As Diablo 4 enters its sixth season, Barbarian class, which has strong survivability, is increasingly back in the players’ field of vision. But this does not mean that this class does not have a build that can provide a lot of damage, and Thorns Barbarian build is the best example. And in the new Season of Hatred Rising, this build has been improved and will perform better than before, and can even challenge some endgame content.

But what will not change is that any build requires you to build it carefully, so that the entire build will become strong enough. So in this guide, you will be introduced to the skill tree settings in Thorns Barbarian build and some gear choices in this build. If you are worried about how to build this build that can surprise you, then come and take a look!

About Thorns Barbarian Build

Unlike other popular Barbarian builds, Thorns Barbarian builds don’t use Earthquake and Dust Demon to stun enemies, but use Thorns to their full potential. This may be slower on bosses or endgame content, but it will allow you to survive tough boss encounters safely, and even run The Pit.

This build also requires the key passive skill Barbed Carapace, which gives you more Thorns to fire as you spend more Fury. This way, your Thorns will continue to spawn, and the damage you deal to enemies will continue. In addition, this key passive skill converts all Thorns damage into physical damage, and deals unpredictable damage to enemies that are close to you within 5 seconds.

Alternatively, you can combine Needleflare Horned Cudgel with Thorns, so that your fired Thorns will have more damage-dealing power. Overall, you should do your best to use the new Forgotten Souls in this season to re-roll your Enchantments or use some Diablo 4 Gold to make your key attributes powerful during your build.

Active Skills

For the skill tree of Thorns Barbarian Build, we still focus on enhancing the survivability of the build, because this is the biggest advantage of Barbarian Class. So the defensive skills Challenging Shout, Rallying Cry and War Cry are necessary.

Then you can choose the basic skill Flay to make enemies more vulnerable, and the 5% bleeding damage it casts can be used against most bosses, because they have no resistance to this element. Then you can choose the core skill of Upheaval to stun those vulnerable enemies so that they can be at your mercy.

For the final skill selection, Call of the Ancients is the wisest choice. Because this skill will greatly increase your damage ability and will also summon three Ancients to help you complete the battle, which is very necessary for Thorns Barbarian Build.

Skill Rotation

When using these skills, you should use Flay first to generate enough Fury, and most importantly, stack up Combat Flay. Next, you can use Upheaval to deal with enemies with high health or bosses. When these two damaging skills are on cooldown, you can protect yourself in this order: Challenging Shout, Rallying Cry, and War Cry. Finally, when the enemy’s health is low, you can use Call of the Ancients to finish the battle.

Runes

In this season, you don’t have to worry about Gems, but you do need to pay attention to the active runes on your build or gear. The right Runeword can allow you to trigger the skills or operations you want to perform smoothly, which will bring a lot of convenience to your exploration.

In Thorns Barbarian Build, the two Runewords you can choose are Lith (Legendary/Ritual) & Tec (Rune Invocation) and Yul (Legendary/Ritual) & Xal (Rare/Invocation). The former combination will provide you with Offering when you are stationary, which will allow you to use Earthquake more. The latter combination will provide you with Offering when your skills enter cooldown, which will give you 20% Maximum Life.

Combined with these two Runewords, your Thorns Barbarian Build has both high damage and high survivability. But here you need to be reminded that this is the most ideal state, and you can make appropriate adjustments according to your play style or habits.

Gear And Aspects

The first thing to note is that when choosing Gear and Aspects, we should focus on Thorns first, followed by Earthquake. Here are some of the build options you can choose, and their effects.

• Harlequin Crest (Helm): It helps you gain 20% Damage Reduction, and the level of all your skills increases by 4 levels.
• Razorplate (Chest Armor): It gives Thorns a 10% chance to deal 100%-200% additional damage.
• Aspect of Inner Calm (Gloves): It increases the overall damage you can currently deal by 5%-13%. This buff is doubled if you do nothing within 3 seconds.
• Aspect of Bul-Kathos (Pants): After you equip this aspect, Leap you use will trigger an Earthquake, and will deal 27-43 points of physical damage over 4 seconds. If you stand in an Earthquake, your Damage Reduction will increase by 10%-30%.
• Exploiter’s Aspect (Boots): This increases your ability to control enemies by 20%. It also increases your damage to enemies by 25%-45% when they are Unstoppable.
• Needleflare Aspect (Bludgeoning Weapon): This gives you a 25%-45% chance to use Thorns to deal extra damage to all enemies near you.
• Ancients’ Oath (Slashing Weapon): This gives you 207-270 extra damage to enemies very close to you and reduces your cooldown by 12-16%.
• Aspect of Elements (Dual-Wield Weapon 1): This increases your damage by 15%-35% for a group of damage types over a period of 7 seconds. Currently, only works on two groups of element types, one for Fire, Lightning and Physical, and the other for Cold, Poison, and Shadow.
• Doombringer (Dual-Wield Weapon 2): This Unique increases all your stats by 160 points, and your Damage Reduction by 10%. But the best part is that it gives your Lucky Hit a 25% chance to deal 900 Shadow damage to nearby enemies, which many enemies can’t resist.
• Aspect of Earthquakes (Amulet): Like Aspect of Bul-Kathos, it also triggers Earthquake, but this aspect can deal up to 167 - 287 physical damage.
• Bold Chieftain’s Aspect (Ring): When you use Shout skill, its cooldown will be reduced by 10%-30% as the number of nearby enemies decreases, up to a maximum of 50%.

The above are some skills and gear you can choose in Thorns Barbarian Build in Diablo 4 Season 6. It is still necessary to remind you that this guide is made for the construction ideas that the public expects. You can use this guide to combine your own game style to choose the most convenient construction for you.

If you have any ideas for other Barbarian builds that you want to share, you are welcome to come to IGGM Discord to discuss. You will also participate in a Season 6 exclusive lottery, and the prizes will include some very important summoning materials. The eventual results will be announced on November 4th. Wish you good luck!