Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian Endgame Build Guide
Last Updated:October 8, 2024|Change Log|FAQ
Welcome to the Diablo 4 Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian Endgame Build Guide! This is a fan-favorite skill that returns to the franchise for Barbarians. While it naturally has a very small area of effect, we solve this by using Tempered Hammer of the Ancients Size and the Aspect of Ancestral Force (which, conveniently, can always be imprinted via the Codex of Power). These drastically increase the radius of the impact, allowing us to obliterate almost full screens of enemies.
To support Hammer of the Ancients, we take a lot of the standard tools for the endgame. Our main generator, Combat Bash, is used to keep our Fury levels high and strengthen our bonks with its inherent utility in granting guaranteed Overpower hits.
To help keep things comfy, we also pick up two powerful shouts: Challenging Shout for a massive chunk of damage reduction and increased Maximum Life, and Rallying Cry for Unstoppable status and Fortify generation. We also have Call of the Ancients as an Ultimate to fall back on for a multiplicative damage boost, Fury generation, and a very generous Attack Speed buff.
With all of this at our disposal, as well as Steel Grasp for those foolish enough to try and escape, nothing can withstand the pure power that Hammer of the Ancients can deliver. And with that... let's start smashing!
Note that Shroud of False Death has been temporarily disabled for the launch of Season 6 - Season of Hatred. Keep using the Chest Armor piece from the Starter or Ancestral variants until fixed!
This build guide assumes you have a Level 60 Character and unlocked Torment 1. To get there, level up with one of our Barbarian Leveling Guides. See how this Build compares against others with our various Build Tier Lists.
Season Theme
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:
- Seething Opal of Equipment
- Seething Opal of Gold
- Seething Opal of Materials
- Seething Opal of Torment
- Seething Opal of Socketables
Use these Opals at all times to earn reputation with the Zakarum Remnants faction and unlock further rewards.
Learn more details about the season theme in our full Season Guide.
Skills & Gameplay
- Bash is our Fury generator of choice; it is taken to utilize the guaranteed Overpower hits provided by its upgraded version, Combat Bash.
- Hammer of the Ancients is a heavy-hitting Core skill with a moderately high Fury cost. It shines most when it becomes Violent Hammer of the Ancients, which is essentially a permanent 40% damage bonus. The Ancestral Force Aspect further transforms this skill into an omni-directional shockwave that blasts most of the room to pieces.
- Rallying Cry gives us the ability to become Unstoppable and is also our primary way of generating Fortify. Additionally, it provides us some extra Movement Speed and increases the rate at which we recoup Fury.
- Challenging Shout is one of our main defensive buffs that grants us a huge percentage of damage reduction and Maximum Life. It also helps with grouping up enemies with its inherent Taunt ability.
- Steel Grasp provides excellent utility by pulling in and grouping up enemies. Ancients' Oath ensures that it can be used frequently while simultaneously boosting our damage significantly.
- Call of the Ancients is a skill we fall back on when we need a bit of extra damage during tougher encounters. The Ancients themselves don't do much damage in this setup, but the buffs provided while they are active are quite substantial.
Skill Rotation
- Ensure Challenging Shout and Rallying Cry are up whenever possible. With the high Cooldown Reduction provided by Rakanoth's Wake, Ancients' Oath and Bold Chieftain's, these can eventually become permanent buffs.
- Use Steel Grasp to pull in surrounding enemies and make a nice pile.
- Starting with Bash, alternate between casting Bash and Hammer of the Ancients with a 1:1 ratio. As long as Bash Critically Strikes 4 enemies, the following Hammer of the Ancients cast is a guaranteed Overpower.
- Note that this is only possible if the "Bash Cleaves" affix is tempered on a weapon, as this allows Combat Bash to activate per enemy hit, instead of per cast.
- Use Call of the Ancients whenever it is off cooldown, especially during longer fights, for more damage and Fury generation.
- Against Bosses: Since these are typically single-target fights, Bash needs to score 4 Critical Strikes before it grants its guaranteed Overpower. In most cases, this means the ratio of Bash to Hammer of the Ancients casts becomes 4:1.
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, regardless of which weapon we have equipped.
The Two-Handed Mace is our main (and only) weapon of choice, since Hammer of the Ancients requires a Two-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon. It has a great secondary effect that increases our Critical Strike Damage multiplier, and since we are built to cap our Critical Strike Chance, we are benefitting from this essentially always.
