Rend Barbarian Endgame Build Guide
Welcome to the Rend Barbarian Guide! Rend is an ability that is quite different than the other Core Skills the Barbarian has access to. Rather than direct damage, it excels at dealing damage over time by applying many layers of Bleed.
Being a Bleed-focused build changes the way we scale our damage compared to most direct damage builds. We prioritize Critical Strike Damage to juice up our Gushing Wounds Key Passive and Vulnerable Damage to increase the effectiveness of the Hemorrhage Paragon node.
For support, we take the all-too-familiar Shout skills, specifically Challenging Shout for defense and Rallying Cry for the Unstoppable buff, Fury generation and Movement Speed. Rupture is a very visually satisfying skill that causes our Bleed effects to explode and deal tremendous (and gratuitous) area of effect damage. Lastly, we have Call of the Ancients to grant us a damage and Attack Speed buff, as well as some extra Fury recoup.
While Bleed isn't currently the most meta-defining style of play, it can still do most things the game has to offer fairly efficiently, and let's face it, Rupture spam with tempered Explosion Size is way too fun and awesome. With that said, lets get our hands messy and see what Rend can do.
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
- Lord Zir's Blood Pool - The Bleed-themed Power; it's only really needed as a way to activate our other supporting Powers.
Modifiers
- Blackmailer's Sabotage - Great defensive option that gives us a Barrier, which also enables us to effectively use the Conceited Aspect.
- Andariel's Flaming Skull - Makes our attacks inflict Burn on enemies, and then increases the damage that they take from our Bleeds.
- Harbinger of Hatred's Volley - One of the best sources of multiplicative damage when it comes to Boss Powers. Works decently well with this build due to having reliable Vulnerable uptime from Enhanced Rend
Alternate Boss Powers
- 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.
- Torusk's Rage - Gives a decent Attack Speed boost. Requires a single Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies roll on gear.
Learn more details about the season theme in our full Season Guide.
Skills & Gameplay
- Flay is needed to advance the skill tree. This skill isn't used in the final version of the build, but it has some use during early progression.
- Rend is the Core Skill that this build revolves around. It inflicts Bleed damage and has some great built-in functionality, being able to extend the duration of Vulnerable and multiplicatively increase its damage in the process.
- Rallying Cry provides us multiple buffs, including Fury regeneration, Movement Speed, and the invaluable Unstoppable effect while active.
- Challenging Shout boosts our defenses even higher with its massive damage reduction and health increase, while also Taunting any monsters in range.
- War Cry grants us the Berserking buff and a generous multiplicative damage boost while active.
- Rupture is a fantastic skill for swiftly executing enemies that have had heavy Bleed damage applied to them. It erupts in an explosion of crimson and decimates everything within its area of effect. In many cases, this skill can even dispatch large groups of enemies by itself.
- Call of the Ancients is taken for its multiplicative damage boost and a decent amount of Attack Speed, as well as some Fury generation. With Arreat's Bearing equipped it has a very low cooldown, meaning we benefit from it quite often.
Skill Rotation
- Generally, always try to initiate encounters while under the effects of Berserking and Shout buffs.
- Rupture for an Attack Speed boost, as well as Warpath and Decimator activation.
- Proceed to Rend everything in sight! When enough Bleed has been applied, Rupture again for a fatally bloody explosion.
- Call of the Ancients can generally be cast whenever it's off cooldown for another big damage spike. At the very least, make sure it's back up in time for Boss fights.
- Earthquakes from the Tec Rune passively activate the Earthquake Aspect while we fight, granting us one of our best additional damage multipliers.
(Mythic)
Note: Footage is from Season 6 and intended for demonstration purposes only.
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 Expertise is our main weapon choice. This is a great weapon to wield because it has an inherent 15% damage and Lucky Hit Chance multiplier, as well as a Vulnerable Damage implicit. It also has one of the best weapon-based damage Glyphs, Executioner.
In the Technique Slot, the Two-Handed Axe allows us to deal 10% more damage to Vulnerable enemies. This build has high Vulnerable uptime thanks to Enhanced Rend's natural ability to extend it. 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.
Rend 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
- Exploit
- Replaced by Bloodfeeder once our Vulnerable Damage reaches 300% and we have access to Earthquakes.
- Territorial
- Replaced when we get Wrath to level 46.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
Level 15
- Territorial
- Ire
- Exploit
- Executioner
- Challenger
Level 46
- Ire
- Wrath
- Challenger
- Executioner
- Bloodfeeder
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 Rend Barbarian focuses on the following combos:
Best in Slot
- Lith + Tec - While in combat, this Runeword casts Earthquakes for us. This lets us benefit from the Earthquakes Aspect, one of our biggest damage multipliers.
- Igni + Kry - Gives us some much needed grouping utility whenever we are in combat, which is great for applying Bleed to as many enemies as possible.
Alternative choices
If you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top runes, you can also benefit from these options:
- Poc - Alternative for Lith.
- Gar - Helps cover gear options when trying to reach 100% Critical Strike Chance.
