Upheaval Barbarian Endgame Build Guide
Welcome to the Upheaval Barbarian Endgame Build Guide!
Despite Upheaval carrying a 7 Seasons long meme-y reputation, it received multiple sizeable buffs recently that turned it into a viable endgame Core Skill. Gameplay still revolves around ramping up a Napalm Overpowered bomb and sending it (now with a shortened charging time) to set the ground ablaze; but also - who doesn't love running around with a bunch of ghosty boys and cute wolves?
This build centers around a fairly simple concept - "cranking" Upheaval up - and our main tools to do so are:
- Stacking Furious Upheaval quickly thanks to Bash's multi hitting temper ability and our Ceh doggies' attacks.
- Getting Overpower tickets through Combat Bash.
Once that's done, light the fuse and blow up half your screen while the rest burns in agony thanks to Hellhammer.
There are, however, a few points to mention that might make this explosive adventure less enjoyable for some:
- Upheaval animation is infamous for being slow.
- Not having enough targets for Combat Bash means you spend more time charging your Overpowers, which means less time spent blowing things up.
Don't fret though - the Fire Barbarian dream is brighter than ever in Season 8! The Boss powers offer up new creative ways to add some dynamite to our gameplay and Fury management mini-game, while also adding extra targets to torch, which is always welcomed. And with that... let's show them Hell!
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
- Urivar's Lobbed Bombs - Bombs you say? Being honest here, the 15% baseline Cooldown Reduction of this Main Power is all we're looking for.
Modifiers
- Harbinger of Hatred's Volley - Triggered by activating your Main Power. The second line is an attractive multiplier, but the first line is where the magic's at. Due to us investing in more Fury generation bonuses than ever, our Bash will always overcap, turning into an additional Vulnerable / Fury spending source and allowing us to generate more Ceh wolves through Poc.
- Lilith's Wind of Hate - Triggered by activating your Main Power. Useful to burn down Bosses and Elites faster but mostly to create extra targets for Combat Bash and Bold Chieftain's.
- Sinerat's Flames - Always active buff. Due to us using Ugly Bastard Helm as our Helmet, all of our Damage becomes Fire based making it an obvious choice.
Alternate Boss Powers
- Grigoire's Lightning Square - As a Main Power, it can used in any stages of the build as a serviceable AoE clearing tool that also consistently triggers our Modifiers.
- Andariel's Flaming Skull - As a Main Power, it can used in the later stages of the game if you're looking for serviceable Fire based AoE that also consistently triggers our Modifiers.
- Lilith's Wind of Hate - As a Main Power, it can used in the later stages of the game if you're looking for serviceable Physical based damage wave that also consistently triggers our Modifiers.
- Torusk's Rage - As a Modifier used in the early stages of the build, it gives us an amazing Attack Speed boost.
- Hatred's Embrace's Haste - As a Modifier used in the early stages of the build, this Power dramatically increases Critical Strike Chance until we get our endgame items.
- Flesh Reaper's Disruption - As an always active Modifier, it can used in any stages of the build as long as you think of tempering Crowd Control Duration (Gloves usually). Given our permanent Vulnerable uptime this can be a decent replacement for Sinerat's Flames.
Learn more details about the season theme in our full Season Guide.
Skills & Gameplay
- Bash is our Fury generator of choice; it is combined with the "Bash Cleave Temper" to maximize the guaranteed Overpower hits provided by its upgraded version, Combat Bash, and it doubles as an efficient way of multi stacking our Furious Upheaval passive. Its aforementioned synergy with Harbinger of Hatred's Volley also helps us applying Vulnerable and spending Fury.
- Upheaval is a heavy-hitting Core skill affecting enemies in very large cone with a moderately high Fury cost. It shines most when paired with Furious Upheaval, which gives it essentially a permanent 200% damage bonus.
- Rallying Cry gives us the ability to become Unstoppable and is also our primary way of generating Fortify. Additionally, it provides us some extra Movement Speed, Offense and Defense when paired with Tibault's Will and increases the rate at which we recoup Fury.
- Challenging Shout is one of our main defensive buffs that grants us a huge percentage of damage reduction and Maximum Life (for more Overpower damage). It also helps with grouping up enemies with its inherent Taunt ability.
- War Cry is our last offensive shout, granting us Berserking and a hefty damage multiplier.
- (Variant UBH) Wrath of the Berserker acts as a steroid buff, further increasing our damage, Berserking uptime, Movement Speed and making us Unstoppable while active. Thanks to Ugly Bastard Helm and multiple Cooldown Reduction affixes, we are able to keep it up permanently. It also doubles as a packing Tool once you reach rank 5.
- (Variant COTA) Call of the Ancients is a skill we fall back on when we need a bit of extra damage during tougher encounters. The Ancients themselves don't do much damage in this setup, but the buffs and Fury provided while they are active are quite substantial and we get to benefit from it very often thanks to Arreat's Bearing.
Skill Rotation
- Ensure Challenging Shout, Rallying Cry and War Cry are used whenever possible. With the high Cooldown Reduction provided by Rakanoth's Wake, Bold Chieftain's, Shout CDR Tempers, Marshal and Urivar's Lobbed Bombs these often become permanent buffs.
- Use your Ultimate (Call of the Ancients or Wrath of the Berserker) whenever it is off cooldown, especially during longer fights, for more damage and Quality of Life values.
- Starting with Bash, alternate between casting Bash and Upheaval with a 1:1 ratio against four enemies (or more) and at worse a 2:1 ratio against bosses thanks to Lilith's Wind of Hate blood blisters. As long as Bash Critically Strikes 4 enemies, the following Upheaval cast is a guaranteed Overpower.
