The Walking Arsenal Barbarian (also nicknamed Kratos Barb because of the frequent uses of Iron Maelstrom) is a fun, fast and engaging playstyle that plays around the Barbarian's class mechanic to its fullest potential.
Swapping between all three different weapon types all the time, you become a machine that mows through hordes of demons and one-shots dungeon bosse thanks to the combination of Encroaching Wrath and Enhanced Death Blow. Large packs of weak enemies are decimated with Upheaval, which also grants and Vulnerable with Expose Vulnerability.
This build is designed to excel at leveling to 100 and speedfarming. Due to the nature of Death Blow requiring a killing blow, it shines in easy content but can slow down in high-end challenges such as pushing towards Tier 100 Nightmare Dungeons or fighting Pinnacle Bosses, where the lack of cooldown resets hurt the build's performance. However, thanks to Overpower synergies such as Brute Force and Earthstriker's Aspect, it's still possible to deliver devastating oneshots to elites and bosses with well-timed combos.
All in all, the Walking Arsenal Barbarian is a great package if you just want to blast and have fun with what the class does best: smashing your foes to bits and pieces. Let's jump in and see what it's all about!
This build guide assumes you have a Level 50 Character and finished the Campaign. Level up with our Upheaval Barbarian Leveling Guide. If you are looking for a different Barbarian playstyle, check out all of our Barbarian Guides.
Season 2 - Season of Blood
Completing the seasonal questline, partaking in the seasonal Blood Harvest event and collecting Potent Blood are the main ways of obtaining and empowering these abilities. Check out the full Season 2 Guide from Chewingnom to learn more! Helms & Boots can have up to 3 Pacts, Pants can have up to 4, Chests & Gloves can have up to 5 giving you 20 Pacts to empower.
Recommended Vampiric Powers
- Moonrise (Major) - Increases Attack and Movement Speed by a great amount.
- Metamorphosis - (Major) - Gives us a frequent source of Unstoppable and a better Evade skill.
- Hemomancy (Minor) - Adds an AoE explosion and healing.
- Anticipation (Minor) - Lowers the cooldown of our Ultimate for more frequent uses.
- Ravenous (Minor) - Frequently offers a massive buff to Attack Speed for more damage.
Alternative Vampiric Powers
- Undying (Minor) - Can replace Hemomancy or Anticipation for more healing.
- Infection (Minor) - Can replace Hemomancy or Anticipation for more random damage procs.
- Prey on the Weak (Minor) - Can Hemomancy or Anticipation to deal more damage against Vulnerable enemies.
Eternal Realm
If you're playing on the Eternal Realm without access to Vampiric Powers, there are two notable differences:
- Some setups may use Metamorphosis to trigger Unstoppable and/or Tibault's Will. The same can be done with Rallying Cry, Charge or Iron Warrior.
- Some setups may use Metamorphosis or Accursed Touch together with Prey on the Weak to apply Vulnerable. The same can be done with Expose Vulnerability, Pressure Point or Exploit.
Skill Tree & Gameplay
- You need to rotate your weapons to keep up all buffs and make sure to not run out of Death Blow charges to be effective.
- On engaging an enemy pack or moving between enemies quickly, use Lunging Strike once. This gives you a 8 second timer for the Dual-Wield buff of Walking Arsenal, which is this skill's main purpose.
- Use Upheaval at least once to gain the Two-Handed Bludgeoning buff and to apply Vulnerable to all enemies hit via the Exploit Glyph and Expose Vulnerability.
- When your Fury is high and you have stacked up Furious Upheaval, use it to deal massive damage in a large AoE and refresh the buff.
- Finish off targets with Death Blow to gain the Two-Handed Slashing buff and gain Berserking. Whenever possible, aim for a killing blow to reset its cooldown.
- When your damage is very good, prioritize the bigger targets with Death Blow and smaller ones with Upheaval.
- If there are still enemies around, rotate between Upheaval and Death Blow to keep all buffs & debuffs up and use Lunging Strike at least once every 8 seconds.
