Bleed Rend Barbarian Guide (Season 3)
Season 3
Endgame
Storm through All Content with Ronarray's Bleed Rend Barbarian Build Guide!
Season 3 added a way for builds to stockpile power in the form of great buffs from Senechal Constructs and the way to have constant sources of Damage Buffs, Fortify and Resource Generation. It allows many builds to just drop Basic Attack while adding more QoL and Survivability / Damage Boosts.
One of those builds is Bleed Rend Barbarian that can be considered one of the strongest builds in the current meta due to the addition of new Unique Ring and Charge buffs.
All of the changes make Bleed Barbarian a proper S tier build with good enough single target to instantly kill Uber Lilith and enough Speed / Tankiness for easy clears of Tier 100 Nightmare Dungeons.
This Build Guide is mostly focusing on the endgame qualities of the Bleed Rend Barbarian Build so to try it out you should have at least a 60+ level character with access to paragon. To get more paragon points you can check out our Altar of Lilith Map.
Skill Tree
Main Skill
- Rend - Is the main skill of the build which is used constantly to deal with tougher enemies. By itself and through the passive bonus from Furious Rend + Aspect of unrelenting Fury it is very Fury efficient and could be used non stop when needed without losing any particular resource and staying on top of it for various bonuses. Skill applies Bleed to the enemies and deals a small portion of phys damage when hits.
AoE Damage / Crowd Control
- Charge - After HUGE buff in Season 3 Charge Became an amazing damaging skill for any Barbarian build out there. It works especially good with Bleed Rend Barbarian builds because it stacks well with Ring of the Ravenous bonus which allows Charge to apply bleed from REND to the enemies, raising the damage of it even higher. Due to different ways of lowering Cooldown Reduction on items and amazing passive - Power Charge, we can just spam Charge without any cooldown if we hit at least a few enemies with it. Use it to deal with Packs and to CC / Damage rares while ragdolling them through your screen!
Finisher / Starter
- Rupture - the main ability which we use to start and to finish all our fights with rares or bosses. We also have 2 Charges of it due to Weapon Master Aspect so you should always have Rupture up to finish off an enemy. It is also recommended to start harder fight with it jsut to get a huge 40% Attack speed Bonus from Warrior's Rupture Passive. By mechanic itself Rupture allows the Barbarian to deal all the Bleed damage to the enemy instantly without waiting therefore finishing them off. (Check out the video with corresponding timestamp for a showcase of that process).
Utility / Movement Speed
- Rallying Cry - This is the main reason why Barbarians can move so FAST! It gives you Unstoppable + 30% movement bonus together with resource generation boost as well. In the Bleed rend barb build we need to click Rallying Cry all the time to constantly have all the bonuses while running around. Also since we don't have a Generator we need to use Rallying Cry at the start of every fight to receive 20 fury from Tactical Rallying Cry bonus.
Damage Boost
- War Cry - Great shout for a consistent Damage boost and the Berserking bonus from the Echanced War Cry passive. It is mostly used for bossing or when encountering tough rares.
Ultimate
- Wrath of the Berserker - An awesome way to boost damage of any Barbarian build even further. It provides you with a consistent Berserking bonus together with Unstoppable and stacks great with Unconstrained passive. Click it every time when you encounter any tough enemies or just need to break the CC.
Alternative skills
For Bleed Rend Barbarian build All Alternative skills should replace War Cry.
Challenging Shout - if you feel like you want to add more survivability - this is your best pick. It is an amazing defensive skill which can provide you with 40% damage reduction boost and 20% more maximum Life Due to Enhanced Challenging Shout.
Leap - Another great way to improve mobility of the Barbarian even further, allows you to jump from pack to pack while receiving Berserkering bonuses from Battle Fervor passive.
Notable Passives
Imposing Presence - Free way to boost life up to 18% which is picked in most of the Barbarian Builds - helps with tanking oneshots and staying more tanky in General
Invigorating Fury - Nice tool to Heal the character passively while spending fury for Rend casts - helps to stay at maximum health consistently.
Unconstrained - An amazing All Round passive which boosts the damage bonus from Berserkering to the whooping 100%. Since we can get Berserkering from so many different ways applied to the character in almost 100% of cases - therefore an absolute must have for most Barbarian builds.
Alternative Core Passive
- Gushing Wounds - the only possible Alternative which requires a lot of critical strike chance / damage in the build. The only way it could be effective is the usage of Grandfather to boost crit damage. usually behind Unconstrained on average and is not recommended.
Seneschal Construct
For an in-depth explanation of the various stone choices, see the detailed video guide from Ronarray:
Gear Aspects and Priority
Offensive
Aspect of Limitless Rage - Since we are receiving a lot of Fury everytime when Senechal hits enemies (every 0.8s) we can consistently benefit from staying on top of the Fury and getting more damage for Rend this way.
Aspect of Unrelenting Fury - main Aspect that helps with resource management on bosses or when clearing huge packs. Aim for higher numbers to always stay at top of Fury.
Aspect of Ancestral Charge - A must have pick for any Barbarian Build in Season 3. Provides a lot of Crowd Control and AOE damage for Charge.
Edgemaster's Aspect - With Bleed Rend Barbarian build we need to stay at maximum fury at all time so Edgemaster's Aspect looks like an obvious choice which can provide a significant damage boost.
