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Minion Barbarian Endgame Build Guide

Season 8 - Belial's ReturnEndgame

Last Updated:April 29, 2025|Changelog|FAQ

Welcome to the Minion Barbarian Build Guide! This is a brand new archetype in Season 8, made possible thanks to some changes on how Call of the Ancients is categorized; most importantly, it gained the Summon tag, but also got newfound synergy with Arreat's Bearing. That's right, procs from this item now benefit from Summon and Ultimate damage, as well as all of their related multipliers!

This technically gives us a few options. The Ancients summoned from Call of the Ancients consist of three members:

  • Korlic, who uses Leap to create Earthquakes.
  • Talic, who spawns Dust Devils whenever he spins with Whirlwind.
  • Madawc, who scorches the Earth with his massive Upheaval swing.

While all of these are technically viable sources of damage, for the purpose of this guide, we are focusing on juicing the strongest of the available options. And... as you might've already guessed... drum roll... (yeah, it's Earthquakes). It's Earthquakes with the boys though, so it'll be fun. Before starting, take note of the:

Requirement for this build

  • Arreat's Bearing (it's not recommended to play this build without first acquiring this).
Minion Barbarian Endgame Setups
Note

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.

Boss Powers

Season 8 - Belial's Return
Minion Barbarian

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.

Best-in-Slot Boss Powers

Main Power

  • Grigoire's Lightning Square - A Lightning-themed Power; it's only really needed as a way to activate our other supporting Powers, which is easily accomplished by just spamming Rupture.

Modifiers

  • Beastmaster's Training - The best damage support Power in the entire pool, and it's made specifically for Minion and Summon builds; at level cap, it provides a whopping 150% damage multiplier. We stack Critical Strike Damage to maximize its effect.
  • Harbinger of Hatred's Volley - Another strong multiplicative damage boost that works well with this build, since it has reliable Vulnerable uptime thanks to Expose Vulnerability.
  • Lilith's Wind of Hate - This is pretty useful as an extra damage source, but the most important part is that it gives us extra targets to hit with Rupture during Boss fights to activate Rage of Harrogath, which helps keep Call of the Ancients off cooldown.
Minion Barbarian Endgame Boss Powers

Alternate Boss Powers

  • Blackmailer's Sabotage - Great defensive option that can be combined with Conceited to give it some offensive utility as well.
  • Flesh Reaper's Disruption - A good damage multiplier that relies on Crowd Control Duration to function. Decent option in the early game before the build is fully geared.
  • Hatred's Embrace's Haste - One of the Resistance-based Powers, with the focus being Shadow Resistance. This is great for passively maximizing our Critical Hit Chance and allows us to prioritize other important stats on gear.

Learn more details about the season theme in our full Season Guide.

Skills & Gameplay

Season 8 - Belial's Return
Minion Barbarian
  • Lunging Strike is needed to progress the skill tree, but also enables the Moni + Tec Runeword, which is very good in the early leveling process. When using Lunging Strike, this combination spawns an Earthquake wherever the cursor is pointed.
  • 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.
  • Call of the Ancients is essentially where all of our damage comes from when it is used in conjunction with Arreat's Bearing. The bulk of this damage comes in the form of Earthquakes, and to a lesser extent, Dust Devils.
  • Rupture is the key to making the final version of the build function. With Rage of Harrogath and The Third Blade equipped, this skill constantly refreshes our cooldowns when it Bleeds enemies, which lets us spam Call of the Ancients.
Minion Barbarian Endgame Skill Tree

Skill Rotation

  • Spam Rupture, pretty much all the time. Doing so lets us refresh all of our cooldowns with Rage of Harrogath. Since this skill always results in an Overpower, it activates Warpath, Decimator, and Bone Breaker, which give our Minions a ton of permanent damage buffs.
  • Cast Call of the Ancients whenever it is off cooldown. This is where all of our damage comes from when equipped with Arreat's Bearing.
  • Cast War Cry, Rallying Cry and Challenging Shout whenever they are off cooldown to keep their buffs active.
  • Use Steel Grasp as needed to group enemies. Like Rupture, it can be cast freely when equipped with The Third Blade.
Pit Gameplay
(Mythic)

Note: Footage is from Season 8 PTR and intended for demonstration purposes only. Does not necessarily indicate the strength of the build in the current patch.

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 Polearm is our main weapon choice because Rupture requires a Slashing weapon to function. Polearm is generally the best option here since it comes with a built-in 15% damage and Lucky Hit Chance multiplier, as well as a really good supporting Glyph, Executioner.

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 system in our full Barbarian Class Overview.

Paragon & Glyphs

Season 8 - Belial's Return
Minion Barbarian
!
Important

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.

← Use the slider for progression steps →
Minion Barbarian Endgame Paragon
Tip

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

  1. Territorial
    • Replaced once we reach 500% Damage to Close Enemies from gear and/or paragon.
  2. Twister
    • Replaced when transitioning from the Starter variant.

Glyph Leveling Priorities

Level 15

  1. Rumble
  2. Ire
  3. Twister
  4. Territorial
  5. Executioner

Level 46

  1. Rumble
  2. Challenger
  3. Ire
  4. Wrath
  5. Executioner

Learn more details about the Paragon System in our in-depth Paragon Boards and Glyphs guide.

Runes

Season 8 - Belial's Return
Minion 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 Minion Barbarian focuses on the following combos:

Best in Slot

  • Igni + Zec - This combination is mainly used to help keep our Ultimate cooldown low during boss fights, since there usually aren't enough targets to get consistent Rage of Harrogath procs.
  • Zan + Qax - This Runeword doubles our damage after every 3 casts of Call of the Ancients, making it extremely powerful when fighting groups of enemies.