In the Technique Slot, the Two-Handed Axe allows us to deal 10% more damage to Vulnerable enemies. This build naturally has high Vulnerable uptime thanks to Enhanced Steel Grasp and Expose Vulnerability. Unfortunately, its secondary effect does not apply here - the limitation of the Technique Slot is that it does not allow us to benefit from the second bonus that is normally gained from reaching rank 10 with any weapon expertise.
Learn more details and how to unlock this class specification in our full Arsenal System Guide.
Paragon & Glyphs
Carefully check your Paragon Boards to ensure correct board rotation. Glyphs go from a radius of 3 to 4 at level 15 and from 4 to 5 at level 46. Some of them cannot be activated before reaching these thresholds! Progress through The Pit to rank up your Glyphs.
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.
Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian Endgame Paragon
Some Glyph position swaps, board changes and other pathing adjustments may occur as you unlock your full potential. The setup displayed by default is the final version of the build before spending additional points that do not significantly impact your character's power.
Placeholder Glyphs
- Territorial
- Changes to Wrath later in progression.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
Level 15
- Territorial
- Ire
- Challenger
- Dominate
- Crusher
Level 21
- Ire
- Dominate
- Challenger
- Wrath
- Crusher
There are a total of 328 Paragon Points. After reaching level 60, you gain up to 300 Paragon Levels, 24 from Renown and 4 from Altars of Lilith. Check out our dedicated in-depth guides to learn more about Paragon Boards and Glyphs.
Runes
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. The Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian focuses on the following combos:
Best in Slot
- Lith + Wat - While in combat, this Runeword constantly casts Horrid Decrepify, which causes all surrounding enemies to deal 20% less damage and be Executed when they drop below 10% health.
- Xol + Xal - This combination gives us 20% more Maximum Life when triggered by Lith + Wat. On top of it being a nice defensive boost, Maximum Life is also factored in when calculating damage for Overpower hits.
Alternative choices
If you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top runes, you can also benefit from these options:
- Bac - A good alternative/substitution for Lith.
- Vex - The extra skill ranks help with Shout buff effects and skill damage, as well as reduce some of our cooldowns.
- Gar - Helps cover gear options when trying to reach 100% Critical Strike Chance.
- Ohm - Gives us a way to cast War Cry without having it on our skill bar. For Barbarians, this Rune scales with any additional ranks we have in the skill tree or on gear.
- Tec - Useful early on for some extra damage. Also allows temporary use of the Earthquake and Bul-Kathos Aspects.
Learn more about Runes and how they work in our dedicated Runewords Overview and Runewords Tier List.
Mercenaries
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
He has a lot to offer us from a defensive standpoint. Skills like Valiance and Bastion help protect us from heavy hits and grant Unstoppable. Bastion also works in tandem with Ground Slam to provide some very strong offensive buffs with Inspiration. Lastly, he provides a pretty decent boost to all of our Resistances, which can help compensate for low rolls on gear.
Reinforcement: Aldkin
He serves as a nice panic button for dangerous encounters by casting Field of Languish, which slows enemies and reduces their damage.
Learn more about Mercenaries and how they work in our dedicated Mercenaries Overview.
Stat Priorities & Item Progression
To enable the Hammer of the Ancients 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
- 90%+ Critical Strike Chance
- 70%+ Chance for HotA to Deal Double Damage
- 50%+ Hammer of the Ancients Size
- 60%+ Attack Speed
- 300%+ Damage while Berserking (Blood Rage)
- 4500%+ Overpower Damage
- 3000+ Strength
- Armor Capped 1,000
- Resistance Capped 70%
- 20,000+ Life
- 160%+ Movement Speed
- 55%+ Cooldown Reduction
Item Progression Goals
Before you dive into the Endgame with the Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian, take a look at this overview of the items used in the build. 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.
Learn more details and how to farm Legendary Aspects and Uniques in our General Farming Guide.
Build Variants
This section is designed to guide your Hammer of the Ancients 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.
If you are fresh in Torment 1 coming from a leveling guide, this is where you begin. Since only some Aspects can be guaranteed from Dungeon unlocks for the Codex of Power, focus on acquiring the additional Aspects via gambling with Murmuring Obols.
Gear & Skills
- Note: If you have arrived here after following the Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian Leveling Guide, it's perfectly fine to continue using the Starter variant described in that guide if there are no issues. There is often more than one way to play a build successfully; feel free to choose or even combine ideas from both to customize the experience!
- During early progression, Armor & Resistances should be prioritized in order to survive. Each Torment difficulty adds a penalty of -250 Armor and -25% to all Resistances and it's recommended to keep both capped at all times; this means having a value of 1,000 for Armor and 70% for each Resistance. As masterworking levels and Paragon points are unlocked, character power naturally scales into the higher difficulties. As this happens, most of these stats can start being replaced with utility or offensive-oriented ones.
