Rend – Barbarian Build for Diablo 4

Build Introduction

Welcome to the guide for the Bleedbarian! If you enjoy a Damage Over Time (DoT) based playstyle with plenty of defense and carving a path through demons in your way, this is the build for you.

Strengths and Weaknesses

To see how this build compares to the other builds on our site, you can check out our build tier list.

Build Requirements

Required Uniques

Rage of Harrogath

Fists of Fate

Ring of the Ravenous

Ramaladni’s Magnum Opus

Required Aspects (Non-codex)

Aspect of Creeping Death

Aspect of Concussive Strikes

Skill Tree and Skill Bar

Skill Bar Setup for the Rend Build (Order does not matter)

Rend Wrath of the Berserker Iron Skin Rallying Cry War Cry Challenging Shout

Follow the points allocated in the image above for the complete 59 point build. The additional 12 skill points are completed using the Renown system.

Arsenal System and Weapon Selection

For this Rend build we will be using the Two-Handed Axe Technique for its increase to Vulnerable damage.

Barbarians have a unique mechanic in Diablo 4 where you can assign a weapon type to certain skills. For our Rend build, we will be assigning the following weapons to our skills:

• Rend – Dual-Wield Weapons to benefit from Ramaladni’s Magnum Opus. In order to benefit from Wallop your other Dual-Wield Weapon must be a mace. While one must be a sword to use rend at all.

Paragon Board

We recommend using the following Legendary nodes and Rare Glyphs to truly take this build into the endgame. Note that each Rare Glyph’s information and radius listed below is for the Level 100 version. Remember that Glyph’s unlock their final radius increase at level 46, and their legendary powers at level 45. Leveling a glyph to 100 takes a lot of dedication and ascending very high in The Pit. Let’s take a look!

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

Gear, Gems, Elixirs, and Stats

The Season of Loot Reborn brought us an incredible shift in how gear and itemization are done. It is a major and will affect the game beyond Season 4’s confines. For further details, make sure to read our Tempering and Masterworking section below.

Legendary Aspects

Below you will find all of the best-in-slot Aspects found on Legendary Items that are important to the build. Remember that all Legendary Powers can be added into your Codex once you salvage the item. You can still find some aspects through dungeons as you could in previous seasons but you also have the option to upgrade these affixes if you find a higher roll of that affix. Let us go over what aspects you will need.

Gear Slot	Gems	Legendary Aspect / Unique	Aspect / Unique Power
Helm	Grand Ruby	Aspect of Bul-Kathos	– Leap creates an Earthquake that deals [X] Physical damage over 4 seconds. While standing in Earthquakes, you gain [10-25%] increased Damage Reduction
Chest	Grand Ruby	Rage of Harrogath	– Lucky Hit: Inflicting Bleeding on an enemy has up to a [20-40%] chance to reduce the Cooldowns of your skills by 1 second
Gloves	N/A	Fists of Fate	– Your attacks randomly deal 1% to [200-300%] of their normal damage
Pants	Grand Ruby	Tibault’s Will	– You deal [10-20%] increased damage while Unstoppable and for 5 seconds after. When you become Unstoppable, gain 50 of your Primary Resource
Boots	N/A	Aspect of Concussive Strikes	– Lucky Hit: Damaging an enemy has up to a 20% chance to Daze them for 2 seconds. You deal x[5-25%] increased damage to Dazed enemies.
Amulet	Grand Diamond	Slaking Aspect	– Lucky Hit: You have up to a [45-65%] chance to gain 20 Fury when a Core Skill deals direct damage to at least one Bleeding enemy. Your Maximum Fury is increased by [5-25]
Ring 1	Grand Diamond	Bold Chieftain’s Aspect	– Whenever you cast a Shout skill, its active cooldown is reduced by [10-30%] per nearby enemy up to a maximum of 50%
Ring 2	Grand Diamond	Ring of the Ravenous	– Rend’s duration is increased by [4-8] seconds. Damaging enemies with Brawling Skills applies 2 stacks of Rend’s Bleed. This can only affect each enemy once every 1 second.
2-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon	Xol and Yom runes OR Grand Emerald	Aspect of Creeping Death	– You deal x[5-20%] increased damage over time to enemies for each different crowd control effect they’re afflicted by. Unstoppable enemies and staggered bosses take x[10-40%] increased damage over time from you instead.
2-Handed Slashing Weapon	Tam and Wat runes OR Grand Emerald	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.
Dual-Wield Weapon 1	Grand Emerald	Aspect of Inner Calm	– You deal x[5-13%] increased damage. Triple this bonus after standing still for 3 seconds
Dual-Wield Weapon 2	Grand Emerald	Ramaladni’s Magnum Opus	– Skills using this weapon deal [0.2-0.5%] increased damage per point of Fury you have, but you lose 10 Fury Per Second.

