Earthquake Barbarian Endgame Build Guide
Welcome to the Earthquake Barbarian Build Guide! This is a comprehensive guide that focuses on the new "HotA Quake" setup introduced in Season 7, which uses Hammer of the Ancients and Mantle of Mountain's Fury for some seriously dangerous and explosive terrestrial destruction. This is an extremely powerful and versatile build that is ideal for pushing the highest levels of The Pit, as well as speedfarming all content in the game with a comfy and familiar Leapquake setup.
Earthquakes, as you may have guessed, are what give the build practically all of its power. They are created primarily by using Leap with the Bul-Kathos Aspect, Ground Stomp with the Earthquakes Aspect, and by triggering the Tec Rune; the latter being the most volatile of the bunch. Secondary sources, in some cases, also include Call of the Ancients with Arreat's Bearing, as well as the Executioner's Aspect when combined with skills that Overpower.
If jumping around like a madman and demolishing everything in your path sounds like your idea of a good time, then this is the build for you. Heck, if body-pulling multiple screens of enemies, hunkering down and then annihilating them all with a titanic swing of the Hammer of the Ancients sounds like your idea of a good time... then this build is also for you. Don't get too excited yet though -as with most builds, there are some integral pieces that must be acquired first before any Earthquake-focused setup can truly shine:
Requirements for this build
- Bul-Kathos
- Giant Strides
- Tec (the strongest Earthquake by a large margin).
- Mantle of Mountain's Fury (makes them go boom!)
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. 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 - Serves as our third Growth & Decay Power, which is necessary in order to activate Friend of the Bog.
Alternate Witchcraft Powers
- The Cycle - 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
- Moonlight Ward - This is a fantastic defensive Gem that scales with our Piranhado levels for a total of 15% damage reduction and 2.5% to our maximum resistances.
- Friend of the Bog - Extra Core Stats improve both skill damage (which includes Earthquakes) and the Executioner's damage multiplier. Maximum Life is self-explanatory; more life = less dying. Unhindered doesn't help us much since we are typically using Leap or under the effects of Rallying Cry, but it's there if needed.
- Hungering Void - Another way to pull mobs together, on an 8 second timer. It can also just be used as a replacement for Piranhado.
Alternate Occult Gems
- Dust Stone - We have one Aura and one Hex in this setup, so this Gem gives enemies a total of 4% increased damage taken.
- Killing Wind - Provides some extra Critical Strike Chance and Movement Speed. It has some use in the early gearing process.
Learn more details about the season theme in our full Season Guide.
Skills & Gameplay
- Bash is needed to progress the skill tree and is not used in any iteration of the build outside of high level Pit pushing. In that specific case, Combat Bash is used as a means to guarantee an Overpower hit, which allows us to benefit from damage bonuses such as the ones granted by Warpath and Decimator.
- Hammer of the Ancients becomes a core part of our skill rotation when it is combined with Mantle of Mountain's Fury. Equipping it makes this skill consume all of our active Earthquakes and then detonate them; the result is a chain of highly destructive explosions that are based on the duration of the consumed Earthquakes.
- Rallying Cry provides us multiple buffs, with the most important ones being the invaluable Unstoppable and Fortify effects.
- War Cry grants us the Berserking buff, but its main appeal is the generous multiplicative damage boost it gives while active.
- Challenging Shout gives us huge damage reduction and a boost to our Maximum Life. This is a crucial skill for surviving the more difficult content in the game, such as higher levels of The Pit.
- Leap is the other skill that is considered a core part of the main build described in this guide; we use it to stay mobile and constantly fill the entire screen with Earthquakes. With enough Cooldown Reduction, it can be used freely and without penalty when combined with Giant Strides.
- Call of the Ancients provides us with a decent multiplicative boost and also contributes to our overall damage, since the Ancients from Arreat's Bearing are quite formidable on their own.
Skill Rotation
- Use Leap to spawn Earthquakes from the Bul-Kathos Aspect and Tec Rune.
- Once Earthquakes are active, use Hammer of the Ancients to detonate them on top of enemies.
- The desired number of active Earthquakes required to quickly eliminate packs may vary depending on the content.
- For weak enemies, a single Earthquake from one or both of Bul-Kathos and Tec is typically enough, so detonating them early is usually ideal to speed things up.
