Flay – Barbarian Build for Diablo 4

Build Introduction

Welcome to the comprehensive guide for the Flay Barbarian! A new generator build that emerged during Season 4 and has proven to be a powerful endgame and pit boss killer. If you like DoT based playstyles and ramping up massive bleeds, this build is for you. The previous season added a ton of power to this, making it even better. So without further delay, let’s dive right 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

Rage of Harrogath

Fists of Fate

Required Aspects (Non-codex)

Aspect of the Moonrise

Wanton Rupture Aspect

Aspect of Adaptability

Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

Recommended

Suggested Skill Bar

Flay Rupture Iron Skin War Cry Challenging Shout Steel Grasp

Follow the points allocated in the image above for the complete 71-point build. The additional 10 skills are completed using the Renown system.

Arsenal System and Weapon Selection

For this Flay build, we will be using Two-Handed Axe as our weapon technique for its bonus to Vulnerable damage. Even nerfed to 10% in patch 1.4, this is still our strongest option. For this build, we’ll be assigning our weapons to the following skills.

• Flay – We want to use our Two-Handed Slashing weapon, and ideally a Polearm for its damage bonus and to trigger our Executioner paragon glyph.
• Rupture – We want to use the same as our Flay. a Two-Handed Slashing weapon, ideally a Polearm.

Paragon Board

We recommend using the following Legendary nodes and Glyphs to truly take this build into the endgame. Note that each Glyph’s information and radius listed below is for the Level 100 version. As a note, Glyph’s reach their maximum radius and Legendary Bonuses at level 46. 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 Subo, The Drunken Archer:

• Opportunity Skill: War Cry
• Reinforcement Skill: Trip Mines

Gear, Gems, Elixirs, and Stats

Loot Reborn (Season 4) brought us an incredible shift in how gear and itemization are done. It is major and will affect the game for many seasons to come. 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	Iron Blood Aspect	– Gain [2-5%] Damage Reduction for each nearby Bleeding enemy up to [10-25%] maximum
Chest	Grand Ruby	Rage of Harrogath	– Lucky Hit: Inflicting Bleeding on an enemy has up to a [20-60%] 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	Aspect of the Iron Warrior	– Iron Skin grants Unstoppable and [25-35%] Damage Reduction
Boots	N/A	Hectic Aspect	– After casting 5 Basic Skills, one of your active cooldowns is reduced by [1-2] seconds.
Amulet	Grand Diamond	Aspect of Adaptability	– When cast below 50% Maximum Resource, Basic Skills generate 3 of your Primary Resource once per cast. When cast at or above 50% maximum resource, Basic Skills deal x [20-80%] increased damage
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	Conceited Aspect	– You deal x [10-25%] increased damage while you have an active barrier
Two-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon	Lith and Wat Runes OR Grand Amethyst	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 x [40-80%] basic skill damage and 15% movement speed for 10 seconds
Two-Handed Slashing Weapon	Xol and Yom Grand Amethyst	Aspect of Creeping Death	– You deal [5-20%] increased damage over time to enemies for each crowd control effect they’re afflicted by. Unstoppable enemies and staggered bosses take [10-40%] increased damage over time from you instead.
Dual Wield Weapon 1	Grand Amethyst	Wanton Rupture Aspect	– Your Rupture does not remove the Bleeding damage from enemies. This can occur every [30-15] seconds.
Dual Wield Weapon 2	Grand Amethyst	Shard of Verathiel	– Basic Skills deal x [50-200%] increased damage but additionally cost 25 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 Amethyst for increased Damage Over Time	Grand Ruby for increased Strength	Grand Diamond for increased all resistances

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

Below are the best runes to make runewords with for this build. You may only equip two runewords at a time and runes must be placed in items with two sockets which limits you to Helms, Chest, Pants, and Two-Handed Weapons. For Barbarians we want to put these in our Two-Handed Weapons.

Runes	Rune Effects
Lith	Gain 25 Offering: Stand still for 0.3 seconds
Wat	Requires 100 Offering: Cooldown 1 seconds, Evoke the Necromancer’s Horrid Decrepify slowing enemies, reducing their damage and letting you execute them
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 granting 100 Primary Resource

