Rend Barbarian Leveling Guide (1-50)

Overview

• Our prediction is that Rend will most likely be the best leveling build for Barbarian. It lacks a bit in AoE, but it has quite high single-target damage. This build does not really require any aspects to level since it is quite strong on its own. There are some aspects that will provide us a boost to some Fury Regen for some quality of life. This will also synergize well with Edgemaster’s Aspect, but other than that, they don’t have fantastic access to any crazy legendaries to speed up the leveling process.
• Rend is our main damage dealer. We are looking to group and kite enemies together to try to get them into the cleave range of Rend and apply enough bleed to kill them.
• For elites and bosses, we want to stack as much bleed as possible before bursting them with rupture.
• For big packs and elites, we can use Iron Maelstrom for a nice screen wide AoE ability.
• This build is pretty good in group play since Barbarian shouts are extremely valuable.

Skill Progression

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Arsenal System

• The Barbarians will unlock the Arsenal System. At level 15, they will be able to pick a weapon for their Technique Slot. For this build, we want to use a Two-Handed Sword as our technique to increase our bleeding damage.

• Although the Technique Slot is important, if you find a much stronger weapon that would be replacing your Two-Handed sword, you should use the new weapon instead. The weapon technique slow becomes much more important late game when you have a powerful Two-Handed sword you plan on using and holding onto for a long time.

Leveling Aspects (Codex of Power)

These aspects can be grabbed throughout your leveling process and should be thrown on Jewelry slots when leveling.

Offensive:

• One aspect to pick up early is Edgemaster’s Aspect. This will give us higher damage on our Rend when we are casting it at high Fury. Since this build has good Fury Generation, this item gives us a nice damage increase. This should be put on your amulet.
  

Resource:

• Aspect of Echoing Fury grants us extra Fury regeneration whenever we cast a shout. This can be found in the Sirocco Caverns in Kehjistan. This synergizes well with Booming Voice and Raid Leader quite well. Booming Voice increases the duration of our shouts, increasing the value from the aspect, and Raid Leader provides a heal while Shouts are active as well.
  

• Another great aspect for this build is the Stalking Aspect. This gives us a relatively high Lucky Hit Chance to gain fury when Rend deals direct damage to at least one Bleeding enemy. This just gives us a lot of extra Fury, which will give us some more value out of Edgemaster’s. This can be found in Maulwood in Fractured Peaks. You should be looking to grab this in Act 1 as soon as possible.

Other Useful Aspects for the Codex

Offensive:

• Aspect of the Expectant can be found in the Underroot dungeon in Scosglen. This aspect will grant us a damage bonus to our Core Skill when casting our basic skill. Since we will us Lunging Strike to not only generate Fury, but also as a mobility tool, this gives us some extra damage on our Core Skill

Defensive:

• Aspect of Might is always a fantastic option that you can work into any build for some extra tankiness. This aspect grants 20% damage reduction for a few seconds after using your basic skill. You should try to keep this up as often as possible to avoid dying, especially in hardcore. This can be found in the Dark Ravine in Dry Steppes.

• Aspect of Disobedience gives us a large percent buff to our armor every time we deal any form of damage. This is a stacking buff that will give us a lot of added tankiness for survivability. Running a Skull in your jewelry slots has a much higher value when using this aspect. This can be found in the Halls of the Damned in Kehjistan.

• Iron Blood Aspect gives us a damage reduction buff for each nearby bleeding enemy. This is great for our build since all of our damage is centered around bleeds. This can be found in the Forgotten Ruins in Kehjistan.

Utility:

• Aspect of Anemia can be found in the Kor Dragan Barracks in the Fractured Peaks. This aspect gives us a lucky hit chance to stun a Bleeding target with any direct damage. This build lacks in crowd control, so this aspect has high value.
  

Other Helpful Aspects

These aspects could help us when leveling. You can equip these if they are on an item better than what you currently have equipped, but when you are ready to replace it, make sure to extract these powers since they will be useful later on in the game.

Offensive:

• Aspect of Limitless Rage is an RNG drop that grants our Core Skill increased damage for every point of Fury we generate past the Maximum value. This build has very good fury regeneration, so this item will actually give us free damage when we overcap our fury.

• Skullbreakers Aspect is another great RNG drop. This aspect will make stuns deal a percent of the total Bleeding applied to them. The cool thing about this aspect is that it does not consume the percent of bleeding when it deals the damage, so you want to use some sort of stun before casting rupture. You can swap out Iron Maelstrom for Ground Stomp if you want to use this aspect when leveling for more consistent damage.

Resource:

• Bold Chieftain’s Aspect is probably one of the best aspects for Barbarian in the game. This aspect will give us massive uptime on our shouts since it will reduce the cooldown based on how many enemies are affected by it. This can reduce up to 12 seconds of your shouts cooldown and can roll as high as 5.4 seconds per nearby enemy. Pairing this with Aspect of Echoing Fury will give us all of the Fury generation we need.

Stat Priorities

Gems

Alternative Leveling Guides

• HotA (GUIDE SOON)