Mighty Throw Barbarian Endgame Build Guide
Welcome to the Diablo 4 Mighty Throw Barbarian Endgame Build Guide! This is a new skill introduced in Season 6 with the Vessel of Hated expansion and it's... well, MIGHTY, to say the least; it's also likely to be one of the best choices when it comes to slaying demons in all areas of the game.
Mighty Throw does start off with some downsides, the first one being its inherent cooldown. The solution? The Third Blade. Equipping this item removes its cooldown, gives it a Fury cost, and makes it a spammable pseudo-Core skill.
The second downside? It has a relatively small area of effect. We have a solution for that though too - the Herculean Spectacle Aspect. Instead of throwing one weapon, we can now throw three! Combine this with tempered Mighty Throw Pulse Size and this skill very quickly becomes a screen-wide weapon of mass destruction.
To support Mighty Throw, we have a number of other tools at our disposal. Bash allows us to guarantee Overpower hits for absurd amounts of damage. Steel Grasp allows us to group enemies before we blow 'em up. Charge and Rallying Cry both increase our mobility and allow us to become Unstoppable. Lastly, Call of the Ancients gives us an Attack Speed and damage boost on a relatively low cooldown with proper gear.
Sound good? Spoiler: it's very good. So without further ado, let's get to throwin'. But first, take note of the...
Requirement for this build
- The Third Blade
(yes, don't play it without acquiring this first).
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.
Season Theme
Season 6 is the Season of Hatred Rising. It features the Zakarum Remnants faction which hunts Realmwalkers, massive behemoths that roam outdoor zones and beckon Mephisto's hellspawn. Participate in these zone events and take down the Realmwalkers to spawn a portal to a Seething Realm. There you can acquire Seething Opals, new consumables that stack with Elixirs for a XP buff and the chance to gather extra rewards when defeating enemies. The types of Opals are:
- Seething Opal of Equipment
- Seething Opal of Gold
- Seething Opal of Materials
- Seething Opal of Torment
- Seething Opal of Socketables
Use these Opals at all times to earn reputation with the Zakarum Remnants faction and unlock further rewards.
Learn more details about the season theme in our full Season Guide.
Skills & Gameplay
- Combat Bash is a core part of our skill rotation when it is combined with the "Bash Cleaves" tempered affix. With high Critical Strike Chance and while fighting in groups of enemies, this guarantees that the initial Mighty Throw hit, as well as its subsequent pulses, Overpower for massive amounts of damage. This skill should always be used with a Two-Handed Mace.
- Mighty Throw is our main skill and primary damage dealer. At base, it has a major downside in being a cooldown-based ability, but we solve this completely by equipping The Third Blade, which turns it into a spammable pseudo-Core Skill. We further bolster its power by incorporating theHerculean Spectacle Aspect, which gives it two additional projectiles.
- Challenging Shout is a buff that grants us an enormous amount of damage mitigation while active. Even though this isn't on our active skill bar, we can activate it with the Lac Rune. Because this is an Overpower build, the enhanced version of this Shout also makes it a passive damage source, since Maximum Life is factored into the equation for Overpower damage output.
- Rallying Cry gives us Unstoppable and Movement Speed. With Yen's Blessing and Booming Voice, we can benefit from its effects essentially all the time.
- Charge is mainly used as a mobility tool, but can also be used as a back up Unstoppable source if Rallying Cry falls off (hey, it happens). It has the added benefit of being able to pack smaller groups against walls and terrain while also Stunning them.
- Steel Grasp is the main skill we use to group up enemies. Having tightly packed groups is important for this build since Bash on its own has very poor coverage, and relies on hitting multiple enemies at once to activate its guaranteed Overpower.
- Call of the Ancients is a damage multiplier, an attack speed injection, and a Fury generator all-in-one while it is active. With Arreat's Bearing, it has a relatively low cooldown and can be cast quite often.
Skill Rotation
- Ensure Rallying Cry is up at all times. With Yen's Blessing it automatically refreshes itself, so it only needs to be cast whenever it is off cooldown.
- Use Steel Grasp to pull in surrounding enemies and make a nice pile.
- Starting with Bash, alternate between casting Bash and Mighty Throw with a 1:1 ratio. As long as Bash Critically Strikes 4 enemies, the following Mighty Throw (and its pulses) are guaranteed Overpowers.
- 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 pretty much whenever it is off cooldown for more damage and Fury generation.
- Charge should be used to escape Crowd Control effects and to move between packs of monsters.
- 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 Mighty Throw casts becomes 4:1. Alternatively, for maximizing pulses from Fighter's Mighty Throw, a 1:1 ratio may also be used.
