Rend – Barbarian Build for Diablo 4 (Season 8)

Updated for Season 8

Strengths and Weaknesses

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.

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

Quick Navigation

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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 build. The additional 12 skill points are completed using the Renown system.

Barbarian Class Mechanic – The Arsenal System

The Barbarian can wield four weapons simultaneously as well as choose a weapon expertise to use as their Technique allowing them to gain that weapon’s bonus even if they’re wielding another weapon type. Finally, the Barbarian can assign its skills to use different weapon types shuffling between Two-Handed Bludgeoning Weapons, Two-Handed Slashing Weapons, and Dual-Wield Weapons.

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

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.

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Gear, Stats, Gems, and Runes

The following sections will cover all systems that are critical if you want to improve the power of your character and move towards the highest difficulties in the endgame of Diablo 4.

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 all Legendary powers can be added into your Codex of Power once you salvage or extract the item. You can still find some aspects through dungeons though they will always be at the minimum power level. To get the most out of this system, combine these Aspects with the right stats.

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	Ghostwalker Aspect	– While Unstoppable and for 4 seconds after, you gain [10-30%] increased Movement speed and are Unhindered
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.

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

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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

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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.

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Gems and Runewords

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

Gems

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 or Grand Skull to ensure all of your resistances are capped at 70% and your Armor is 1000. Due to Season 7’s new Occult Gems, it is recommended for Jewelry to use these new Occult Gems instead of Grand Diamonds and/or Grand Skulls. See the Season 7 section for more details regarding these Occult Gems!

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
Vex	Requires 100 Offering; Cooldown 5 seconds, Gain +1 to Skills for 10 seconds
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

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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!

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Boss Powers (Season 8)

Season 8 brings a slew of powers to equip similar to Season 2’s Vampiric Powers. 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. For this build we recommend the following combination:

Main Power

• Ashava’s Poison Breath – Grants us some extra damage whenever we strike an enemy afflicted with a damage over time and adds another damage over time, empowering Aspect of Creeping Death even further

Modifier Powers

• Andariel’s Flaming Skull – We are a Damage over Time build, and this simply adds more damage over time damage. A no brainer.
• Harbinger of Hatred’s Volley – Whenever we activate our main boss we gain a large multiplier to Vulnerable damage meaning even more damage over time.
• Torusk’s Rage – Grants us some additional attack speed letting us bleed up our targets with Rend even faster

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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

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Build Mechanics

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.

Runeword Synergy

Let’s take a moment to review our runes and how they interact with this build.

• Xol grants 150 Offering when we trigger another class’ power which we’ll do through our other rune combo
• Vex requires 100 Offering which means when paired with Xol we’ll trigger it instantly and get 50 offering worth of overflow which will increase the amount of skill ranks we get instead of only getting 1.
• Tam grants us 25 Offering every time we cast a non-channeled core skill such as our primary skill Rend
• Wat requires 100 Offering to trigger the necromancer’s Horrid Decrepify. This will happen every 4 casts of Rend and then trigger our Xol rune and thus our Vex rune as well giving us great rune synergy.

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.

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Season 8 Updates

For a comprehensive look at what’s new in Season 8, please check out our Season Hub

Here is a quick list of the changes this season that are relevant to this build:

• Rend Fury cost reduced from 35 to 30
• Hamstring now applies a 70% slow the first time an enemy has a bleed applied to them for 2/3/4 seconds.

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Obol Gambling

A final point on acquiring gear 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 Guide HERE.

Changelog

• April 25th 2025: Reformatted and updated for Season 8
• March 31st 2025: Skill tree recommendations updated
• January 19th 2025: Tooltips and Seasonal section updated for Season 7
• January 16th 2025: Build updated for Season 7.
• 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.