Hammer of the Ancients – Barbarian Leveling Build for Diablo 4

General Leveling Tips

To find out more general information about leveling as a Barbarian in Diablo 4, you can check out our main Barbarian Leveling guide. You can also go to our Barbarian Builds page for a list of other leveling and endgame Barbarian builds for you to choose from.

In regard to leveling up on the seasonal realm, you might also want to check out our season checklist, as it will give you some useful tips and tricks for Season 6 of Diablo 4.

Build Introduction

This build focuses on using Hammer of the Ancients to quickly decimate groups of enemies and sunder elites and bosses with powerful slams. While leveling, we use the class-exclusive Berserking status effect to increase our damage, movement speed, and resource generation even more, so we can continue smashing away at hoards of demons.

• Hammer of the Ancients – The centerpiece of the build and your main Fury spender.
  • Enhanced Hammer of the Ancients– This skill will help smooth our Fury generation while leveling .
  • Furious Hammer of the Ancients – This skill gives us a massive damage multiplier based on our Fury.
• Lunging Strike – Our basic attack and Fury generator. This skill provides us with movement, which is invaluable while leveling.
  • Enhanced Lunging Strike– This gives us a bit more damage and sustained healing while we lunge into packs.
  • Combat Lunging Strike– This will help us trigger the Berserking status for a short time, which we will improve with other skills and aspects to increase our movement speed and damage.

The main gameplay loop with these two skills will be diving into packs with Lunging Strike or Charge , triggering Berserking, and slamming down with Hammer of the Ancients to finish everything off. This build sports strong single-target damage, allowing us to quickly finish off dungeon bosses or seasonal questline bosses fairly easily.

Now let’s take a look at how we will progress from Level 1 to 60 and jump towards the endgame.

Allocation of Skill points

Our first priority with skills is to descend down the tree as quickly as possible to get all of our skills and the key passive. After we’ve acquired our key passive, we’ll head back up the tree to grab some useful passives or increase the ranks of some skills.

Skill Point Order	Skill	Skill Cluster
1	Lunging Strike	Basic Skills
2	Enhanced Lunging Strike	Basic Skills
3	Hammer of the Ancients	Core Skills
4	Enhanced Hammer of the Ancients	Core Skills
5	Violent Hammer of the Ancients	Core Skills
6	Combat Lunging Strike	Basic Skills
7	Rallying Cry	Defensive Skills
8	Enhanced Rallying Cry	Defensive Skills
9	Tactical Rallying Cry	Defensive Skills
10	Hammer of the Ancients Level 2	Core Skills
11	Hammer of the Ancients Level 3	Core Skills
12	Charge	Brawling Skills
13	Enhanced Charge	Brawling Skills
14	Power Charge	Brawling Skills
15	War Cry	Brawling Skills
16	Enhanced War Cry	Brawling Skills
17	Mighty War Cry	Brawling Skills
18	Hammer of the Ancients Level 4	Core Skills
19	Hammer of the Ancients Level 5	Core Skills
20	Endless Fury	Core Skills
21	Endless Fury Level 2	Core Skills
22	Endless Fury Level 3	Core Skills
23	Swiftness	Brawling Skills
24	Wrath of the Berserker	Ultimate Skills
25	Prime Wrath of the Berserker	Ultimate Skills
26	Supreme Wrath of the Berserker	Ultimate Skills
27	Swiftness Level 2	Brawling Skills
28	Swiftness Level 3	Brawling Skills
29	Aggressive Resistance	Brawling Skills
30	Battle Fervor	Brawling Skills
31	Battle Fervor Level 2	Brawling Skills
32	Battle Fervor Level 3	Brawling Skills
33	Prolific Fury	Brawling Skills
34	Unconstrained	Key Passive
35	Charge Level 2	Brawling Skills
36	Charge Level 3	Brawling Skills
37	Charge Level 4	Brawling Skills
38	Charge Level 5	Brawling Skills
39	Prolific Fury Level 2	Brawling Skills
40	Prolific Fury Level 3	Brawling Skills
41	Pit Fighter	Weapon Mastery Skills
42	Pit Fighter Level 2	Weapon Mastery Skills
43	Pit Fighter Level 3	Weapon Mastery Skills
44	Imposing Presence	Defensive Skills
45	Imposing Presence Level 2	Defensive Skills
46	Imposing Presence Level 3	Defensive Skills
47	Thick Skin	Weapon Mastery Skills
48	Counteroffensive	Weapon Mastery Skills
49	Counteroffensive Level 2	Weapon Mastery Skills
50	Counteroffensive Level 3	Weapon Mastery Skills
51	Heavy Handed	Ultimate Skills
52	Heavy Handed Level 2	Ultimate Skills
53	Heavy Handed Level 3	Ultimate Skills
54	Wallop	Ultimate Skills
55	Wallop Level 2	Ultimate Skills
56	Wallop Level 3	Ultimate Skills
57	Brute Force	Ultimate Skills
58	Brute Force Level 2	Ultimate Skills
59	Brute Force Level 3	Ultimate Skills
60	Wrath of the Berserker Level 2	Ultimate Skills
61	Wrath of the Berserker Level 3	Ultimate Skills
62	Wrath of the Berserker Level 4	Ultimate Skills
63	Wrath of the Berserker Level 5	Ultimate Skills
64	Warpath	Core Skills
65	Warpath Level 2	Core Skills
66	Warpath Level 3	Core Skills
67	Booming Voice	Brawling Skills
68	Booming Voice Level 2	Brawling Skills
69	Booming Voice Level 3	Brawling Skills
70	Aggressive Resistance	Brawling Skills
71	Aggressive Resistance	Brawling Skills