- Video showcases the setup described in the Pit Pushing variant.
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 Polearm Expertise is our main weapon of choice; it gives a solid 15% damage multiplier and has one of the best weapon-based offensive Glyphs available to us, Executioner. For the purpose of this guide, Mighty Throw should be set to this weapon.
Note: In setups that are optimized for The Pit, this build is currently using The Grandfather as its main weapon due to its playstyle that revolves around snapshotting. For most other content, this is not required.
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 Expose Vulnerability, so this is 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.
Mighty Throw 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.
Optional Glyphs
- Ambidextrous
- Used in Speedfarming variant.
- Revenge
- Used in Pit Pushing variant.
- Weapon Master
- Used in Pit Pushing variant.
- Crusher
- Used in Pit Pushing (Qax) variant.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
To Level 15
- Territorial
- Ire
- Challenger
- Dominate
- Executioner
To Level 46
- Ire
- Dominate
- Challenger
- Wrath
- Executioner
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 Mighty Throw Barbarian focuses on the following combos:
Best in Slot
- Lith + Lac - While in combat, this Runeword casts Enhanced Challenging Shout for us, which removes the need for us to have it on our skill bar. This is important because it no longer conflicts with Rallying Cry when wearing Yen's Blessing.
- Poc + Xal - This combination gives us 20% more Maximum Life while we are spending Fury on Steel Grasp and Mighty Throw. On top of it being a nice defensive boost, Maximum Life is also factored in when calculating damage for Overpower hits.
Alternative choices
If you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top runes, you can also benefit from these options:
- Bac / Tam - Good alternatives/substitutions for Lith.
- Wat - Great for some extra defense; has the added effect of culling enemies when they drop below 10% health.
- Gar - Helps cover gear options when trying to reach 100% Critical Strike Chance.
- 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.
- Tec - Useful early on for some extra damage. Also allows temporary use of the Earthquake and Bul-Kathos Aspects.
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 Mighty Throw 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
- 95%+ Critical Strike Chance
- 60%+ Mighty Throw Pulse Size
- 50%+ Attack Speed
- 450%+ Damage while Berserking (Blood Rage)
- 5000%+ Overpower Damage
- 3500+ Strength
- Armor Capped 1,000
- Resistance Capped 70%
- 30,000+ Life
- 170%+ Movement Speed
- 70%+ Ultimate Cooldown Reduction
Item Progression Goals
Before you dive into the Endgame with the Mighty Throw 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 Mighty Throw 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.
- Obtaining the The Third Blade is basically required before attempting to run this build. Without it, Mighty Throw has a fairly long cooldown that drastically hinders any kind of progression. It is not recommended to play this build without it.
- Likewise, the Herculean Spectacle Aspect is the main supporting Aspect for Mighty Throw, and substantially increases its damage and area of effect.
- Juggernaut's and Anger Management are extremely important, especially at this progression point. The former is very helpful for reaching Armor cap, while the latter enables worry-free Berserking uptime.
- Bold Chieftain's helps keep our Shouts off cooldown. Since its reduction is percentage-based, we get fairly good value out of it despite not running any Cooldown Reduction on gear.
- Might and Fortress are here for some always-welcome extra damage reduction. For life sustain, Undying is also an option.
- Edgemaster's, Limitless Rage, Conceited and Inner Calm are all generic multipliers that increase our damage.
- Ghostwalker is used for some extra Movement Speed when we cast Rallying Cry. Wind Striker is also an option here.
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.
- Arreat's Bearing gives an absurd amount of Cooldown Reduction to Call of the Ancients and helps us easily cap our Resistances.
- Likewise, Yen's Blessing gives another decent chunk of Resistances. The main draw of this item is its ability to give us essentially a permanent Shout of our choosing. Challenging Shout is always a great choice for it's massive amount of damage reduction, but it can be replaced with Rallying Cry or War Cry depending on the player's preference.
- Banished Lord's Talisman is used before swapping to the Legendary Amulet that is described in the Mythic setup. It's a great damage option, but should only be used when our Critical Strike Chance is capped or nearly capped. This stat is very important because Bash relies on Critical Strikes to grant guaranteed Overpowers. To help bridge the gap, some options are:
- Temporarily equipping a Two-Handed Axe (instead of a Polearm) to benefit from the second part of the Two-Handed Axe Expertise. Two-Handed Axe should be kept in the Expertise slot as well. Swap Executioner for Cleaver if this route is taken.
- Substituting Gar in place of Lac or Xal.
- Before swapping to Banished Lord's Talisman or a Legendary Amulet, the best option is Locran's Talisman. This makes capping Critical Strike Chance relatively easy without investing too much effort elsewhere.
