Death Blow – Barbarian Build for Diablo 4

Build Introduction

This is your comprehensive guide to building the Death Blow Barbarian! A powerful execution-style skill that deals huge damage, costs no resources, and brings down any demon in your path. This build requires a bit of setup to get the most out of your Death Blow, but brings the reward of extremely high damage, and the ability to nearly one-shot most enemies, even bosses, that dare stand in your way.

Strengths and Weaknesses

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

Overkill

Battle Trance

Tibault’s Will

Yen’s Blessing

The Third Blade

Ramaladni’s Magnum Opus

Required Aspects (Non-codex)

Aspect of Limitless Rage

Skill Bar and Skill Points

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

Death Blow Frenzy Rallying Cry Call of the Ancients Steel Grasp 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 build, we be choosing Two-Handed Axe for our Technique due to its increase in damage to Vulnerable enemies.

Barbarians have a unique mechanic where they can assign specific weapons to specific skills. We want to assign Death Blow to the Dual-Wield Weapons we have so we can benefit from the damage bonus offered by Ramaladni’s Magnum Opus. Frenzy requires Dual-Wield Weapons so we cannot assign it and it will default to them which is great for us as it will have much faster attack speed allowing us to stack up its buff more quickly to dish out devastating death blows!

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 gain their maximum radius at level 46, and their legendary bonus 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

The Season of 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 best-in-slot Aspects found on Legendary items that are important for this build. Remember that since Patch 1.4.0 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 now you 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	Aspect / Unique Effect
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	Aspect of Might	– Basic Skills grant 20% damage reduction for [2-10] seconds.
Gloves	N/A	Edgemaster’s Aspect	– Skills deal up to [5-20%] increased damage based on your available Primary Resource when you cast, receiving the maximum benefit while you have full primary resource
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	Yen’s Blessing	– Casting a Skill has a [40-60%] chance to cast a Non-Mobility, Non-Ultimate skill that is currently on Cooldown. Can only occur once every 8 seconds.
Amulet	Grand Skull	Battle Trance	– Increase Frenzy’s maximum stacks by 2. While at maximum stacks, you deal [15-30%] increased damage and your other skills gain [35-55%] increased attack speed
Ring 1	Grand Skull	Aspect of Inner Calm	– You deal x[5-13%] 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%
2-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon	Lith and Yom Runes OR Grand Emerald	Overkill	– Death Blow creates a shockwave dealing [40-60%] of its base damage to enemies. Enemies who die to this effect also reset Death Blow‘s cooldown.
2-Handed Slashing Weapon	Tam and OhmRunes OR Grand Emerald	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 Emerald	The Third Blade	– Your Weapon Mastery skills are now also Core Skills that have no Cooldown but cost Fury, dealing [50-70%] of normal damage. Their fury costs are reduced by 5 for any additional charges the skill would have had.
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 as well as the new Runes to create the best runewords in Vessel of Hatred!

Weapon Gems	Armor Gems	Jewelry Gems
Grand Emerald for increased Critical Strike Damage	Grand Ruby for increased Strength	Grand Skull for increased Armor

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

Runes

Let’s review the runes to create the new powerful runewords to take your build to the next level. We want to slot these runes into both of our Two-Handed Weapons as both runes need to be in the same item which limits them to Helmets, Chests, Pants, and Two-Handed Weapons.

Runes	Rune Effects
Lith	Gain 25 Offering; Stand still fighting for 0.3 seconds
Yom	Requires 500 Offering; Cooldown – 5 seconds, Evoke the Druid’s Petrify, stunning enemies and generate 100 Primary Resource
Tam	Gain 25 Offering; Cast a Non-Channeled Core Skill
Ohm	Requires 500 Offering; Cooldown – 2 seconds, Evoke the Barbarian’s Enhanced War Cry increasing your Movement Speed and damage dealt.

Which Elixir Should You Use?

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. Use Elixir of Advantage at the highest level you can craft due to its increase to your attack speed.

Return to the Alchemist again every 5 to 10 levels, to upgrade your potion. The extra healing is essential to survival.

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. Ranks to Death Blow	1. Maximum Life Worldly Endurance 2. Frenzy Duration Barbarian Innovation
Chest	1. Strength 2. Armor 3. Needed Resistance	1. Challenging Shout Cooldown Reduction Barbarian Strategy 2. Frenzy Duration Barbarian Innovation
Gloves	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Ranks to Core Skills	1. Weapon Mastery Damage Demolition Finesse 2. Frenzy Duration Barbarian Innovation
Pants	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Needed Resistance	1. Challenging Shout Cooldown Reduction Barbarian Strategy 2. Frenzy Duration Barbarian Innovation
Boots	1. Movement Speed 2. Strength 3. Fury Per Second	1. Movement Speed Natural Motion 2. Frenzy Duration Barbarian Innovation
Amulet	1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Maximum Life 3. Fury On Kill	1. Weapon Mastery Damage Demolition Finesse 2. Call of the Ancients Cooldown Reduction Ultimate Efficiency — Barbarian
Rings	1. Strength 2. Attack Speed 3. Fury On Kill	1. Weapon Mastery Damage Demolition Finesse 2. Call of the Ancients Cooldown Reduction Ultimate Efficiency — Barbarian
2-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon	1. Strength 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Maximum Life	1. Weapon Mastery Damage Demolition Finesse 2. Chance for Death Blow to deal double damage Weapon Augments
2-Handed Slashing Weapon	1. Strength 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Maximum Life	1. Weapon Mastery Damage Demolition Finesse 2. Chance for Death Blow to deal double damage Weapon Augments
Dual-Wield Weapons	1. Strength 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Maximum Life	1. Weapon Mastery Damage Demolition Finesse 2. Chance for Frenzy to Hit Twice Furious Augments

