Ulfhednar's Charge Barb

Ulfhednar is at it again, coming up with another endgame barbarian that really charges its way to the top. Quickly make your way through T100 Nightmare Dungeons while taking the enemies into your own hands, literally. Pin them against the wall before beating them down with a flurry of blows from Double Strike and watch them explode from the satisfying effect of The Barber Malignant Heart. An enemy is running away? Don’t worry, just pull them back in with Steel Grasp and put them back against the wall where they belong. Check out the full build in our Calculator Here!

How It Works

Charge is the main focus of Ulfhednar’s newest build, and he takes advantage of Double Swing to amplify its damage significantly. This is done with a powerful combination of The Barber, Veteran Brawler’s Aspect, Double Swing, and clever use of axes. The goal here is to pull enemies where you need them using Steel Grasp then Charge them into a wall for extra damage and a stun. In the meantime you hammer into them using Double Swing, activating The Barber and stacking damage for your next Charge with the Veteran Brawler’s aspect.

Damage

• The Barber Malignant Heart: This heart proves itself again as one of the highest damaging resources this season. When you crit, The Barber activates and for 2-4 seconds all damage taken by the enemy you crit will be absorbed, increasing by a percent each second before exploding in an area around the target.

  • The high amount of attack speed and multi-hits from Double Swing make The Barber incredibly consistent and provides a reliable source of damage.
• Veteran Brawler’s Aspect: Each time a Core Skill deals direct damage to an enemy, your next Charge or Leap deals 30-40% increased damage, up to 450-600%. To get this high of percentages, you need to put this aspect on a two-handed weapon. Double Swing doubles down on charging this aspect because it hits twice per use. Taking advantage of that and the attack speed of this build, you will frequently be nuking enemies with Charge.
• Charge: This multi-purpose attack is amazing, not just for its damage but for its crowd control potential with the Aspect of Ancestral Charge. This aspect not only increases the damage of Charge but, more importantly, calls forth 4 Ancients who also Charge with you, making this attack cover a lot more area. This in turn makes stunning large groups of enemies very easy.
• Berserking: While this status effect is applied, your damage is increased by 25% and your movement speed increases by 30%. Another focus of this build that happens passively is keeping Berserking active constantly. Using the updated Unconstrained key passive compliments this playstyle by increasing the maximum duration and bringing the damage increase up to 60%. The Aspect of Berserk Ripping also helps add additional damage on top.

Fury Generation

• Aspect of Unrelenting Fury: Hitting a boss or killing an enemy with a Core Skill will refund 20-30% of its Fury cost. This doesn’t sound like much but in combination with the other sources of fury generation this will help provide an almost unlimited amount of fury.
• Challenging Shout: Taking Tactical Challenging Shout will grant you 3 Fury each time you take damage while the shout is active, which can be permanent with the combination of crowd control duration and strategic management.
• Rallying Cry: This shout massively increases your resource generation as well as a set amount of 20 Fury when taking Tactical Rallying Cry. As an added bonus and safety, it also grants you Unstoppable while active.

Crowd Control

• Steel Grasp: This ability makes stunning with Charge significantly easier by allowing you to group enemies up and pull them closer to a wall or terrain. Grabbing Enhanced Steel Grasp and Fighter’s Steel Grasp is essential as a means of applying Vulnerable and activating Berserking.
• Punishing Speed Malignant Heart: With this heart your Skills have a 30-40% chance to Knock Down all enemies for 1.25 seconds when that Skill’s Attack Speed is higher than 20-35%. Due to all of the attack speed bonuses you are getting passively, all of your skills will gain this effect making the activation very consistent.
• Azurewrath: With this unique sword your Lucky Hit has a chance to freeze enemies for 3 seconds and deal some extra cold damage when using your core skills. This also procs frequently given your attack speed.
  

Defense

• Aspect of Disobedience: When you deal any form of damage, this aspect increases your armor for 4 seconds stacking up to 30%. Passively increasing your armor by a percentage makes this aspect a must have.
• Iron Skin: This skill grants you a massive barrier and heals you on top of it. The Aspect of the Iron Warrior also makes this ability grant you Unstoppable and up to 28% damage reduction on top of it.
• Challenging Shout: The 40% damage reduction, 20% bonus maximum life, and fury generation from this skill gives it perfect synergy with this build. What is not to like about that?
  