- In high levels of The Pit and during Boss fights, there is a point where stacking many Earthquakes before detonating is more efficient for overall damage output. To keep things simple, aim for 4-5 seconds of stacking Earthquakes before dropping a Hammer of the Ancients.
- Results may vary! Try to find the sweet spot for stacking and detonating based on your current gear level and the content you're running.
- While leaping around, cast War Cry, Rallying Cry and Challenging Shout whenever they are off cooldown to keep their buffs active.
- Call of the Ancients can be used strategically for tougher fights and against Bosses for a large damage boost. The 30% damage multiplier and 20% damage reduction bonuses aren't the only perks of using this skill - with Arreat's Bearing equipped, Talic and Korlic also provide us with pretty solid supplemental damage. Use this skill in conjunction with Raheir's Crater to initiate a wide pull on Elite packs.
(Speedfarming)
(Pit Pushing)
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.
For this purpose of this guide, the Two-Handed Mace is our main weapon choice simply because Hammer of the Ancients requires it to function. When using the Pit Pushing variant, Bash should also be set to this weapon in order to benefit from both its Enhanced version as well as the Combat Bash specialization.
In the Technique Slot, the Two-Handed Axe Expertise allows us to deal 10% more damage to Vulnerable enemies. Thankfully, this build has very high Vulnerable uptime, so this is practically a no-brainer. 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.
Earthquake 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.
Optional Glyphs
- Revenge
- Replaces Wrath in Pit Pushing variant.
- Marshal
- Replaces Ire in Pit Pushing variant.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
Level 15
- Rumble
- Ire
- Territorial
- Challenger
- Wrath
Level 46
- Rumble
- Challenger
- Ire
- Territorial
- Wrath
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 Earthquake Barbarian focuses on the following combos:
Best in Slot
- Yul + Tec - This combination allows us to spawn Earthquakes from any of our skills that have a cooldown, with Leap being the primary one. The majority of our damage comes from socketing these Runes.
- Igni + Gar - This Runeword passively helps us cap our Critical Strike Chance. It's a simple but effective boost to our overall damage output.
Alternative choices
If you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top runes, you can also benefit from these options:
- Bac / Moni - Alternatives for Yul.
- 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. If this Rune is chosen, Challenging Shout (or anything else) can serve as a replacement active skill.
- Zec - Can assist with keeping our Ultimate off cooldown; useful early on when lacking Cooldown Reduction.
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 Earthquake 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
- 80%+ Critical Strike Chance (with Gar)
- 70%+ Chance for Earthquakes to Cast Twice
- 70%+ Earthquake Size
- 25% Earthquake Duration
- 450%+ Damage while Berserking (Blood Rage)
- 500%+ Damage to Close Enemies (Force of Nature)
- 3000+ Strength
- Armor Capped 1,000
- Resistance Capped 70%+
- 20,000+ Life
- 60%+ Ultimate Cooldown Reduction
- 60%+ Leap Cooldown Reduction (below 4 seconds)
Item Progression Goals
Before you dive into the Endgame with the Earthquake 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 Earthquake 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
- 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.
- Focus on acquiring and improving the Earthquake themed Aspects, as these contribute the most to our damage output:
- Bul-Kathos
- Earthquakes
- Executioner's
- Incendiary Fissures
- Juggernaut's and Steadfast Berserker's are both extremely important, especially at this progression point. The former is very helpful for reaching Armor cap, while the latter is a worry-free way of keeping Fortify.
- Elements is a solid generic multiplier that increases our damage when it changes to Physical.
- Retribution is a conditional damage multiplier that we can take advantage of relatively often by using Ground Stomp.
- Bear Clan Berserker's is extremely useful early on for keeping all of our Brawling abilities off cooldown; these include Leap, Ground Stomp and War Cry.
Playstyles
- The Lunging Strike setup is easy to start out with and doesn't really have any specific gear requirements. Use Moni + Tec to spawn Earthquakes after every other use of Lunging Strike.
- The Leap setup requires a little more effort in gearing, but is faster overall. It requires the Giant Strides Aspect and attention to Cooldown Reduction rolls on gear in order to feel smooth. Bul-Kathos makes it so this skill also spawns additional Earthquakes on use.
