Updated for Season 8
Build Introduction
The point of this leveling guide is to quickly take your character from level 1 to 60 while using 
Double Swing and prepare for your transition into our Dust Devil Double Swing Endgame Build. This guide will walk you through the skill point placement for levels 1-60 and give some insight on how each passive and skill work together to create synergy able to tackle whatever form of leveling you choose to take. We will also give some insight on Legendary Aspects, Affixes, Gems, and Elixirs we can utilize to accelerate our journey.
Our primary skills with this build are 
Lunging Strike as our primary Fury Generator. We’ll be augmenting this skill using:
- Enhanced Lunging Strike – Which will provide us with some minor healing and extra damage
- Battle Lunging Strike – To provide us with a source of Bleeding to trigger some other skills and passives
Our core skill of choice is of course Double Swing. Our primary spender and what we will be using to carve demons into ribbons. We augment this skill with:
- Enhanced Double Swing – Which causes us to gain our resource back if the enemy is stunned or knocked down
- Violent Double Swing – To give us a source of applying the Vulnerable status to our foes
Now that we know the two most basic skills, we can look deeper into how we will allocate our skill points as we level up.
Quick Navigation
Allocation of Skill Points
Below is the recommended order for spending your points as you level up. If you are missing skill points, complete Renown tiers 1-3 in every zone.
Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points
Lunging Strike 
Double Swing 
War Cry 
Call of the Ancients 
Leap 
Rallying Cry If you are unsure how to best use these skills read our Build Mechanics section after setting up your skill bar.
Wondering what comes after level 60 or which paragon boards to choose? Head to the Barbarian Builds Page and choose an endgame build to continue progressing your character beyond level 60 and into the endgame.
Barbarian Class Mechanic – The Arsenal System
The Barbarian is unique among classes in Diablo 4. As a master of weapons and combat it can wield four different weapons simultaneously and effortlessly swap between them when we use different skills. We have a Two-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon, a Two-Handed Slashing Weapon, and a pair of Dual-Wield Weapons. At level 15 a quest becomes available in Ked Bardu called “Masters of Battle” given by Forgemaster Kerdi. After you complete this short quest chain, you gain access to the second part of the Arsenal System. Weapon Techniques.
Barbarians gain various bonuses by using specific weapon types that are only active while wielding those weapons. After unlocking the Weapon Technique class feature you can choose ANY weapon type and slot it into your technique slot and that bonus will always be active no matter what weapon you’re actually using.
For this Double Swing setup, we want to use the Two-Handed Axe weapon technique.
Keep in mind that while you will always benefit from the Two-Handed Axe bonus once it’s slotted in your technique slot, you will still gain the bonuses of the weapon types you’re actually wielding as well letting you gain more power through this system.
Finally, Barbarians can assign their skills to different weapons allowing for seamless transitions when using various skills. Unfortunately for this build, Double Swing MUST use your Dual-Wield weapons. However we can assign Lunging Strike to any weapon type we want. A small quality of life is to assign it to your Dual Wield Weapons for their faster attacks so you can build resources faster but this is relatively minor.
Gear, Stats, Gems, and Runes
When selecting your items, higher item power generally indicates stronger gear, but you also need to consider the affixes and effects that are relevant to your class and build. When making gear decisions during leveling keep an eye on both the item power and the specific attributes that compliment the build.
Legendary Aspects
For general information on how to unlock the Codex of Power, head to our Aspects and Codex of Power guide. You can also imprint Aspects onto items by visiting The Occultist in town.
