D3 S28 Barbarian Fresh Level 70 Guide | 2.7.5

Well, let’s not beat around the bush. The fourth Kanai’s Cube slot is the ultimate buff here. Sure, the Pylons spawning a certain kind of “shadow clone” is cool and exciting in its own way… But when it comes to pure POWER, a fourth Kanai’s slot is probably the strongest ever buff we’ve had!

It doesn’t really help early on, but as you gather more and more legendary effects, it will help you out quite a bit. In the end-game, this is, at the very least, a 20/30% power spike to your character.

REROLLING YELLOW ITEMS IS SUPER LEGIT, CHEAP, AND UNDERRATED.
Nicely rerolled yellows will carry you for a LONG TIME.

WEAPON: Craft of find a 2H Mighty Weapon. The stats you want are STR VIT LpH. Socket is fine, too (Purple gem for LpH, Red for DMG+, Green for CHD+). Avoid any other stat for now.

Barb is an STR Class – meaning you get free ARMOR from all the STR on your gear. This results in a huge lack of ALL RESISTS. So, in your reroll strategy REMOVE ALL ARMOR ROLLS as they’re pretty much USELESS – and replace them with ALL RESISTS. ALLRES is your best defensive stat by a LARGE MARGIN. Socketing Diamonds also gives you ALLRES.

SELF HEALING: Life per Hit and/or Life per Fury Spent is pretty huge for your early game survival. You want at least some of it on your gear. LpH rolls on almost anything, but LpFS only shows up on MIGHTY WEAPONS and MIGHTY BELT. For this season’s free set, Savages, LpFS is pretty useless once you get your 6 piece bonus. So, while I would usually recommend LpFS – try to avoid it here in favor of LpH.

Elemental% can be found on Bracers and Amulets. In the final build, your element doesn’t matter as ALL FRENZY RUNES will be active eventually. However, if I were to choose one rune for the sake of helping you out early on – it would be Physical%.

Skill% (Frenzy%) can be found on Legs and Belt. Typically, it’s safer to roll on belt, but if you’re removing trash stats for it you can take it on legs, too. Having it on both is great at a cost to defensive stats.

Chest / Legs: STR VIT ALLRES Sockets (3/2). Life% isn’t bad either. Since you typically get these pieces last, you’ll want decent fillers until you get your 6pc set.

Belt: Is a huge source of defense. STR  > VIT > RES > Life%. You’ll be surprised how a single item can give you a whole load of toughness. Usually, I would recommend rolling a Mighty Belt for LpFS, but since you’ll eventually lean on Frenzy, it’s not needed.

Rings and Amulet: You NEED socket on these to prep for legendary gems. Get any stat on these that you feel you’re missing. Feeling soft? Get defenses. Need DPS? Crit and mainstat. Feel free to roll “random helpful stats” on these for now, instead of the usual endgame CHC/CHD/MAINSTAT.

GEMS: For body pieces you’ll want Diamonds for ALLRES. Helm may vary (Amethyst for Life%, Topaz for resource cost reduction, Diamond for Cooldown Reduction) depending on your needs.

OTHER SLOTS will be taken over by your free set pieces. No matter how bad they are stat wise, the 4pc bonus will heavily outperform any temporary yellow you can make.

Getting the “correct” stats beats getting the “perfect” stats for now. REMOVE USELESS STATS and get any USEFUL STAT for massive gains in power.

Remove useless stats

• Attack Speed – it’s usually an endgame tune-up stat.
• Excessive Resource Cost Reduction – Is a crutch and only niche builds need it.
• Excessive Cooldown Reduction – Only useful for an endgame “need”.
• Armor – Useless for us, take ALLRES instead.

Take better stats

• STR VIT – can’t go wrong with these. Your core stats!
• ALLRES Life% – Great defensive stats.
• Life per Hit – Great early game sustainability.
• CRIT Stats (CHC / CHD) – More for endgame, but I’d take this over garbage stats.

For clarity, this box contains info and builds if you currently have 0 pcs of the Savages free set, going for 2 (you don’t have any Haedrig’s gift bag, going for the first).

This build is a classic spin on Rend / WW / Furious Charge. I added Frenzy for anti-elites. It’s a great all-rounder that can handle mobs REALLY WELL and does ok versus bosses and single targets. It’s pretty much a copy of the L70 build from our Barbarian Leveling Guide, with minimal adjustments if any.

If you have a powerful legendary – edit the build to accommodate it if needed.