- If your Death Blow goes on cooldown because you missed a hit or the enemy survived, try to finish off any easy targets in the area and move on. Without the big hits and Vulnerable from Expose Vulnerability, it may not be worth the time to fight remaining monsters.
- Activate Iron Skin whenever needed for protection, to become Unstoppable or to heal up via Tactical Iron Skin. The lower HP you are when used, the stronger the Barrier and heal.
- Use Rallying Cry to gain Fortify and Unstoppable, as well as extra speed from Ghostwalker Aspect.
- Freely activate your Iron Maelstrom Ultimate in large packs. Especially when enemies are spread out, it's a great skill to use to clean up the entire screen. This skill has a very short cooldown compared to other Ultimates in the game thanks to Supreme Iron Maelstrom, so you can use it often.
Against Bosses, follow this rotation:
- Right before entering a Boss arena, make sure to prepare the Encroaching Wrath buff by using Upheaval to clean up the last monster pack. If possible, enter with full Fury for the buff from Edgemaster’s Aspect.
- Prepare 4-5 stacks of Earthstriker's Aspect. You can watch your buff bar and swing in the air by holding down the Force Attack button if necessary.
- Approach the target, activate Iron Maelstrom to get all your Walking Arsenal bonuses.
- Trigger Earthstriker's Aspect with more weapon swaps if necessary.
- Once you have the effect, follow up with a massive Death Blow.
- If the Boss survived, weapon swap back and forth for Earthstriker's Aspect until you're ready to repeat the combo.
- If the Boss is close to death, finish them off with Upheaval + Lunging Strike.
- If the Boss is far from death, refill your Fury and repeat the combo above.
You can use the same combo against any tough enemies, such as tanky elites, the Butcher and similar.
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 the Technique Slot that allows us to profit from one Expertise effect of our choosing at any time. 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.
For this build, we assign our weapon slots as follows:
- Lunging Strike: Dual-Wield
- Upheaval: Two-Handed Bludgeoning
- Death Blow: Two-Handed Slashing
This allocation is chosen for two reasons. First, we need three different attacks with three different weapons to activate our Walking Arsenal bonuses, the main combo of this entire build. Second, with a Two-Handed Axe we produce the biggest damage output and that's exactly what we need for Death Blow to be useful. Upheaval on the other hand is often used more as a utility skill to apply buffs and debuffs and for dealing with smaller monsters in AoE combat.
Learn more details and how to unlock this class specification in our full Arsenal System Guide.
Resource & Cooldown Management
This build is mostly filled with attack skills and short cooldowns and barely has any Fury issues.
Fury Generation
Lunging Strike generates Fury on attack and Aspect of Berserk Fury passively while we are Berserking. By following the gameplay rotation above, you generally don't run out of Fury because only one of your attacks is a spender. To help with resource generation early on, you can pick up Hungering Fury Paragon cluster until you have the Wrath Glyph later.
Unstoppable Buffs
Both Iron Skin (with Iron Warrior) and Rallying Cry provide the Unstoppable buff. In case there are many elites with crowd control effects around, you can activate Iron Skin, then Rallying Cry, then Iron Skin again for a prolonged period of immunity.
Iron Maelstrom
This skill has a very short cooldown so use it whenever you feel it could speed up a fight, especially in large monster packs. If you know your way around specific dungeons well enough, you can also keep it ready the right moment to make it shine.
Death Blow
It's important to not run out of Death Blow charges. Thanks to Weapon Master's Aspect we gain two maximum charges which can be replenished with a single attack, given that we finish off two targets with it. This allows you to occasionally miss a hit and still continue your rotation as usual. If you somehow end up without any charges, consider simply moving on from the current fight while you're waiting for the skill to cool down.
Paragon Board
Carefully check your Paragon Boards to ensure correct board rotation. Glyphs go from a radius of 3 to 4 when they reach level 15!
Walking Arsenal Barbarian Paragon
Level the Paragon Board by scrolling. Each step optimizes progression.
