As you level your Barbarian inDiablo 4, you will unlock the ability to equip one of four unique Key Passives that will influence how you play the game. These Key Passives are abilities that activate when you reach certain criteria and offer an immense boost to the overall power of a specific build.
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However, while these passives can be a massive improvement to your builds, not every Key Passive will seamlessly work with specific character builds, and you’re able to only equip one of these Key Passives at a time. If you do not want to spend the gold to equip a new Key Passive, then familiarize yourself with the list below to learn which of these abilities will bolster your gameplay the most.
4Gushing Wounds
Whenever you cast your skills or inflict damage on certain enemies, you have a chance to cause the bleeding status effect, which will slowly deal consistent damage over time. While the bleed status effect is mainly used to regenerate fury and apply consistent damage, the Gushing Wounds Key Passive turns this status effect into the main outlet of your damage.
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With this Key Passive active, the amount of bleeding and bleed damage you cause can now be influenced by your critical strike stats. Specifically, the amount of bleed you apply is determined by your critical strike chance, while the damage of the bleed coincides with the maximum amount of critical strike damage in your build.
Since this buff is calculated from your critical strike chance you should always ensure that you have a desirable amount of crit in your build, or else you risk the chance of making this passive completely useless. Overall, while this passive can offer some massive damage increases, only upgrade this Key Passive if you are willing tofiddle with your builduntil you have the perfect critical strike ratio.
3Unconstrained
Any time during combat, Barbarians can activate the Berserk skill, and instantly earn a five-second burst of movement speed, and also a 25% overall damage buff. However, by using this skill alongside the Unconstrained Key Passive, you will receive a flat damage boost of 50%, instead of the original 25% increase.
Keep in mind that, unlike other buffs on this list, this specific damage increase applies to every type of damage you can dish out, so it is not solely limited to skills or basic attacks. Since this buff only lasts for five seconds, you should carefully and tactfully plan out which skills and attacks to use right after activating this damage increase, so you can effortlessly get the most damage out of this passive.
Sadly, while this Key Passive is incredibly easy to activate, the Barbarian class hassome crowd-control skillsthat take some serious cast time, meaning that certain aspects of your kit must be abandoned to truly benefit from this buff.
2Unbridled Rage
Unlike the other Key Passives on this list, Unbridled Rage has no caveats that must be completed before you’re able to benefit from this passive’s buffs and instead replaces this system with a substantial nerf to your fury management. Specifically, if you equip Unbridled Rage, all of your core skills will deal 135% increased damage but cost double the amount of fury to cast.
Similar toall the other classes in Diablo 4, the Barbarian has a resource that is completely unique to them called Fury.
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Fury is consumed whenever you cast any of your skills and can be regained by taking damage or drawing blood. Although the nerf from this can be pretty substantial, correctly building around the extra fury cost will allow you to truly dish out some of the highest damage from the Barbarian class.
Finally, just because you have this passive equipped doesn’t mean you must completely build around it, especially if you are skilled enough to play around with the extra fury cost.
1Walking Arsenal
As you enter the late game of Diablo 4, you will almost exclusively use two-handed weapons to tear your way through difficult bosses and dungeons. By equipping the Walking Arsenal Key Passive, you will deal 10% increased damage to all enemies whenever you strike them with a bludgeoning attack, a slash, or just a simple dual-wielded weapon.
Luckily, these bonuses can all be stacked independently of one another, meaning you may have multiple activations simultaneously. Furthermore, having all three bonuses active at once will give you a further 15% increased damage, meaning you can deal up to 45% more damage by simply attacking with this Key Passive.
If you chose to equip Walking Arsenal, then you should remember to plan out your attack combos before you enter combat, so you can always juggle your passive’s bonuses and maintain the maximum attack damage buff.
Next:Diablo 4: Armor And Resistances, Explained
