Walking Arsenal – Barbarian Build for Diablo 4 (Season 8)

Updated for Season 8

Strengths and Weaknesses

Build Introduction

The Kratos Barb comes back with a vengeance thanks to the new tempers added in the previous season. Do you like swinging chains around for huge damage and making the most use of the Arsenal system? If so, this is the build for you!

Build Requirements

Optional Uniques

Unbroken Chain

Ancients’ Oath

100,000 Steps

Tibault’s Will

Required Aspects (Non-codex)

Aspect of Elements

Bold Chieftain’s Aspect

Quick Navigation

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Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

Skill Bar Setup for the Walking Arsenal Build (Order does not matter)

Iron Maelstrom Rallying Cry Ground Stomp War Cry Challenging Shout Steel Grasp

Follow the points allocated in the image above for the complete point 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 our Walking Arsenal build, we will be assigning the following weapons to our skills. However, as the only skill we cast that uses our weapons reliably is Iron Maelstrom which uses all 3 types, this reliably gets us the bonus from our Walking Arsenal and we don’t have to assign our skills to specific weapons.

For our Technique slot, we will use Two-Handed Axe for its extra damage to Vulnerable enemies.

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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.

Slot	Gems	Legendary Aspect / Unique Items	Aspect / Unique Effect
Helm	Grand Ruby	Tuskhelm of Joritz the Mighty	– When you gain Berserking while already Berserk, you have a [40-60%] chance to become more enraged granting x35% increased damage, 6 Fury Per Second, and 10% Cooldown reduction.
Chest	Grand Ruby	Aspect of Bul-Kathos	– Leap creates an Earthquake that deals [X] Physical damage over 4 seconds. (We do not care about this line for this build) While standing in Earthquakes and for 4 seconds afterwards, you gain [10-25%] increased Damage Reduction.
Gloves	N/A	Vehement Brawler’s Aspect	– Casting an Ultimate Skill increases your damage by [10-30%] for 8 seconds. Gain 2 additional Ultimate Skill Ranks.
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	100,000 Steps	– When activating or refreshing the full Walking Arsenal key passive effect, you automatically cast Ground Stomp and gain 100 Fury. Can only occur once every 10 seconds.
Amulet	Grand Skull	Unbroken Chain	– Casting Steel Grasp reduced Iron Maelstrom‘s cooldown by [3.3-10] seconds. Enemies damaged by Iron Maelstrom deal [10-30%] less damage for 6 seconds.
Ring 1	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%
Ring 2	Grand Skull	Battle-Mad Aspect	– Gain x[20-40%] increased damage and Berserking for 4 seconds after swapping weapons 8 times.
2-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon	Igni and Tec or Grand Diamond	Aspect of Apogeic Furor	– Casting an Ultimate Skill increases your Ultimate Damage by x[6-10%] up to x[60-100%]. At 10 stacks, your Cooldowns and this bonus are reset.
2-Handed Slashing Weapon	Zan and Qax or Grand Diamond	Ancients’ Oath	Steel Grasp launches 2 additional chains. Enemies hit by Steel Grasp take x[40-60%] increased damage from you for 5 seconds.
Dual Wield Weapon 1	Grand Diamond	Aspect of Earthquakes	– Ground Stomp creates an Earthquake that deals [X] Physical damage over 4 seconds. While standing in Earthquakes and for 4 seconds afterwards, you deal x[10-25%] increased damage. Your Earthquakes deal x[10-25%] increased damage.
Dual Wield Weapon 2	Grand Diamond	Aspect of Shattering Steel	– Steel Grasp and Iron Maelstrom launch up to 10 metal shards that deal [X] Physical damage.

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. Maximum Life	1. Ground Stomp Size Wasteland Innovation 2. Maximum Life Worldly Endurance
Chest	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Needed Resistance	1. Ground Stomp Cooldown Reduction Barbarian Strategy 2. Ground Stomp Size Wasteland Innovation
Gloves	1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Strength 3. Attack Speed	1. Damage While Iron Maelstrom is active Demolition Finesse 2. Ground Stomp Size Wasteland Innovation
Pants	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Armor	1. Needed Resistance Natural Resistance 2. Maximum Life Worldly Endurance
Boots	1. Movement Speed 2. Strength 3. Maximum Life	1. Movement Speed Natural Motion 2. Earthquake Size Barbarian Innovation
Amulets	1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Attack Sped 3. Movement Speed	1. Iron Maelstrom Cooldown Reduction Ultimate Efficiency — Barbarian 2. Damage While Iron Maelstrom is active Demolition Finesse
Rings	1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Attack Speed 3. Strength	1. Iron Maelstrom Cooldown Reduction Ultimate Efficiency — Barbarian 2. Damage While Iron Maelstrom is active Demolition Finesse
2-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon	1. Strength 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Maximum Life	1. Chance for Iron Maelstrom to hit twice Weapon Augments 2. Damage While Iron Maelstrom is active Demolition Finesse
2-Handed Slashing Weapon	1. Strength 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Maximum Life	1 Chance for Iron Maelstrom to hit twice Weapon Augments 2. Damage While Iron Maelstrom is active Demolition Finesse
Dual-Wield Weapons	1. Strength 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Maximum Life	1. +Ranks to Heavy Hitter Vehement Augments 2. Damage While Iron Maelstrom is active Demolition 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 unique items useful to this build to provide more damage for specific abilities or overall utility.