This build's Paragon board has a pretty straightforward progression. The only point where we swap around some Glyphs is when the Ire Glyph reaches level 15. At this point you move it to the Carnage board and place Undaunted on the Decimator and Territorial on the Blood Rage board.
In addition, if you feel Fury starved early on, you can pick up Hungering Fury + surrounding nodes for better resource recovery until later.
Glyphs
We need to level up our Glyphs to increase their power and activate their Additional Bonus with surrounding nodes. Glyphs have a radius of 3 by default, this increases to 4 at Glyph level 15. Complete Nightmare Dungeons to obtain Glyph experience.
Note that there are some Glyph position swaps and a few adjustments to surrounding Paragon nodes once they reach level 15. See the last two steps in the Paragon progression above for details. The setup displayed by default is the final version of the build.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
Level 15
- Might
- Ire
- Territorial
- Mortal Draw
- Undaunted
- Exploit
Level 21
- Ire
- Undaunted
- Might
- Territorial
- Mortal Draw
- Exploit
There are a total of 225 Paragon Points. Starting with level 50 you gain 4 Paragon Points per level, plus 20 from Renown, and 4 from Altars of Lilith.
Endgame Progression & Variants
When you start diving into the Endgame, you don't have all the tools available to achieve the final build versions. Let us guide you through different progression points to give you a smooth transition from our Leveling Guides to the final build version.
Progression Goals
Many of our Skill choices depend on what Legendary Aspects and Unique items are available to us. While we can guarantee that everyone has access to the same Codex of Power Aspects, the progression might be different for everyone!
- Unlock the following Aspects in your Codex of Power:
- Berserk Ripping in Mournfield in (Dry Steppes)
- Disobedience in Halls of the Damned (Kehjistan)
- Relentless Armsmaster in Calibel's Mine (Scosglen)
- Edgemaster’s in Oldstones (Scosglen)
- Earthstriker's in Maugan's Works (Hawezar)
- Rapid in Buried Halls (Dry Steppes)
- Ghostwalker in Broken Bulwark (Scosglen)
- Iron Warrior in Carrion Fields (Dry Steppes)
- Might in Dark Ravine (Dry Steppes)
- Numbing Wrath in Heathen's Keep (Hawezar)
- Retribution in Abandoned Mineworks (Kehjistan)
- Death Wish in Penitent Cairns (Scosglen)
- Find the following Legendary Aspects either as a random drop or by gambling with Obols:
- Encroaching Wrath: Gamble One-Handed Axes. The key to one-shotting Bosses and adds extra damage for our Death Blow throughout the run from time to time. This replaces Death Wish.
- Weapon Master's: Gamble Boots. Important to provide us with a second charge for Death Blow in case we miss a hit. This replaces Rapid.
- Steadfast Berserker's: Gamble Pants. Our primary source of Fortify later on, replacing Numbing Wrath.
- Accelerating: Gamble One-Handed Axes. We swap weapons all the time so this Aspect smooths out the gameplay especially with the long Upheaval animation. This replaces a defensive Aspect later.
- Berserk Fury: Gamble Rings. Grants us extra Fury for more Upheaval spam. This replaces Relentless Armsmaster.
- Acquire the following Unique items either as a random drop or by farming specific Boss drops. Note: You cannot gamble Unique items with obols!
- Overkill: Replacing either Conceited or Accelerating, this is amazing weapon for lategame that adds an extra shockwave to your Death Blow at the cost of better stats on a regular weapon and a doubled offensive Aspect. All in all, it's a great item to use for this build especially in easy content where the lower damage shockwave is strong enough to finish regular monsters.
- Tibault's Will: Replacing Disobedience, this item offers lots of extra damage on an otherwise defensive slot. If you feel too squishy, you can run with a legendary item instead.
- If you get lucky with Uber Unique drops, consider the following adjustments:
- Harlequin Crest or Andariel's Visage: Replace Might for extra damage, life or life recovery.
- Doombringer: You can use this weapon instead of Edgemaster’s. This sword has amazing stats and a damage reduction proc to survive high end content more easily.