*Pressing Shift+J (PC) opens up your Seasonal Journey tracker!*

The entries in these early chapters are dead easy. The build above gives you a good balance of offense, defense, and speed built in to help you breeze through this as mindlessly as possible.

Hard Mode on for Chapters 1 & 2. Rend through all the entries on Hard. Just up the difficulty to complete one Neph on Expert.

Don’t forget to level up all the NPCs in town. Completing your weekly Challenge Rift will help you get resources to do this easily, if you haven’t already.

When you’re done here, get your first free set from your mail, and proceed onward.

For clarity, this box contains info for builds and info if you currently have 2 pcs of the Savages free set, going for 4 (you have the first Haedrig’s gift bag, going for the second).

If you have a powerful legendary – edit the build to accommodate it if needed.

BUILD NOTES: Here we make sure to utilize the 2pc set bonus.

*Pressing Shift+J (PC) opens up your Seasonal Journey tracker!*

Difficulty: Although there are entries here that need to be finished on Master, you can still complete the bounty cache, if you haven’t already, on Hard. For the bounty, try to do the whole five acts as you’ll need to do this down the line anyway.

These entries are still on the easy side, so we can be a little lax with our build making as little sacrifices as possible to retain good DPS, Speed, and some thought to defense. When you’re done with this chapter, collect your 2nd set of Haedrig’s Gift and let’s finish the next chapter for the remaining free gear!

No changes to the previous build, lol. Feel free to edit it if you need more DPS or Defense.

This build will be the baseline for all entries in this tier (Torment II, IV, and GR20). While this build may seem overkill for the Torment II entries, you may as well prep up for the harder parts of this tier.

Upgrade a Rare to Legendary w/ Kanai’s Cube: 2H Mighty Weapon for Bastion’s Revered.

Complete a Torment I Rift: This will be the minimum level you should be farming at should you need to do it. Increase if you can easily obliterate a rift. There’s also a “Kill a Torment II Boss” entry here which should be easy.

Complete any other odds and ends that you can, before proceeding to Torment IV.

Torment IV is where things get real. For many of the free sets, this place is the breakpoint whether your build needs help or not. And for S22 and Savages is “pretty ok”.

• Kill Odeg – Keywarden in ACT I, Fields of Misery.
• Kill Sokahr – Keywarden in ACT II, Dahlgur Oasis.
• Kill Xah’Rith – Keywarden in ACT III, Stonefort.
• Kill Nekarat – Keywarden in ACT IV, Gardens of Hope 2nd Tier.
• Kill Specific Boss – Check your journal to see who it is this season.
• Keywardens maps have a key icon next to the waypoint. Purple arrows point you to their location after a short while once you’re in their respective map.

For the boss and all Keywardens – STRAIGHT UP RUSH TO THEM!
Ignore ALL TRASH and just beeline! Get it done ASAP!

You’ll really notice if you’ve neglected your temporary yellow gear and rerolls. Hopefully, you have powerful legendary to carry you (and even if you do), you will notice if you’ve neglected your gear. Refer to the very top setting up tab if you need help.

Either way, this is a good time to take a closer look at your items and get as many powerups and rerolls stated in the setting up tab above.

No changes to the build still!

The build “just works”. It doesn’t seem like it should but I just kept clearing no matter how many times I tried. I can’t complain. I felt as if you REALLY need Frenzy% on legs and belt so try to get that if you haven’t. Cold% helps, too.

I even cleared WITHOUT REND! I tried Threatening Shout in place of Rend and Battle Rage in place of FC and it MAGICALLY WORKED OUT!

The shouts and stuns ultimately make you too tough, and give too great a vulnerability debuff on your enemies.

You should have an idea of how strong you are given the drops (or lack thereof) you’ve gotten. Be practical and don’t be afraid to shore up your build a little. If you feel a little weak – Do 4 quick Nephs, then do 4 GR10+.

The “ultimate” challenge gating you to getting your full six piece free set! The difficulty varies wildly on your class and seasonal set. As someone who has cleared with EVERY SINGLE SET AND CLASS WITHOUT ANY OTHER LEGENDARY – let me tell you, they’re not all created equal.

As implied, these are the items that are core to your build. I talk more about how to obtain these later on – remember to keep these in mind always.

At the very bottom of this guide, you can preview what a good base template build is for items / skills / passives to get an idea what you’re going for.

As implied, these are the items that are core, or relevant, to your build. I talk more about how to obtain these later on – remember to keep these in mind always.

At the very bottom of this guide, you can preview what a good base template build is for items / skills / passives to get an idea what you’re going for.