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 as of 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 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 to spam Flay and rack up a ton of bleeding on our target for Rupture. Craft the highest-value Elixir you can so you 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. Cooldown Reduction 2. Strength 3. Maximum Life	1. Iron Skin Cooldown Reduction Barbarian Strategy 2. Lucky Hit: Chance to Immobilize for 2 Seconds Worldly Fortune
Chest	Grand Ruby	1. Strength 2. Armor 3. Maximum Life	1. Iron Skin Cooldown Reduction Barbarian Strategy 2. Crowd Control Duration Natural Schemes
Gloves	N/A	1. Lucky Hit Chance 2. Strength 3. Critical Strike Damage	1. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse 2. Lucky Hit: Chance to Stun for 2 Seconds Worldly Fortune
Pants	Grand Ruby	1. Ranks to Flay 2. Strength 3. Needed Resistance	1. Iron Skin Cooldown Reduction Barbarian Strategy 2. Crowd Control Duration Natural Schemes
Boots	N/A	1. Ranks to War Cry 2. Armor 3. Strength	1. Movement Speed Natural Motion 2. Crowd Control Duration Natural Schemes
Amulet	Grand Diamond	1. Ranks of Cut to the Bone 2. Critical Strike Chance 3. Ranks to Heavy Handed	1. Critical Strike Damage – Worldly Finesse 2. Iron Skin Cooldown Reduction Barbarian Strategy
Ring 1	Grand Diamond	1. Attack Speed 2. Critical Strike Chance 3. Critical Strike Damage	1. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse 2. War Cry Cooldown Reduction Brawling Efficiency
Ring 2	Grand Diamond	1. Attack Speed 2. Critical Strike Chance 3. Vulnerable Damage	1. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse 2. War Cry Cooldown Reduction Brawling Efficiency
Bludgeoning Weapon	Grand Amethyst	1. Strength 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Maximum Life	1. Flay Duration Furious Augments 2. Critical Strike Damage – Worldly Finesse
Slashing Weapon	Grand Amethyst	1. Strength 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Maximum Life	1. Flay Duration Furious Augments 2. Critical Strike Damage – Worldly Finesse
Dual-Wield Weapon 1	Grand Amethyst	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Vulnerable Damage	1. Flay Duration Furious Augments 2. Critical Strike Damage – Worldly Finesse
Dual-Wield Weapon 2	Grand Amethyst	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Vulnerable Damage	1. Flay Duration Furious Augments 2. Critical Strike Damage – Worldly Finesse

Rotation and Playstyle

This is a fairly straight forward DoT based playstyle. We want to be spamming Flay as often as we can. It has an innately high Lucky Hit chance, 50%! This will trigger our various sources of crowd control from our tempers. This will amplify the damage from the Aspect of Creeping Death. Once we’ve stacked Flay high enough, we can Rupture to rip it all out and cause huge damage. Let’s quickly go over how each skill is used:

• Flay our main attacking skill. We want to attack with this at all times.
• Rupture to be used against Elites and Bosses once we’ve stacked enough Bleed on them through Flay to finish them off.
• War Cry for Berserking and give us a large damage increase.
• Challenging Shout and Iron Skin for survival.
• Steel Grasp to trigger Berserking and group enemies up to bleed them out easier.

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 the Uniques and Mythic Uniques useful to this build.

• Rage of Harrogath – A powerful chest for Bleed based builds that was updated in patch 1.4 and maintains its potency in Season 5. Since we’re applying bleeds constantly through Flay we’ll be resetting our Shouts and defensive cooldowns all the time.
• Fists of Fate – What used to be a meme item or one recognized as not particularly powerful has received a large buff in Season 5. Now boasting up to a massive 51.8% Lucky Hit chance, this item can get us to trigger our various effects on nearly every cast of our skills. The damage bonus might look bad at first, seeing 1% but on average the item results in a 50% damage increase if you’re attacking fast enough and we aim to strike fast and hard with Flay.
• Shard of Verathiel – A new unique in season 5. This turns basic skills in powerhouses that cost a bit of resource. As Flay is a Basic Skill, the damage will be buffed by this new item significantly. Flay geneates 15 Fury per swing and costing 25 means the net Fury loss is only 10, we can mitigate this through paragon nodes, rolls on our gear, and our tempers meaning this cost is largely negligible but the damage increase is massive. A must have for any Basic Skill build.

Mythic Uniques

Mythic Uniques are extremely rare items that only drop from very end-game bosses such as Duriel and Andariel as well as the Tormented versions of all bosses. Below, you will find a list of Mythic Uniques useful to this build. If a Mythic Unique isn’t listed, it isn’t useful to this setup.

• Harlequin Crest – The infamous “Shako” helm is one of the most powerful items in the entire game. With a newly buffed 20% cooldown reduction and massive stats to resource generation, life, and +4 to all skills if you’re lucky enough to acquire one equip it right away.
• Ring of Starless Skies – A powerful unique that’s been the cornerstone of a few builds in the game’s lifespan but newly buffed midway through Season 4, it retains its killer potency for Season 5. If you’re lucky enough to acquire one, you drop the Bold Chieftain’s Aspect for it and it should provide you a nearly endless source of Fury from your Flay despite the Shard of Verathiel’s cost.
• Tyrael’s Might – Pound for pound the best defensive item in the game. In Vessel of Hatred this is no less true. With powerful move speed, resistances basically solved, and a built in damage reduction if you’re fortunate enough to get this chest, replace your Rage of Harrogath with it.

Season 6: Season of Hatred

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 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 thanks to its generator based gameplay, the core of playing this build effectively is knowing when to Rupture. You should only pop this when your Wanton Rupture Aspect is active so you don’t lose all of your bleeding damage. With a max roll this can be as frequently as every 15 seconds.

Use your shouts War Cry and Steel Grasp to keep berserking up even on single targets to make sure your damage-over-time effects are as strong as they can be.

