Rupture Barbarian Endgame Build Guide
Welcome to the Rupture Barbarian Build Guide! With the introduction of The Third Blade in Season 5, Rupture lost its inherent cooldown penalty and became a pseudo-Core Fury spender, able to be spammed at will as long as it met its resource requirement.
Consequently, this allows for some fun interactions with various Uniques, Legendary Aspects. For the purpose of this guide, these include Rage of Harrogath, Arreat's Bearing and Fists of Fate, along with the Dust Devil-conjuring Fierce Winds and newly added Force of Nature paragon node, which is activated by using the Tec Rune.
The idea here is to spam Rupture as much as possible to constantly reset cooldowns and fill the screen with lots of big red booms, phantasmal blue boys, and highly destructive orange swirls.
While capable of taking on pretty much everything the game has to offer, it does take some effort to get there. As mentioned previously, the setup relies on several key pieces to function correctly and can be rather demanding in the Cooldown Reduction department in order to really shine, especially on single targets. There's also a lot of buttons to press (like, all of them... pretty much all the time). This shouldn't be much of an issue though, since the amount of fun being had typically is enough to temporarily numb the pain, maybe. Before we get started, the following must be brought to attention:
Requirements for this build
- The Third Blade
- Rage of Harrogath
- Fierce Winds
- Tec
(it's not recommended to play without first acquiring these).
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.
Skills & Gameplay
- Lunging Strike is needed to progress the skill tree. This is not used in the build.
- Rallying Cry provides us multiple buffs, with the most important ones being the invaluable Unstoppable and Fortify effects.
- 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, but its main appeal is the generous multiplicative damage boost it gives while active.
- Rupture is the key to making the build function. Its Bleed explosions activate Rage of Harrogath, which means all of our cooldowns (our Shouts in particular) are instantly reset. A lot of our damage comes from Fierce Winds, so the more Shouts we can cast, the more damage we do.
- Steel Grasp is used to group up enemies and keep them within the area of effect of our Earthquakes. With The Third Blade equipped, this skill can be used at will as long as its Fury cost is met.
- Call of the Ancients provides us with a decent multiplicative boost and also contributes to our overall damage, since the Ancients from Arreat's Bearing are quite formidable on their own.
Skill Rotation
- Spam Rupture.
- Spam all skills as they come off cooldown.
- Use Steel Grasp to pull in stragglers.
- Admire the visual clarity.
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 One-Handed Sword Expertise is forced since we are dual-wielding The Third Blade and Ramaladni's Magnum Opus. While this doesn't help much against Bosses, in most other situations we have a sizeable 30% Attack Speed buff with fairly high uptime. Rupture should always be set to these weapons in the final version of the build.
In the Technique Slot, the Two-Handed Axe allows us to deal 10% more damage to Vulnerable enemies. This build has naturally high Vulnerable uptime because of the Expose Vulnerability passive. 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.
Rupture 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
- Ire
- Replaced by Ambidextrous once our Damage while Berserking reaches 300%.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
Level 15
- Twister
- Ire
- Rumble
- Territorial
- Challenger
Level 21
- Twister
- Rumble
- Territorial
- Challenger
- Ambidextrous
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 Rupture Barbarian focuses on the following combos:
Best in Slot
- Lith + Wat - While in combat, this Runeword constantly casts Horrid Decrepify, which causes all surrounding enemies to deal 20% less damage and be Executed when they drop below 10% health.
- Xol + Tec - This combination spawns Earthquakes for us when triggered by Lith + Wat.
Alternative choices
If you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top runes, you can also benefit from these options:
- Yul - Alternative for Lith.
- 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.
- Zec - Can assist with keeping our Ultimate off cooldown; useful early on when lacking Cooldown Reduction.
Learn more about Runes and how they work in our dedicated Runewords Overview and Runewords Tier List.
Mercenaries
Mercenaries are unlocked during the Vessel of Hatred campaign and assist you in battle. There are 4 separate Mercenaries to choose from, each with their own skill trees and abilities. You can have one hired (permanent) mercenary during solo play and a reinforcement who assists you from time to time in certain situations.
Hired: Subo
He's mainly used for his Seeker ability, which is just incredibly useful in all content since it reveals enemies on the mini-map; the value this has can not be understated. Aside from that, he just kinda shoots stuff and occasionally applies Stuns. His Iconic Skill, Cover Fire, gives us a pretty decent 25% damage multiplier as well when linked with Opening Fire.
Reinforcement: Raheir
He uses the Crater skill, which helps keep enemies grouped up. This can act as an extra defensive layer as well since it has the ability to inflict Stun.
Learn more about Mercenaries and how they work in our dedicated Mercenaries Overview.
