Bash Cleave – Barbarian Build for Diablo 4

Build Introduction

Welcome to the comprehensive guide for the Bash Cleave Barbarian for the endgame of Diablo 4. This new build, made possible by changes in previous patches and the, still, rather new new tempering system, is a powerful generator build with tons of damage, survivability, and speed. Thanks to the new uniques added in Patch 1.5.0 it’s become more powerful than ever before! You will be able to smash your way through nightmare dungeons, the pit, uber bosses, infernal hordes, and all new game modes with ease. With that in mind, let us dive in.

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

Build Requirements

Required Uniques

Shard of Verathiel

Paingorger’s Gauntlets

Required Aspects (Non-codex)

Aspect of the Moonrise

Aspect of Adaptability

Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

Recommended

Suggested Skill Bar

Bash Hammer of the Ancients Rallying Cry War Cry Challenging Shout Steel Grasp

Follow the points allocated in the image above for the complete 71-point build. The additional skill points are obtained using the Renown system.

Arsenal System and Weapon Selection

For this Bash build, we will be using 2-Handed Axe expertise for its bonus to Vulnerable damage. Even nerfed to 10% in Patch 1.4.0 this is still our strongest option. For this build, we will be assigning the following weapons to our skills

• Bash – We assign bash to our 2-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon to maximize our DPS. While you can assign it to Dual-Wield weapons assuming at least one of them is a mace, for this setup we will want to use the 2-Handed Weapons instead.

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. As a reminder Glyph’s unlock their final radius at level 46 and their legendary bonuses at level 45. 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

Loot Reborn brought us an incredible shift in how gear and itemization are done. It is 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 BiS (best-in-slot) Aspects found on Legendary Items that are important for this 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.

Slot	Gems	Legendary Aspect / Unique Item	Aspect / Unique Power
Helm	Grand Ruby	Aspect of Concussive Strikes	– Lucky Hit: Damaging an enemy has up to a 20% chance to Daze them for 2 seconds. You deal x[5-20%] increased damage to Dazed enemies.
Chest	Grand Ruby	Undying Aspect	– When you cast a Skill, you heal for [0.5-2.0%] life. Double this bonus while below 50% life.
Gloves	N/A	Paingorger’s Gauntlets	– Damaging enemies with a cast Non-Basic Skill marks them for 3 seconds. When a basic skill first hits a marked enemy, the basic skill’s damage is echoed to all marked enemies dealing [100-200%] increased damage.
Pants	Grand Ruby	Aspect of Might	– Basic Skills grant 20% Damage Reduction for [2.0-6.0] seconds
Boots	N/A	Hectic Aspect	– After casting 5 Basic Skills, one of your active Cooldowns is reduced by [1-2] seconds
Amulet	Grand Skull	Aspect of Adaptability	– Basic Skills generate 3 additional resource when cast below 50% Maximum Resource and deal [20-80%] increased damage when cast above 50% Maximum Resource
Ring 1	Grand Skull	Aspect of Inner Calm	– You deal x [5-10%] increased damage. Triple this bonus after standing still for 3 seconds.
Ring 2	Grand Skull	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%
2H Bludgeoning Weapon	Yul and Vex Runes OR Grand Topaz	Aspect of the Moonrise	– Damaging an enemy with a Basic Skill grants you 4% Attack Speed for 10 seconds, stacking up to 5 times. Upon reaching maximum stacks you enter a Vampiric Bloodrage gaining [40-80%] Basic Skill damage and 15% Movement Speed for 10 seconds.
2H Slashing Weapon	Lith and Wat Runes OR Grand Topaz	Rapid Aspect	– Basic Skills gain [15-30%] Attack Speed
Dual Wield Weapon 1	Grand Topaz	Shard of Verathiel	– Basic Skills deal [100-200%] increased damage but additionally cost 25 Primary Resource.
Dual Wield Weapon 2	Grand Topaz	Edgemaster’s Aspect	– Skills deal up to x [5-20%] increased damage based on your available primary resource when cast, receiving the maximum benefit while you have full primary resource.

Gems

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

Weapon Gems	Armor Gems	Jewelry Gems
Grand Topaz for increased Basic Skill damage	Grand Ruby for increased Strength	Grand Skull for increased Armor

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

Runes

Runewords return from Diablo 2 in Vessel of Hatred! You are limited to two Runewords across your gear and it requires two sockets in the same item. So this limits creating Runewords by combining two Runes to either Helm, Chest, Pants, or Two-Handed Weapons. We generally recommend them in both of your Two-Handed Weapons for Barbarian. Let’s jump in.