HotA Leveling Skill Bar (Placement of skills is completely optional)

Hammer of the Ancients Lunging Strike Rallying Cry War Cry Charge Wrath of the Berserker

Skill Tree

Here is the completed skill tree for the build:

Skill Clusters

We are going to take a look at each group of skills in our tree and talk about why we’re taking the skills we are so we can have a good understanding of how the build functions before we transition to an endgame version.

Basic Skills

Lunging Strike is our choice for the basic skill with this setup. It provides us with near-infinite mobility, allowing us to chase down mobile bosses, treasure goblins, and generates Fury to spend on harder hitting abilities. Thanks to Combat Lunging Strike, this skill can also provide us with one additional source for triggering Berserking.

Core Skills

Hammer of the Ancients is the centerpiece and main skill of this build. We want to cast it as often as we are able into large groups of enemies. The Aspect of Ancestral Force will grant us a damage buff and provide a wider area for this skill, which significantly increases its power. We want to cast this as close to maximum Fury as possible to take advantage of Furious Hammer of the Ancients. A general guide while leveling is to adopt a 3:1 ratio of Lunging Strike to Hammer of the Ancients, and as you level up and unlock more skills and more resource generation, drop down to a 2:1 ratio.

Endless Fury is our passive node on this cluster, which will help our Fury generation while leveling, as long as we are using the Arsenal System to assign a 2-Handed Weapon to our Lunging Strike, and will help make the build feel less resource intensive, especially before acquiring the Resource Generation affix only available on Ancestral Rings.

Defensive Skills

Rallying Cry is our main defensive ability. It provides us with on-demand Unstoppable through Enhanced Rallying Cry and even more resource generation thanks to Tactical Rallying Cry.

Imposing Presence will be our passive node here. It provides a substantial boost to your total health pool, allowing us to shrug off more hits and not burn through our potions during more difficult encounters.

Brawling Skills

Charge is our main brawling skill, and provides a great source of mobility, damage, and yet another method to trigger Berserking, all in one convenient button. It provides some minor crowd control through Enhanced Charge, but the real power comes from the aptly named Power Charge, which grants a large amount of built-in cooldown reduction, allowing us to charge far more often.

War Cry is a supportive skill that provides us with a damage increase. Enhanced War Cry provides us with another source of on-demand Berserking, and Mighty War Cry gives us some Fortify every time we press it. In general, we will want to use this against Elites, Bosses, or large packs.

Swiftness is a passive movement speed buff, which is always a high priority in any type of content. Aggressive Resistance is taken for some damage reduction while we are in the Berserking state. Prolific Fury provides us with a nice boost to resource generation during Berserking. Battle Fervor is our main method of entering Berserking while leveling. Thanks to Charge‘s built-in cooldown reduction, any time we charge into a pack, we will go Berserk for at least 3 seconds.

Weapon Mastery Skills

Pit Fighter is a nice damage-amplifying passive that increases our damage to close targets, which is every target we’ll be smashing with Hammer of the Ancients, and gives some defensive value by making us take less damage from far away enemies trying to snipe us off-screen.