Listed below are all the aspects that are important to this build as well as what slot they are best placed in. However, you can move the slots around during the leveling process especially since early on some of these aspects can only be found via random drops and might not be on the most ideal slot.
| Gear Slot | Legendary Aspect | Aspect Power |
| Helm |  Aspect of Numbing Wrath | Each point of Fury generated while at Maximum Fury grants [X] Fortify |
| Chest | Juggernaut’s Aspect | Grant [X] Armor, but your Evade has a 100% increased Cooldown |
| Gloves |  Accelerating Aspect | Critical Strikes with Core Skills increase your Attack Speed by [10-25%] for 5 seconds. |
| Pants | Aspect of Bul-Kathos |  Leap creates an Earthquake that deals [X] Physical damage over 4 seconds and provides [10-25%] Damage Reduction |
| Boots |  Relentless Berserker’s Aspect | Lucky Hit: Damaging an enemy with a Core Skill has a [22-40%] chance to extend the duration of Berserking by 2 seconds. Double this duration if it was a Critical Strike |
| Amulet | Windlasher Aspect | Casting Double Swing creates a Dust Devil that deals [X] damage to enemies in its path |
| Ring 1 |  Bold Chieftain’s Aspect | Whenever you cast a Shout Skill, its Cooldown is recduced by [1-2] seconds per nearby enemy up to a maximum of 6 seconds. |
| Ring 2 | Aspect of Giant Strides | Reduces the Cooldown of Leap by [2.5-5] seconds per enemy hit, up to a maximum of 9 seconds. Hitting a Boss with Leap provides the maximum cooldown reduction |
| 2-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon | Aspect of Fierce Winds | Your Shout Skills create 3 Dust Devils that deal damage to enemies along their path. Your Dust Devils are [5-20%] bigger and deal 1% increased damage for each 1% their size is increased |
| 2-Handed Slashing Weapon | Devilish Aspect | After generating 100 Fury, your next direct damage creates 3 Dust Devils that deal [X] damage to enemies in their path |
| Dual Wield Weapon 1 | Edgemaster’s Aspect | Skills deal up to [5-20%] increased damage based on your available Primary Resource when cast, receiving the maximum benefit while you have full Primary Resource |
| Dual Wield Weapon 2 | Aspect of Elements | Grant + [20-30%] increased damage to a set of damage types for 7 seconds. This effect alternates between two sets: Fire, Lightning, and Physical. Cold, Poison, and Shadow. |
Stat Priority and Tempering Affixes
During your leveling journey, you may stumble across items with incredible affixes. Tempering these items can provide you with a significant boost in power, so make sure you understand how tempering works!
As a reminder, tempering is only possible if you’ve found the tempering manuals while leveling.
Keep an eye out for the following stats that are beneficial for this build. We will list the most ideal stats and the best tempering affixes if you’re lucky enough to find the relevant manual.
| Gear Slot | Targeted Affixes | Tempering Affix |
| Helm | 1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Strength 3. Maximum Life | 1. Double Swing Size  Berserking Augments |
| Chest | 1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Needed Resistance | 1. Double Swing Size Berserking Augments |
| Gloves | 1. Attack Speed 2. Critical Strike Chance 3. Strength | 1. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse |
| Pants | 1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Needed Resistance | 1. Dust Devil Size Wasteland Innovation |
| Boots | 1. Movement Speed 2. Fury Per Second 3. Ranks to Leap | 1. Movement Speed Natural Motion |
| Amulet | 1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Attack Speed 3. Fury on Kill | 1. Resource Generation with Dual Wield Weapons Weapon Attunement — Barbarian |
| Rings | 1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Attack Speed 3. Fury on Kill | 1. Resource Generation with Dual Wield Weapons Weapon Attunement — Barbarian |
| 2-Handed Weapons | 1. Strength 2. Fury on Kill 3. Maximum Life | 1. Chance for Dust Devils to Cast Twice Wasteland Augments |
| Dual-Wield Weapons | 1. Strength 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Maximum Life | 1. Dust Devil Damage Berserking Finesse |
Gems and Runewords
Gems
Listed below are the best gems to socket into gear for each slot type.