- To view each setup, use the tabs located above the sample gear image. Make sure to select the skills that correspond to each build by using the slider located below the skill tree image.
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 some 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.
- Mantle of Mountain's Fury turns our Hammer of the Ancients into a detonation device and allows us to lean into the "HotaQuake" style of play. Once this item is acquired, the priority becomes blowing up our active Earthquakes for huge bursts of explosive damage.
- Arreat's Bearing gives an absurd amount of Cooldown Reduction to Call of the Ancients and helps us easily cap our Resistances. The Dust Devils and Earthquakes created by the Ancients themselves are also very powerful.
- Fists of Fate, when rolled well, is a 50% damage multiplier on average and provides a lot of good stats along with it. The Lucky Hit-based Crowd Controls are great for locking down enemies and staggering Bosses. The high amount of Lucky Hit Chance this item provides also ensures we have good uptime on any ability or effect that relies on it.
- Don't use this item if it is rolled poorly. The Unique effect is the most important (aim for 280%+), but consider the other stats as well (Critical Strike Chance in particular, as it can roll as low as 0.1%). Legendary Gloves with Strength and an Offensive Aspect like Elements are solid placeholders, and in some cases they are just the better option.
- Either Rakanoth's Wake or Yen's Blessing can be used temporarily to help cap Resistances, especially before masterworking or acquiring Arreat's Bearing.
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
- Harlequin Crest gives us a massive amount of Cooldown Reduction and Skill ranks to help ensure Leap stays spammable. It's important to note that equipping this over Ugly Bastard Helm is a net damage loss. However, there is a point where this extra damage becomes completely unnecessary and prioritizing speed is the more efficient way to build.
- The goal with this setup is to have permanent uptime on Leap, regardless if it hits an enemy or not.
- The Leap Cooldown Calculator can help track your progress in reaching this goal.
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
- Pit Pushing variants drop the mobility of Leap in favor of damage.
- Note that these setups are subject to frequent changes as the meta evolves.
- Combat Bash provides us a way to guarantee an Overpower hit. Not only does this skill allow us to benefit from Warpath, Belligerence, and Decimator, it also enables the 1.4x damage multiplier from Violent Hammer of the Ancients.
- Supreme Wrath of the Berserker is used in all pushing variants; it offers us the highest damage multiplier and solves Berserking for us when paired with Bash.
- Outburst and Tough as Nails are required for the Grit damage reduction cluster (if desired) and activation of the Revenge Glyph.
- If playing Shroud of False Death, these points are automatically allocated.
- Inner Calm and Exploiter's are both additional generic damage multipliers, with the latter applying only to monsters that have become Unstoppable from our various Crowd Control effects.
- Zec is used to help keep Wrath of the Berserker up permanently, specifically on Boss fights. Gar is a viable replacement for extra Critical Strike Chance if needed, but may result in downtime if extra focus on Cooldown Reduction is not prioritized on gear to compensate.
- If using The Grandfather variant, Thul can be played for Vulnerable application in place of Shaken Soul. This Rune also applies 15% increased damage taken to all enemies it hits.
- The Cycle is preferred over Piranhado for pushing since we don't have much control over where it pulls enemies, and this can interfere with setting up the Soul Harvest snapshot.
Playstyles
- All variants:
- With no enemies on screen, (optionally) cast all buffs at the start of the run to have some extra mobility and defense. If there are enemies in range, skip this step.
- Gather enemies to snapshot Soul Harvest. Don't use any abilities that have a cooldown until enough enemies are on screen; the hard cap for this buff is 64 stacks.
- Alternate Bash and Hammer of the Ancients depending on the variant being played (see below).
- Use Ground Stomp and the Zec Rune (as needed) to keep Wrath of the Berserker up at all times; if it drops, the Supreme Wrath of the Berserker buff becomes inactive and must start again from zero. Our Shouts and the Marshal Glyph help keep it up on Bosses.
- With Shroud of False Death:
- Rotation is Bash then Hammer of the Ancients, with a 1:1 ratio.
- Earthquake Duration tempers aren't needed when using this setup.
- The All Stats granted by this item make gearing much more flexible; adjustments can be made depending on your gear level, especially in regards to Critical Strike Chance and Resistances.
