HotA IK Barbarian BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points

This build takes advantage of the Immortal King 6-piece bonus, incorporating six of the seven available pieces from the set — Immortal King's Boulder Breaker is replaced by two highly synergistic weapons, Echoing Fury and Remorseless. Rolls-wise, this Hammer of the Ancients-centric build takes good advantage of HotA skill bonuses on the Immortal King's Triumph and Immortal King's Stride. Note that in HotA builds the helm can viably drop Crit Chance bonuses due to the mechanics of Hammer of the Ancients (see this build's skills page for more information), which naturally bring you very close to the cap; the stat roll can be spent on toughness, with the massive Vitality roll possible on the helm. Pure toughness rolls are preferred on the Immortal King's Eternal Reign and Immortal King's Stature. Survivability stats are also taken on the Immortal King's Tribal Binding, along with Life per Fury Spent as the fourth primary. Note that this item is a mighty belt, and is able to roll with Max Fury in its secondary stats — an important stat for the build. Finally, the usual double Crit stats are taken on the Immortal King's Irons, alongside Strength and Area Damage.

Taking enough pieces to obtain the 6-piece bonus of Immortal King naturally opens a powerful offensive combo in the jewelry: the Endless Walk set, The Compass Rose and The Traveler's Pledge amulet. This jewelry set adds a unique mechanic that slowly increases your damage by up to a 100% if you remain stationary, and drains it away and increases your damage reduction while moving. This dynamic mimics the HotA Barb playstyle, as you alternate between Furious Charge bursts of movement in search of the next big fight with extended periods of stationary Hammer of the Ancients spam. Seek double Crit stats, Area Damage and an open Socket for The Compass Rose and double Crit stats, Fire elemental damage and an open Socket on The Traveler's Pledge amulet.

Your other ring slot will be taken by the pure damage boost of Convention of Elements, whose rotation of elemental bonuses you will need to learn and time to maximize the benefits of the short-lived Fire proc. Its ideal stats are Crit Chance, Crit Damage, an open Socket and either Area Damage or a flat Damage increase, with both bringing about equal value to the build. Note that CoE is interchangeable with Band of Might in this slot, depending on your better rolled item. Last but not least, during lower tier Greater Rifts for farming or gem leveling purposes, you should use a Fire damage Stone of Jordan in this slot for its consistent, non-timed damage buff.

Your shoulder slot will be taken by Fury of the Ancients — a legendary item tailored specifically for Immortal King-based builds, which provides the Ancients' Fury rune for free, as well as a doubling of the Ancients' attack speed. This item is a cornerstone in your Fury management and toughness, since it allows you to slot the protective Together as One rune.

Bracers of the First Men are a crucial piece for the playstyle. Almost single-handedly turning Hammer of the Ancients into an endgame spender, that bracer increases the HotA Attack Speed by 50% and damage by 500%. The preferred stats are Strength, Vitality, Crit Chance and Fire elemental damage, along with as high of a HotA damage roll as you can find. Note that this slot is interchangeable with your Kanai's Cube recommendation, Mortick's Brace. The latter provides the effect of all Wrath of the Berserker runes, to the tremendous benefit of the build.

For your weaponry, we recommend that you dual wield the HotA-synergistic combination of Remorseless and Echoing Fury. Remorseless has been updated in Patch 2.6.7 to greatly increase your Hammer of the Ancients damage while both Wrath of the Berserker and Call of the Ancients are active, which matches the permanent uptime of both skills guaranteed by the Immortal King set. Echoing Fury on the other hand simply feeds into the Attack Speed frenzy of this build with its scaling IAS and movement speed bonuses. These weapons' use is further reinforced by the ability to extract The Gavel of Judgment's HotA damage bonus into Kanai's Cube as of Patch 2.6.1.

Due to the 4th Kanai's Cube slot in this Season, replace Remorseless and Echoing Fury as your worn weapons with the Istvan's Paired Blades set, The Slanderer and Little Rogue, for the additional attack speed, damage, and armor bonuses. Move Remorseless to the 4th Cube slot.

For Offense stats, try to obtain Hammer of the Ancients % bonus on both the helm and boots (maximum of 30%), Fire elemental damage on both the amulet and wrists (maximum of 40%), Crit Chance and Crit Damage within a 1:10 ratio (ideally over 50% and 500%, respectively), and Area Damage of 100%+. HotA Barbs try to extend their Fury pool due to the skill's mechanics, so obtain Max Fury on your belt.

For Defense stats, aim for a life pool between 700-900k; dropping as much as you can for offense as you grow accustomed to the build. You will mostly sustain through Life per Hit on gear, with at least one high roll in your setup, but ideally two (optimal slots are the two weapons and/or bracer). Life per Fury Spent can also be a nice source of extra sustain (can be rolled on the mighty belt).

All augmentations on gear should be done with your main stat, Strength.

Note that the stat suggestions below portray an ideally rolled item with stats listed in relative order of importance. The first four of them are main stats, and the latter two — secondary stats. If your item lacks and is unable to be rerolled into the primary stats outlined below, especially for a stat higher on the list, strongly consider its replacement. Perfecting Secondary stats is mostly a case of hyper-optimization and is not a case for discarding an item, except where noted.