- Weapons:
Topaz for basic skill damage until around Level 20, and then 
Emerald for critical strike damage after. - Armor:
Ruby for more Strength - Jewelry:
Diamond for 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 in a row |
 Zan | Gain 150 Offering: Cast an Ultimate skill |
 Ceh | Requires 100 Offering: Cooldown 1 second, Summon a Spirit Wolf to attack enemies for 8 seconds |
 Lum | Requires 5 Offering: Cooldown 1 second, Restore 1 Primary Resource |
Boss Powers (Season 8)
Season 8 brings a slew of powers to equip from slaying bosses, world bosses, and special boss encounters from Belial’s summoning events! You can equip a total of 4 powers. A single main power that will trigger its primary effect when certain conditions are met and three modifier powers that modify the main power and other skills for even more power. As a reminder, you cannot acquire the lair boss powers until Torment 1. So while leveling we’ll be recommending the powers acquired from the enemies slain during the Apparition Events. For this build we recommend the following combination:
Main Power
- Allek’s Talons – Gives our Lunging Strike some extra damage over time to help kill things quickly while we build up our fury for Double Swing
Modifier Powers
- Flesh Reaper’s Disruption – Gives us extra damage to Vulnerable enemies
- Hatred’s Embrace’s Haste – Grants us extra Critical Strike Chance to chop through our foes even faster
- Torusk’s Rage – Gives us attack speed allowing us to more quickly spam our generators for resources and Double Swing
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
Build Mechanics
Rotation and Playstyle
The majority of our power with this build comes from fast attacks with Double Swing and a few new Legendary Aspects that provide powerful Dust Devils when we swing. We want to start any encounter by Lunging Strike to get into the group and then Double Swing away once we’re in carving the demons to ribbons. If Leap is available, you’ll want to engage with that instead of Lunging Strike. Use your 
War Cry liberally for its damage bonus, use 
Rallying Cry to help manage your resources and whenever it is available or when you’re running into a boss or powerful elite, summon the squad with 
Call of the Ancients and get to swinging.
Berserking
Perhaps the most critical component of getting the most out of this build is managing your Berserking state. We have a few options to enter it. Our main way will be through Leap which counts as a Brawling Skill and will put is in the state whenever it hits an enemy thanks to 
Battle Fervor. Enhanced War Cry also provides us with an on-demand source of Berserking and lets us keep the flow going. Leaping in, double swinging, war cry, more double swinging, and leap to the next group to keep the chain going. Once we have our key passive 
Unconstrained maintaining this chain and status will be much smoother and provide a large damage bonus for doing so, rewarding your management of this buff.
Which Elixirs 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 for the attack speed but any Elixir you have for the extra experience as they all grant between 5 and 8% increased experience to help you fly to level 60 even faster.
Return to the Alchemist again each time you return to town in case it is time to upgrade your potion. The extra healing is essential to survival.
Season 8 Updates
For a complete overview of Season 8, its mechanics and theme, new leveling activities, and other changes coming with the Season of TBD, please check out our Season Hub!
Season 8 brings some new updates to the Barbarian. Below are the changes related to this build:
- Double Swing damage increased from 60% to 66% and fury cost reduced from 25 to 20
- Enhanced Double Swing and Violent Double Swing have swapped places on the skill tree
Difficulty & Endgame
Once you hit level 60 with this build, you will be ready to tackle harder difficulties as you transition into more challenging content. Make sure to pick one of our recommended Endgame Builds to continue the journey. Additionally, we recommend keeping your Obols until you reach maximum level (60), then spend them on a weapon to help kickstart your preferred endgame build.
Changelog
- April 25th 2025: Reformatted and updated for Season 8
- March 31st 2025: Updated skill tree recommendations
- January 24th 2025: Tempering recommendations updated
- January 19th 2025: Tooltips and Seasonal section updated for Season 7
- January 16 2025: Build updated for Season 7
- October 17th 2024: Paragon updated
- October 3rd 2024: Guide updated for Season 6 and Vessel of Hatred
- August 4th 2024: Guide updated for season 5 and Patch 1.5.0
- May 8th 2024: Guide created