Rune Name	Rune Effects
Lith	Gain 25 Offering: Stand still while fighting for 0.3 seconds
Vex	Requires 1000 Offering: Cooldown 1 second, Gain +3 to all skills for 5 seconds
Yul	Gain 50 Offering: Cast a Skill with a Cooldown
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 back in Patch 1.4.0, and there are fewer specific flowers to harvest; instead, almost all herbs in the world drop as Bundles of Dried Herbs, allowing you to craft the elixirs you want. Some elixirs cannot be crafted and can only drop from things like Helltide or Nightmare Dungeons.

For this build, we recommend Elixir of Advantage for the increased attack speed so we can continue Bash and cleave the hordes in front of us down faster. Craft the highest-value Elixir of Advantage you can so you can get the most attack speed possible.

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	Gems	Gear Affixes	Tempering Affixes
Helm	Grand Ruby	1. Maximum Life 2. Cooldown Reduction 3. Strength	1. +Maximum Life Worldly Endurance 2. Stun Duration Barbarian Innovation
Chest	Grand Ruby	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Needed Resistance	1. +Maximum Life Worldly Endurance 2. Stun Duration Barbarian Innovation
Gloves	N/A	1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Attack Speed 3. Strength	1. Basic Skill Damage Sharpened Finesse 2. Stun Duration Barbarian Innovation
Pants	Grand Ruby	1. Ranks to Bash 2. Maximum Life 3. Needed Resistance	1. +Maximum Life Worldly Endurance 2. Stun Duration Barbarian Innovation
Boots	N/A	1. Armor 2. Movement Speed 3. Ranks to War Cry	1. Movement Speed Natural Motion 2. Stun Duration Barbarian Innovation
Amulet	Grand Skull	1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Attack Speed 3. Critical Strike Chance	1. Basic Skill Damage Sharpened Finesse 2. War Cry Cooldown Reduction Brawling Efficiency
Rings	Grand Skull	1. Attack Speed 2. Crititcal Strike Chance 3. Critical Strike Damage	1. Basic Skill Damage Sharpened Finesse 2. War Cry Cooldown Reduction Brawling Efficiency
2H Bludgeoning Weapon	Grand Topaz	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Critical Strike Damage	1. Bash Cleaves for (20%) Damage Furious Augments 2. Critical Strike Damage Worldly Finesse
2H Slashing Weapon	Grand Topaz	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Critical Strike Damage	1. Bash Cleaves for (20%) Damage Furious Augments 2. Critical Strike Damage Worldly Finesse
Dual-Wield Weapons	Grand Topaz	1. Strength. 2. Maximum Life 3. Critical Strike Damage	1. Bash Cleaves for (20%) Damage Furious Augments 2. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse

Rotation and Playstyle

This build uses a very straightforward generator playstyle. We have no Fury spender beyond one button and we only use that for a buff, as explained below in the Advanced Information section, but let’s quickly go over our skills:

• Bash – Our main attacking still. We bash at all times
• Steel Grasp – Our grouping skill to get mobs close together for easy bashing and to proc the effect of Paingorger’s Gauntlets so our Bash will do bonus damage and cleave down packs.
• Use War Cry and Rallying Cry for their buffs on cooldown
• Use Challenging Shout whenever you need the defense
• Use Hammer of the Ancients only when you have a guaranteed overpower from sources such as Bone Breaker or Combat Bash for the 40% multiplier from Violent Hammer of the Ancients

Unique Items and Mythic Uniques

Uniques received a large rework in Season 5. They can now roll much higher ranges and break all the traditional itemization rules for what stats can appear on which slots. Below, you will find Uniques and Mythic Uniques useful to this build.

• Paingorger’s Gauntlets – Gloves that provide a powerful AOE effect for basic skills which of course includes Bash. We want these as soon as we can get them to provide the marks and cleave power to our setup. Thanks to the update in season 5, the stats give Attack Speed, Cooldown Reduction, a Lucky Hit stun, and ranks to basic skills giving us even more potency.
• Shard of Verathiel – A new build enabling sword. This gives us a huge modifier to all generators such as Bash but makes them cost 25 Primary Resource in addition to their normal effects. Bash generates 15 Fury each time it is cast, so the reality is that this will only cost 10 but thanks to other uniques in the build, it will be even less and can reach a point with proper rolls on our gear that we’re generating more fury than we’re spending allowing us to benefit entirely from this item’s damage bonus without suffering any downside. A must have for the Bash Barb.
• Harlequin Crest – The infamous ‘shako’ mythic unique got a buff that gives it a massive amount of Cooldown Reduction. It still remains one of the most powerful items for this build and many others. Here it provides us with a large damage reduction and resource generation to help our sustain.
• Ring of Starless Skies – Our Mythic Unique of choice. Thanks to Shard of Verathiel turning Bash into a Fury spender, this item will grant us its stacking buff providing another huge multiplier and more resource cost reduction to ensure we can keep bashing to our heart’s content.