Thick Skin grants a minor amount of Fortify while leveling, helping us survive when we take on big groups.

Counteroffensive gives us another damage multiplier while we have at least half of our life Fortified, something we will be able to do pretty easily through some Aspects and other skills.

Ultimate Skill

Wrath of the Berserker is our ultimate of choice. It grants us both Berserking and Unstoppable for 5 seconds, and any time we use Lunging Strike for 10 seconds after, we will gain Berserking again if it falls off, giving us high uptime.

Prime Wrath of the Berserker enhances our ultimate with some movement speed, which is always nice, and resource generation, allowing us to keep smashing.

Supreme Wrath of the Berserker gives us a massive multiplier for spending Fury during Berserking. This damage bonus lasts until you lose that particular Berserking status, so we will aim to keep as much uptime on it as possible to maintain this buff.

Key Passive

Unconstrained is our key passive of choice. With all the various methods to trigger Berserking, it provides us with much easier management of our Berserking timer and grants us another massive damage buff while we’re in it.

Mercenaries

As you play through the campaign in Vessel of Hatred, you will unlock various NPC Mercenaries who can join you on your quest to slay demons. Each Mercenary has their own small talent tree that will give them bonuses and skills to help you. Additionally, you can assign a Mercenary that you don’t take with you as a reinforcement to jump in when you activate certain skills. Let’s take a look at how we want to set this up for this build

We hire Varyana the Berserker Crone

• Core Skill: Cleave
• Core Skill Passive: Hysteria
• Iconic Skill: Bloodthirst
• Iconic Skill Passive: Bloodlust

Our Reinforcement Mercenary will be Raheir, the Shieldbearer

• Opportunity Skill: War Cry
• Reinforcement Skill: Crater

Barbarian Mechanics

There are two main mechanics we will be interacting with while leveling. These are the Arsenal System, which lets the Barbarian hold more weapons than every other class, allowing for extra stats and legendary aspects, and Berserking, which is a class-unique status effect that we can trigger through certain skills and conditions.

Arsenal System

The Arsenal System allows us to wield four weapons and assign specific weapon types to specific skills, as well as granting us passive bonuses through Weapon Expertise. At Level 15, we will receive our class quest to head over to Ked Bardu and begin unlocking the full power of these bonuses. Each weapon provides a bonus while you’re using that type of weapon. After completing the quest, we will acquire the Technique Slot, allowing us to assign one weapon’s expertise bonuses to us at all times, even if we are not using that weapon type.

Remember, you must have a weapon type leveled to at least Level 1 to assign it to the Technique Slot. For leveling, we will be using 2-Handed Sword Technique which applies bleeds from all of our attacks and is a strong leveling option. Once we get further into the game, we will be switching to the 2-Handed Axe Technique for its strong damage multiplier once we have a reliable way to apply the Vulnerable condition so we can take advantage of it.

As a final reminder, our main attacking skill, Hammer of the Ancients, requires that we use a 2-Handed Mace, which means we will always be benefiting from this specific Weapon Expertise bonus, so it is a poor choice for our Technique Slot.

For weapon assignments, we will want to assign the 2-Handed Slashing Weapon to Lunging Strike, the highest DPS weapons we have to Charge, and Hammer of the Ancients cannot be assigned as it requires the 2-Handed Bludgeoning weapon. This setup allows us to take advantage of a few weapon swap powers we may want to use, such as Earthstriker’s Aspect.

Berserking

Berserking is a unique status effect for the Barbarian class. When it triggers, we will gain a damage multiplier and movement speed for a certain amount of time. We can increase the value of this damage buff through various skills, passives, and aspects, as well as through the paragon board once we move into the endgame. While leveling, we will be triggering this status pretty reliably through Battle Fervor whenever we hit something with Charge. We are also able to enter it on-demand through either War Cry or our ultimate Wrath of the Berserker. Lastly, we have a chance to enter it early on whenever we critically strike with Lunging Strike, thanks to Combat Lunging Strike. Our key passive, Unconstrained, provides us with a substantial buff to this status, so we will want to be in it as often as possible while fighting.

Leveling Options

There are many options to level your character: kill monsters, do quests in each region if you need the Renown, follow a Seasonal storyline, farm dungeons, or participate in regional events. With so many methods at your disposal, we’ve chosen some methods that will accelerate your path to the endgame. As always check out our Barbarian Leveling Guide for the best options.

