This is the BiS and Gear page of the HotA Barbarian Build. To navigate to the other pages of this build, you can use the buttons below.
Legendary Aspects
In this section of our guide, we’ll go through the Best In Slot Legendary Aspects and Uniques you will need to run this build to crush the endgame in Diablo 4’s first expansion, Vessel of Hatred.
Slot | Gems | Legendary Aspect/Unique | Aspect / Unique Power |
Helm | Grand Ruby | Tuskhelm of Joritz the Mighty | – When you gain Berserking while already Berserk, you have a [40-60%] chance to become more enraged granting x15% increased damage, 2 Fury Per Second, and 10% Cooldown Reduction |
Chest | Grand Ruby | Relentless Berserker’s Aspect | Lucky Hit: Damaging an enemy with a Core Skill has up to a [15-35%] chance to extend the duration of Berserking by 2 seconds. Double this duration if it was a Critical Strike. |
Gloves | N/A | Aspect of Earthquakes | Ground Stomp creates an Earthquake damaging enemies for [X] Physical Damage over 4 seconds. While standing in Earthquakes you deal x [10-30%] increased damage. |
Pants | Grand Ruby | Aspect of the Iron Warrior | Iron Skin grants Unstoppable and [20-40%] damage reduction. |
Boots | N/A | Exploiter’s Aspect | You have 20% increased Crowd Control Duration. While enemies are Unstoppable, you deal x[25-40%] increased damage to them. |
Amulet | Grand Skull | Aspect of Inner Calm | You deal x[5-13%] increased damage. Triple this bonus after standing still for 3 seconds. |
Ring 1 | Grand Skull | Accelerating Aspect | Critical Strikes with Core Skills increase your Attack Speed by [10-30%] for 5 seconds. |
Ring 2 | Grand Skull | Ring of Red Furor | After spending 100 Fury within 3 seconds, your next cast of Hammer of the Ancients, Upheaval, or Death Blow within 5 seconds is a guaranteed Critical Strike and deals [30-60%] bonus Critical Strike Damage |
Two-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon | Lith & Yom OR Grand Ruby | Aspect of Ancestral Force | Hammer of the Ancients quakes outward for x [5-25%] increased damage. This bonus is doubled against bosses |
Two-Handed Slashing Weapon | Tam & Tec OR Grand Ruby | Aspect of Limitless Rage | Each point of Fury you generate while at Maximum Fury, grants your next Core Skill within 5 seconds x[1-3%] increased damage up to 15 times. |
Dual Wield Weapon 1 | Grand Ruby | Aspect of Elements | Gain x [15-35%] increased damage to a set of damage types for 7 seconds. This effect alternates between 2 sets: Fire, Lightning and Physical; Cold, Poison and Shadow. |
Dual Wield Weapon 2 | Grand Ruby | Edgemaster’s Aspect | Skills deal up to x[5-25%] increased damage based on your available Primary Resource when cast, receiving the maximum benefit while you have full Primary Resource. |
Gems & Runes
Below you will find the details about why we’re using the gems we are as well as which runes we want to combine for runewords in Vessel of Hatred. Let’s jump in.
Weapon Gems | Armor Gems | Jewelry Gems |
Grand Ruby for increased Overpower Damage | Grand Ruby for increased Strength stat | Grand Skull for increased Armor |
Rune | Rune Effect |
Lith | Gain 25 Offering; Stand Still for 0.3 seconds |
Yom | Requires 500 Offering; Cooldown 5 seconds, Evoke the Druid’s Petrify, Stunning enemies and granting 100 Primary Resource |
Tam | Gain 25 Offering; Cast a Non-Channeled Core Skill |
Tec | Requires 100 Offering; Cooldown 1 second, Evoke the Barbarian’s Earthquake, dealing damage to enemies within |
We want to create the LithYom runeword in one piece of gear and TamTec runeword in another. The earthquakes from TamTec will spawn whenever we use our Hammer of the Ancients and will help us benefit from our paragon boards and Aspect of Earthquakes legendary power. LithYom will help us survive and deal massive crits to enemies by giving us another class’ skill, the Druid skill Petrify simply by standing still.