Rotation and Playstyle

This is an attack speed based build to get the most out of Death Blow in order to cut down demons in our path. Let’s review our skills and where we’re using them.

• Use Rallying Cry to generate resources and give unstoppable.
• Spam Frenzy to generate resources and stack up its buff for all the benefits it provides.
• Spam Death Blow as often as possible with our new Third Blade.
• Use Challenging Shout to survive and when you need the defense in any pinch.
• Cast Steel Grasp to group up enemies to Death Blow them down.
• Use Call of the Ancients on cooldown for all of its benefits and resource generation, especially on bosses.

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.

Unique Items

Below, you will find the unique items useful to this build.

• The Third Blade – A unique introduced in Season 5. This makes Death Blow spammable by making it cost Fury instead of having a cooldown. This finally allows us to have a true Death Blow build viable in the end-game. A must have for this setup.
• Ramaladni’s Magnum Opus – A powerful one-handed sword that has been very powerful throughout the lifespan of Diablo 4, remains strong in Vessel of Hatred and Season 6. Though it comes with a bigger downside, 10 fury lost per second instead of only 2, the upsides are very much worth utilizing this sword.
• Tibault’s Will – Despite the nerfs in the previous seasons these pants remain powerful with a large bonus to our damage. Additionally, they come with a damage reduction affix.
• Overkill – A core item for this build. Almost a must have. It adds a shockwave to our Death Blow as well as providing ranks to it and tons of damage allowing us to reset it much easier.
• Yen’s Blessing – These boots, added in Season 4, are very powerful for this particular build. Every cast of Frenzy and Deathblow will have a high chance to trigger some of our other cooldowns allowing us even more casts of everything but our ultimate skill.
• Battle Trance – This unique neck has been the butt of many jokes since launch for how bad it has historically been. With the unique revamp in Season 5 and the expansion features coming in Vessel of Hatred, now is this item’s time to shine. Ramping our Frenzy stacks lets us attack even faster, granting even more attack speed to Deathblow through its secondary effect and a large multiplier all on a single item now with better stats. Truly a must have for any Frenzy build.

Mythic Uniques

Here you will find the mythic unique items that are useful to this build. If a mythic unique is NOT listed here, it is not useful to this build and does not provide any meaningful increase or effect.

• Heir of Perdition – This powerful new Mythic helm provides massive bonuses and a 60% damage multiplier that can get higher if you’re in groups with someone else using this item. Even for solo content this helm is a monster of an item that will greatly increase your damage. If you’re lucky enough to snag one, equip it.
• Tyrael’s Might – The most defensive item in the game. A chest that solves resistances for you and grants a large damage reduction on top of it all. If you get it, equip it. No question the best chest in the game.
• Ring of Starless Skies – A very powerful ring that would normally not be included in a Deathblow build, however thanks to The Third Blade, Deathblow costs resources and that means it both triggers and is reduced by Starless Skies and benefits from the damage boost. This will solve most resources issues by itself. If you’re fortunate enough to get one, drop Bold Chieftain’s Aspect.
• Harlequin Crest – The infamous “shako”, a notoriously powerful helm. This helm has lost some power in Vessel of Hatred not through any fault of its own, only that newer options have come along. This item is still amazing, and if you manage to get one before getting Heir of Perdition you should definitely still wear it for all of its powerful bonuses to skills, cooldown reduction, and damage reduction.

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 any direct power increase to characters it provides extra loot and bonuses to find the most powerful item

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

This build has shifted a lot with the expansion and instead of requiring a ton of swapping around for not a lot of gain, thanks to The Third Blade we can now spam Death Blow to our heart’s content as if it were a Core skill. This has simplified the gameplay a lot. We now want to spam Frenzy to generate resources and get stacks up to then spam Death Blow.

For survival, we want to be popping Challenging Shout whenever we’re surrounded or whenever we’re facing big bosses and elites. The new buffs to Tactical Challenging Shout should provide us with much more Fury sustain than previous patches and allow us to really keep spamming our Death Blow.

Whereas before the Death Blow Barbarian relied a lot on weapon swaps and guaranteed overpowers we can now play this similar to a HotA Barb where Overpowers and crits can be guaranteed through items but we no longer have to hold the build’s namesake skill until we hit the perfect setup, we can just keep smashing away with it and thanks to Overkill and the buffs it received for patch 1.5.0 we can slam groups down with it and just keep tearing through the hordes of hell with no problems.