- With Mantle of Mountain's Fury:
- Rotation (ideally) is Bash then Hammer of the Ancients, with a 4:1 ratio. It's important to not allow the Ring of Starless Skies buff to drop while doing it. This is fairly comfortably achieved by having 50% or more Attack Speed from gear and/or paragon (Nimble cluster). The more the better, but don't sacrifice other priority stats unless absolutely necessary.
- In general, the purpose of this setup is allowing Earthquakes to tick as long as possible before blowing them up to maximize damage output. Optimal detonation time is between 2.5 and 3 seconds (to not allow Ring of Starless Skies to expire).
- A single Earthquake Duration temper on a One-Handed Sword (for the implicit) is ideal for this setup.
- The loss of All Stats from Shroud of False Death make gearing this variant much more strict, particularly when it comes to capping Critical Strike Chance and Resistances. Attention may be required (if not capped) when performing its rotation to ensure that Combat Bash always activates; a simple solution for this is a 2:1 ratio, but this can result in a slight overall damage decrease.
- Adjustments to gear (masterworking for Critical Strike Chance) or pathing for Dexterity paragon nodes can help with reaching cap.
- Raheir's Aegis can be used to make up for low Resistances.
- With The Grandfather:
- Rotation for this one is relatively simple, spam Bash and then use Hammer of the Ancients approximately every 4 seconds.
- Ideally, you want to time this skill in such a way that it always triggers Mystical Frost Nova from the Igni + Thul combo. It may take some practice, but luckily the buff icon for this is in a static location on the user interface and is easily visible.
- Wrath of the Berserker can be permanently active without much trouble, even on a Boss, with sufficient Cooldown Reduction from tempers on the Rings and Amulet. Try to get this below 15 seconds (don't forget to account for Vehement Brawler's) so that a single Strategic Ground Stomp is always enough to reset it.
- 100% Critical Strike Chance is very important for this setup, so to make up the loss from Ring of Starless Skies:
- Prioritize masterworking All Stats on The Grandfather.
- Always use Elixir of Precision II.
- Use Hex Specialization with Hex of Shattering. These replace Shaken Soul and Hex of Whispers.
- Rotation for this one is relatively simple, spam Bash and then use Hammer of the Ancients approximately every 4 seconds.
- Gameplay (The Grandfather variant):
- Elixirs and Incenses:
- Elixir of Precision II.
- Alternatively, Elixir of Fortitude II.
- Reddamine Buzz.
- Soothing Spices.
- Ancient Times.
- Elixir of Precision II.
- 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.
Use this Leap Cooldown Calculator to simulate how much Cooldown Reduction you need with your current gear.
Mechanics
Much of the information in this section has been carefully and thoroughly tested by Icytroll and is extracted directly from the Barbarian Compendium. This should be your main source for the most accurate and up-to-date explanations on all mechanics that pertain to the Barbarian class.
- Earthquakes tick for damage every 0.5s
- Earthquakes only use skill variance: [dmg*0.9,dmg*1.1].
- You can have 10 Earthquakes active at the same time (including Tec and "cast twice" EQ's)
- Earthquakes can not trigger Lucky Hit effects.
- Earthquakes can not Overpower.
Earthquake sources and their Skill% scaling at max ranks are:
| Earthquake source | Weapon Damage scaling |
| Earthquakes | 229% (458% with double dmg bug) |
| Bul-Kathos | 260% (520% with double dmg bug) |
| Call of the Ancients with Arreat's Bearing | 270% (540% with double dmg bug) |
| Executioner's | 481% (962% with double dmg bug) |
| Tec | 1680% (3360% with double dmg bug) |
With "Skill% scaling" we mean the value used as "Skill%" in the general damage formula found in our In-Depth Damage Guide.
Interactions that work with Earthquake
The following interactions have been verified through damage recording or footage to ensure they are functional. Anything not listed here has not explicitly been verified during the creation of this list.