- The Grandfather: This sword adds tons of great stats but prevents you from running Encroaching Wrath on a two-handed slot if you're also using Overkill. It's still an amazing upgrade and replaces Berserk Ripping.
Learn more details and how to farm Legendary Aspects and Uniques in our General Farming Guide.
Progression Setups
Once you have completed the leveling guide, only the Codex of Power Aspects are guaranteed. With this setup you can farm the Legendary Aspects and Unique items you need for the next progression point.
Upon finishing the leveling process and approaching the endgame grind, many of the Aspects we use are already available to us from the Codex of Power. There is no reason we shouldn't put them to immediate use, since they can be imprinted as often as needed as we upgrade our gear. We'll start by doing the following:
Gear
- This is a functional setup that works without any drops. As you acquire more pieces, start replacing Codex powers with the ones we're after for the Endgame setup.
- Death Wish and Rapid are filler Aspects that can be tossed out early on or omitted in case you are low on materials.
- Numbing Wrath gets replaced by the much better Steadfast Berserker's as soon as possible.
- Start working towards capping your Resistances and Armor.
Skills
- This is the standard setup for the build.
Gameplay
Early on, you have to play a lot more carefully with your Death Blow until you acquire the Weapon Master's Aspect. If you miss a killing blow, you are locked out of using your main combo and might even lose the Walking Arsenal buff due its long cooldown. Prioritize using Death Blow only when you are sure to finish off a target.
Before you acquire Encroaching Wrath your single target damage on Bosses may be lacking due to the missing buff. Avoid dungeons that have Bosses as much as possible as they may slow you down significantly if you're not overgeared.
Hardcore Adjustments
- The setup presented here is already quite tanky as is, running multiple defensive legendary aspects and stacking various defensive nodes and Glyphs on the Paragon board.
- Prioritize more defensive rolls on gear, such as Maximum Life on Rings and Helm and make sure to stack them entirely on Chest & Pants.
- Tibault's Will is an optional unique that can be replaced with a defensive legendary item.
Build Scaling & Stat Priorities
Read on to learn all you need about how to scale this build into endgame.
Weapon Damage:
- Iron Maelstrom scales off the weapon damage every slot, so it's important to prioritize high item power on all weapons when using this skill. Death Blow scales off our Two-Handed Slashing Weapon and Upheaval scales off our Two-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon.
Critical Strikes:
- Critical Strike Chance is a priority roll on Gloves and Rings.
- The Prime Iron Maelstrom enhancement grants the skill +30% Critical Strike Chance and +40%[x] Critical Strike Damage.
- Heavy Handed and the Two-Handed Mace Expertise are separate multipliers to our Critical Strike Damage.
- The Mortal Draw gives us a second chance to roll a Crit after swapping weapons.
Vulnerable Damage:
- The window in which enemies are Vulnerable is generally when we deal the most damage, because this effect acts as its own separate damage multiplier.
- The Two-Handed Axe Expertise is another multiplier to our Vulnerable damage.
- Dealing damage with Death Blow causes the next Upheaval to inflict Vulnerable due to the Expose Vulnerability passive.
- Exploit allows us to inflict Vulnerable whenever we initiate combat, and is our main source of application. However, once its duration ends, we have to wait quite a while for its effect to activate again.
Aspect of Encroaching Wrath:
- Once we spend 100 Fury with Upheaval, the next Death Blow gets a massive damage multiplier. This allows to oneshot big elites and bosses regularly.
Berserking:
- Warrior's Death Blow makes it easy to keep up Berserking because we use it all the time.
- Combat Lunging Strike is another source of Berserking that we activate regularly.
- We stack tons of Damage while Berserking from items, Paragon and the Ire Glyph to add a massive damage multiplier via the Blood Rage node.
Our Damage Explained article explains how to scale your Offense.
Learn all you need to know to scale Defense with our Defense Explained Article.
Stat Priorities & Gear Options
Choosing the right stats for your gear can make or break your build. You won't always find perfect stats (also known as affixes or modifiers) though, and you may need to make a tough choice between two good pieces of equipment. Use the following list of priorities to compare your gear and pick the best.