Gems

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

Weapon Gems	Armor Gems	Jewelry Gems
Grand Emerald for increased Critical Strike Damage	Grand Ruby for increased Strength	Grand Diamond for increased resistance to all elements

For your jewelry it may be necessary to change the Grand Diamond for another gem for a specific type such as Grand Sapphire to ensure all of your resistances are capped at 70%.

Runes

Listed below are the best runes to slot into your gear. As a reminder, you can only equip runes in items with two sockets. This limits you to your helm, chest, legs, or two-handed weapons. For Barbarians we want to slot our runes into our two-handed weapons.

Rune	Rune Effect
Xol	Gain 150 Offering; Evoke a power from another class
Yom	Requires 500 Offering; Cooldown 5 seconds, Evoke the Druid’s Petrify stunning enemies and generating 100 Primary Resource
Tam	Gain 25 Offering; Cast a Non-Channeled Core Skill
Wat	Requires 100 Offering; Cooldown 1 second, Evoke the Necromancer’s Horrid Decrepify slowing enemies, reducing their damage and letting you execute them

Which Elixirs Should You Use?

When in town you can visit the Alchemist to craft helpful elixirs which will provide a special effect and increase your experience gain. Crafting has been simplified in Patch 1.4.0, and there are fewer specific flowers to harvest; instead, almost all herbs in the world drop as Bundled Herbs, allowing you to craft the Elixirs you want. Some Elixirs cannot be crafted and only drop from things like Helltides or Nightmare Dungeons. For this build, we recommend Elixir of Advantage to increase Attack Speed.

Return to the Alchemist again when you reach Level 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60, to upgrade your potion. The extra healing is essential to survival.

To see how this build compares to the other builds on our site, you can check out our build tier list.

Stat Priority and Tempering Affixes

Below are the affixes to prioritize on gear. Each line of affixes is listed in order of importance. 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. Be sure to check our Tempering and Masterworking guides for more details about these topics.

Slot	Gear Affixes	Tempering Affixes
Helm	1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Strength 3. Armor	1. Maximum Life Worldly Endurance 2. Rend Size Bleed Innovation
Chest	1. Maximum Life 2. Strength 3. Needed Resistance	1. Maximum Life Worldly Endurance 2. Rend Size Bleed Innovation
Gloves	1. Critical Strike Damage 2. Lucky Hit Chance 3. Maximum Life	1. Critical Strike Damage Worldly Finesse 2. Rend Size Bleed Innovation
Pants	1. Maximum Life 2. Ranks to Flay 3. Needed Resistance	1. Maximum Life Worldly Endurance 2. Rend Size Bleed Innovation
Boots	1. Movement Speed 2. Armor 3. Strength	1. Maximum Life Worldly Endurance 2. Rend Size Bleed Innovation
Amulet	1. Strength 2. Ranks to Counteroffensive 3. Ranks to Cut to the Bone	1. Critical Strike Damage Worldly Finesse 2. War Cry Cooldown Reduction Brawling Efficiency
Rings	1. Attack Speed 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Strength	1. Critical Strike Damage Worldly Finesse 2. War Cry Cooldown Reduction Brawling Efficiency
2-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon	1. Strength 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Fury On Kill	1. Chance for Rend to hit twice Bleed Augments 2. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse
2-Handed Slashing Weapon	1. Strength 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Maximum Life	1. +Ranks of Cut to the Bone Bleed Augments 2. Critical Strike Damage Worldly Finesse
Dual-Wield Weapon 1	1. Strength 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Maximum Life	1. +Ranks of Cut to the Bone Bleed Augments 2. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse

Rotation and Playstyle

The iconic Bleedbarian comes to Diablo 4 and while not as powerful as some other builds does offer a unique damage over time based playstyle popular with many players. Let’s review our skills and go over how to use them effectively.

