Diablo 3: Season 24 Hammer of the Ancients Immortal Kings Barbarian Build


With Immortal Kings being the Barbarian version of the Haedrig’s Gift set for Season 24, I felt it would be a good time to make a post for this build.

Gear

  • Immortal Kings
    • Immortal King’s Tribal Binding (belt)
    • Immortal King’s Eternal Reign (chest)
    • Immortal King’s Triumph (helmet)
    • Immortal King’s Stature (legs)
    • Immortal King’s Stride (boots)
    • Immortal King’s Irons (gloves)
  • Endless Walk – I choose this set because you will be moving around a lot in catching up with foes. So you need the defense in between evading damage and standing still to destroy things.
    • The Traveler’s Pledge (Amulet)
    • The Compass Rose (Ring)
  • Band of Might (Ring/Cube)
  • Unity or Convention of Elements (Ring/Cube)
  • Fury of the Ancients (Shoulders) – Call of the Ancients gains the effect of the Ancients’ Fury rune, and your Ancients attack 100% faster. Effectively, this is how you will be keeping up your Fury generation as long as you maintain your ancients.
  • Mortik’s Brace (Bracers/Cube)
  • Bracers of the First Men (Bracers/Cube)
  • The Gavel of Judgment (2-handed Mighty Weapon/Cube)
  • Remorseless (1-handed Mighty Weapon)
  • Echoing Fury (1-handed Mace) – Useful when you do not have a good Ethereal.
  • The Furnace – (2-handed Mace/Cube) – Only use this in the cube if you can find an Ethereal with The Gavel of Judgment ability.

The Ethereal of choice for me would be either a Grimmershred or Doombringer. Grimmershred has “Killing an elite pack increases movespeed by 30% for 7 seconds” which would help improve your movement speed here since you need to be in melee with this short distance build while a Doombringer adds more defense with the “Reduce the damage of enemies hit by 25% for 5 seconds” affix, which this build lacks.

Without a good Ethereal, the build weapons are the ones I listed above. However, getting The Gavel of Judgment’s “The damage of Hammer of the Ancients is increased by 600-800% and it returns 25 Fury if it hits 3 or fewer enemies” affix means you can use have another 2-hander in the cube slot, which can be The Furnace for pushing.

For gear, you will want to roll Fire damage on your Bracers and possibly your Amulet if you can fit it in because you will be using the Smash rune for Hammer of Ancients as it will cause the maximum amount of damage for you. I would prioritize cooldown reduction on Gloves and Shoulders for rolls because your Wrath of the Berserker and possibly Call of the Ancients cooldown will be helped from spending more Fury and you will need to keep both up 100% to gain the benefits from Remorseless.

Legendary Gems

  • Bane of the Trapped – Pretty much a must have gem for this build for the extra damage
  • Pain Enhancer – More damage all around
  • Molten Wildebeest’s Gizzard – For more defense

Note that I did not choose Enforcer here because your Call of the Ancients would only benefit from the damage reduction. But they are not the main source of damage just your healing and Fury replenishment.

Bane of the Stricken can be another choice for single target but your single target will be high enough already.

Skills

  • Ground Stomp: Wrenching Smash – I chose this ability to gather up enemies to pulverize in a single major hit, although I have seen Furious Charge being used to generate some initial Fury as well on top of being a solid movement skill. This also will activate your damage reduction from Band of Might in both skills’ cases.
  • Hammer of the Ancients: Smash – Your primary source of damage.
  • Call of the Ancients: Together As One – Damage reduction for you. But it will make your ancients die faster in higher difficulties without their own source of a damage reduction like Enforcer. That said, you should be able to re-cast Call of the Ancients quickly.
  • Wrath of the Berserker – The rune won’t matter here since you’ll be using Mortik’s Brace
  • Sprint: Marathon – I actually prefer this to Furious Charge. But the benefit of Furious Charge is to save a rune for movement. Sprint simply is better if you do not want to deal with cooldown reduction.
  • War Cry: Veteran’s Warning – More defense.
  • Battle Rage: Bloodshed – Increases your critical hits, damage and does damage. Use this if you decide to go with Furious Charge.

Passive Skills

  • Rampage – Increased strength for more armor and damage
  • Brawler – More damage for your melee character
  • Berserker Rage – You will be topped off with Rage most of the time. So this just increases your damage.
  • Ruthless – More damage
  • Nerves of Steel – Cheat Death (provided you manage to find a decent Ethereal and get the 5th passive slot)

Followers

Any of them will fit well here. An Enchantress is great for the extra armor, cooldown reduction and cheat death. A Templar would be used for healing and cheat death while the Scoundrel provides more critical hits, which this build does depend upon, as well as a cheat death. The Templar would be the easiest to gear of the three as his gear would synergize with crafts and findings from the Barbarian.

Final Thoughts

I have tried the Hammer of Ancients build in the past with the Haedrig’s Gift starter set. I found that once you get passed the slow leveling and get the first 2 pieces, the rest of the build starts to come together. What’s good about Immortal Kings itself is that, like other 7 piece sets, it lends itself well to mix and match early on.

I do think that the Ethereal can help a bit with this build since switching the legendary power from the cube to a 1-hander effectively, which gives a little more freedom to choose in the cube slot, which might help bigger pushes by allowing for the heavy duty Furnace weapon to come in and do serious damage. Also, the possibility of having damage reduction and movement speed bonuses from the Ethereals will make this build a little more competitive.

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