General Leveling Tips
To find out more general information about leveling as a Barbarian in Diablo 4, you can check out our main Barbarian Leveling guide. You can also go to our Barbarian Builds page for a list of other leveling and endgame Barbarian builds for you to choose from.
In regard to leveling up on the Seasonal Realm, you might also want to check out our season checklist, as it will give you some useful tips and tricks for Season 6 of Diablo 4.
Build Introduction
The point of this leveling guide is to quickly take your character from level 1 to 60 while using 
Rend and prepare for your transition into our Rend Barbarian 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 you can use to accelerate our journey.
Our primary skill will be 
Lunging Strike for our Fury Generator. We’ll be augmenting this skill with:
- Enhanced Lunging Strike – Which will provide some minor healing and damage to healthy enemies as we chase them down.
- Battle Lunging Strike – To provide a source of Bleeding in addition to our Rend
Our Core Skill of course will be Rend. Our primary spender. We’ll be augmenting this skill with the following:
- Enhanced Rend – Which allows us to extend the Vulnerable state on our enemies to make them take more damage from our bleeds.
- Furious Rend – To help Rend restore some of its cost when we’re hitting a large group of demons with it so we can cast the skill more frequently and stack its bleed up and up on everything around us.
Now that we know our two most basic skills, let’s have a deeper look at how we will allocate our skill points while we level up.
Allocation of Skill points
Let’s take a look at how we will allocate our skill points as we level.
Your complete skill bar will look like this:
Rend 
Lunging Strike 
Rallying Cry 
Death Blow 
War Cry 
Call of the Ancients Skill Tree
Here is the completed skill tree for the build:
Skill Clusters
Let’s review each cluster in the Skill Tree and discuss our reasons behind each passive and skill choice, so we have a good understanding of the build before we transition into the Rend Endgame Build Keep in mind, if you are leveling a new seasonal character, you will have some additional skill points to spend at the beginning.
Basic Skills
For this build, we’ll be using the tried and true Lunging Strike for our generator. Upon first impression, you may be wondering why we are not choosing 
Flay and that is because Lunging Strike has a bleed component through Battle Lunging Strike and provides much-needed mobility to help us chase down our targets. We’ll be relying on Rend and 
Death Blow to do most of the heavy lifting anyway.
Core Skills
Our core skill of choice is of course, Rend for which the build is named after. It is a powerful bleed that extends the Vulnerable status through Enhanced Rend and can return most of its own Fury cost through Furious Rend. This means with the right setup this spender is mostly spammable and can rack up a hefty enough bleed to eat through most health bars on its own. It does require that you wait for the Damage Over Time (DoT) effect to happen for them to die.
Defensive Skills
Here we pick up a few passives and our main active skill in this cluster is 
Rallying Cry which will increase our movement speed and resource gain. We can become unstoppable through Enhanced Rallying Cry and gain more fury on-demand through Tactical Rallying Cry. For passives we take the following:
Imposing Presence – This gives us a large chunk of health which will be vital in season 5 while leveling
Martial Vigor – Which gives us some tankiness against Elite monster and bosses.
Brawling Skills
In this cluster, we will take 
War Cry for our active skill and then a number of passives which we will go over shortly. War Cry gives us a damage amp on-demand for when we run into tough packs. Enhanced War Cry gives us an on-demand button for Berserking, a Barbarian unique status that will be detailed further in this guide but needless to say it is quite important. It also gives us some Fortify through Mighty War Cry which enhances our survival. Let us dive into the passives we take:
Swiftness – Provides some movement speed which is always a good thing in Diablo games. The faster we can chase things down, the faster we can bleed them to death with Rend
Booming Voice – Increases the duration of our Shout Skills, this means War Cry and Rallying Cry so we gain more benefit from both skills
Aggressive Resistance – Gives us a bit of damage reduction whenever we’re in the Berserking state.
Prolific Fury – Helps give us even more resource generation while we’re Berserking so we can continue to spam Rend
Weapon Mastery Skills
Our skill of choice here is Death Blow which compliments the playstyle wonderfully. Enhanced Death Blow gives us a big hit when fighting against bosses which can be a bit of a pain with this build. Warrior’s Death Blow gives us an easy way to trigger Berserking giving us easier access to this powerful aspect of the Barbarian class. Let’s take a look at the passives we pick up in this cluster:
Pit Fighter – A no nonsense damage amp and damage reduction against close targets. Since we are a melee class, that is essentially every enemy we want to be fighting.
Hamstring – Provides us with an easy slow application to chase things down easier
Cut to the Bone – Our big bleed damage amplifier skill which is why making things Vulnerable is important. 