Mythic Uniques
If you are fortunate enough to acquire the items listed below, use them to further increase your character’s power. Let’s review
- Heir of Perdition – This new Mythic Unique helm is a monster, granting us +2 ranks to Core Skills, 20% Lucky Hit Chance and 20% Critical Strike chance as well as a bit of movement speed. All things we love. The power on it also grants us a huge 60% multiplier when we’re solo and possibly more if we party with another player wielding this unique. Replace your Tuskhelm with this if you get one
- Tyrael’s Might – This chest essentially solves the resistance game for you by providing a massive amount of all resistance, increasing your maximum resistances, giving you a damage reduction and some bonus movespeed to boot. The power on it isn’t really anything to write home about but the bolts do contribute to your overall damage and can’t be ignore. Put simply, there is no better defensive item in the game. If you get one, replace Relentless Berserker’s Aspect with it.
- Ring of Starless Skies – This amazing ring helps rid us of our need to really worry about resources and lets us spam cast Hammer as much as we want while also providing a large damage increase for doing so. If you’re lucky enough to grab this must have ring, replace your Aspect of Berserk Fury ring with it as you won’t have any issues with resources after equipping it.
- Doombringer – A powerful 1-Handed Sword that has been around since the launch of the game. It is still just as powerful here. Providing us huge sustained healing, tons of life, tons of all-stat and a shadow damage proc that makes enemies do less damage to us if you find one of these, drop Aspect of Elements from your Dual-Wield Setup and equip it.
- Harlequin Crest – The infamous Shako. While this setup prefers the new Heir of Perdition over this old mythic, it would be remiss of us not to mention the power of this item. With a huge armor bonus, 20% damage reduction, huge cooldown reduction and +4 ranks to all skills, this item is still extremely powerful. If you acquire one before you acquire Heir of Perdition feel free to replace your Tuskhelm with it.
- The Grandfather – The most powerful 2-Handed Sword in Diablo 4. While it is useable it is generally recommended only if you acquire it before Doombringer as you need the other weapon aspects to really take this build into the endgame. In that scenario, drop Aspect of Elements entirely, and swap your Aspect of Limitless Rage to your dual-wield weapon and wear The Grandfather. To reiterate, it is generally not advised to wear both Doombringer AND Grandfather. Either one or the other depending on which you get first. Doombringer is our preferred for the final build setup.
Stats and Tempering
Below you will find the affixes and tempering we prefer on our gear. Tempering Manuals and their recommended affixes are provided in the second column, and the bolded yellow affixes are the most important targets for Masterworking upgrades. As a reminder, you can only temper Ancestral Items twice. Any item other than an Ancestral from Torment 1 or higher difficulty can only be tempered once. We will list the most important temper first in each section so that if you only one temper, you’re applying the most powerful one for this build. Finally, we will be listing stats for every slot so that if you do not have a unique in that slot, you will know what to look for until you find the unique items listed under the Gear section above.
Slot | Gear Affixes | Tempering Affixes |
Helm | 1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Maximum Life 3. Strength | 1. Hammer of the Ancients Size Brute Innovation 2. Maximum Life Worldly Endurance |
Chest | 1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Armor | 1. Hammer of the Ancients Size Brute Innovation 2. Maximum Life Worldly Endurance |
Gloves | 1. Attack Speed 2. Strength 3. Ranks to Hammer of the Ancients | 1. Hammer of the Ancients Size Brute Innovation 2. Critical Strike Damage Worldly Finesse |
Pants | 1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Needed Resistance | 1. Iron Skin Cooldown Reduction Barbarian Strategy 2. Berserking Duration Berserking Augments |
Boots | 1. Movement Speed 2. Fury Per Second 3. Strength | 1. Berserking Duration Berserking Augments 2. Evade Cooldown Reduction Natural Motion |
Amulet | 1. % Strength 2. Attack Speed 3. Ranks to Brute Force | 1. Overpower Damage Worldly Finesse 2. Hammer of the Ancients Size Brute Innovation |
Ring 1 | 1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Lucky Hit: Up to a [X%] chance to make enemies Vulnerable for 2 seconds | 1. Overpower Damage Worldly Finesse 2. Basic Resource Generation Weapon Attunement — Barbarian |
Ring 2 | 1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Attack Speed | 1. Overpower Damage Worldly Finesse 2. Basic Resource Generation Weapon Attunement — Barbarian |
2-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon | 1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Overpower Damage | 1. Overpower Damage Worldly Finesse 2. Chance for Hammer of the Ancients to deal Double Damage Core Augments — Barbarian |
2-Handed Slashing Weapon | 1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Overpower Damage | 1. Overpower Damage Worldly Finesse 2. Chance for Hammer of the Ancients to deal Double Damage Core Augments — Barbarian |
Dual Wield Weapons | 1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Overpower Damage | 1. Critical Strike Damage Worldly Finesse 2. Bash Cleaves for [X%] Damage Furious Augments |