Seismic Slam Barbarian BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points

This build takes the combined power of the Might of the Earth and the craftable Captain Crimson sets, taking 5 pieces and 3 pieces of each set respectively and cubing a Ring of Royal Grandeur to reduce the number of items for set bonus completion by one. You will be equipping Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle and one more Cpt. Crimson piece of your choosing — either Captain Crimson's Thrust or Captain Crimson's Waders — and dropping the respective Might of the Earth set piece.

The ability to cube Ring of Royal Grandeur opens a powerful offensive combo in the jewelry: the Endless Walk set, The Compass Rose and The Traveler's Pledge amulet. This 2.4 rework 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 mechanic follows closely the Seismic Slam Barb playstyle, as you alternate between Leap bursts of movement in search of the next big fight with extended periods of stationary Seismic Slam spam (see this build's skills page for more information). Seek double Crit stats, Area Damage and an open Socket for The Compass Rose and double Crit stats, Cold elemental damage and an open Socket on The Traveler's Pledge amulet.

Your second ring will be Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac; a crucial piece for Seismic Slam Barbarians that makes this cooldown-heavy build much easier to manage. Benefiting greatly from the attack speed inherent to dual wielding, as well as the Fjord Cutter — Echoing Fury combo, it allows for permanent uptime of both Call of the Ancients and Wrath of the Berserker.

Bracers of Destruction are a cornerstone piece for the playstyle. These bracers are tailored for a Seismic Slam, increasing the skill's damage against the first ten enemies struck by up to 500%. Keep in mind the item's specific targeting requirements and try to position yourself so that priority targets are struck first. The preferred stats are Strength, Vitality, Crit Chance and Cold elemental damage, along with as high of a Seismic Slam damage roll as you can find.

Weapons-wise (in non-Seasonal or pre-Etheral play), we recommend that you dual wield the Seismic Slam-synergistic combination of Fjord Cutter and Echoing Fury. Fjord Cutter has been updated in Patch 2.6.7 to greatly increase your Seismic Slam damage and attack speed against Slowed or Chilled enemies, synergizing perfectly with the Permafrost rune. 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 Fury of the Vanished Peak's Seismic Slam damage bonus into Kanai's Cube.

For Offense stats, try to obtain Seismic Slam % bonus on both the helm and boots (maximum of 30%), Cold 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%+. The build is also highly reliant on Cooldown Reduction, and the upkeep of both massive cooldowns — Wrath of the Berserker and Call of the Ancients — will only grow comfortable past the 50% CDR barrier.

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).

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. 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, or Maximum Fury if you would prefer a bigger reserve to play around with.

In the Offense section, max out CDR, Crit Chance, Crit Damage and Attack Speed 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 move onto Resource Cost Reduction and finish off with Globe Radius.

While Seismic Slam offers some range and safety, our general recommendation is not to go glass cannon, at least initially; to begin with, try out Esoteric Alteration. This gem improves your elemental resistances with every level, and provides you with a last line of defense against one shots through its level 25 property. Once you grow confident in your handling of the build, you can try Zei's Stone of Vengeance in this slot for its distance-based, separate damage multiplier to your overall damage.

Bane of the Trapped is a potent source of additional damage, as it is its own multiplier in your total damage calculation. The gem gets procced by the built-in Chill of Seismic Slam Permafrost rune, and also procs itself with its level 25 property when in melee range.

Bane of the Stricken occupies the third and final 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 — a category Seismic Slam falls firmly into. 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. Due to the high cooldown reduction demands of the build, you should be socketing a Flawless Royal Diamond 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.

Hidden away in the weapon Cube slot, Fury of the Vanished Peak is a cornerstone item for a Seismic Slam build, since this two handed mighty weapon is the basis of your Fury management cost reduction mechanic, and also offers a massive skill damage bonus.

Your armor Cube slot will be taken by Fury of the Ancients — a legendary item that greatly improves the Ancients' capabilities, as it 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.

In a MotE / Cpt. Crimson hybrid, you will need a Ring of Royal Grandeur — a cache legendary ring from Act I bounties — to tie the two sets together. The ability to run with 6-piece MotE bonuses and 3-piece Crimson bonuses, dodging the undesirable guaranteed stats on the Grandeur by cubing its power, is a major power spike for the build.

In your 4th Kanai's Cube slot in Season 33, you should slot Band of Might for its massive damage mitigation multiplier.

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.