Thick Skin – Will give us another source of Fortify whenever we’re in combat
Counteroffensive – Is a powerful passive that gives a big damage boost as long as more than half of our life is Fortified.
No Mercy – Grants us more damage against stunned, slowed, or immobilized enemies. Thanks to Hamstring we have easy access to a slow as long as a healthy enemy is bleeding.
Expose Vulnerability – Is a critical passive that gives us easy access to apply the Vulnerable status to our enemies which further increases our damage and our bleeds.
Ultimate Skill
Our ultimate skill of choice is 
Call of the Ancients. We choose this for its damage amplifier from Prime Call of the Ancients, which makes this skill quite powerful while leveling. We also gain some resources from Supreme Call of the Ancients, as well as stuns and slows which will further apply No Mercy for us.
Key Passive
Thanks to bugfixes, 
Gushing Wounds is now fixed and works correctly! It is now the most potent key passive for a Rend based build and as such we will want to take it here for even more bleed damage and it shifts our focus towards Critical Strike Damage as our main offensive stat to scale this passive to its fullest.
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 Rahier, the Shieldbearer
Mechanics and Playstyle
The build is a pretty straight forward playstyle. We engage using Lunging Strike to build up our Fury. We spend our Fury on Rend to get large bleeds on enemies and then we use Death Blow to finish things off or against strong single targets once they have Rend applied. We can summon our squad through Call of the Ancients whenever we encounter a powerful boss, The Butcher, or strong Elites as we make our way towards the endgame.
Bleeding
The majority of our damage comes from Bleeding enemies, we do this through our skills, but also trigger some enhancements from our Legendary Aspects. See the list below:
Defenses
The majority of our Defenses come from our Legendary Aspects and Passives. See the list below:
Weapon Expertise
For the Rend Leveling build, we will focus on using Two-handed axes for the increase to Vulnerable enemies.
Leveling Options
There are many options to level your character: kill monsters, do quests in each region if you need the Renown, follow a Seasonal storyline, farm dungeons, or participate in regional events. With so many methods at your disposal, we’ve chosen some methods that will accelerate your path to the endgame. As always check out our Barbarian Leveling Guide for the best options.
Open World Activities
The open world is full of monsters and activities, you are welcome to find your own path or leveling areas but if you are looking for some great options, here are two great suggestions for this build:
Helltide
Helltides are a fantastic method for finding gear early and getting a ton of experience. They are available right from the onset of the game’s first difficulty levels and are active for 55 minutes of every hour with 5 minutes of downtime before the next one spawns. For more details check out our Barbarian Leveling Guide.
Questing & Strongholds
Questing is a necessary evil if you are still grinding out your renown levels for each zone. If you need to complete your Renown, it can be a relatively easy way to get some quick experience along the way. If this is something you need to do, take as many quests as you can from one area and complete them all in one go. It may not feel necessarily faster, but going back and forth for each one is a waste of time.
In Vessel of Hatred, Strongholds have been slightly revamped to give massive amounts of experience the first time you complete them. Going through and doing each Stronghold across the various zones can net you a lot of fast levels as well as large renown gains to help you reach certain renown milestones if you haven’t completed them.
Gear Affixes
In the early levels, targeting affixes on your gear can be very challenging. The best opportunity for rare gear is a maximum of two affixes. We will show three recommended affixes to give you some flexibility in gear selection, as well as list a Tempering Affix for each slot. Keep in mind that tempering is more of an end-game system and with the frequency of gear replacements may not be the optimal thing to do while leveling. Items can have two tempers placed on them provided they are not from the same category. For example you cannot have two tempers from the “Offensive” category. As such we will be listing the main temper you want for each slot below.
| Gear Slot | Targeted Affixes | Tempering Affixs |
|---|---|---|
| Helm | 1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Attack Speed 3. Maximum Life | 1. Lucky Hit: Chance to Immobilize for 2 Seconds  Worldly Fortune |
| Chest | 1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Needed Resistance | 1. Lucky Hit: Chance to Immobilize for 2 Seconds Worldly Fortune |
| Gloves | 1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Ranks of Rend3. Attack Speed | 1. Physical Damage Over time Slayer’s Finesse |
| Pants | 1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Needed Resistance | 1. Lucky Hit: Chance to Immobilize for 2 Seconds Worldly Fortune |
| Boots | 1. Movement Speed 2. Strength 3. Fury Per Second | 1. Movement Speed Natural Motion |
| Amulet | 1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Attack Speed 3. Ranks to Cut to the Bone | 1. Death Blow Cooldown Reduction Weapon Mastery Efficiency |
| Rings | 1. Attack Speed 2. Critical Strike Chance 3. Fury on Kill | 1. Death Blow Cooldown Reduction Weapon Mastery Efficiency |
| Weapons | 1. Fury on Kill 2. Strength 3. Maximum Life | 1. Chance for Rend to Hit Twice Bleed Augments |
Gems
Listed below are the best gems to socket into gear for each slot type.