Season 6: Season of Hatred Rising

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 any direct power increase to characters it provides extra loot and bonuses to find the most powerful items and materials to strengthen your character for their journey into Vessel of Hatred!

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

While very straight forward there are a few things to understand about playing this build of bash. Steel Grasp serves not only to group mobs, and trigger Paingorger’s Gauntlets for AOE, but also to trigger Berserking for us through Fighter’s Steel Grasp which we’ll enhance even further with our tempers and our key passive Unconstrained.

The rotation should be, keeping your shouts going and use Hammer of the Ancients at any point you have a guaranteed overpower from Combat Bash, Dominate, or Bone Breaker to gain the damage bonus from Violent Hammer of the Ancients.

Paragon

We recommend using these Legendary Nodes and Rare Glyphs to truly take this build into the endgame.

Rare Glyph	Effects
Exploit	– For every 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%]
Ire	– For every 5 Strength purchased within range, you deal + [1.3%] increased damage while Berserking – Additional bonus once 40 Strength has been purchased within the glyph’s range: While Berserking, you take 10% reduced damage from Elites – Legendary Bonus: You deal [X%] increased damage to Close Enemies
Might	– 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 Two-Handed Weapons – Legendary Bonus: You deal [X%] increased damage to healthy enemies
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%]
Crusher	– For every 5 Strength purchased within range, you deal + [1.3%] increased damage while wielding a Mace – Additional bonus once 40 Strength has been purchased within the glyph’s range: While wielding a mace, you deal x20% increased Overpower damage – Legendary Bonus: Increases your damage to Stunned targets by [X%]
Warbringer	– For every 75 Fury you spend, gain 15% of your Maximum Life as Fortify
Carnage	While Berserking, Critical Strikes increase your Attack Speed by +2%, up to +16% for 6 seconds.
Blood Rage	Killing a Bleeding enemy has a 10% chance to grant Berserking for 5 seconds. Your damage is increased by x25% of your Damage While Berserking bonus.
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.

Important Notes

• Make sure you select the correct Legendary Boards and rotate them into the correct orientation to match the images shown below.
• 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 start our journey to the right and grab Brawn and a few magic nodes nearby
2. Next we take the left path and grab Tenacity and the nearby magic nodes
3. Now we move up and unlock the socket and slot in Exploit and begin grabbing nearby Dexterity nodes
4. Grab both Raw Power and Iron Strength
5. We move towards the right path and connect to the gate at the north. We attach the Warbringer board here.

Warbringer

1. Start by taking the left path and path through Hungering Fury and a few magic nodes
2. Hook around and take the Legendary Node Warbringer
3. Next we head to the glyph socket and slot in Ire and we’ll grab up both nearby rare nodes Brute Force and Raw Power
4. Now we path up north and grab Core Reserve and the nearby rare nodes
5. Lastly we head out to the east and connect the Carnage board

Carnage

1. Start by marching east and right for the glyph socket, slotting in Might
2. Grab as many Strength node as possible as well as the rare nodes Berserker and Fierce
3. Next we move east and grab the Legendary Node Carnage
4. Continue our march east and grab Brash
5. Now we stop and turn back north from the glyph socket and pick up Enraged and the nearby magic nodes and connect the Blood Rage board to the northern gate

Blood Rage

1. We head up and right for the glyph socket and slot in Marshal
2. Grab as many Strength nodes as we can nearby and path north through Wrath
3. Next take a detour west and head for the Legendary Node Blood Rage
4. Now take a second detour at the north eastern to grab Restorative and some life increasing magic nodes
5. Lastly head east and connect the Decimator board here.

Decimator

1. Start by taking a southern detour and pick up the Brawn node
2. Continue east towards the glyph socket by pathing through Demolish and slot in Crusher
3. From the socket, head south and grab the Legendary Node Decimator
4. And lastly we grab as much Strength as we can from the nodes within the radius including Destroyer and we come to an 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 5 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 5 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 Patch 2.0 when a level 60 Character spends Obols, all gear from that vendor will be 750 item power, the highest non-Ancestral in the game, allowing you to fill out gear with the affixes or Legendary Aspects you need.

Check out our Obol Gambling Tool HERE

Changelog

• October 4th 2024: Guide updated for Season 6 and Vessel of Hatred
• August 2nd, 2024: Guide updated for season 5
• June 24th, 2024: Guide updated with new optimizations and patch updates.
• May 22nd, 2024: Weapon selection updated and stats clarified
• May 4th, 2024: Guide format updated, season 4 information added.
• May 2nd, 2024: Paragon links updated and readability improved
• May 1st, 2024: Guide created