Leap/Earthquake MotE Barbarian Skills and Runes

Active Skills
Earthquake Molten Fury Seismic Slam Rumble 1 War Cry Veteran's Warning 2 Leap Death from Above 3 Threatening Shout Falter 4 Wrath of the Berserker Insanity
Passive Skills
Rampage Earthen Might Ruthless Boon of Bul-Kathos

The build begins runs by casting the War Cry buff, maintained throughout the rift's duration. The typical rotation during a fight is a triple Leap into the thick of enemies, with a Threatening Shout interwoven between Leaps to debuff your opponents, and if it is off cooldown — applying Wrath of the Berserker for the boost of damage, toughness, and utility. You can also trigger your own Earthquake on cooldown, without affecting the Leap-induced Earthquakes. Once you have exhausted your cooldowns, dump all your Fury with a well-placed Seismic Slam Rumble shot, instantly resetting Leap for the next round of devastation.

Earthquake is the primary damage dealer of the build, but the majority of its triggers will come from Might of the Earth's 4-piece set bonus via Leap. Nevertheless, it is important to have it on your skill bar, as the set Earthquakes will inherit the rune you have selected, and one more Earthquake under your control is welcome damage. For high end Greater Rift progression, it is recommended that you take the highest damage dealing rune, Molten Fury, and gamble on good density and monster types.

Reworked in Patch 2.5, the Seismic Slam Rumble emerges as the most synergistic spender for Earthquake builds. Not only does it dump your entire Fury reserve (tying into the Might of the Earth 2-piece bonus for instantaneous Leap resets), but also triggers the effect of the Girdle of Giants mighty belt to ramp up the Earthquake devastation (see this build's gear page for more information).

War Cry is a two-in-one utility skill that brings extra Dodge with the Veteran's Warning rune. Once activated, the buff lasts for three times the cooldown of the skill — but situations will arise when you need it for the Fury generation, so War Cry is not as passive as it first seems.

Leap is a skill of manifold utility in the build. First and foremost, it delivers the bulk of your damage by casting Earthquake at your landing location through the Might of the Earth 4-piece set bonus. Second, it gains the benefits of the Iron Impact rune for free (again, from the 4-piece MotE), skyrocketing your Armor with a 150% buff for 4 seconds. Third, by taking the Death from Above rune, you gain a 3-second stun on affected enemies. And last but not least, it remains a movement skill that can take you over gaps and obstacles, ensuring a getaway from harm.

Flipping the traditionally defensive Threatening Shout skill into a debuff, the Falter rune makes affected enemies more susceptible to damage but leaves their damage unchanged — a drawback that should be negated by the hard CC at your disposal. The Threatening Shout radius is conveniently larger than the Earthquake, ensuring all combatants will be debuffed.

The signature barbarian steroid Wrath of the Berserker is naturally present in the build, and strengthened even further by the damage multiplier of the Insanity rune. While the skill has significantly lower uptime compared to Immortal King-based builds, you still cut the cooldown by a decent margin with the passive Boon of Bul-Kathos, allowing you to take advantage of the Dodge, Crit Chance, Attack, and Movement Speed bonuses often enough.

This rounds out the overview of the Active Skills, now let us look through the Passives.

Rampage is a staple in Barbarian endgame builds, as they often emphasize swift movement from battle to battle, seeking and creating additional density through skills and trash killing efficiency. The Earthquake Barbarian is no exception. With the potential to stack up to 25% additional Strength, increasing your damage and toughness substantially, it is important to learn to keep this passive up. Always being on the move towards bigger fights, where killing trash enemies will feed your stacks, is crucial.

The second endgame passive staple is Ruthless, a multiplicative damage bonus that benefits you more the tougher your enemy is. Once you bring your target below 30% health, your damage is boosted by an additional 40% — especially useful on Rift Guardians, ensuring the end of the fight will be ahead of the timer.

Earthen Might is a logical passive inclusion in the build, ensuring you will easily cap on Fury with a triple Leap and Threatening Shout rotation, ready to dump with a Rumble and begin the cycle anew.

Taking advantage of two thirds of the Boon of Bul-Kathos utility, the Earthquake Barbarian enjoys significantly lower cooldowns on both his on-bar Earthquake and the powerful self-buff Wrath of the Berserker. Higher uptime of the latter is especially important when Greater Rifting, where the damage and survival bonuses of Wrath of the Berserker can make the difference for a successful clear.