Minion Barbarian Endgame Build Guide
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).
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 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 and/or Fists of Fate.
- 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.
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
- 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.
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 Lunging Strike as needed to help sustain the Fury cost of Rupture. If there is ever a point where this skill has outlived its usefulness, there are a few replacement options:
- Steel Grasp can be used as an extra way to group up enemies.
- Iron Skin is a good choice for some extra defense.
- Whirlwind may be used for some extra utility and damage alongside Wandering Death's Chest Beam.
(Tier 105)
(Tier 75)
Note: Gameplay is from the "Pit Pushing" variant described later in this guide.
Note: Gameplay is from the "Speedfarming" variant described later in this guide.
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
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.
Minion 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
- Replaced once we reach 500% Damage to Close Enemies from gear and/or paragon.
- Twister
- Replaced when transitioning from the Starter variant.
Optional Glyphs
- Marshal
- Used in Pit Pushing variant, or just as a replacement in general for Wrath.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
Level 15
- Rumble
- Ire
- Twister
- Territorial
- Executioner
Level 46
- Rumble
- Challenger
- Ire
- Wrath
- Executioner
Learn more details about the Paragon System in our in-depth Paragon Boards and Glyphs guide.
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 Minion Barbarian focuses on the following combos:
Best in Slot
- Yul + Kry - This combination is used to group enemies and help keep our damage in a more concentrated area, rather than spread out due to the randomness of the Ancients' auto-targeting.
- Ahu + Qax - This Runeword straight up doubles our damage; it's most effective when fighting in large density since the trigger effect applies to each enemy it hits.
Alternative choices
If you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top runes, you can also benefit from these options:
- Poc / Zan - Alternative Ritual Runes.
- Zec - Good option that helps with Ultimate cooldown.
- Gar - Can be used early on to help cap Critical Strike Chance.
- Jah - Great choice for some extra zoom, especially when combined with Leap in the Speedfarming variant.
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: Varyana
She gives us some extra Attack Speed with her Bloodthirst, which helps us reduce our Cooldowns quicker. She's also a Barbarian, so she gets cool points.
Learn more about Mercenaries and how they work in our dedicated Mercenaries Overview.
Stat Priorities & Item Progression
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
- 90%+ Critical Strike Chance
- 27+ Ranks of Heavy Hitter
- 40%+ Earthquake Size
- 25% Earthquake Duration
- 450%+ Damage while Berserking (Blood Rage)
- 500%+ Damage to Close Enemies (Force of Nature)
- 4000+ Strength
- Armor Capped 1,000
- Resistance Capped 70%+
- 15,000+ Life
- 70%+ Ultimate Cooldown Reduction
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.
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 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.
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
- 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.
- The Starter variant of the Earthquake Barbarian Endgame Guide is a good place to start before transitioning to this build.
- 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).
- 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
- 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 much more clunky in most content.
- Fists of Fate is an excellent choice for both damage and utility with its high Lucky Hit Chance (for more Rage of Harrogath procs). It also serves as our primary way of inflicting Vulnerable on enemies. All of the stats here are very valuable, but the most important ones to prioritize are:
- Unique effect; aim for 280% or higher.
- Lucky Hit: Chance to Make Enemies Vulnerable; this needs to be rolled decently high in order to benefit from it frequently. If low rolled, the other options are:
- Expose Vulnerability.
- Pressure Point.
- Rolling this same affix on a Ring instead.
- 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
- 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!
- The Qax Rune will constantly drain Fury with this setup. While it does provide a large damage increase, it may not be the right choice for everyone. Good replacements are:
- Thul: 15% damage multiplier and Vulnerable application.
- Zec: Additional Cooldown Reduction for Call of the Ancients.
- Gar: Good chunk of Critical Strike Chance; makes gearing a little more lenient.
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
- First of all, change any Earthquake Size tempers to Dust Devil Size instead.
- Next, swap out Executioner's and replace it with Fierce Winds.
- Lastly, change the Rumble to Twister instead; the rest of the paragon board remains the same. That's it, build done!
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
- The Third Blade is dropped in this setup in favor of additional Ranks of Heavy Hitter and Ancestral Charge.
- Lunging Strike (or whatever flexible Skill being used in this slot) is replaced with Whirlwind.
- Since Rupture now has a cooldown, this is used as another way to activate Rage of Harrogath, especially when fighting in low density or against Bosses.
- It also has synergy with Wandering Death's Chest Beam for a 50% damage multiplier. Alternate between Whirlwind and Rupture to tag enemies with it every 1-2 seconds.
- Lastly, it keeps Ring of Starless Skies active until the Ahu Rune kicks in.
- For this setup, Marshal is swapped in to give us additional uptime on Call of the Ancients and Rupture during Boss fights.
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
- There's only a few changes here to make the build zoom a little more:
- Leap is used for some extra mobility; it doesn't need much cooldown support since Rupture constantly resets it.
- Jah Rune gives us Teleport, which we combine with Leap to move between packs of enemies very quickly.
- Iron Skin is flexible, but it works well with the Neo Rune as a reliable way to constantly trigger it.
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.
- The reason Heavy Hitter is prioritized over both of these is quite simple - this multiplier double dips.
- For example, level 10 Heavy Hitter gives a 150% damage bonus, which is a 2.5x multiplier. But what actually happens is this multiplier is counted twice, so it's 2.5x * 2.5x, making it become a 6.25x total multiplier.
- At max ranks, the difference is:
- 495% (5.95x) = 5.95x damage multiplier (without double dip).
- 495% * 495% (5.95x * 5.95x) = 35.4x damage multiplier (with double dip).
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.
- 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.
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 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