- Helm: Disobedience
- Ranks to Death Blow
- Any Resistance
- % Total Armor
- Cooldown Reduction
- Maximum Life
- Any Resistance
- Chest Armor: Iron Warrior
- % Total Armor
- Damage Reduction
- Close Damage Reduction
- Damage Reduction while Fortified
- Distant Damage Reduction
- Maximum Life
- Gloves: Weapon Master's
- Ranks to Upheaval
- Critical Strike Chance
- Attack Speed
- Lucky Hit Chance
- All Stats
- Strength
- Pants: Tibault's Will, look for high Close Damage Reduction & effect rolls
- Otherwise Look For: Might
- % Total Armor
- Damage Reduction
- Close Damage Reduction
- Damage Reduction while Fortified
- Distant Damage Reduction
- Maximum Life
- Boots: Ghostwalker
- Implicit: Maximum Evade Charges
- Movement Speed
- Any Resistance
- Any Resistance
- Any Resistance
- Movement Speed on Elite Kill
- Dodge Chance
- All Stats
- Strength
- Amulet: Steadfast Berserker's
- Movement Speed
- Ranks to Weapon Mastery Skills
- Cooldown Reduction
- Ranks to Heavy Handed*
- Ranks to Counteroffensive *
- Damage Reduction
- % Total Armor
- Close Damage Reduction
* Cannot appear on the same item together.
- Rings: Berserk Fury & Berserk Ripping
- Critical Strike Chance
- Damage while Berserking
- Maximum Life
- Resource Generation
- Fortify Generation
- Damage to Close Enemies
- Bludgeoning Weapon: Overkill, look for high effect roll and Death Blow ranks
- Otherwise Look For: Accelerating
- High DPS (Item Power)
- Damage while Berserking
- All Stats
- Strength
- Damage to Close Enemies
- Vulnerable Damage
- Dual-Wield (Axes): Earthstriker's & Edgemaster’s
- High DPS (Item Power)
- Damage while Berserking
- All Stats
- Strength
- Damage to Close Enemies
- Vulnerable Damage
- Slicing Weapon: Encroaching Wrath
- High DPS (Item Power)
- Damage while Berserking
- All Stats
- Strength
- Damage to Close Enemies
- Vulnerable Damage
Fill your item's sockets with the following:
- Royal Skull into Weapons for health recovery.
- Royal Ruby into Armor for more survivability.
- Any gem type of Resistances you are missing into Jewelry, prioritizing Fire and Lightning first. If you are capped on all of them, add Royal Skull for more Armor.
This build benefits the most from the following consumables:
- Elixirs: Elixir of Cruelty, Iron Skin Elixir, Elixir of Fortitude, Heady Assault Elixir & Heady Precision Elixir
- Incenses: Song of the Mountain, Reddamine Buzz & Chorus of War
FAQ
How do I assign my weapons to the correct slot?
My Death Blow doesn't finish bosses, what can I do?
I'm constantly running out of Fury, what should I do?
Why no Hellhammer?
Why Rubies instead of Sapphires or Topazes in Armor sockets?
Mechanics
Overkill
Fortify
Walking Arsenal
Video Guide
Summary
The Walking Arsenal Barbarian is a great leveling and speedfarming build that incorporates the basic principles of what the class is all about in the coolest way possible. Enjoy becoming an engine of destruction with this build!
- Assign your three attack skills to three different weapons and keep all of them up-to-date as you progress.
- Use each attack at least once every 8 seconds for the Walking Arsenal buffs.
- Reset Death Blow by finishing off enemies and follow up with Upheaval to make enemies Vulnerable (Expose Vulnerability).
- Swap between attacks to activate damage bonuses and bring back Iron Maelstrom faster.
- Protect yourself with Iron Skin and Rallying Cry (for Unstoppable).
- Activate Encroaching Wrath before engaging Bosses to deal a heavy blow to them.
Hungry for more Guides?
Barbarian Guides
General Guides
Credits
Written by wudijo
Contributions by snail