- Aspects
- Berserk Ripping
- Bul-Kathos
- Earthquakes
- Elements
- Executioner's
- Incendiary Fissures
- Inner Calm
- Retribution
- Skills and Passives
- Belligerence
- Counteroffensive
- Gushing Wounds with Berserk Ripping
- Heavy Handed
- Heavy Hitter
- Pit Fighter
- Slaying Strike
- Wallop
- Warpath
- Prime Call of the Ancients
- Supreme Wrath of the Berserker
- Unconstrained
- Walking Arsenal
- Legendary Nodes
- Blood Rage
- Flawless Technique
- Hemorrhage with Berserk Ripping
- Force of Nature
- Glyphs
- Ambidextrous
- Bloodfeeder
- Cleaver
- Executioner
- Might
- Revenge
- Rumble
- Uniques and Mythic Uniques
- Arreat's Bearing
- Fists of Fate
- Mantle of Mountain's Fury
- Ramaladni's Magnum Opus
- Stats
- Earthquake Size temper (scales area, capped at 100%)
- Earthquake Duration temper (not capped, adds another tick every 12.5% extra duration, no partial tick dmg)
- Earthquake Cast Twice temper (capped at 100%)
- Earthquake Damage paragon nodes
- Runes
- Tec
Interactions that partially work with Earthquake
The following interactions have been verified through damage recording or footage to ensure they have buggy/unintutive interactions. Anything not listed here has not explicitly been verified during the creation of this list.
- Aspects
- [BUG] Earthquake ticks currently deal 100% more damage than expected compared to their tooltip.
- [BUG] The tooltip above the skill bar showing that you are standing in a Bul-Kathos Earthquake and have increased Damage Reduction, uses the Earthquake damage multiplier, while the real value for the Damage Reduction is 30% as indicated by the aspect tooltip.
- Runes
- [BUG] Earthquakes from the Tec Rune does x20% more damage than expected compared to the base value of 1400%.
- Skills and Passives
- When you spawn an Earthquake by any means the rank 10 Polearm bonus from Polearm Expertise drops until you use a skill that has a Polearm selected as its arsenal selection.
Interactions that do not work with Earthquake
The following interactions have been verified through damage recording or footage to ensure they are not functional. Anything not listed here has not explicitly been verified during the creation of this list.
- Aspects
- Edgemaster's
- Skills and Passives
- Furious Upheaval
- Glyphs
- Earthquake crits do not count towards Wrath Fury gain.
- Leap is not affected by Attack Speed, the animation time of a Leap only depends on the distance you're traveling.
Interactions that work with Leap
The following interactions have been verified through damage recording or footage to ensure they are functional. Anything not listed here has not explicitly been verified during the creation of this list.
- Aspects
- Retribution
- Inner Calm
- Elements
- Edgemaster's
- Bul-Kathos
- Skills and Passives
- Concussion
- Counteroffensive
- Gushing Wounds with Berserk Ripping
- Heavy Handed
- Pit Fighter
- Slaying Strike
- Wallop
- Enhanced Leap
- Power Leap
- Mighty Leap
- Legendary Nodes
- Blood Rage
- Bone Breaker
- Carnage
- Flawless Technique
- Force of Nature with Bul-Kathos
- Hemorrhage with Berserk Ripping
- Glyphs
- Ambidextrous
- Bloodfeeder
- Brawl
- Cleaver
- Crusher
- Dominate
- Executioner
- Might
- Revenge
- Wrath
- Stats
- Deal Double Damage temper (is not inherited by subsequent Bul-Kathos Earthquakes, capped at 100%)
- Leap Size temper (scales area, capped at 100%)
- Leap Cooldown Reduction temper
- Runes
- Bac
Interactions that partially work with Leap
The following interactions have been verified through damage recording or footage to ensure they have buggy/unintutive interactions. Anything not listed here has not explicitly been verified during the creation of this list.
- Aspects
- [BUG] The Giant Strides aspect currently reduces the cooldown of Leap by 9 seconds instead of 7 when used on bosses.
Interactions that do not work with Leap
The following interactions have been verified through damage recording or footage to ensure they are not functional. Anything not listed here has not explicitly been verified during the creation of this list.
N/A
- The Unconstrained (UC) Key Passive increases the global damage multiplier of Berserking from 25%[x] to 60%[x], and while below 65% HP you are always Berserking and gain 30% physical damage reduction.