- Ancestral Force should be the first priority, since it gives Hammer of the Ancients some much needed area of effect and boosts its damage significantly.
- Juggernaut's, Steadfast Berserker's, and Anger Management are all extremely important, especially at this progression point. The former is very helpful for reaching Armor cap, while the latter two enable worry-free Berserking and Fortify uptime.
- Bold Chieftain's helps keep our Shouts off cooldown so we can benefit from them as much as possible.
- The combination of Ancestral Charge and Brawler's is helpful for clearing early on, and is a great way to supplement our damage while staying mobile.
- Edgemaster's, Limitless Rage, and Inner Calm are all generic multipliers that increase our damage.
- Ghostwalker is the best way to keep our Movement Speed high; we activate it by using both Charge and Rallying Cry.
The goal here is to progress through the Torment difficulties as you unlock Ancestrals, Paragon points, all Legendary Aspects, Temper mods and the most important Uniques to pilot this build. Some Legendary Aspects are used temporarily to fill slots that may be replaced with more Unique items later on.
Gear & Skills
- As gear is upgraded to Ancestral and more masterworking levels and Paragon points are unlocked, we can focus on replacing Armor and Resistance rolls with more desirable stats; however, staying capped at 1,000 Armor and 70% for all Resistances should always remain a priority for the current difficulty level.
- Ugly Bastard Helm is an incredibly strong item that gives a ton of damage reduction from ranks of Aggressive Resistance, as well as a hefty damage multiplier via its Unique effect. The Wrath of the Berserker Cooldown Reduction can be completely ignored; even though this is a wasted stat, everything else is too good to pass up.
- Tibault's Will works in combination with Rallying Cry to provide a decent damage boost, as well as a fairly high amount of damage reduction while Unstoppable.
- Rakanoth's Wake is a solid choice for patching up Resistances, but its main draw is the large amount of Cooldown Reduction it gives. This stat should be the priority, since we have a number of skills that we want to stay off cooldown as much as possible.
- We don't have room for the Charge Aspects in this setup, so we pick up Accelerating for some more Attack Speed.
- Ancients' Oath is another solid item that comes with a ton of Cooldown Reduction. Alongside well-rolled Rakanoth's Wake and Bold Chieftain's, we can achieve permanent Shout uptime, even on Bosses.
This is the final version of the build's progression, including all regular Unique items, Mythic Uniques, Legendary Aspects, Temper mods and Masterworking, leaving you with a great all-rounder build for all content in the game. Additional variants use this as a baseline to optimize around certain activities.
Gear & Skills
- Heir of Perdition is loaded with great stats for this build and is pretty much a no-brainer. It easily lets us hit Critical Strike Chance cap, gives a ton of ranks to Hammer of the Ancients, and comes with a built-in 60% damage multiplier.
- While the stats on Shroud of False Death are "okay" at best, its real power comes from its +1 to All Passives implicit modifier. To put that into perspective, we get an additional rank of the following important passives:
- Warpath
- Belligerence
- Imposing Presence
- Martial Vigor
- Aggressive Resistance
- Raid Leader
- Guttural Yell
- Pit Fighter
- Slaying Strike
- Counteroffensive
- Heavy Handed
- Wallop
- Brute Force
- Doombringer is amazing for Overpower builds since Maximum Life naturally scales Overpower damage. Aside from that, it gives an incredible amount of extra damage mitigation and helps us face-tank.
- Ring of Starless Skies is another no-brainer; it gives a bunch of Critical Strike Chance, Attack Speed, Hammer of the Ancients ranks, and a large damage multiplier that is very simple to keep active.
FAQ & Mechanics
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.
Why take Blood Rage with no source of Bleed?
How do I assign skills to the correct weapon?
Mechanics
Learn about the mechanical details which makes the build tick.
Coming Soon
Summary
The Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian is an absolute beast in pretty much all content. Here's why it is a great build:
- High damage output from its guaranteed Overpowers provided by Bash.
- High defense from its permanent Challenging Shout, Doombringer, and the Wat Rune.
- High mobility while travelling with Shroud of False Death.
- High utility in being able to group enemies via Steel Grasp.
- High uptime on all cooldowns with help from Rakanoth's Wake and Ancients' Oath.
- Low Fury maintenance; both Bash and Call of the Ancients keep it maxed out at pretty much all times.
Credits
Written by snail