If you want to level fast in Diablo 4 and you enjoy that big-hit playstyle, the Hammer of the Ancients Barbarian is a great way to go, especially once you’ve got enough Diablo 4 gold to keep your gear upgraded. The idea is simple: stack as many buffs as possible on your hammer swings so they hit like a truck, then keep swinging. You lean hard into Critical Strike and Overpower scaling, so every hit feels like it matters. When it clicks, you’re not chipping away at packs, you’re just walking into a dungeon, lining things up, and watching them disappear.

Core Skills And Arsenal Setup

The build really starts with how you set up the Arsenal System. You want Hammer of the Ancients slotted into your Two-Handed Bludgeoning weapon, because that’s where your Overpower scaling comes from. Skip that, and the damage never quite feels right. For your basic skill, Flay does the job. It’s there for those moments when your Fury runs dry, but once your build is rolling you’re not pressing it much. Things take off once you imprint the Aspect of Ancestral Force on a one-handed weapon. That aspect makes each hammer swing send out a shockwave in a line, so you don’t have to line up every target perfectly. You just swing toward a pack and the ripples do the rest.

Fury Generation And Mobility

Early on, Fury feels like the main thing holding Barbarians back, so this setup leans into tools that fix that. Rallying Cry is basically mandatory: it speeds you up, gives you Unstoppable, and massively boosts Fury generation so you can actually spam your core skill. Pair it with Ground Stomp and things get smoother. Stomp stuns enemies, which works nicely with Aspect of Retribution for extra damage, and the Fury gain from it is instant. If you add the Aspect of the Umbral, every stun or crowd control hit refills your resource bar so often you stop worrying about it. For movement, Leap fills the gap. With Aspect of Bul-Kathos, your leap leaves behind earthquakes that tick damage and give you damage reduction while you stand in them, so you’re not as scared of jumping into the middle of a big group.

Staying Alive In Melee Range

You’re always up close, so the build leans on armor and max life rather than trying to dance around every hit. The Aspect of Disobedience on your helm stacks armor as you deal damage, which works well in longer fights or big pulls. Iron Skin, especially paired with the Aspect of Iron Warrior, becomes a panic button that gives you a big barrier and Unstoppable at the same time, letting you survive mistakes or nasty elite affixes. For passives, Pit Fighter helps a lot more than it looks on paper by cutting down damage from ranged enemies while boosting what you do up close. Brute Force is another key passive, pushing your Overpower hits even higher and making those huge hammer swings feel worth the setup.

Tempering, Rotation And Playstyle

Once you start tempering gear, your priorities shift a bit. On armor, anything that increases the size of Hammer of the Ancients is gold, because a bigger hit zone means faster dungeon clears and fewer stragglers. Getting that area up to around double size feels great in practice. On weapons, a chance to cast HotA twice is one of the best upgrades you can find, since it’s basically free extra damage whenever it procs. The flow of combat ends up being pretty simple: pop your shout to get moving, Leap into a pack, Ground Stomp to lock them down and top off Fury, then spam Hammer until the floor is clear, and repeat in the next room. Once you’ve tuned your gear, picked up the right passives, and grabbed a few strong Diablo 4 Items buy options along the way, the build turns leveling into a fast, almost rhythmic loop that’s easy to stick with for hours.