Paragon

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

Rare Glyphs and Legendary Nodes	Effects
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
Wrath	– For every 5 Dexterity purchased within range, you deal + [3%] increased Critical Strike Damage – Additional Bonus once 25 Dexterity points are purchased within the glyph’s range: Skills that Critically Strike generate 3 Fury – Legendary Bonus: Increases your Physical Damage by [X%]
Revenge	– Grants + [20%] bonus to all Rare Nodes within range – Additional bonus once 25 Willpower has been purchased within range: Dealing Thorns damage to an enemy increases all damage it takes from you by 1% up to 15% for 10 seconds. – Legendary Bonus: Increases your damage by [X%]
Seething	– For every 5 Strength purchased within range, you deal [1.3%] increased damage while wielding a Sword – Additional bonus after 40 Strength has been purchased within the glyph’s radius: While wielding a Sword, you gain 5 Fury when you kill an enemy – Legendary Bonus: Increases your Critical Strike Damage by [X%]
Ambidextrous	– Grants + [25%] bonus to all Magic Nodes within range – Additional bonus after 40 Strength is purchased within the glyph’s radius: You deal 8% increased damage while wielding One-Handed Weapons – Legendary Bonus: Increases your damage by [X%]
Blood Rage	– Killing a Bleeding enemy has 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%
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
Flawless Technique	– Damaging enemies with One-Handed Weapons increases your Critical Strike Chance by 1% for 4 seconds, up to 8%. This can only happen once per skill cast or twice while channeling Whirlwind
Warbringer	– For every 75 Fury you spend, gain 15% of your Maximum Life as Fortify

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 heading right through the Brawn rare node and grab the surrounding magic nodes.
2. We then head up and unlock the glyph socket, slotting in Ire.
3. Next a turn down south to grab Tenacity and then back up around the glyph to grab as much Strength as we can.
4. Now we grab the remaining rare nodes Raw Power and Iron Strength and then exit the board through the northern gate and connect Warbringer.

Warbringer

1. Head up and right to grab Core Reserve and some magic nodes for fury generation and maintenance.
2. Rush left and unlock the glyph socket, slot in Wrath.
3. Grab as much Dexterity as you can in the radius, pick up Brute Force and Raw Power.
4. As we leave the radius turn north east through Hungering Fury and then down to the Legendary node Warbringer.
5. Make one final detour to the north east of the board and pick up Fire Resilience and a few life increasing magic nodes.
6. Exit the board to the west and connect the Blood Rage board.

Blood Rage

1. Start heading in and go south to pick up Craving and some surrounding magic nodes. These may seem odd as we are not primarily a bleed build, but thanks to 1 point in Tough as Nails in our skill tree, can trigger the effect and gain the benefits here.
2. Next rush the glyph socket and slot in Revenge which will trigger via Outburst and Tough as Nails as hinted at above.
3. Pick up enough willpower to trigger the glyph’s secondary effect and grab Revel to the west of the socket.
4. Head north through Wrath and then turn west to grab the Legendary Node Blood Rage
5. Continue left from the legendary node and snag Grit.
6. Take one final detour to the north east as we head up and pick up Restorative and a life increasing nodes.
7. Finally exit the board to the northern gate and connect the Decimator board.

Decimator

1. Start by marching up and head right for the socket, slot in Seething.
2. Immediately rush east and pick up Demolish and then west to grab Destroyer.
3. Pick up as much Strength in the radius as we can and then head out to the north to the Legendary node and unlock Decimator.
4. Make two short trips from the Legendary node, one west to pick up Restorative and some more life, and one east to grab Brawn for more damage.
5. Finally exit the board to the western gate and connect the Flawless Technique board.

Flawless Technique

1. Rush in west and then head for the glyph socket grabbing Wild Force on the way. Slot in Ambidextrous.
2. Continue west from the socket and grab Heavy Blows and a few magic nodes nearby and then enough Strength to active the glyph’s secondary effects.
3. Head north and march towards the Legendary node Flawless Technique while pathing through Slayer.
4. Our final stop for this journey takes us just north of the Legendary node to grab Brash and a few magic nodes and with that our journey comes to an end, 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 boards updated for post-launch boards
• October 3rd, 2024: Build updated for Season 6 and Vessel of Hatred
• August 4th, 2024: Guide updated for season 5.
• May 9th 2024: Ownership of page transferred, guide restructured, updated for season 4.
• January 30th 2024: Marshal Glyph changes.
• January 21st 2024: Season 3 speculative changes.
• November 13th, 2023: Build Revamp
• October 16th 2023: Build adjusted to prepare for Season 2 launch.
• August 12th 2023: Updated Build for Season 1.
• August 8th 2023: Added notes about Patch 1.1.1.
• August 5th 2023: Malignant Hearts and Paragon updated for clarity.
• July 19th, 2023: Season of the Malignant section added.