A note on Crowd Control – We use several tempers and high lucky hit chance to apply a lot of crowd control effects. Each once we apply gives us a large damage increase thanks to the Aspect of Creeping Death introduced in Season 5. This gives us powerful bleeds to finish off bosses quickly and really makes this build shine as a boss killer.

Paragon

Below you will find the paragon glyph and legendary nodes used by this build at maximum level. The table will be in the order these glyphs are placed with the legendary nodes below them.

Rare Glyph / Legendary Node	Effect
Exploit	– For every 5 Dexterity purchased within range, you deal + [2%] increased damage to Vulnerable targets – Additional bonus once 25 Dexterity points are 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 evrey 20 seconds per enemy Legendary Bonus: Increases your damage to Vulnerable enemies by [X%]
Ire	– For every 5 Strength purchased within range, you deal + [1.3%] increased Damage While Berserking – Additional bonus once 40 Strength points are 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 points are purchased within the glyph’s range: You deal x8% increased damage while wielding Two-Handed Weapons Legendary Bonus: You deal [X%] increased damage to Healthy enemies
Disembowel	– For every 5 Willpower purchased within range you deal [2.0%] increased Bleeding damage – Additional bonus once 25 Willpower points are purchased within the glyph’s range: Killing a Bleeding enemy has a 10% chance to reduce the cooldowns of your Non-Ultimate active cooldowns by 1 sconds Legendary Bonus: Increases your damage to Vulnerable targets by [X%]
Executioner	– For every 5 Strength purchased within range, you deal + [1.3%] increased damage while wielding a Polearm – Additional bonus once 40 Strength points are purchased within the glyph’s range: While wielding a Polearm you deal x15% increased damage Legendary Bonus: You deal [X%] increased damage to Injured enemies
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 x10% of your Damage While Berserking bonus up to a maximum of x30%
Hemorrhage	– Your Bleeding damage is increased by x15% of you Vulnerable Damage Bonus up to a maximum of x45%
Warbringer	– For every 75 Fury you spend, gain 15% of your maximum life as Fortify

Let’s break down each of these nodes and where our Paragon Points are positioned in each of the 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 your way 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 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 begin by heading up and right through Brawn and grabbing the nearby magic nodes.
2. Next head west through Tenacity and then go north to the glyph socket. Slot in Exploit.
3. We pick up the needed Dexterity nodes nearby, while grabbing both nearby rare nodes Iron Strength and Raw Power.
4. Finally we move up on the right hand path and exit the gate, connect the Warbringer board here.

Warbringer

1. Start by heading up and left and path through Hungering Fury and its magic nodes.
2. Continue north and take a small western detour to grab Fire Resilience, then path east and pick up the Legendary node Warbringer.
3. Go back to the beginning of the board and then head up and right to unlock the glyph socket Ire.
4. Grab the nearby Strength nodes including both rare nodes Brute Force and Raw Power.
5. Next head north from the radius and path up and west to pick up Core Reserve and then head out east and connect the Carnage board.

Carnage

1. Continue right to the glyph socket and slot in Executioner which is why we’re using a Polearm in this build.
2. Begin to grab Strength nodes near the radius and don’t forget Fierce and Berserker.
3. From the glyph socket, head down and right to pick up the board’s Legendary node, Carnage and don’t forget to continue right and pick up Brash.
4. Next head south and connect the Hemorrhage board to the Southern gate. Once we finish the Hemorrhage board, we’ll come back to the Carnage board.
5. From the glyph socket head north and pick up Enraged and the nearby magic nodes and unlock the northern gate and connect our final board, Blood Rage.

Hemorrhage

1. Immediately march east and grab Butcher and some nearby magic nodes.
2. Go down and unlock the glyph socket and slot in Might and continue east to pick up Flayer and the nearby magic nodes.
3. Continue to pick up the strength nodes in the radius until you unlock Might’s bonus effects and then head south west.
4. Path through Bloodbathed and some magic nodes and continue south west.
5. Grab this board’s Legendary node Hemorrhage and then head back to the Carnage board.

Blood Rage

1. March up and head straight to the glyph socket, slot in Disembowel.
2. Pick up as much Willpower as you can and grab the western rare node Revel.
3. Continue north through Wrath and take a small detour north east to grab Restorative.
4. Now head west and grab this board’s Legendary node Blood Rage.
5. From the Blood Rage node, continue west and pick up Grit and the nearby magic nodes and with that we come to the end of our paragon journey, sort of.

Concluding

At this point, you should have most of your paragon points spend, all 5 boards unlocked, and all of your Glyph’s empowered with their bonuses. You will have anywhere from 40 to 50 points remaining to spend. Getting to the maximum paragon level in Vessel of Hatred is a truly arduous task that requires many many hours. If you are truly one of those few who are hardcore enough to max out your Paragon, we suggest spending these extra points to grab any Rare Nodes and magic clusters nearby the paths we took on your boards that we didn’t take in our initial journey or any normal nodes for stats you might be lacking to gain bonuses for your various rare nodes. Congratulations on making it this far!

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 3rd, 2024: Build updated for Season 6 and Vessel of Hatred
• August 5th, 2024: Guide created.