Diablo Immortal Barbarian: overview and best builds

The Diablo Immortal Barbarian sees an old friend and staple of the Diablo series making a grand return - and they aren't shy about introducing their axes to the dark tide of demons barrelling towards them.

Ever since joining the fray in Diablo 2, the Barbarian has madea name for itself as a frenzied blur of weaponry and shouting. Their appearance in Diablo Immortal is a welcome sign that they are set to carry on the tradition of slicing and dicing their way through the denizens of Hell - now from the handy comfort of your smartphone.

Getting a handle on Barbarian means growing to love his powerful area-of-effect damage and overall agility, which he uses to run rings around the competition on the battlefield. Offering a powerful combination of burst damage, crowd control skills, and all-around toughness, the Barbarian makes you feel like a juggernaut threshing down fields of enemies like wheat. You’ll need to maintain balance, however, so you don’t get too side-tracked.

There’s a long list of creative ways to carve up your enemies, and the Barbarian is here to deliver it in spades. Here’s everything you need to know before taking the plunge and raising Caine as this formidable class type.

Diablo Immortal Barbarian

Diablo Immortal Barbarian: All Skills

Here's a rundown of all of the Barbarian's skills. Commit these to memory when designing builds to take into the battle field, or scroll down and try one of our own.

Lacerate (Primary Fire)

•  Unlocks at Level 1

One of the two main options for Barbarians as their primary attack. Lacerate heals you on every third attack, helping keep your health topped up as you brawl with the worst hell can throw at you.

In most situations, Lacerate is likely to give you the best results, with healing keeping your health topped off while crowds of enemies are chewing on you. 

Frenzy (Primary Fire)

• Unlocks at Level 34

The second option for Barbarian primary attacks is Frenzy. Sacrificing the heal on every third hit, you instead get an attack speed bonus each time you strike, which lasts a few seconds. The bonus can stack up to five times, so you can build up quite a boost to your damage.

Frenzy will end up doing more single target damage thanks to the attack speed, but the difference isn't that big. Most importantly, the ultimate it offers gives you some immunity to crowd control, which can be big in PvP.

Chained Spear

• Unlocks at level 3

Chained Spear tosses out three spears in a cone, damaging enemies that it hits and then pulling back in. Any enemies hit are dragged back in on the return, and take additional damage.

Most useful for PvP, so you can prevent pesky ranged enemies from escaping you – Chained Spear is also excellent for pulling enemies in to set up your next ability.

Cleave

• Unlocks at level 1

A simple swing, Cleave hits a small cone in front of you, damaging all enemies and adding a bleed effect that does damage over three seconds.

Cleave is an area-of-effect attack with limited range, but it does help to keep damage up on fleeing targets. Consider it against highly mobile enemies that you have trouble sticking with in either PvP or PvE.

Demoralize

• Unlocks at level 38

As an area-of-effect skill, Demoralize sees the Barbarian letting out a primal yell that damages and taunts all nearby monsters to attack them for eight seconds. It also reduces nearby enemies' damage done by 30%.

A good pick for difficult bosses and elites, Demoralize can help keep you alive and let your allies set up big area-of-effect combos. 

Furious Charge

• Unlocks at level 20

Furious Charge lets the Barbarian rush forward in a line, dealing damage and knocking away all enemies struck. It also stores up to three charges, so you can use it multiple times and really extend the distance you can cover.

An invaluable choice for PvP, Furious Charge helps you keep up with enemies that want to kite you around and stay out of reach.

Ground Stomp

• Unlocks at level 41

A Barbarian classic, Ground Stomp is a charged ability that does a shockwave of damage in a cone, dealing damage and stunning enemies. The longer you charge the ability, the more range and stun duration it gains, up to three seconds.

An area-of-effect stun is always welcome, and Ground Stomp can help prevent enemies from getting away from you in PvP – something that a melee-focused character like the Barbarian always struggles with.

Grab

• Unlocks at level 41

As one of the more amusing skills, Grab lets you pick up a nearby enemy and wield it as a weapon. This replaces your primary attack with a new one that does damage in a sweep in front of you. You can use Grab again to toss the enemy, damaging all the enemies in a line.

Unfortunately, Grab doesn't work in PvP or against bosses or elites, which relegates it to being a lot funnier than it is useful.