Alternative choices

If you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top runes, you can also benefit from these options:

  • Lith / Poc - Alternative Ritual Runes.
  • Gar - Can be used early on to help cap 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. If this Rune is chosen, Ground Stomp (or anything else) can serve as a replacement active skill.
  • Kry - For general content, great for extra passive grouping utility.

Learn more about Runes and how they work in our dedicated Runewords Overview and Runewords Tier List.

Mercenaries

Season 8 - Belial's Return
Minion Barbarian

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.

Minion Barbarian Mercenaries

Learn more about Mercenaries and how they work in our dedicated Mercenaries Overview.

Stat Priorities & Item Progression

Season 8 - Belial's Return
Minion Barbarian

To enable the Minion Barbarian to perform optimally, hunt for these stats on your gear with good rolls and aim to Temper ⚒️ & Masterwork Crit ↑ them accordingly. The green arrow ↑ indicates which affix is most impactful to Masterwork Crit, and it does not indicate how many Masterwork Crits you need on that particular affix. 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
  • 27+ Ranks of Heavy Hitter
  • 70%+ Earthquake Size
  • 25% Earthquake Duration
  • 450%+ Damage while Berserking (Blood Rage)
  • 500%+ Damage to Close Enemies (Force of Nature)
  • 3500+ Strength
  • Armor Capped 1,000
  • Resistance Capped 70%+
  • 15,000+ Life
  • 70%+ Ultimate Cooldown Reduction
Starter
Ancestral
Mythic

Item Progression Goals

Before you dive into the Endgame with the Minion 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.

Starter
Ancestral
Mythic

Learn more details and how to farm Legendary Aspects and Uniques in our General Farming Guide.

Build Variants

Season 8 - Belial's Return
Minion Barbarian

This section is designed to guide your Minion 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.

Starter
Ancestral
Mythic (EQ)
Mythic (DD)

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

Minion Barbarian Starter Gear
Minion Barbarian Starter Skills
  • Important: This build heavily relies on Arreat's Bearing in order to do any kind of meaningful damage. It is not recommended to play without first acquiring this item.
  • 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 well as Fierce Winds, as these contribute the most to our damage output.
    • Earthquakes
    • Executioner's
    • Incendiary Fissures
  • Boss Powers used in this variant are slightly different than the ones used in the final build - adjust them accordingly (shown to the right).
Minion Barbarian Starter Boss Powers
  • Next, focus on the Summon and Ultimate-themed Aspects for their strong multiplicative damage boosts. Note that though some of these Aspects call out specific skills, they aren't required to be used to gain the damage bonus. They include:
    • Ancestral Charge
    • Ancestral Echoes
    • Apogeic Furor
  • 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.
  • Vehement Brawler's is a good generic multiplier that also gives us +2 Ranks of Call of the Ancients.
  • Hectic is useful early on to help reset all of our cooldowns, but Ghostwalker can be used instead for some extra Movement Speed.

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

Minion Barbarian Ancestral Gear
Minion Barbarian Ancestral 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 doesn't matter for us - this stat can be completely ignored.
  • Rage of Harrogath is a core part of the build and enables Rupture to constantly reset all of our cooldowns. This is important because we get a lot of power and defense from having our Shouts and Ultimate up permanently.
  • The Third Blade is what makes Rupture a spammable skill, as it removes its natural cooldown. The build is technically playable without it, but feels extremely clunky.
  • Relentless Berserker's keeps our Berserking status active since The Third Blade also makes Rupture a Core Skill.

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

Minion Barbarian Mythic Gear
Minion Barbarian Mythic Skills
  • Ring of Starless Skies is swapped in at this point for its large multiplicative damage increase, Attack Speed, and extra Critical Strike Chance if needed. This is really the only optimization change when transitioning from the Ancestral variant, and it's not a particularly massive one, meaning the build is completely functional even without Mythics!

Though the Earthquake version of the Minion Barbarian is the strongest of the variants, a Dust Devils-focused setup is completely viable way to enjoy the build. It requires a couple of changes to tempers and some Aspect swaps, but beyond that, not too much changes between the two.

Gear & Skills

Minion Barbarian Mythic Gear
Minion Barbarian Mythic Skills
  • First of all, change any Earthquake Size tempers to Dust Devil Size instead.
  • Next, swap out Executioner's and Incendiary Fissures and replace them with Fierce Winds and Ancestral Echoes.
  • Lastly, change the Rumble to Twister instead; the rest of the paragon board remains the same. That's it, build done!

FAQ & Mechanics

Season 8 - Belial's Return
Minion Barbarian

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.

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.

Summary

Season 8 - Belial's Return
Minion Barbarian

The Minion Barbarian is a new archetype introduced in Season 8 - and what a debut! The build is very strong for tackling any content in the game, and it definitely worth a shot if you're looking to play something new. Here's why it's great:

  • Very relaxed gameplay. Hold down Rupture while your Minions auto-target and destroy everything.
  • High defense and passive healing with great uptime on Challenging Shout, Rallying Cry, and War Cry.
  • High Ultimate uptime due to stacking Cooldown Reduction with Arreat's Bearing.
  • Very little Fury maintenance - Call of the Ancients solves this on its own simply by being active.
  • Great area of effect and high damage output via Earthquakes and Dust Devils. Madawc's Upheaval is surprisingly strong as well!
  • Makes Necromancers jealous (possibly the best thing about playing the build).

Credits

Written by snail
Contributions by Icytroll

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