Stat Priorities & Item Progression
To enable the Rupture Barbarian to perform optimally, hunt for these stats on your gear with good rolls and aim to Temper ⚒️ & Masterwork Crit ↑ them accordingly. Keep in mind that certain stats, such as Armor, Resistances, Extra Size Tempers, Attack Speed and more, have caps that may affect your priorities according to the items and Paragon points available at that moment.
Recommended Endgame Stat Thresholds
- 80%+ Critical Strike Chance
- 60%+ Chance for Dust Devils to Cast Twice
- 90%+ Dust Devil Size
- 60%+ Chance for Earthquakes to Cast Twice
- 30% Earthquake Duration
- 300%+ Damage while Berserking (Blood Rage)
- 500%+ Damage to Close Enemies (Force of Nature)
- 3000+ Strength
- Armor Capped 1,000
- Resistance Capped 70%+
- 15,000+ Life
- 150%+ Movement Speed
Item Progression Goals
Before you dive into the Endgame with the Rupture 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 Rupture 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.
- The Third Blade and Rage of Harrogath should both be treated as requirements before starting the build. Rupture spam reduces the cooldowns of our Shouts, which is where a lot of our damage comes from.
- Focus on acquiring and improving the Earthquake and Dust Devil themed Aspects, as these contribute the most to our damage output:
- Fierce Winds
- Devilish
- Earthquake
- Bul-Kathos
- Juggernaut's is extremely important early on. This is used to easily help us reach Armor cap when gear is still lacking.
- Bold Chieftain's helps keep our Shouts off cooldown so we can benefit from them as much as possible.
- Because Rupture is a skill that always results in an Overpower, Blood Boiling is incredibly useful early on for some extra damage.
- Inner Calm is a great generic multiplier that increases our damage; it's most useful during longer fights where we remain stationary.
- Giant Strides helps keep our Leap off cooldown, which improves our mobility and lets us create more Earthquakes via Bul-Kathos.
- Ghostwalker is used in tandem with Rallying Cry and Charge 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 core part of the build and enables Rupture to constantly reset all of our cooldowns. This is important because a lot of our damage comes from Fierce Winds and the Dust Devils it creates, as well as the empowered Call of the Ancients.
- Arreat's Bearing gives an absurd amount of Cooldown Reduction to Call of the Ancients and helps us easily cap our Resistances. The Dust Devils and Earthquakes created by the Ancients themselves are also very powerful.
- Fists of Fate, when rolled well, is a 50% damage multiplier on average and provides a lot of good stats along with it. The Lucky Hit-based Crowd Controls are great for locking down enemies and staggering Bosses. The high amount of Lucky Hit Chance this item provides also ensures we have a high activation rate of Rage of Harrogath.
- Ramaladni's Magnum Opus deceptively buffs our Earthquake and Dust Devil damage; even though these aren't technically skills, they still receive the multiplicative damage boost that this item grants through scaling Maximum Fury.
- Despite Leap not being in the build, we still benefit from the damage reduction provided by Bul-Kathos as long as we are standing in Earthquakes.
- Relentless Berserker's is chosen mostly for Berserking uptime during Boss fights. If Berserking drops, we lose its base damage along with the Ugly Bastard Helm multiplier. In content where this is irrelevant, Ghostwalker should be played instead.
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 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. The ability to spam Rupture becomes much easier with the addition of this item as well. Outside of this, the build remains generally the same as the Ancestral version.
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
- When more damage isn't needed, Harlequin Crest is a great choice for its huge amount of Cooldown Reduction.
- Leap with Giant Strides combined with Bul-Kathos and Devilish is king for speedfarming; this provides a ton of mobility while also leaving behind Earthquakes and additional Dust Devils.
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
- This is mostly the same setup as the standard Mythic version, as that setup already has all the tools necessary for high Pit tiers. To add a little more damage, we use The Grandfather and Inner Calm on our Amulet. The downside here is losing the damage reduction provided by Bul-Kathos, which leaves us quite vulnerable defensively, especially against Bosses.
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.
Skill Automation
Call of the Ancients & Cooldown Reduction
Summary
The Rupture Barbarian is extremely well-rounded and excels in pretty much all content. Here's why it is a great build:
- Using Rupture with Rage of Harrogath gives frequent large resets to every cooldown ability.
- Permanent Berserking and uptime on the three Shouts: Challenging Shout, Rallying Cry, and War Cry.
- High amounts of passive healing with permanent uptime on Raid Leader.
- High Call of the Ancients uptime when combined withArreat's Bearing.
- Bleed explosions!
- Great area of effect and damage via Dust Devils and Earthquakes, with multiple ways to generate them.
Credits
Written by snail