Hammer of the Ancients

• Unlocks at level 1

Calling forth a massive hammer and slamming it into the ground, Hammer of the Ancients does a burst of damage in a large area in front of the Barbarian. This attack shatters the ground, leaving behind an area that does additional damage over 2 seconds.

Available from the start and useful all the way to the end, Hammer of the Ancients is a great area-of-effect damage tool with good upgrades from legendaries. Don't overlook it just because you start with it.

Leap

• Unlocks level 28

Leap lets a Barbarian hurl themselves to a location, damaging nearby enemies when they land and slowing their movement by 50% for four seconds. As a bonus, each full health enemy struck will reduce the cooldown of Leap by one second.

Useful in PvE as an opening move, Leap can also make you a highly mobile pest in PvP when combined with Furious Charge. 

Sprint

• Unlocks at level 15

An all-around star, Sprint buffs your movement speed by 50% for 4.5 seconds. While active it also allows you to move through enemies and makes you immune to any movement impairing effects. 

There's really no situation you'll hate to have Sprint, since it's a short cooldown that makes repositioning in fights easy. It's not as flashy as other movement skills, but it's extremely reliable.

Undying Rage

• Unlocks at level 44

A very unusual skill, Undying Rage isn't something you activate. Instead, while Undying Rage is on your skill bar, if you would take fatal damage, it triggers and you enter a rage for a brief time that prevents you from dying, and causes all your attacks to heal you for 30% of the damage you do.

Getting a second chance after a mistake every 30 seconds is a powerful effect. Whether during PVP or just a particularly tough boss fight, Undying Rage is never unwelcome.

Whirlwind

• Unlocks at level 8

Unquestionably the most iconic Barbarian skill, Whirlwind turns you into a moving tornado, slowing the speed you move at but dealing constant damage to all nearby enemies. Whirlwind operates off of an energy bar, which is consumed while you use it and recovers when not in use.

Very little is more fun than turning into a spinning top of death, and Whirlwind is great in PvE or PvP for dealing out high area-of-effect damage. Grab it with both hands and don't look back.

Wrath of the Berserker

• Unlocks at level 50

With Wrath of the Berserker, the Barbarian gets a self-buff that stacks with any other buffs. When activated, it gives you 50% attack speed and 20% movement speed for 6.5 seconds, which can get out of control with other bonuses.

Best utilized in PvE, Wrath of the Berserker is a good button to press to help you tank through huge or unexpected hordes of enemies. In combination with Lacerate it can quickly heal you back up, so don't underestimate it.

Diablo Immortal Barbarian: Best Builds

The Barbarian is a powerful force of supernatural strength all on his own, but he will really shine given a truly brutal build to work with.

Try these two builds for a balanced yet bloody arrangement of damage versus mobility buffs, making you an asset to your crew any day of the week.

Doomwheel

• Lacerate (Primary)
• Whirlwind
• Sprint
• Furious Charge
• Hammer of the Ancients

It's a simple life, spinning and winning, and with this build the Barbarian can chase enemies, dash into fights, and clear out crowds. Like a sprinkler that dispenses damage instead of water, Whirlwind is the backbone of fights. You can use Furious Charge and Sprint to get from place to place or avoid enemy attacks, and then drop Hammer of the Ancients and start to spin.

Lacerate and its ultimate are a good fallback plan for staying alive and clearing out whatever enemies survive your killing spree. Just be aware that you aren't invincible, so you'll have to watch the size of the fights you pick or your friends are going to have a hard time visiting your grave to put flowers on it.

Stickybarb

• Frenzy (Primary)
• Chained Spear
• Furious Charge
• Ground Stomp
• Leap

Any player of melee-characters will tell you that the most annoying thing is being kited by your targets. Barbarian struggles with this just like anyone, so with this build you're trying to make sure you can stick to your target and get your damage in. With Chained Spear, you can nail running targets and pull them back to your weapons, perfect for setting them up for a Ground Stomp and some Frenzy attacks.

Between Furious Charge and its three stored charges and Leap, the Barbarian can close distance both rapidly and repeatedly. Together, they should give you more mobility than most characters, which will help you stick to them, just like the name suggests. Don't forget that Frenzy's ultimate also gives you some crowd control immunity - another tool for dealing with being kited.

• Peek at our rundown of what you need to know about the Diablo Immortal release