• Use War Cry and Rallying Cry to generate Fury and for their buffs.
• Spend your Fury using Rend to apply bleeds to them.
• Cast Iron Skin whenever you need the defense or are caught in a tight spot.
• Unleash Wrath of the Berserker on elites and bosses whenever available.

Uniques and Mythic Uniques

Below you will find information on Uniques and Mythic Uniques that are useful for this build. Moreover, if you are interested in target farming Mythic Uniques, check out our How to Farm Mythic Uniques guide.

Uniques

Below you will find the uniques useful to this build. As a reminder you must be using at least one slashing weapon in your dual-wield weapon setup to be able to cast Rend and Rupture.

• Fists of Fate – What was once a meme unique has become quite powerful with the Season 5 revamp thanks to an absolutely absurd range on its rolls granting up to a 51.8% lucky hit chance which we will use to apply numerous small crowd controls and get the most benefit from the new creeping death aspect. The 1% on its power scares a lot of players off of it but the amount of times we’ll be hitting and applying rend leads to an overall increase of around 50% damage. A solid item this season.
• Rage of Harrogath – Thanks to the rework last season this now triggers when you apply a bleed to an enemy which this build excels at and will be doing at all times. It will provide us a much needed reset for all of our cooldowns and makes the build incredibly versatile.
• Ring of the Ravenous – With the updates to Leap last season and more damage from quakes, we can use this to apply our rends as well as generate Fury and get a ton more damage with the new range thanks to its Season 5 update. 8 more seconds on a Rend is a large chunk of damage for the DoT as a whole which will make blowing them up with Rupture all the sweeter. A must have for fun and power.
• Tibault’s Will – These pants were toned down after being extremely powerful in Season 2, but in Vessel of Hatred returns them to prominence in this build. With our many ways of gaining Unstoppable this not only helps with resource maintenance, but also provides a large buff to our bleeds.

Mythic Uniques

Here are the useful Mythic Uniques for the Rend Barbarian. If a Mythic unique is NOT listed here, it is not useful to this build in any meaningful capacity.

• Harlequin Crest – The infamous “Shako”. One of the most powerful items in the game comes as no surprise. If you’re lucky enough to find one, you simply replace your helm with it and drop Rage of Harrogath entirely and move the Aspect of Bul-Kathos to your chest. The new buffed cooldown on this item is not be underestimated
• Ring of Starless Skies – This powerful ring solves any resource problem a spender build might be having while also providing a huge damage buff for spending it. If you’re lucky enough to acquire this item, drop Bold Chieftain’s Aspect from your rings and slap this on instead.

Season 6: Season of Hatred Rising

Like previous seasons, Season 6 comes with a new faction to gain reputation with the Zakarum Remnants. Additionally, throughout the world you will find regions afflicted with Mephito’s hatred. Within these regions are massive demons called ‘Realmwalkers’ which after spawning and charging up begins to walk in search of sacred ground. While walking in this phase the Realmwalker’s are invulnerable but fearsome Bloodbound Guardians spawn to protect it. Slay them to remove chunks of the Realmwalker’s health. Once it reaches its destination it will spawn Hatred Spires which you can kill to finally attack the Realmwalker itself. Once slain it leaves behind a portal to a Seething Realm.

Within the Seething Realm you can offer up certain materials at Realm Gates to determine the reward once you complete the dungeon within the realm. These realms also offer a new currency, Seething Opals. A new type of Elixir that provides a 15% experience increase along with another bonus for 30 minutes. The experience bonus from a Seething Opal, stacks with the experience bonus of normal Elixirs allowing you to level even faster!

There are 5 types of Seething Opals:

• Seething Opal of Equipment which causes enemies to drop additional equipment for 25 Murmuring Obols.
• Seething Opal of Materials which causes enemies to drop extra herbs and crafting materials for 5 Murmuring Obols.
• Seething Opal of Gold which causes enemies to drop extra gold for 1 Iron Chunk.
• Seething Opal of Socketables which causes enemies to drop additional gem fragments and rarely, Runes, for 3 Angelbreath.
• Seething Opal of Torment Challenges which causes enemies to drop extra Artificer’s Stones and occasionally Boss Summoning Materials or Infernal Compasses for 200 Sigil Powder.

