shouts and other cooldowns with help from Rakanoth's Wake, Ancients' Oath, and Bold Chieftain's.
- Low Fury maintenance; both Bash and Call of the Ancients keep it maxed out at pretty much all times.
Credits
Written by snail