To help you with farming the gear you need for your builds, we have two very useful guides that you can access by clicking the links below: a Salvage Guide to help you quickly check whether or not you can safely salvage a piece of gear and a Legendary Farming Guide to help you efficiently farm legendaries and set items.

The former Season 28 theme, the Altar of Rites, has been revised and re-added to Diablo 3 as a permanent character progression mechanic. — For virtually all builds and players of all skill levels — from casual to advanced — we recommend progressing through the Altar tree using the path outlined below. The suggested path is geared towards maximum quality of life first, then amplifying damage, and then mopping up the tree with defensive and edge case utility nodes.

Note that while they require reaching them with a Seal, Legendary Potion Powers are not part of the Seal cost system; Potions unlock with a separate resource called Primordial Ashes, obtained from salvaging Legendary or Set items of Primal (red bordered) quality. Upgrade them as soon as possible, and in the order shown below (courtesy of Caleko's Altar of Rites planner).

You can read more on the Altar of Rites, Seals and Legendary Potion Powers in our dedicated Altar of Rites Mechanics guide.

In the Core section, max out Movement Speed to the 25% cap. Normally this is done by dumping the first 50 Core Paragon points into Movement Speed, but if your boots have an imperfect roll with Movement Speed as a stat that you cannot replace, adjust the necessary point investment accordingly by simply subtracting your roll from the 25% max. Max out Fury next, due to the interaction with Hammer of the Ancients. After that dump as much as you comfortably can into Strength, but feel free to invest into Vitality if you feel yourself lacking in toughness.

In the Offense section, max out Crit Chance, Crit Damage, Attack Speed and CDR in that order. In Defense, prioritize All Resistance, then Life %, then Armor, and finish off with Life Regeneration. In Utility, build up Area Damage and Life on Hit first, then finish off with Globe Radius. Resource Cost Reduction should be skipped, as it directly interferes with the Immortal King 4-piece set bonus and with Life per Fury Spent stats on gear, and you manage Fury just fine with the resource refund mechanics of The Gavel of Judgment.

Esoteric Alteration brings up the defensive bulwark of this facetanking build, granting a massive 60% elemental damage reduction at max level, as well as an additional 75% increase to elemental affixes once you drop below half life. Note that if you are confident in your survivability, you can viably alternate this slot to Pain Enhancer for the additional damage from gem's scaling Attack Speed bonuses.

Bane of the Trapped is a potent source of additional damage, as it is its own multiplier in your total damage calculation. The gem procs itself with its level 25 property when in melee range, synergizing with the close-and-personal range of Hammer of the Ancients.

Bane of the Stricken occupies a firm jewelry socket during GR progression. Building up your damage multiplicatively in prolonged fights and with a level 25 bonus specifically targeting Rift Guardians, this gem is designed to assist AoE heavy builds in their struggle against single target, high HP enemies. HotA Barbs are better suited to single target fights than many other AoE specs, but they still take decent advantage of this gem — a fine testament to its quality. Note that if you are doing lower tier Greater Rifts for farming or gem leveling purposes, you should exchange this gem for the universal, well-rounded bonuses of Bane of the Powerful.

When it comes to gear gems, you will start out progression by slotting the highest available level of Rubies in the chest and pants sockets. Ideally, these will all be Flawless Royal Ruby as soon as possible. As you grow in Paragon (bulking up Strength in the Core section) and aim for higher tier and more dangerous GRs, you will transition those gems into the defensive Flawless Royal Diamond. There is no specific breakpoint where you do that; the rule of thumb is to make the change as soon as you feel the lack of toughness impede your progress. As this is a fairly easy build to manage cooldowns in, slot a Flawless Royal Amethyst in your helm. In your weapons, use Flawless Royal Emeralds for the Crit Damage boost.

For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.

Cubing the The Gavel of Judgment is a natural choice for a HotA-centric build, since this two handed mighty weapon is the basis of your Fury management with its refund mechanic, and also offers a massive skill damage bonus.

You have two viable options for the armor slot in the Cube: Mortick's Brace and Bracers of the First Men. You will be wearing your better roll and cubing the weaker.

Significantly buffed in Patch 2.6.1, Band of Might offers supreme mitigation for the build: 80% damage reduction, towering over other defensive staples like Unity and its 50% DR. It is also independent of the presence of a follower, and has a modest requirement of casting Furious Charge at least once every 8 seconds. Note that Band of Might is interchangeable with Convention of Elements in this slot, depending on your better rolled item.

In your 4th Kanai's Cube slot in Season 33, place the Remorseless that you replaced from your worn weapons for the Istvan's Blades set.

The Kanai's Cube can be used for much more than simply extracting Legendary powers from items. Please refer to our Kanai's Cube guide for more information.

The recommended follower for this build during solo GR progression is the Scoundrel due to his powerful crit buff, allowing you brief windows of extra damage that are well suited to the strengths of this build.

For more information regarding followers, we advise you to read our Follower Guide, which contains detailed advice for choosing the skills and the gear of your follower.

The preferred potion for this build is Bottomless Potion of the Leech due to its Life per Hit bonuses, which synergize perfectly for the high attack speed and sustain-through-attacks playstyle of the build.