Despite being a range-impaired class, the Barbarian in Diablo 4 is a monster on the battlefield—provided you play to its strengths using builds like Hammer of the Ancients or HotA for short. If you prefer smashing your enemies to bits as opposed to spinning, you’ll love this build. It’s all about using Shouts in an effort to gain a surplus of Fury for spamming Hammer of the Ancients!
Diablo 4 HOTA Barbarian Build Guide
In order for the Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian build to work in Diablo 4, you need a constant stream of Fury. While Hammer of the Ancients has a solid Fury-to-Damage ratio, you’ll still find yourself starved for that precious resource without a few key Aspects and skills.
All Skills Required for HotA Barbarian Build
| Category | Skills |
| Basic | Lunging Strike (x1), Enhanced Lunging Strike, Combat Lunging Strike |
| Core | Hammer of the Ancients (x5), Enhanced HotA, Furious HotA |
| Defensive | Rallying Cry (x1), Enhanced Rallying Cry, Tactical Rallying Cry, Challenging Shout (x1), Enhanced Challenging Shout, Tactical Challenging Shout |
| Brawling | War Cry (x1), Enhanced War Cry, Mighty or Power War Cry, Booming Voice (x3), Raid Leader x3), Guttural Yell (x3), Aggressive Resistance (x3), Prolific Fury (x3), Battle Fervor (x1) |
| Weapon Mastery | Pit Fighter (x3), No Mercy (x3) |
| Ultimate | Wrath of the Berserker, Prime WotB, Supreme WotB, Tempered Fury (x1), Invigorating Fury (x3) |
| Key Passive | Unbridled Rage |
Along with these skills, it’s important to pick the right Weapon Expertise. Hammer of the Ancients is exclusively a two-handed bludgeoning skill; in fact, you’ll be using it for all your offensive skills, including Lunge. As for your chosen Expertise, you have a few choices:
- One-handed Sword Expertise: A chance to gain additional Fury when attacking Crowd-controlled enemies
- Two-handed Sword Expertise: A percentage of damage dealt causes bleeding.
Since you’ll always have a chance to cause stuns through your skills, One-handed Sword Expertise can net you some easy Fury. However, there’s an alternative HotA build that takes Hamstring over Battle Fervor, in which case you’ll want Two-handed Sword Expertise to compound the bleeding effect.
Legendaries, Glyphs and Aspects to Equip
In terms of Aspects, this HotA Barbarian build requires very few to get started—three, to be specific. You’ll want the following:
- Aspect of Ancestral Force: Hammer of the Ancients quakes outwards.
- Aspect of Echoing Fury: Your Shouts generate Fury every second while active.
- Bold Chieftain’s Aspect: Casting a Shout reduces its cooldown based on the number of nearby enemies.
As you can see, the best Aspects are all about keeping Shouts up for as long as possible, granting you a constant source of Fury. Alternatively, Aspect of Berserk Fury works here too if you lack Aspect of Echoing Fury as you’ll be Berserking quite often.
When it comes to Glyphs, go with Exploit, Wrath, Marshal, Territorial, Disembowel, and Crusher. Ire is also a good one for bonus damage while Berserking, but replace it as soon as you get any of the aforementioned Glyphs for more consistent damage.
Hammer of the Ancients Skill Rotation
Ready to crush your enemies and see them driven before you? When you approach demons, activate your Shouts and start swinging with Hammer of the Ancients. The HotA Barbarian build is honestly that easy.
If there’s a particularly nasty demon, like an elite or a boss, use Wrath of the Berserker for extra damage. However, do try to avoid using HotA on tiny groups. You want to clump together as many targets as possible in order to generate more Fury with Enhanced Hammer of the Ancients.
That’s all it takes to make the HotA Barbarian build work in Diablo 4. You have to spend Fury to make Fury, essentially, which is where the listed Aspects come in handy. Since you can have Aspects in every slot, be on the lookout for Edgemaster’s Aspect, too. It’ll net you extra damage based on your primary resource!