Accelerating Aspect - Consistent Attack Speed boost which procs after every time Core skill crits and helps with rising AS even higher. Even considering that we do not stack Critical Strike Chance the Rend will still crit from time to time applying that bonus reliably.
Defensive
Juggernaut's Aspect - Best way to get maximum Armor now without overcomplicating your items. Works on any item but just perfect at the Amulet to reach numbers more easily.
Iron Blood Aspect - Since we Bleed our Enemies both with Charge AND rend it provides a great Damage Reduction bonus in all dungeons and boosts survivability by far.
Ghostwalker Aspect - The way to boost our incredible Movement Speed even higher! Since we have a way to stay Unstoppable most of the time due Shouts and Charge the bonus should be up most of the time.
Alternative Aspects
Most of Alternative options for the offensive aspects should replace Aspect of Accelerating.
Veterans Brawler's Aspect - A decent option for boosting AOE clear while adding bonuses for the Charge spam.
Brawler's Aspect - Another good option to boost AOE Clear of the build and Stack synergy for our Charge.
Recommended Unique Items
Ramaladni's Magnum Opus - The most important Unique for any Max Fury Barbarian Build. Provides a crazy amount of Multiplicative damage and allows us to stack Fury for boosting damage numbers. Should be USED for attacking to provide the bonuses, so allocate Dual Wielding for all Skills.
Ring of the Ravenous - New Uniques Ring that both Boosts our Bleed Damage through Rend Duration and Adds stacks of bleed when we hit with Charge - an absolute must have.
Tuskhelm of Joritz the Mighty - A great way to boost Berserking bonuses while receiving Cooldown and max Fury.
Harlequin Crest (Shako) - Best In Slot helmet for all Barbarian Builds. Can give us the same Damage Reduction as an Aspect of Might without additional conditions. Can also provide a significant Maximum Life increase together with Resource Generation and amazing +4 Ranks to all Skills bonuses. If you have the Harlequin Crest you definitely should use it in the build.
Sockets and Gems
Most of the Gem picks are pretty common through all Barb builds so they will be pretty easy to acquire early in the game.
For armor slots the best pick will be Royal Ruby everywhere to stack our health higher for survivability. We can have 1 in the helmet, 2 in the Chest armor and 2 in the pants for a total of 5 stones. It can give about 20% of additional Maximum Life which is a very strong bonus - make sure you always have all 5 gems on.
For the weapons we are using Royal Amethyst since Damage over time is our main damage source In the jewelry Royal Diamond x2 + 1 additional Gems that compensate the resistance we don't have on Boots is the best option. The last gem could vary so just check which res you are missing on your helmet and boots and use that. In my example it is a Royal Amethyst . You can also try to use different stand alone gems instead of the Royal Diamond to boost resistances that you don't have, to close the gap.
Resistances
In Season 2 the resistance system was revamped heavily. Now to reach best survivability we will need to cap most of them - ideally all to a maximum of 70%. It could be done though a variety of options.
For the Barbarian builds - you can pick some of them in the paragon but ultimately you will need to roll resistances on Gear. Best place to do so would be Boots since there are not a lot of good bonuses except the movement speed.
You can also roll some of those on the Chest armor to reach the cap. Always make sure that you have at least 60%+ to stay alive in higher Nightmare Dungeons without any issues and have better gameplay experience overall.
For this purpose you can use various Gems in your Jewelry which are covered in the previous section.
Expertise
For the Bleed barbarian Two-Handed Axe expertise Still stands as the best option. Two-handed Axe just for general bonuses is also a superior option since we can't benefit from Critical strike damage.
Weapon Choices
Most of the Time Axe + Ramaladni will be the best option for damage boost. Doombringer could be a great option instead of the normal Sword as well, mostly boosting Survivability which is pretty important.
Paragon
With the current paragon setup we are mostly focusing on getting bonuses to Damage to stack Bleed and Damage Over Time even further. Some survivability nodes should be taken as well in the form of Basic Resistances and Additional Armor which should help in both Tier 100 Dungeons and against Uber Bosses.
Glyph leveling priorities
- Territorial - A really important Glyph which provides both some DR and damage boost. Works great since we are always close to the enemies.
- Ire - Gives an amazing damage while Berserking boost which stacks so well with Blood Rage unique Node.
- Disembowel - An basic way to boost Damage over time further.
- Exploit - Gives us Vulnerable bonus to boost Bleeding damage Through Hemorrhage Uniques Node. It also provides an Utility bonus in terms of making enemies vulnerable even without Puncture interaction.
- Ambidextrous - The last glyph to level for the Bleed Rend Barbarian build - it is mostly taken for boosting the Damage While berserking in the last board to stack our Blood Rage uniques node.
Playstyle and Rotation
While Playing Bleed Barbarian we need to constantly Charge enemies moving them around the screen and creating groups with Charge spam. After enemies are grouped together you can spam a few Rend's and finish off the pack with rupture. Most of the enemies will stay in heavy CC so will be unable to properly attack you.
When encountering tougher enemies like bosses and Uber Bosses - it is a great idea to start a fight with Rupture for attack speed bonus and then move to spamming Rend until you have enough Bleed on the foe to finish it off with rupture. While fighting single target spamming Charge is not necessary but could be used to update or apply Berserking bonus.
Conclusion
The Bleed Rend Barbarian Build is a proper Jack of all trades that can clear Dungeons amazingly fast while staying Tanky and showcasing great single target Damage. Due to various changes it can utilize both the New Unique Ring and Charge to Storm through content with ease.