- The interaction with Wrath of the Berserker functions the same as with the base 25%[x] multiplier here, increasing the 60%[x] Berserking multiplier by 25% for every 50 Fury spent:
| Total Fury spent | Calculation | Resulting damage increase of Berserking |
| 50 | 60%[x] * 1.25 | 75%[x] |
| 100 | 60%[x] * 1.5 | 90%[x] |
| 150 | 60%[x] * 1.75 | 105%[x] |
| 200 | 60%[x] * 2 | 120%[x] |
- The physical damage reduction does not have any effect on the hit that takes you below 65% HP, the physical DR is only applied to damage taken while you are below 65% HP.
- [BUG] Unconstrained raises the maximum Berserking time to 10 seconds instead of 5 seconds even though the tooltip does not indicate this.
- [BUG] Using Shroud of False Death while having a point in Unconstrained adds an additional point which adds another 35% damage making Berserking a 95%[x] multiplier (190%[x] with Wrath of the Berserker) instead of just a 60%[x] multiplier.
- The base functionality adds Earthquake damage to your additive damage bucket based on how much strength is found in the glyph range.
- [BUG] The additional bonus of dealing 10%[x] increased damage against bosses and crowd controlled enemies for each active Earthquake up to 50%[x], is applied in steps of 10% multiplicatively and thus goes above the 50% cap for a total damage increase of: (1+10%)^5 - 1 = 61.1%[x].
- The legendary bonus works as expected and is a separate multiplier on Earthquake damage.
- Blood Rage is a global multiplier [x] for all your damage which scales off of your Damage while Berserking stat, up to a cap of 45%[x] damage increase with 450%[+] Berserking damage.
- Force of Nature is a multiplier [x] for Earthquake damage which scales off of 40% of your Close Damage, up to a cap of 200%[x] damage increase.
- [BUG] It appears that the tooltip of Force of Nature scales with the statsheet value of Close Damage (which is affected by Pit Fighter and Ire multipliers), however only the Ire glyph works an actual damage increase to the Force of Nature multiplier, ranks in Pit Fighter will increase the tooltip value but won't actually increase the actual damage output. In summary, Ire double-dips its Close Damage multiplier for Earthquakes by being a global multiplier and also increasing the Force of Nature multiplier.
- Every time you swap weapons, i.e. you cast a skill that uses a different weapon than the one you're currently holding, Weapons Master generates 8% of your maximum Fury.
- This works even when using the different attacks of Iron Maelstrom.
- [BUG] Weapons Master applies its 30% as both an additive and a multiplicative value for damage vs Healthy and Injured enemies, meaning if you no other additive damage vs Healthy stats for instance, your statsheet value will be:
(1+additive%)*multipliers-1 = statsheetValue->(1+30%)*1.3-1 = 69%(same for damage vs Injured).
The new Barbarian unique for Season 7 introduces a new mechanic, in the form of being able to detonate active Earthquakes for their total damage in one big hit by hitting them with a line that shoots out from your character when you use Hammer of the Ancients. Lets look at some of the affixes.
Chance for Earthquake to Deal Double Damage. When an Earthquake is created the affix rolls a die, and if successful that Earthquake will deal double damage for all of its damage ticks and a subsequent explosion if detonated via the Unique effect.
HotA shoots out a line that explodes any Earthquakes it passes through. The explosion damage is based off of the total damage an earthquake would deal over it's duration. So if we were to write out the damage an Earthquake would deal per tick it would look like:
EQtickDmg = [wpnDmg] * [Skill%] * [1+mainstat/1000] * [1+add%] * [multipliers] * 2 * 1/8
where the 2 is from Earthquakes having a bug that makes them deal double damage compared to their tooltip values, and the 1/8 represents the damage of 1 tick (4s duration with a tick every 0.5s). The total tick damage of an Earthquake and a detonation is simply written as:
EQtotalTickDmg = [wpnDmg] * [Skill%] * [1+mainstat/1000] * [1+add%] * [multipliers] * 2 * [1+(EQduration%-mod(EQduration%,12.5%)]
EQdetonationDmg = [wpnDmg] * [Skill%] * [1+mainstat/1000] * [1+add%] * [multipliers] * 2 * [1+EQduration%]
which is roughly the same amount when we account for the number of EQ ticks only going up by 1 every step of 12.5% duration, by comparison the explosion damage scales continously with more duration. Each Earthquake tick has a separate roll to cause a Critical Strike on each individual enemy hit, where as an Earthquake detonation just rolls a Critical Strike on each individual enemy hit as it's 1 instance of damage instead of several ticks.