The open world is full of monsters and activities, you are welcome to find your own path or leveling areas but if you are looking for some great options, here are two great suggestions for this build:

Helltide

Helltide is a powerful way to earn experience and gear right from the start of your leveling journey. It is available right from the start and comes with a massive amount of loot and experience provided you can survive long enough in these corrupted zones to open the chests scattered throughout them which can contain a lot of powerful items early on. Helltides are active for 55 minutes of every hour with 5 minutes of downtime before spawning in a new zone. For more details check out our Barbarian Leveling Guide.

Questing & Strongholds

Questing is a necessary evil if you are still grinding out your renown levels for each zone. If you need to complete your Renown, it can be a relatively easy way to get some quick experience along the way. If this is something you need to do, take as many quests as you can from one area and complete them all in one go. It may not feel necessarily faster, but going back and forth for each one is a waste of time.

In Vessel of Hatred, Strongholds have been slightly revamped to give massive amounts of experience the first time you complete them. Going through and doing each Stronghold across the various zones can net you a lot of fast levels as well as large renown gains to help you reach certain renown milestones if you haven’t completed them.

Gear Affixes

Below, you will find a list of the recommended stats to look for on each piece of gear. Remember, that while leveling, you will be swapping gear often as you find more and more powerful items. The stats below serve more as guidelines than hard rules. We will also be listing a Tempering Affix that is useful to have while leveling, keep in mind that Tempering is more of a late-game system and the continual change of gear while leveling means that tempering a piece may burn through your materials faster. Items can have up to two tempering affixes applied to them provided they are not from the same tempering category. For example you cannot have two tempers from the “Offensive” category on the same item. As such we will be listing the most important temper for each item slot below.

Gear Slot	Targeted Affixes	Tempering Affixes
Helm	1. Strength 2. Cooldown Reduction 3. Maximum Life	1. Hammer of the Ancients size Brute Innovation
Chest	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Needed Resistance	1. Hammer of the Ancients size Brute Innovation
Gloves	1. Attack Speed 2. Critical Strike Chance 3. Ranks to Hammer of the Ancients	1. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse
Pants	1. Ranks of Charge 2. Strength 3. Maximum Life	1. Hammer of the Ancients size Brute Innovation
Boots	1. Movement Speed 2. Strength 3. Fury Per Second	1. Movement Speed Natural Motion
Amulet	1. Movement Speed 2. Cooldown Reduction 3. Critical Strike Chance	1. Damage to Close Enemies Natural Finesse
Rings	1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Attack Speed 3. Fury on Kill	1. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse
2-Handed Weapons	1. DPS (Bludgeoning Weapon Only) 2. Strength 3. Maximum Life 4. Critical Strike Damage 5. Fury on Kill	1. Chance for Hammer of the Ancients to deal Double Damage Core Augments — Barbarian
1-Handed Weapons	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Critical Strike Damage 4. Fury on Kill	1. Chance for Hammer of the Ancients to deal Double Damage Core Augments — Barbarian

Gems

Listed below are the best gems to socket into gear for each slot type.

• Weapon: Topaz for Basic Skill Damage (before Level 40) Ruby for Overpower damage (after Level 40)
• Armor: Ruby for the increase to Strength.
• Jewelry: Diamond for the All Resistances.

Runes

While leveling in Vessel of Hatred, you may come across Runes, a unique gem that can be placed into an item with two sockets such as a helm, chest, pants, or two-handed weapon. Putting one Ritual Rune and one Invocation Rune into the same item creates a Runeword which can enhance your gameplay and grant powerful boons. Ritual Runes generate Offering when the conditions are met, and once enough Offering has been met, the associated Invocation Rune’s effect will trigger. Here are some early Rune suggestions for leveling

Rune Name	Rune Effect
Cir	Gain 30 Offering: Cast the same Non-Channeled Skill 3 times
Zan	Gain 150 Offering: Cast an Ultimate skill
Gar	Requires 25 Offering: Cooldown 1 second, Gain 2.5% Critical Strike Chance for 5 seconds, up to 25%
Lum	Requires 5 Offering: Cooldown 1 second, Restore 1 Primary Resource

Legendary Aspects

Below, you will find the Legendary Aspects to use while leveling. All of them can be found in the Codex of Power and provide a good source of damage and utility. We don’t recommend placing these on your weapons, as you should aim to replace your weapons very frequently, and imprinting them can waste valuable resources and time. That said, we will still list some options here in case you want to imprint on them. 