Note that the Torment Challenges Opal is only available beginning in Torment 1 difficulty and beyond and is not available in earlier difficulties. While this season does not offer

Advanced Information

Below, you will find every additional piece of information you need to know for a more in-depth look at this build.

Build Mechanics

Immediately you are going to notice the lack of generators and this is by design. Thanks to the reworks in Patch 1.5.0 and resource generation being vastly improved so we don’t actually need it. We’re going to get our Fury through Shouts simply run into a group and start spamming Rend. This should proc Rage of Harrogath frequently and allow you to spam even more. When something big like an Elite, The Butcher, or a boss is nearby, Slaking Aspect and Aspect of Creeping Death should take care of them swiftly. This is a DoT based build and that means our damage is delayed and not instant which can be a turn off for some people but for those who invest this build is looking quite solid if this is a playstyle you enjoy!

Berserking

A status unique to Barbarian’s that grants damage, movement speed, resources and even damage reduction with the right setup. We can enter this state through Battle Fervor when we Leap, War Cry, and Blood Rage which should give us an incredibly high uptime on this state.

Defensives

Our main defensive options come from easily hitting the new armor cap thanks to a single roll of armor on our gear and of course capping our Resistances via gear affixes, gems and a few paragon nodes. Beyond this, our main defensive option will be Iron Skin which we should have high uptime on thanks to our Rage of Harrogath providing a hefty amount of resets. We also get a ton of defense standing in our quakes thanks to Aspect of Bul-Kathos which should give this build incredible tankiness.

Paragon

The recommended Paragon boards for this Build are listed above, and further down below, you can find a more thorough route for allocating the Paragon points, as well as some notes on why specific nodes were chosen and why they are essential for this build.

Rare Glyphs and Legendary Nodes	Effect
Exploit	– For every 5 Dexterity purchased within range, you deal + [2%] increased damage to Vulnerable targets – Additional bonus once 25 Dexterity has been purchased within the glyph’s range: When an enemy is damaged by you, they become Vulnerable for 3 seconds. This cannot happen more than once every 20 seconds per enemy. – Legendary Bonus: Increases your damage to Vulnerable targets by [X%]
Wrath	– For every 5 Dexterity purchased within range, you deal + [3.0%] increased Critical Strike Damage – Additional bonus once 25 Dexterity has been purchased within the glyph’s range: Skills that Critically strike generate 3 Fury – Legendary Bonus: Increases your physical damage by [X%]
Ambidextrous	– Grants + [25%] bonus to all magic nodes within range. – Additional bonus once 40 Strength has been purchased within the glyph’s range: You deal 8% increased damage while wielding One-Handed Weapons – Legendary Bonus: Increases your damage by [X%]
Challenger	– Grants + [30%] bonus to all Normal nodes within range. – Additional bonus once 40 Strength has been purchased within the glyph’s range: You deal 8% increased damage while wielding One-Handed Weapons Legendary Bonus: Increases your damage to Elites by [X%]
Marshal	– Grants + [25%] bonus to all Magic Nodes within range – Additional bonus once 40 Strength has been purchased within the glyph’s range: After casting a Shout Skill, the active cooldown of every other Non-Shout Skill is reduced by 2 seconds. – Legendary Bonus: Increases your damage by [X%]
Warbringer	– For every 75 Fury you spend, you gain 15% of your Maximum Life as Fortify
Decimator	– Each time you make an enemy Vulnerable, your damage is increased by 10% for 5 seconds. Overpowering a Vulnerable enemy grants an additional x10% bonus for 5 seconds.
Blood Rage	– Killing a Bleeding enemy has a 10% chance to grant Berserking for 5 seconds. Your damage is increased by x10% of your Damage While Berserking bonus, up to a maximum of x30%
Hemorrhage	– Your Bleeding damage is increased by x15% of your Vulnerable Damage bonus up to a maximum of 45%

Let’s break down each of these beneficial nodes and where our Paragon Points are positioned in each of the Paragon Boards we use. This part of the build is presented in order of importance. If you do not have enough Paragon Points for use in your Paragon Tree, just slowly work towards each step.

Important Notes

• Make sure you select the correct Legendary Boards and rotate them into the correct orientation to match the images shown above.
• Attach the boards in the order shown as bonus requirements of Rare Nodes increase with their placement order.
• Additional bonuses on Rare Glyphs may not be obtainable until they gain the increased radius at level 15.