- Weapon:
Amethyst for the increase to Damage over Time effects. - Armor:
Ruby for the increase to Strength - Jewelry:
Diamond for the 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 |
 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 |
Legendary Aspects
The Legendary Aspects chosen below are all available from the Codex of Power, so each Aspect can be found from Dungeons in the open world. If possible, finding each of these Aspect on a piece of Legendary gear will offer you a better roll compared to the Codex of Power.
| Gear Slot | Legendary Aspect | Legendary Aspect Power |
|---|---|---|
| Helm |  Aspect of Might | Basic Skills grant 20% Damage Reduction for [2.0-6.0] seconds. |
| Chest | Aspect of Disobedience | You gain [0.6 – 1.1%] increased Armor for 4 seconds when you deal any form of damage, stacking up to [36 – 66%]. |
| Gloves |  Aspect of Anemia | Lucky Hit: Direct damage against Bleeding enemies has up to a [20-30%] chance to Stun them for 2 seconds. |
| Pants | Iron Blood Aspect | Gain [2.0-4.0%] Damage Reduction for each Nearby Bleeding enemy up to [10-20%] maximum. |
| Boots |  Ghostwalker Aspect | While Unstoppable and for 4 seconds after, you gain [10- 25%] increased Movement Speed and can move freely through enemies. |
| Amulets(50% bonus) |  Slaking Aspect | Lucky Hit: You have up to a [40-60%] chance to gain 20 Fury when Rend deals direct damage to at least one Bleeding enemy. |
| Ring | Aspect of Berserk Fury | You gain [1-6] Fury per second while Berserking |
| Ring | Aspect of Voracious Rage | Killing an enemy with a Core Skill refunds [10.0-20.0%] of its base Fury cost. Can only happen once per Skill cast. |
| Bludgeoning Weapon (200% bonus) |  Aspect of the Expectant | Attacking enemies with a Basic Skill increases the damage of your next Core Skill cast by [5-10%], up to 30%. |
| Slashing Weapon (200% bonus) | Edgemaster’s Aspect | Skills deal up to [10- 20%] increased damage based on your available Primary Resource when cast, receiving the maximum benefit while you have full Primary Resource. |
| Dual-Wield Weapon 1 | Rapid Aspect | Basic Skills gain [15-30%] Attack Speed. |
| Dual-Wield Weapon 2 | Aspect of Berserk Ripping | Whenever you deal direct damage while Berserking, inflict [20-30%] of the Base damage dealt as additional Bleeding damage over 5 seconds. |
Early Paragon
Once you hit Level 60 with this leveling build, you will be ready to dive into The Pit and begin unlocking Torment 1 and beyond. This will open up the true endgame and allow you to collect new Ancestral Items and Unique Items. Once you upgrade your build to the Endgame build, you will be ready to face all the challenges that lie ahead including further Pit levels, Tormented Bosses, Infernal Hordes, and more!
Below you will find suggestions for your first two Paragon Boards. Once you reach the end of them it is strongly advised to transition into an Endgame Build to get the most power for your character to push further into your paragon and into the later Torment levels. As a note, all glyphs shown are the Level 100 versions. Let’s dive in!
Elixirs and Health Pots
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. We recommend using 
Elixir of Advantage for the increased attack speed or any elixir that provides a needed resistance or toughness advantage. Elixirs grant anywhere from 5% to 8% increased experience while leveling to help you reach further into the endgame even faster, so you should worry less about specific elixirs and always have at least one active while leveling.
Return to the Alchemist again about every 5 to 10 levels to upgrade your potion. The extra healing is essential to survival.
Changelog
- October 3rd 2024: Updated for Season 6 and Vessel of Hatred
- August 4th 2024: Updated for season 5 and patch 1.5.0
- May 8th 2024: Ownership of page transferred, guide restructured and updated for season 4
- January 21st 2024: Season 3 speculative changes.
- October 23rd 2023: Revamped build for season 2.
- October 13th 2023: Build Adjusted to prepare for Season 2 launch.
- September 16th 2023: Leveling Guide revamp
