Bash Barbarian Endgame Build Guide

Season 6 is the Season of Hatred Rising. It features the Zakarum Remnants faction which hunts Realmwalkers, massive behemoths that roam outdoor zones and beckon Mephisto's hellspawn. Participate in these zone events and take down the Realmwalkers to spawn a portal to a Seething Realm. There you can acquire Seething Opals, new consumables that stack with Elixirs for a XP buff and the chance to gather extra rewards when defeating enemies. The types of Opals are:

Use these Opals at all times to earn reputation with the Zakarum Remnants faction and unlock further rewards.

Skill Rotation

NOTE: At first, you need to get hit a few times to passively generate enough Fury to start using Bash.

• Challenging Shout must be used whenever it is available; Yen's Blessing automatically refreshes it as long as it is on cooldown.
• Wrath of the Berserker must also be active at all times, ideally before it falls off to keep the stacked bonus from Supreme Wrath of the Berserker and before pulling enemies to avoid pushing them away when they are packed on you.
• Use ‍Steel Grasp to pull in surrounding enemies within Bash range and reuse it as you see fit. Ideally, group up monsters tightly against walls or within choke points (pixel pull) to maximize your damage output.
• Immediately after, use Rupture to buff yourself and apply the Paingorger's Gauntlets mark in a wide area.
• Start spamming Bash in the general direction of your enemies and watch the magic happen as your Runewords automatically trigger War Cry and Earthquakes as you cast.
• Cast Hammer of the Ancients when a guaranteed Overpower from Combat Bash is available (very often), at most every 5 seconds to keep refreshing the Violent Hammer of the Ancients buff.
• Recast Rupture immediately after Hammer of the Ancients and keep Bashing or restart the loop from the Steel Grasp step if your current pack is dead.

PRO TIP: Make sure to use the Hold Position key when attacking to maximize your Inner Calm and Lith Rune buffs.

Arsenal System

The Arsenal System allows us to use a specific weapon for every attack skill, with each weapon granting different bonuses. We also have what is called the Technique Slot. With this, we can use any weapon of our choosing to always reap the benefit from its expertise bonus, regardless of which weapon we have equipped.

The ‍Two-Handed Mace is used as our assigned weapon for both Bash and Hammer of the Ancients to fully benefit from its expertise bonuses.

Assign the Dual-wield loadout to Rupture in order to benefit from its faster animation speed.

In the Technique Slot, the ‍Two-Handed Axe allows us to deal 10% more Damage to Vulnerable enemies. This build naturally has very high Vulnerable uptime thanks to the Lucky Hit Chance to make enemies Vulnerable affix, so this is a no-brainer. Unfortunately, its secondary effect does not apply here - the limitation of the Technique Slot being that it does not allow us to benefit from the second bonus that is normally gained when reaching expertise rank 10 with any weapon.

Use the slider to see the progression steps. At around Paragon 200, leveling slows down significantly and all important Rare clusters, Legendary nodes and Glyph sockets should be unlocked. Afterwards, you can min/max your build with minor tweaks and by picking up additional smaller nodes.

Glyph Leveling Priorities

You can have up to two Runewords in your setup, each consisting of one Ritual and one Invocation Rune. Socket them in Two-Handed Weapons if your build calls for them, otherwise place them into your Armor pieces to replace normal gems. This Bash Barbarian build focuses on the following combos:

Best in Slot

NOTE: Shouts triggered by Runes are affected by Shout bonuses (Skill Ranks, Enhanced Node, Passives and Aspects).

• Poc + Tec - This Runeword combination creates Earthquakes after casting Bash 8 to 10 times, which allows us to benefit from the Earthquakes Aspect.
• Lith + Ohm - This Runeword combination triggers War Cry after standing still in combat for 7.2 seconds. The buff lasting 8 seconds (thanks to Shroud of False Death), so this allow us to have it active at all times.

Alternative choices

If you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top Runes, you can also benefit from these options:

• Cir - A good early game alternative/substitution Ritual Rune for Tam to generate offerings.
• Gar - A strong early game Invocation Rune option when trying to reach 100% Critical Strike Chance.
• Yax - A very strong 200 offering Ritual Rune that triggers whenever you use a healing potion.

Mercenaries are unlocked during the Vessel of Hatred campaign and assist you in battle. There are 4 separate Mercenaries to choose from, each with their own skill trees and abilities. You can have one hired (permanent) mercenary during solo play and a reinforcement who assists you from time to time in certain situations.

Hired: Raheir

Raheir has a lot to offer us from a defensive standpoint as Skills like ‍Valiance and ‍Bastion help protect us from heavy hits and grant Unstoppable.

For our Mercenary Core Skill, we pick Ground Slam as its area of effect Slow capabilities are always helpful, and pair it with Raheir's Aegis, which provides a pretty decent boost to all of our Resistances and can help compensate for low rolls on gear.

For our Mercenary Iconic Skill, we choose Bastion to provide us very strong defensive and offensive buffs through Inspiration.

Reinforcement: Aldkin

We choose to bind Field of Languish to Rupture as a way of making sure the monsters are debuffed as we start our damage rotation.

Aldkin serves as a nice panic button for dangerous encounters by casting ‍Field of Languish, which slows enemies and reduces their damage.

To enable the Bash Barbarian to perform optimally, hunt for these stats on your gear with good rolls and aim to Temper⚒️ & Masterwork Crit ↑ them accordingly. Keep in mind that certain stats, such as Armor, Resistances, Extra Size Tempers, Attack Speed and more, have caps that may affect your priorities according to the items and Paragon points available at that moment.

Recommended Endgame Stat Thresholds

Item Progression Goals

Before you dive into the Endgame with the Bash Barbarian, take a look at this overview of the items used in the build and make sure to check them as you progress! See below for further details about the different progression steps and variants. Some of your Skill Tree choices depend on what Legendary Aspects and Unique items are available to you. Keep in mind that while we can guarantee that everyone has access to the same Codex of Power Aspects, the exact progression is different for everyone.

This section is designed to guide your Bash Barbarian from a fresh level 60 into the very late endgame using the three variants Starter, Ancestral and Mythic. At the final step, you should be fully decked out with a great all-rounder build. From there, follow the other min/max variants if you want to optimize around certain activities such as Pit Pushing, Speedfarming and more.

Once a guide is released, many players have questions on why and how we are approaching certain choices. In this section you can find the answers to the questions that have been asked the most.

Coming soon™

Mechanics

Coming soon™

Coming soon

The Bash Barbarian is a very dynamic build and an absolute "must try" for any Basic attack enjoyer. Here's why it's a great build:

• Up to 30+ Bash Ranks and massive damage multipliers from the newly added Ugly Bastard Helm and Runeword combinations!
• High defense from its permanent Challenging Shout and defense oriented Paragon Boards.
• Fairly easy to gear for and a solid Season starter.
• High utility in being able to group enemies via Steel Grasp.
• Low Fury maintenance; after passively generating your initial 25 Fury, Bash keeps it maxed at all times.
• High Ultimate uptime with Ugly Bastard Helm, Cooldown Reduction tempers and Hectic.

Written by Beatdropper

Reviewed by snail