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Hammer of the Ancients is one of the crunchiest and most satisfying abilities that the Barbarian has in Diablo 4, capable of delivering big, meaty swings that can turn most monsters into chunky red mists in a single hit.
While the Triple Shout Whirlwind build is the most commonly used one in Diablo 4's endgame Barbarian meta, Hammer of the Ancients still has a place in the class' repertoire with its slow yet extremely gratifying playstyle. Here's one Level 60 HotA setup that can one-shot dungeon elites and devastate pretty much everything else in the open world.
Our endgame Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian Build guide for Diablo 4 is still accurate, even with the changes made with the 1.0.3 patch released on June 27, 2023.
Diablo 4 Hammer of the Ancients Endgame Build
First, players need to understand that Hammer of the Ancients needs time to ramp up. Its strongest upgrades make it deal the most damage while the player is at max Fury—pacing and resource management play critical roles in this build, and players must adjust their style if they want to deal the most DPS.
Hot Bar Skill Setup
Skill | Points |
Lunging Strike | 1 |
Battle Lunging Strike | 1 |
Hammer of the Ancients | 5 |
Furious Hammer of the Ancients | 1 |
Rallying Cry | 5 |
Tactical Rallying Cry | 1 |
Challenging Shout | 1 |
Tactical Challenging Shout | 1 |
Leap | 1 |
Power Leap | 1 |
Call of the Ancients | 1 |
Supreme Call of the Ancients | 1 |
Take Battle Lunging Strike and assign the Two-Handed Slashing Weapon to it for the sake of triggering passive nodes (more on these below).
Rallying Cry and Challenging Shout with their related Fury generation nodes are required to maintain the resource cost of Hammer of the Ancients. Both also increase the Barbarian's survivability by providing movement speed and Unstoppable as well damage reduction. Meanwhile, Leap using One-Handed Weapons is here for three reasons: Fury generation, mobility, and AOE Vulnerability application via Paragon bonuses.
Call of the Ancients is the preferred Ultimate here for its universal effectiveness. It's a fire-and-forget skill that can help burn down tanky targets while increasing the player's resource generation. Top all of these off by equipping Two-Handed Axe in the Weapon Expertise Technique slot to increase damage against Vulnerable targets.
Passive Skill Setup
Skill | Points |
Endless Fury | 3 |
Booming Voice | 3 |
Raid Leader | 3 |
Swiftness | 3 |
Pit Fighter | 3 |
No Mercy | 3 |
Hamstring | 1 |
Wallop | 3 |
Tempered Fury | 3 |
Furious Impulse | 3 |
Unbridled Rage | 1 |
This setup maximizes melee damage, survivability, and Fury generation with Unbridled Rage as the Key Passive, which increases Core Skill damage by 135% while doubling their Fury cost.
Players will be using Battle Lunging Strike a lot in this build, which is why points are spent on Endless Fury and Hamstring. The former increases Fury generation while the latter Slows bleeding targets, making them susceptible to damage modifiers against Slowed and Crowd-Controlled enemies as well as the No Mercy passive.
Furious Impulse softens Unbridled Rage's impact on resource costs by generating more Fury every time the Barbarian changes weapons. This is why it's important to assign different weapons to Lunging Strike and Leap. Additionally, this passive basically reduces HotA's resource cost by refunding 6 Fury on each non-consecutive cast.
The other passives are here to improve survivability and quality of life. Raid Leader grants passive health regeneration when Shouts are active while Wallop increases Two-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon damage against anything that's Vulnerable.
Gear and Legendary Aspects
Aspect | Effect |
Ancestral Force | Hammer of the Ancients deals damage in an area |
Expectant | Core Skill Damage increases when Basic Skills deal damage |
Edgemaster | Core Skills deal more damage based on the user's current resource level |
Echoing Fury | Shouts generate Fury when active |
Inner Calm | Gain stacks that increase damage while standing still |
These are the main offensive Aspects that players should have on their gear pieces when using this build, though there is some room for flexibility. They all feed into making Hammer of the Ancients deal the most damage while keeping Fury levels healthy. Use defensive Aspects for the remaining vacant gear slots.
Inner Calm is mostly used for boss damage. Everything else is likely to die in one or two hits, so players won't have to worry about standing still in a pack of mobs. Also, Lunging Strike will not dispel Inner Calm as long as players don't take a single step forward.
Players can use whatever they want as long as they have the Aspects listed above. Preferably, they should look for gear pieces that increase damage against Bleeding, Vulnerable, and Crowd-Controlled. As for Uniques, the Melted Heart of Selig can boost HotA's damage even further by providing an extra 30% max Fury on top of giving more resource generation and Core Skill damage.
Paragon Board Setup
The Warbringer board is the preferred pick for this build due to its Physical Damage and Fury generation bonuses. Take the Attachment Gate closest to Hungering Fury, Raw Power, and the Glyph Socket to make the most out of it early on. Unlock Conditioned and its surrounding nodes to increase survivability.
Exploit is the best Glyph for this build as it guarantees Vulnerable procs—players only need to hit enemies with either Lunging Strike or Leap to inflict the status ailment.
Later on, players should take other Paragon Boards that increase raw Physical Damage and resource generation. Weapon Master is an excellent choice here since it has Hunter Killer and a legendary node that generates extra Fury when swapping weapons.
Diablo 4 is available on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, and PS5.