Some findings about the detonations:
- EQ duration affects the explosion damage.
- The unique effect on the chest has no effect on the explosion damage.
- The size of the explosion scales with increased Earthquake Size and goes further than the area covered by an Earthquake (exception being the Tec Rune where the explosion only happens within the area of an Earthquake).
- The number of exploded Earthquakes has no effect on their damage, each Earthquake tracks its own explosion damage.
- The damage of a detonation is not affected by how long an Earthquake has already been active, popping it after 0.5 or 3.5s yields the same detonation damage.
- The damage increase from Violent Hammer of the Ancients is a dynamic multiplier which means it affects detonation damage even if it wasn't active when an Earthquake was spawned.
- Spawning an Earthquake while wielding Ramaladni's Magnum Opus increases the damage of an Earthquake for all its damage ticks by an amount corresponding to how much Fury we had when that Earthquake was spawned, and this damage multiplier also carries over to when that Earthquake is detonated (i.e. it's snapshotted at Earthquake spawn).
- The weapon that you are wielding when spawning an Earthquake is also snapshotted, meaning if you're holding an ilvl 800 2H Mace compared to wielding ilvl 800 1H Swords, the Earthquake that was spawned while holding a 2H Mace will deal more damage when detonated compared to if it was spawned while wielding 1H Swords.
- The Ring of Starless Skies buff is dynamic for Earthquake ticks and is also dynamic for the detonation.
- A list of aspects and passives that are applied to Earthquake explosions include but is not limited to:
- Bul-Kathos
- Earthquakes
- Incendiary Fissures
- Executioner's
- Force of Nature
- Heavy Handed
- Heavy Hitter
- Pit Fighter
- Slaying Strike
- Wallop
- Warpath
- Weapons Master (adds +30% additive damage and a x30% multiplier vs Healthy and Injured enemies)
In general, if a multiplier snapshots to an Earthquake for its regular tick damage when that Earthquake is created, it will also be active for the detonation. See the Earthquake header for more information on Earthquake interactions.
The unique effect of Ugly Bastard Helm converts all your damage to Fire damage while you're Berserking and provides a Fire damage multiplier on top. The only exception to this is Bleed damage which stays as Physical damage but still gets the Fire multiplier on top. All other additive damage sources function as normal. In other words:
| Additive damage matrix | Non-Bleed damage | Bleed damage |
| Berserking without Ugly Bastard Helm | +Physical damage works +Fire damage doesn't work | +Physical damage works +Fire damage doesn't work |
| Berserking with Ugly Bastard Helm | +Physical damage doesn't work +Fire damage works | +Physical damage works +Fire damage doesn't work |
- [BUG] The Fire Damage proc does not gain the Fire damage multiplier unless you are Berserking.
- The Fire Damage proc works with Berserk Ripping, and the resulting Bleed has no variance in its damage.
- The Fire Damage proc works with Ramaladni's Magnum Opus when Dual Wielding.
Berserking is a vital mechanic for the Barbarian, securing high Berserking uptime with your build is often essential to making your character as powerful as possible.
- Berserking provides a global 1.25[x] damage multiplier (1.6[x] with the Unconstrained key passive) and 25%[+] movement speed.
Working sources and interactions of Berserking
The following interactions have been verified through damage recording or footage to ensure they are functional. Anything not listed here has not explicitly been verified during the creation of this list.
- Aspects
- Anger Management
- Berserk Ripping
- Burning Rage
- Skills and Passives
- Aggressive Resistance
- Battle Fervor
- Prolific Fury
- Unconstrained
- Combat Lunging Strike
- Furious Double Swing
- Violent Upheaval
- Enhanced War Cry
- Warrior's Death Blow
- Fighter's Steel Grasp
- Wrath of the Berserker
- Supreme Wrath of the Berserker
- Legendary Nodes
- Blood Rage
- Carnage
- Glyphs
- Ire
- Uniques and Mythic Uniques
- Tuskhelm of Joritz the Mighty
- Ugly Bastard Helm
- Stats
- Damage while Berserking temper and paragon nodes
Interactions that do not work with Berserking
The following interactions have been verified through damage recording or footage to ensure they are not functional. Anything not listed here has not explicitly been verified during the creation of this list.