Gear Stat Priority

• Helmet

  • Cooldown Reduction
  • Crowd Control Duration
  • Maximum Life
  • Total Armor
• Chest

  • Total Armor
  • Brawling Skill Damage
  • Damage with Skills that Swap to New Weapons
  • Damage Reduction from Close Enemies
• Gloves

  • Critical Strike Chance
  • Attack Speed
  • Ranks of Double Swing
  • Strength

    • Note: If you want to truly min-max you can replace the Strength roll with “Attack Speed for 4 Seconds After Dodging an Attack” by making a Rogue and rerolling the affix using that class before giving it to your Barbarian.
• Pants

  • Damage Reduction
  • Total Armor
  • Damage Reduction from Close Enemies
  • Ranks of Charge
• Boots

  • Strength
  • Damage Reduction while Injured
  • Movement Speed
  • Fury Cost Reduction
• Amulet

  • Brawling Skill Damage
  • Cooldown Reduction
  • Ranks of All Brawling Skills
  • Movement Speed
• Ring 1

  • Critical Strike Chance
  • Vulnerable Damage
  • Maximum Life
  • Resource Generation
• Ring 2

  • Critical Strike Damage
  • Critical Strike Chance
  • Vulnerable Damage
  • Resource Generation
• Two-Handed Mace

  • Critical Strike Damage
  • All Stats
  • Vulnerable Damage
  • Damage to Close Enemies
• One-Handed Axe

  • Critical Strike Damage
  • Damage to Slowed Enemies
  • All Stats
  • Vulnerable Damage
• One-Handed Sword - Azurewrath Unique
• Two-Handed Axe

  • Damage to Close Enemies
  • Critical Strike Damage
  • All Stats
  • Vulnerable Damage
• Note: We are using axes here instead of swords to take advantage of the weapon implicit “Damage to Healthy Enemies”. When using The Barber Malignant Heart, the enemies are still considered “Healthy” until after the damage procs if it was activated while they still had high enough HP.
  

Paragon

• Starting Board: Ulf grabs Tenacity, Brawn, Raw Power, and Iron Strength for the damage, health, and armor. He slots Exploit for the extra Vulnerable damage and to help keep Vulnerable up even more consistently.

• Weapons Master: Ulf rotates this board twice before picking up Raw Power and Iron Strength for armor and damage. The small pit stop on this board grants him quick access to another slot for the Cleaver glyph. This glyph gives him increased damage and increased critical damage while wielding axes.

• Carnage: Attached to the right of Weapons Master and left unrotated. Berserker, Carnage, Fierce, and Brash are what Ulf grabs next for some defense, damage while berserking, and more attack speed by landing critical hits while berserking. He slots Mortal Draw for increased damage and critical strike chance while swapping weapons.

• Flawless Technique: Attached above Carnage and rotated once. Ulf grabs Slayer, Brash, Heavy Blows, and Havoc for damage, armor, and damage reduction from close enemies. Ambidextrous is slotted on this board for the bonus to magic nodes and increase in damage with one-handed weapons.

• Bone Breaker: Attached to the left of Flawless Technique and rotated three times. Ulf makes a small stop here for Vigor, Tenacity, and another glyph socket. The rare nodes give him more defense and health. He sockets Wrath for increased critical damage and fury generation.

• Decimator: Attached to the top of Flawless Technique and rotated once. Ulf picks up Pillage, Arrogance, Demolish, Brawn, and Destroyer for massive amounts of damage and a bit of defense. He slots Might for the bonus to magic nodes and increased damage while wielding two-handed weapons.

Wrapping It Up

Taking advantage of clever tactics, this build lets you charge into the fray with no fear. With the provided crowd control and mobility you can easily put your foes exactly where you want them and keep them there whether they want it or not. While rotating through your shouts for defense and fury generation you will have plenty of time to focus on beating the enemies down with quick hits from Double Strike to then crush them between a rock and a hard place (you). After that satisfying crunch you are rewarded with the explosion from the Barber, finishing off anyone left standing. For more Diablo IV content check out Ulfhednar’s channel Here and for his build in our calculator click Here!