Starting Board

1. We begin our journey by going right and grabbing Brawn and some surrounding magic nodes.
2. Next head left and pick up Tenacity and the blue nodes near it, then head up
3. Unlock the glyph socket and slot in Exploit.
4. Pick up as many Dexterity nodes in the radius as you can and be sure to grab Iron Strength and Raw Power.
5. Exit the board from the right path and connect the Warbringer board to the northern gate.

Warbringer

1. Begin by heading up and left and grabbing Hungering Fury, continue this path north and snag Fire Resilience and the nearby magic nodes.
2. Next head right to the board’s namesake and unlock the Legendary node Warbringer.
3. Head back towards the start and path right to the socket, slot in Wrath.
4. Grab as much Dexterity in the radius as we can, picking up Brute Force and Raw Power along the way.
5. Head out of the radius to the north to pick up Core Reserve and the surrounding magic nodes.
6. Lastly exit the board to the eastern gate and connect the Hemorrhage board.

Hemorrhage

1. Start by heading straight south and grabbing Lacerator and the nearby magic nodes.
2. Continue pathing up and to the right through the board’s legendary node Hemorrhage.
3. March through Bloodbathed and some rare nodes before making your way to the glyph socket and slotting in Ambidextrous.
4. Grab up Flayer and Butcher and as much strength as we can manage.
5. Head north first and unlock the northern gate and connect the Blood Rage board. Once you’ve finished with that one, come back to this board and path out to the east and connect the Decimator board for your final board selection.

Blood Rage

1. Start by going up and right to the glyph socket, slot in Challenger and then detour left to grab Revel.
2. Make a small detour to the south east section below the socket and grab Craving and the surrounding magic nodes.
3. Continue north from the socket through Wrath.
4. Head west and then down to grab the Legendary node Blood Rage.
5. Continue west from the Legendary node and grab Grit and the surrounding magic nodes.
6. Lastly, a small path to the north east to grab Restorative and some life increasing magic nodes.
7. Head back to the Hemorrhage board and path East to connect the Decimator board to that gate.

Decimator

1. We start by marching east and heading right for the glyph socket, slot in Marshal.
2. Grab both rare nodes in the radius Destroyer and Demolish.
3. Pick up as much Strength in the radius as you can and then head east to grab the Legendary node Demolish.
4. Next take the southern path from the legendary node and pick up Arrogance and Brawn with their surrounding magic nodes.
5. Lastly head north and take Restorative and then Pillage and the surrounding magic nodes near each rare node and at last we come to the end of our journey, sort of.

Concluding

You will be left with a significant amount of Paragon Points at this point in the journey. Grinding up to maximum paragon in Vessel of Hatred is an arduous journey that takes many many hours. This guide will serve to get you through each of your five boards and unlock the most potent versions of your Glyphs. For the remaining points, you’re free to spend them were you see fit if you’re one of the truly hardcore enough to grind out maximum paragon. We recommend spending them on main stat Strength nodes, and magic nodes and any rare nodes left that might help your build. Congratulations if you’ve made it to the highest levels of paragon!

Obol Gambling

A final point on acquiring gear in Season 6 and beyond is using your Obols to target farm specific slots instead of randomly spending them on random drops. Similar to Kadala in Diablo 3, you can use Obol vendors in town to try and get what you’re missing. With the expansion when a level 60 Character spends Obols, all gear from that vendor will be 750 item power, the highest non-ancestral power allowing you to fill out gear with the affixes or Legendary Aspects you need while also having a small chance to grant Ancestral item power 800 gear.

Check out our Obol Gambling Tool HERE

Changelog

• October 24th 2024: Paragon section updated for post-launch boards
• October 3rd 2024: Build updated for Season 6 and Vessel of Hatred
• August 4th 2024: Build and guide updated for season 5 and patch 1.5.0
• May 6th 2024: Ownership of page transferred, guide restructured, build updated for Season 4.
• March 5th 2024: Updates for Patch 1.3.3.
• February 5th 2024: Added Charge to build.
• January 21st 2024: Season 3 speculative changes.
• October 26th 2023: Build Revamped for Season 2.
• October 13th 2023: Build Adjusted to prepare for Season 2 launch.
• September 7th 2023: New format and build revamp.
• August 2nd, 2023: Patch 1.1.1 section added with build specific changes.
• July 18th, 2023: Guide updated for Season 1.