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 Mighty Throw, and comes with a built-in 60% damage multiplier.
- While the stats on Shroud of False Death are "okay" at best, its real power comes from its +1 to All Passives implicit modifier. To put that into perspective, we get an additional rank of the following important passives:
- Warpath
- Belligerence
- Imposing Presence
- Martial Vigor
- Aggressive Resistance
- Raid Leader
- Guttural Yell
- Pit Fighter
- Slaying Strike
- Counteroffensive
- Heavy Handed
- Wallop
- Brute Force
- 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.
- Ring of Starless Skies is another no-brainer; it gives a bunch of Critical Strike Chance, Attack Speed, Mighty Throw ranks, and a large damage multiplier that is very simple to keep active.
This Speedfarming variant optimizes the build for easy activities like Helltides, Whispers, Nightmare Dungeons and lower Pit Tiers after you have finished the Mythic variant and reached a plateau in your progression.
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Gear & Skills
- In this setup we're ignoring the Overpower playstyle and going for pure speed.
- We're dual-wielding with Ramaladni's Magnum Opus (make sure to assign Mighty Throw to this weapon), so we're helping scale its Unique power by also equipping Tibault's Will and The Grandfather. These items are already great on their own, but focusing on Fury scaling makes them even better.
- Bear Clan Berserker's helps Leap and Charge stay off cooldown and keep us mobile.
- Rupture can be used at will since its cooldown is removed when wielding The Third Blade. It's mainly used for single target burst damage.
- To ease any resource issues, we roll Fury per Second on our Chest Armor and Lucky Hit: Chance to Restore Primary Resource on our Gloves.
- As usual, a well-rolled Legendary Amulet is the best option, but Locran's Talisman is a very good alternative.
- Points in War Cry are taken since it can be activated with the Ohm Rune. Depending on the type of content, Jah can be used instead for some extra mobility.
- If available, the Elixir of Resourcefulness II can be used to great effect with this setup.
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 setups revolve around snapshotting Encroaching Wrath and Limitless Rage for huge damage buffs that persist as long as one instance of Mighty Throw is active. There are two variations that can be played; use the tabs above the gear planner and the slider below the skill tree to switch between them.
- The first variant is the standard version which is recommended for most players; this uses the Xal Rune and Call of the Ancients with Wrath slotted in the Warbringer board. For respectable high clears and easier gameplay, this is the go-to version. Use the following rotation at the start of a Pit run:
- Cast Rallying Cry and use Bash until Fury is full.
- Use Hammer of the Ancients → Bash → Hammer of the Ancients to spend 100 Fury and activate Encroaching Wrath.
- Use Bash until Fury overcaps enough to activate Limitless Rage and Combat Bash count is 4.
- Use Mighty Throw and continue the gameplay rotation as normal. For Elite packs, an Overpower can be spent on Hammer of the Ancients every 5 seconds to receive an extra 40% damage multiplier.
- To avoid losing snapshots, make sure Mighty Throw is cast at least once every 4 seconds to prevent having it become inactive.
- The second variant is more advanced and uses the Qax Rune alongside Frenzy. This setup also gets to utilize the Crusher Glyph since it is played with Mighty Throw set to a Two-Handed Mace. This is currently the best version for damage output, but is not recommended for most players due to it's clunkiness and extra setup steps, which can be even more frustrating when playing with higher latency. Only play this if you have mastered the standard setup and wish to push the build to its limits. The initial rotation for this is slightly different:
- Enter The Pit and take damage, then use a Potion to gain half of the offering required to activate Yax.
- Setup the Limitless Rage and Encroaching Wrath snapshot as usual, while making sure to compensate for lower Fury costs when using Unconstrained.
- Upon reaching 4 stacks of Combat Bash, use another Potion to activate Qax.
- Cast Mighty Throw and alternate attacks with Frenzy (not Bash). If Fury is constantly draining and refilling between attacks, the snapshot is correct.
- Elixirs and Incenses:
- Elixir of Fortitude II.
- Chorus of War.
- Reddamine Buzz.
- Ancient Times.
- 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.
How do I assign skills to the correct weapon?
Snapshotting?
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.
Berserking
Fortify
Mighty Throw
Unbridled Rage
Blood Rage
Carnage
Decimator
Summary
The Mighty Throw 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 Challenging Shout, Doombringer, as well as permanent Fortify and Barrier.
- High mobility with Rallying Cry, Shroud of False Death and Charge.
- High utility in being able to group enemies via Steel Grasp with no cooldown.
- High Ultimate uptime with Arreat's Bearing.
- Low Fury maintenance; both Bash and Call of the Ancients keep it maxed out at pretty much all times.
Credits
Written by snail