- Lum - Helps with Fury sustain.
- Zec - Can assist with keeping our Ultimate off cooldown; useful early on when lacking Cooldown Reduction.
- Wat - Can be used as an extra defensive layer and to Execute enemies at 10% health or lower.
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, his Scorched Earth periodically increases our Bleed damage.
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. 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
- 80%+ Chance for Rend to Hit Twice
- 50%+ Rend Size
- 450%+ Damage while Berserking (Blood Rage)
- 300%+ Vulnerable Damage (Hemorrhage)
- 2,000%+ Critical Strike Damage (Gushing Wounds)
- 2500+ Strength
- Armor Capped 1,000
- Resistance Capped 70%+
- 10,000+ Life
- 180%+ Movement Speed
- 60%+ Ultimate Cooldown Reduction
Item Progression Goals
Before you dive into the Endgame with the Rend 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 Rend Barbarian from a fresh level 60 into the very late endgame using the three variants Starter, Ancestral and Mythic. At the final step, you should be fully decked out with a great all-rounder build. From there, follow the other min/max variants if you want to optimize around certain activities such as Pit Pushing, Speedfarming and more.
If you are fresh in Torment 1 coming from a leveling guide, this is where you begin. Since only some Aspects can be guaranteed from Dungeon unlocks for the Codex of Power, focus on acquiring the additional Aspects via gambling with Murmuring Obols.
Gear & Skills
- Note: If arriving here after following the Rend Barbarian Leveling Guide, it's perfectly fine to continue using the Starter variant described in that guide if there are no issues. There is often more than one way to play a build successfully; feel free to choose or even combine ideas from both to customize the experience!
- During early progression, Armor & Resistances should be prioritized in order to survive. Each Torment difficulty adds a penalty of -250 Armor and -25% to all Resistances and it's recommended to keep both capped at all times; this means having a value of 1,000 for Armor and 70% for each Resistance. As masterworking levels and Paragon points are unlocked, character power naturally scales into the higher difficulties. As this happens, most of these stats can start being replaced with utility or offensive-oriented ones.
- Juggernaut's, Steadfast Berserker's, and Anger Management are all extremely important, especially at this progression point. The former is very helpful for reaching Armor cap, while the latter two provide worry-free ways of keeping Fortify and Berserking.
- Might provides some additional damage reduction for a duration whenever we attack with Flay.
- Bold Chieftain's helps keep our Shouts off cooldown so we can benefit from them as much as possible.
- Vocalized Empowerment is useful for helping offset our Fury expsenses while we have Shouts active.
- Edgemaster's, Inner Calm, and Earthquake are all generic multipliers that increase our damage. Earthquakes are created with Ground Stomp and the Tec Rune.
- Inevitable Fate and Berserk Ripping are DoT-focused damage sources that have good synergy with Bleed.
- Ghostwalker is used in tandem with Rallying Cry for a large Movement Speed increase.
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.
- Rage of Harrogath is a great choice for this build because of our ability to inflict Bleed from Rend and Rupture. This allows us to keep our Shouts and other abilities off cooldown very frequently. It also inherently gives a decent chunk of Critical Strike Chance.
- Arreat's Bearing allows tremendous uptime on Call of the Ancients and helps us cap our Resistances.
- Ring of the Ravenous is a Unique that was designed specifically for Rend. On top of the large amount of skill ranks it gives, it also increases the duration of Rend up to a whopping 8 seconds. If that wasn't enough, it also comes packed with a decent chunk of Critical Strike Chance.
- Slaking is a useful Aspect that increases our Maximum Fury and gives a Lucky Hit-based chance of restoring it. It is especially good when combined with Fists of Fate.
- Relentless Berserker's is used alongside Steel Grasp and Blood Rage to keep our Berserking status.
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 Rend, and comes with a built-in 60% damage multiplier.
- Ring of Starless Skies is a rather obvious choice; it gives a bunch of Critical Strike Chance, Attack Speed, 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
- Shattered Vow is great for speed content, especially with Charge and Rupture spam. Group stuff up, press Rupture, and watch entire packs instantly explode.
- Giant Strides helps keep Leap off cooldown, but alternatively, Ring of Starless Skies can be played here instead.
- Ancestral Charge is used to make grouping up enemies much more efficient.
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.
- Bring up your active skills (default keybind: [s]).
- Hover over the skill you wish to assign a weapon to.
- Cycle through the available weapons to choose which to assign to the skill (default keybind: MOUSE3).
Summary
The Rend Barbarian is a Bleed-focused that shines mostly in lower tier content. While not the strongest build in the game, it's still fun and very visually satisfying. Here's what makes it good:
- High Berserking uptime with help from Relentless Berserker's.
- High uptime on Shout buffs and other cooldowns with Rage of Harrogath.
- High Ultimate uptime with Call of the Ancients and Arreat's Bearing.
- Visually satisfying Bleed explosions that are made possible by Rupture.
- Offers a unique gameplay experience with damage over time, rather than the direct damage that is present in many other builds.
Credits
Written by snail