• Tibault’s Will – Despite the nerfs to this item in Patch 1.4 this is still a powerful option to take for some added damage and a damage reduction.
• Unbroken Chain – This new neck introduced in season 5 maintains its power for builds using Steel Grasp so our maelstrom hits even harder. A must have for this setup.
• 100,000 Steps – These boots were kind of a joke in the community for a long time for how bad they were. But now, these boots are perfect for this setup and finally have a chance to shine.
• Ancients’ Oath – Another unique that wasn’t particularly powerful now revamped and ready for Vessel of Hatred this two-handed axe grants this build a ton of powerful benefits. Another must have.

Mythic Uniques

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

• Harlequin Crest – The most sought after helm in all Diablo 4. If you’re one of the fortunate ones to acquire this, it boosts all of your skills which for this build is a huge boon and provides some more cooldown and damage reduction.
• Tyrael’s Might – The most powerful chest in the game, bar none. If you’re lucky enough to find one equip it right away. It provides more resists than you’ll need while adding tons of movement, damage reduction and some cool holy bolts as the cherry on top of this awesome pie.
• Heir of Perdition – The new helm on the block. While not as immediately strong to this build as Harlequin Crest it remains worth listing here in case you get this one first. Equip it as soon as you get it and only replace it with a Shako.

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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 Diamond for Ultimate Damage	Grand Ruby for increased Strength	Grand Skull for increased armor. If you are lacking resistances use Grand Diamond

For your jewelry, it may be necessary to change the Grand Diamond for another gem for a specific type such as Grand Sapphire to ensure all of your resistances are capped at 70%. Mix in resistance gems and Skulls to make sure your resistances are capped and your armor is 1000 or more.

Runes

Runewords return from Diablo 2 in Vessel of Hatred! You are limited to two Runewords across your gear and it requires two sockets in the same item. So this limits creating Runewords by combining two Runes to either Helm, Chest, Pants, or Two-Handed Weapons. We generally recommend them in both of your Two-Handed Weapons for Barbarian. Let’s jump in.

Runes	Rune Effects
Zan	Gain 150 Offering: Cast an Ultimate Skill
Qax	Requires 400 Offering: Cooldown, 1 second. Your next Non-Basic Skill cast spends all of your Primary Resource to deal up to 100% increased damage
Igni	Gain 25 Offering: Stores offering every 0.3 seconds. Cast a Non-Basic Skill to gain the stored offering
Tec	Requires 50 Offering: Cooldown, 1 second. Invoke the Barbarian’s Earthquake, dealing damage to enemies within

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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. Keep in mind, Glyph’s reach their maximum radius at 46 and unlock their Legendary bonus at 45. 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

• Urivar’s Lobbed Bombs – This grants us some extra fire damage whenever we cast our Ultimate Skill which should be basically all the time. It also addes some extra cooldown reduction to help keep us spamming Iron Maelstrom

Modifier Powers

• Flesh Reaper’s Disruption – Provides us with a vulnerable damage multiplier. 5% at minimum and up to 10% based on our crowd control duration, we do not go out of the way to get this crowd control duration but the extra vulnerable damage is nice
• Hatred’s Embrace’s Haste – Provides an extra source of Critical Strike Chance based on our Shadow Resistance
• Harbinger of Hatred’s Volley – Gives us another source of vulnerable damage whenever we activate our main boss power which we should be doing all the time

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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

This build requires a bit of finesse to make sure we’re maintaining our Walking Arsenal buff. Let’s run our skills down.

• Use Ground Stomp to do damage and spawn earthquakes.
• Steel Grasp to grab enemies in, make then vulnerable and berserk yourself.
• Spam Iron Maelstrom as much as possible for big damage and maintaining Walking Arsenal.
• Use your three shouts War Cry, Rallying Cry, Challenging Shout to survive and for resource generation, unstoppable and damage.

Runeword Synergy

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

• Zan grants us 150 offering whenever we cast an Ultimate Skill which we do, a lot, since that is our main source of damage through Iron Maelstrom
• Qax requires 400 offering meaning 3 casts of our Ultimate when paired with Zan. After reaching this threshold, casting a skill other than a basic skill or defensive skill spends all of our resource to deal up to 100% more damage. We use this combo to juice our Iron Maelstrom by another 100% every 4th cast
• Igni stores 25 offering every 0.3 seconds and then when you use a non-basic skill you gain the stored up offering. Our Shouts or our Ultimate and even Ground Stomp will suffice to trigger this rune.
• Tec requires 50 offering, meaning on 0.6 seconds of Igni’s storage, to spawn our Earthquake which provides us some extra damage and synergies through our paragon nodes and aspects.

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 an Elixir providing any Resistance you need most, or the Elixir of Destruction which increases your Overpower damage. Craft the highest Elixir of Destruction you can.

Return to the Alchemist again every 5 to 10 levels 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:

• Iron Maelstrom damage bonus now capped at 200% when at Rank 5
• Fighter’s Steel Grasp now increases Steel Grasp damage by 200% in addition to the Berserking it provides

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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 sections updated for Season 7
• January 14th, 2025: Build updated for Season 7
• October 3rd 2024: Build updated for Season 6 and Vessel of Hatred
• August 3rd 2024: Build updated for season 5 and patch 1.5.0
• May 7th 2024: Ownership of page transferred, guide restructured, updated for Season 4
• March 5th 2024: Updates for Patch 1.3.3.
• January 21st 2024: Season 3 speculative changes.
• October 27th 2023: Build Creation Season 2.