Upheaval Barbarian Endgame Build Guide
Welcome to the Diablo 4 Upheaval Barbarian Endgame Build Guide!
May Season 7 finally mark the day where Upheaval graduates as a viable endgame Core Skill? "Yes" is my answer. With the latest buffs to Core skills (Unbridled Rage), Furious Upheaval's multiplier going from 120% to a whopping 200%, permanent Shouts, Ultimate, and screen-wide Overpowered AoE, it can confidently be said that Upheaval earned its passing marks!
To support Upheaval, we take a lot of the standard tools for the endgame. Our main generator, Combat Bash, is used to keep our Fury levels high and charge up our earth shattering skill with its inherent utility in granting guaranteed Overpower hits and multi-stacking Furious Upheaval. Season 7 fixes the tediousness of this stacking mechanic with an amazing change to the Ceh Rune; turns out giving those lovely Wolves the Companion modifier was all we needed for them to give us Furious Upheaval stacks with each of their attacks!
To help keep things comfy for our newly added pets, we will rely on our beloved triple shouts setup: Challenging Shout for a massive chunk of damage reduction and increased Maximum Life, Rallying Cry for the Unstoppable status and Fortify generation and War Cry for the additional damage multiplier. We also have Call of the Ancients to fall back on for a multiplicative damage boost, Fury generation, a very generous Attack Speed buff.
With all of this at our disposal and our juiced up Hellhammer, those foolish enough to think they can escape shall learn that nothing can withstand the pure power that Upheaval delivers. 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.
Witchcraft Powers
Season 7 is the Season of Witchcraft. It features two separate borrowed power mechanics in the forms of Witchcraft Powers and Occult Gems. Both Seasonal mechanics are unlocked and improved by new NPCs found at the Tree of Whispers after collecting resources from Headhunt Zones, Seasonal areas similar to Helltide that appear across Sanctuary.
There are 25 Witchcraft Powers, 6 of which can be equipped at a time. Each Power belongs to one of four Schools (Eldritch, Growth & Decay, Psyche, and Lost), tags that promote synergies within themselves and with Occult Gems. Each School has a single Unique Witchcraft Power, only one of which can be equipped at a time. These Unique Powers max out and gain an additional effect at rank 5, while the other Powers max at rank 21 and gain their bonus effects at various levels. To unlock and improve Witchcraft Powers, defeat Headrotten or complete Whispers within the Headhunt Zones to collect Restless Rot. Lost Powers are an exception, requiring you to randomly encounter a Forgotten Altar in Dungeons to unlock them.
Best-in-Slot Witchcraft Powers
- Doom Orb - This is a damage oriented Unique Witchcraft Power, it's main use? Being our first power of the Eldritch School.
- Purging Touch - Our second Eldritch power, we choose this power as it buffs all Eldritch powers, including our Upheaval casts turned Eldritch thanks to Witching Hour.
- Hex of Flames - Our third and last Eldritch power, outside of its decent damage output it is also our way of applying the Hex debuff to our targets in order to activate the Phantom String bonus.
- Soul Harvest - This Power dramatically increases Core Stats based on monster density and is a reliably strong choice, especially since we are fairly often casting a skill that has a cooldown.
- Aura Specialization - The extra area of effect that it grants our Aura is nice, but the Critical Strike Damage multiplier that comes with leveling it makes this an even better choice.
- Aura of Lament - This is our Aura of choice, applying Slow in a wide radius and generating some Fury passively.
Alternate Witchcraft Powers
- None at the moment.
Occult Gems
Rarely, Headrotten Bosses appear with a still-attached Fugitive Head stolen from the Tree of Whispers. Slay these enemies and return the Heads to Gelena to unlock and upgrade Occult Gems. These Gems are socketable in Jewelry and each provide +160 Armor and +8% Resistance to All Elements. More importantly, each Occult Gem grants a unique effect that synergizes with your equipped Witchcraft Powers to provide a variety of Offensive, Defensive, and Utility-based bonuses.
Best-in-Slot Occult Gems
- Hungering Void - This Gem is a set-and-forget auto-pull tool activated by our Aura of Lament.
- Phantom String - Our build focuses on Overpower damage, so this Gem is a solid choice when paired with Hex of Flames.
- Witching Hour - Giving us the option to turn our Upheaval casts into Eldritch wizardry every 1 second, and buffing them further with Purging Touch? That's a staple.
Alternate Occult Gems
- None at the moment.
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 the stacking of our Furious Upheaval passive.
- Upheaval is a heavy-hitting Core skill, hitting 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 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.
- 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 provided while they are active are quite substantial.
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 and Shout CDR Tempers, these often become permanent buffs.
- Use Call of the Ancients whenever it is off cooldown, especially during longer fights, for more damage and Fury generation.
- Starting with Bash, alternate between casting Bash and Upheaval with a 1:1 ratio against four enemies (or more) or a 4:1 ratio against bosses. 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 (especially if juiced by Qax rune), just send it! We'd rather keep our Ring of Starless Skies stacks!
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. 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.
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
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 Upheaval Barbarian focuses on the following combos:
Best in Slot
- Cir + Ceh - This Runeword combination ensures our Wolf pack always spawns with 3 members every few seconds.
- Nagu + Qax - This Runeword combination pretty much ensures a juiced up Qax cast every 6 seconds.
Alternative choices
If you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top runes, you can also benefit from these options:
- Gar - A strong early game Invocation Rune option when trying to reach 100% Critical Strike Chance.
- Yax - A very strong 200 offering Ritual Rune that triggers whenever you use a healing potion.
- Tec - A cheap Invocation Rune that allows temporary use of the Earthquakes and Bul-Kathos Aspects.
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. 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
- 50%+ Attack Speed (Unbuffed)
- Rank 35+ Upheaval
- 100% Upheaval Size
- 80%+ Chance for Upheaval to Deal Double damage
- 450%+ Damage while Berserking (Blood Rage)
- 3500%+ Overpower Damage
- 4000+ Strength
- Armor Capped 1,000
- Resistance Capped 70%
- 30,000+ Life
- 180%+ Movement Speed
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 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 Blood Boiling as a source of guaranteed Overpower, while also giving us nice AoE Damage when collecting the volatile drops.
- Remind yourself to use your Healing Potions to trigger your Runeword and stay in your Earthquakes when killing monsters to fully benefit from Earthquakes and Bul-Kathos!
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 can be completely ignored; even though this is a wasted stat, everything else is too good to pass up.
- Arreat's Bearing gives an absurd amount of Cooldown Reduction to Call of the Ancients and helps us easily cap our Resistances.
- Rakanoth's Wake can be used as a cheap placeholder, giving us resistances on top of the extra Cooldown Reduction to increase our Shouts uptime.
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 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.
Coming Soon
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.
Coming Soon
Gameplay Video
Summary
The Upheaval Barbarian is absolute Fire in pretty much all content. Here's why it is a great build:
- Massive Falcon Punch! Send screen-wide Overpowered Upheaval juiced up by Qax and Witch magic. 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 Maximum Life from Challenging Shout and Doombringer.
- High mobility while travelling with Shroud of False Death.
- High uptime on all Shouts with help fro Bold Chieftain's and Shout Cooldown Reduction Tempers.
- Low Fury maintenance; both Bash and Call of the Ancients keep you maxed out at pretty much all times.
Credits
Written by Beatdropper
Reviewed by snail