- 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.
- Do not worry about your Furious Upheaval stacks, the Ceh Rune Wolves attacks will grant you more than enough of them. If a guaranteed Overpower is available, just send it!
- Both the Fury consumed by Bash (when triggering Harbinger of Hatred's Volley) and Upheaval will stack our Ring of Starless Skies making the rotation care-free.
PRO TIP: Make sure to use the Hold Position key when attacking to maximize your Inner Calm and Lith Rune buffs.
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 Two-Handed Mace is used as our assigned weapon for both Upheaval and Bash to fully benefit from its expertise bonuses.
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 the Ceh Rune and Harbinger of Hatred's Volley. Unfortunately, the Technique 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.
Upheaval 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.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
Level 15
- Marshal
- Challenger
- Crusher
- Dominate
- Revenge
Level 21
- Challenger
- Crusher
- Marshal
- Dominate
- Revenge
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 Upheaval Barbarian focuses on the following combos:
Best in Slot
- Cir + Ceh - This Runeword combination ensures our Wolf pack always gains an additional member every rotation.
- Nagu + Xal - This Runeword combination guarantees am Overflowed Xal cast every 6 seconds, further increasing our Health pool hence Overpower damage.
Alternative choices
If you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top runes, you can also benefit from these options:
- Cir - As a strong early game Ritual Rune to generate offerings.
- Gar - As a strong early game Invocation Rune when trying to reach 100% Critical Strike Chance.
- Yax - A very strong 200 offering Ritual Rune that triggers whenever you use a healing potion.
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: Raheir
He has a lot to offer us from a defensive standpoint. Skills like Valiance and Bastion help protect us from heavy hits and grant Unstoppable. Bastion also works in tandem with Ground Slam to provide some very strong offensive buffs with Inspiration. Lastly, he provides a pretty decent boost to all of our Resistances, which can help compensate for low rolls on gear.
Reinforcement: Varyana
Varyana's Bloodthirst serves as a regular Attack Speed steroid.
Learn more about Mercenaries and how they work in our dedicated Mercenaries Overview.
Stat Priorities & Item Progression
To enable the Upheaval 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
- 30%+ Attack Speed
- Rank 35+ Upheaval
- 100% Upheaval Size
- 80%+ Chance for Upheaval to Deal Double damage
- 450%+ Damage while Berserking (Blood Rage)
- 2000%+ Overpower Damage
- 3500+ Strength
- Armor Capped 1,000 (using incense)
- Resistance Capped 70% (using incenses or Raheir)
- 80,000+ Life (Buffed)
- 180%+ Movement Speed
Recommended Alchemist Elixir and Incenses
- Elixir: Elixir of Fortitude II
- Resistance Incense: Soothing Spices
- Defensive Incense: Reddamine Buzz
- Core Stat Incense: Ancient Times
Item Progression Goals
Before you dive into the Endgame with the Upheaval 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 Upheaval 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 you have arrived here after following the Upheaval 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 your 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.
- Make sure Unbridled Rage is selected as our Key passive, as it's not so much about how many Upheaval you cast but how much damage they do (and they'll implode half your screen anyway).
- To lower Upheaval cost to a sustainable ~55 Fury per cast, we focus on getting Resource Cost Reduction affixes on our Two-Handers.
- Gameplay is very similar to the Endgame versions with the sole difference being that we also leverage Sundered Ground as a an additional source of guaranteed stronger Overpower.
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.
- Hellhammer is an absolute requirement for any Upheaval build, to the point where its worst stat is Strength... Yes, it's just that good.
- 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 being the cherry on top.
- Tibault's Will provides us with both damage and a damage reduction multiplier, as we're always Unstoppable thanks to Rallying Cry.
- Rakanoth's Wake gives a surprisingly decent amount of global Cooldown Reduction and helps us easily cap our Resistances.
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
- While the stats on Shroud of False Death are "okay" at best, it provides us an additional Fury Generation Bonus affix and mostly the amazing +1 to All Passive implicit modifier. This implicit represents a 30%+ damage multiplier on top of being a great boost to our shouts and defensive passives.
- 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, bonus ranks to Upheaval, and a large damage multiplier that is fairly simple to keep active.
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
- Arreat's Bearing gives an absurd amount of Cooldown Reduction to Call of the Ancients and helps us easily cap our Resistances.
- 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 Upheaval, and comes with a built-in 60% damage multiplier.
- While the stats on Shroud of False Death are "okay" at best, it provides us an additional Fury Generation Bonus affix and mostly the amazing +1 to All Passive implicit modifier. This implicit represents a 30%+ damage multiplier on top of being a great boost to our shouts and defensive passives.
- 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, bonus ranks to Upheaval, and a large damage multiplier that is fairly simple to keep active.
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.
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.
Gameplay Video
Summary
The Upheaval Barbarian is absolute Fire in pretty much all content. Here's why it is a great build:
- Send screen-wide juiced up Overpowered Upheaval. The flames are also a nice touch.
- Never alone! Always have 6+ Wolves and 3x Call of the Ancients that make up the perfect Zoo experience!
- High defense from its permanent Damage Reduction multipliers and massive Maximum Life from Challenging Shout and Doombringer.
- High mobility while traveling with Shroud of False Death.
- Permanent uptime on all Shouts and Ultimates with more than enough Cooldown Reduction sources.
- No Fury maintenance; both Bash combined with various Resource Generation Bonuses will keep you maxed out at pretty much all times.
- Good synergy with the Season 8 Boss Powers, which ease the build playstyle while providing decent QoL improvements.
Credits
Written by Beatdropper
Reviewed by snail