Gear Slot	Legendary Aspect	Legendary Aspect Power
Helm	Aspect of Might	Basic Skills grant 20% Damage Reduction for [2.0-6.0] seconds.
Chest	Aspect of Disobedience	You gain [0.6 – 1.1%] increased Armor for 4 seconds when you deal any form of damage, stacking up to [36 – 66%].
Gloves	Aspect of Ancestral Force (MUST HAVE!) Relentless Berserker’s Aspect (If Ancestral Force is on your Bludgeoning Weapon)	Hammer of the Ancients quakes outwards, and its damage is increased by [5%-15%] Lucky Hit: Damaging an enemy with a Core Skill has up to a [22-40%] chance to extend the duration of Berserking by 2 seconds. Double this duration if it was a Critical Strike
Pants	Iron Blood Aspect	Gain [2.0-4.0%] Damage Reduction for each Nearby Bleeding enemy up to [10-20%] maximum.
Boots	Ghostwalker Aspect	While Unstoppable and for 4 seconds after, you gain +[10 – 25]% increased Movement Speed and can move freely through enemies.
Amulets(50% bonus)	Edgemaster’s Aspect	Skills deal up to [10-20%] increased damage based on your available Primary Resource when cast, receiving the maximum benefit while you have full Primary Resource
Ring	Aspect of Vocalized Empowerment	Your Shout skills generate [6-10] Fury per second while active.
Ring	Aspect of Unrelenting Fury	Killing an enemy with a Core Skill refunds [10.0-20.0%] of its base Fury cost. Can only happen once per Skill cast.
Bludgeoning Weapon (100% bonus)	Aspect of Ancestral Force (MUST HAVE!) Aspect of the Expectant (If Ancestral Force is on your gloves)	Hammer of the Ancients quakes outwards, dealing [32-50]% of its damage to enemies. Attacking enemies with a Basic Skill increases the damage of your next Core Skill cast within 5 seconds by [5-10%] up to 30%
Slashing Weapon (100% bonus)	Aspect of Berserk Ripping	Whenever you deal direct damage while Berserking, inflict [20-30%] of the Base damage dealt as additional Bleeding damage over 5 seconds.
Dual-Wield Weapon 1	Rapid Aspect	Basic Skills gain [15-30%] Attack Speed.
Dual-Wield Weapon 2	Earthstriker’s Aspect	After swapping weapons 8 times, your next skill will Overpower and deal [30-50%] increased Overpower damage.

Early Paragon

Once you hit Level 60 with this leveling build, you will be ready to begin your paragon journey and transition into an end-game setup as you unlock Torment 1 and beyond. This will open up the true endgame and allow you to collect new Ancestral Items you will need to transition into the Endgame Version of this Build. Once you upgrade your build to the Endgame build, you will be ready to push into The Pit and unlock new difficulties, face new bosses, and get incredible Unique items to raise your power and crush more and more demons and beyond!

Below you will find a Paragon Setup for the first two Paragon Boards to get you started. After this we strongly recommend making the transition into an Endgame setup as you increase in power and paragon. As a reminder, all glyph’s shown are the level 100 versions. Let’s take a look.

Elixirs and Health Pots

Visit the Alchemist in any main town to craft helpful Elixirs that increase stats and experience gain for 30 minutes. Make sure to forage plants and pick up the necessary crafting materials during your adventures; they randomly spawn around the world. We recommend using Elixir of Advantage for the attack speed or Elixir of Resource but while leveling, any Elixir will do, as they all provide a 5% to 8% increase to your experience gains, making you level that much faster.

Return to the Alchemist again every 5 to 10 levels to upgrade your healing potion. The extra healing they provide will be essential to surviving as you advance.

Changelog

• October 3rd 2024: Build updated for Season 6 and Vessel of Hatred
• August 4th 2024: Guide updated for season 5 and patch 1.5.0
• May 7th 2024: Guide restructured, updated for season 4, added early paragon boards.
• April 4th 2024: Ownership of page transferred, page restructured for improved readability, explanations, and options.
• February 6th 2024: Adjustments to build.
• January 21st 2024: Season 3 speculative changes.
• October 23rd 2023: Revamped build for Season 2.
• October 13th 2023: Build adjusted to prepare for Season 2 launch.
• September 16th 2023: Leveling Guide revamp.