N/A
- Fortify can be seen as an extra layer of defense that acts alongside your health. It's built up through various skills, glyphs, passives and paragon nodes and can reach the same value as your max HP. While you have equal or more Fortify than your current HP, you have an additional 15% generic damage reduction.
- It should be noted that damage reductions are applied through inverse multiplication, which means if you're taking 1000 damage from a hit without being Fortified, you will take:
1000*(1-15%) = 850damage if you instead were Fortified. If you for example are Fortified and have an additional 10% damage reduction against Close enemies, you will instead take:1000*(1-15%)*(1-10%) = 765damage from Close enemies. This is how all separate damage reduction sources function in Diablo 4. - Fortify is a dynamic damage reduction. This means that if you have more HP than Fortify, but the next hit will bring your HP below your current amount of Fortify, the game will look at how big the incoming hit is compared to your current HP and Fortify amount and calculate how much of the 15% Fortify damage reduction should be accounted for. We can set it up a general equation which given your current HP, current Fortify and the damage you will take from the incoming hit without being Fortified ("dmg" in the formula below), will calculate your remaining HP and whether to account for a partial Fortify damage reduction:
- The above equation covers all 3 damage taken cases of:
- Your HP is lower or equal to your Fortify amount (full 15% reduction)
- The incoming hit will take you below your current Fortify amount (partial reduction)
- The incoming hit will not take you below your current Fortify amount (no reduction)
Interactions that work with Fortify
The following interactions have been verified through damage recording or footage to ensure they are functional. Anything not listed here has not explicitly been verified during the creation of this list.
- Aspects
- Steadfast Berserker's
- Numbing Wrath
- Tempering Blows
- Assimilation
- Skills and Passives
- Enhanced Bash
- Strategic Rallying Cry
- Strategic Iron Skin
- Mighty War Cry
- Defensive Stance is additive with the 15% base damage reduction of Fortify
- Thick Skin
- Counteroffensive
- Irrepressible
- Legendary Nodes
- Warbringer
- Stats
- Damage while Fortified paragon nodes
- Fortify Generation paragon nodes (are multiplicative, separate nodes are additive with each other)
- Damage Reduction while Fortified paragon nodes (separate DR from being Fortified, separates nodes are inverse multiplicative with each other)
- %Thorns while Fortified temper
Interactions that partially work with Fortify
The following interactions have been verified through damage recording or footage to ensure they have buggy/unintuitive interactions. Anything not listed here has not explicitly been verified during the creation of this list.
- Glyphs
- The additional bonus from the Undaunted glyph does not work as expected. The additional damage reduction is not applied based on the amount of Fortify you have before you take a hit, but by the amount of Fortify you have after you take a hit. If you for example have 100% HP and Fortify before taking a hit, if you have 50% Fortify after taking that hit you gain 50% of the Undaunted bonus, e.g. 10%*50% = 5% damage reduction for that hit.
Interactions that do not work with Fortify
The following interactions have been verified through damage recording or footage to ensure they are not functional. Anything not listed here has not explicitly been verified during the creation of this list.
N/A
Summary
The Earthquake Barbarian is a complete monster that can be a chaotic and fast-paced speedfarmer, or slowed down and stacked with multipliers to allow it to absolutely destroy any content in the game. Here's what makes it great:
- Permanent Berserking uptime thanks to Battle Fervor (or alternatively, Wrath of the Berserker).
- High defense and passive healing with great uptime on Challenging Shout if needed, Bul-Kathos, and Defensive Stance.
- High Ultimate uptime due to stacking Cooldown Reduction with Arreat's Bearing for speedfarming, or Ugly Bastard Helm for pushing The Pit.
- Extremely high mobility; Leap has zero cooldown at all times with the proper gear.
- Very little Fury maintenance - this is not a build that needs to spam spenders in order to do damage.
- Great area of effect and absurd damage output via Earthquakes, with multiple ways to generate them.
- Explosions!
Credits
Written by snail
Contributions by Beatdropper, Icytroll