The Barbarian is an A+ tier champion in Heroes vs. Hordes known for swinging some fearsome axes with an unhealthy amount of rage. He is part of the relatively hard-to-obtain "Nature Guardian" faction.
In the past, many considered the Barbarian an S/S+ tier champion, but his power has come down relative to some of the newer heroes in the game. He still excels at clearing late-stage hard mode content but cannot reliably clear specialty content like Arena or Nightmare mode.
Tip: Barbarian's level 80 ultimate increases his move speed and vision, making him an excellent candidate for specific events that require you to move around the level.
I will walk through the Barb's optimal gear, weapons, jewels, and pets in this guide. I'll also go over his skills and star-level bonuses in the future.
Barbarian runs the HvH standard max damage per second (DPS) gear build.
| Helm: Rogue | Gloves: Rogue |
| Chest: Rogue | Necklace: Rogue |
| Boots: Ranger | Ring: Rogue |
You do this to maximize your cooldown reduction and get the 4x critical strike multiplier. Cooldown reduction provides the greatest boost to DPS. The critical strike multiplies the damage from your increased number of attacks.
While that's the optimal gear build for the Barbarian, you will level up specific gear sets faster than others as you progress through the game. I recommend always using the highest level of gear for a given slot, even if you lose a set bonus.
For example, right now, I run a mythic ranger ring instead of an ascended rogue ring.
As another example, let's say you grab a legendary wizard chest before anything else; I would equip that over an epic rogue chest.
There are two types of builds I used to push levels in the early game with Barbarian:
If you get stuck on a level, try alternating between the two.
For offense, the priority on weapons in Barbarian's early game revolves around his primary weapon and dragon's breath. My priority would be:
Main
Dragon's Breath
Fire Orbs
Bombs
Ice Wand
Boomerang
Divine Aura
You get a massive spike in power in the early game evolving Dragon's Breath into Dragon's Inferno. The constant DPS covers up for a lower overall cooldown level.
Tomes to compliment the build are:
Damage
Cooldown
Area
Duplicator
Movement
Life
Recovery
For defense, the priority for the Barbarian shifts to armor and regen. This makes Armor Tome and evolving Divine Aurora into Vampire Auora top priority. My priority for defense would be:
Main
Armor Tome
Divine Aura
Ice Wand
Fire Orbs
Bombs
Boomerang
Tomes to compliment the build are:
Armor
Recovery
Area
Duplicator
Damage
Cooldown
Movement
Life
I would only build boomerang + movement if you really need the double distribution to move around elites, but that probably won't be enough damage for the Barb.
Early Game: I consider the early game to be before full ascended gear. Typically, that includes normal and hard modes, levels 1 through about 250.Late Game: When you achieve full ascended gear across all sets.
The Barbarian definitely shines later in the game as your global buffs to cooldowns increase his attack speed.
I typically run two late-game sets of gear:
Max DPS Gear is just about killing mobs before they kill you. The Barbarian's max dps is the standard late game DPS weapon build:
Main
Fire Orbs
Bombs
Chain Lightening
Crossbow
Tomes to compliment the build are:
Cooldown
Area
Duplicator
Damage
Crticial
You don't evolve Crossbow because the increased number of projectiles apply a ton of vulnerability to targets that increases your overall DPS more than the evolution to Crossbow would. The Crit Tome also plays into the Rogue 4x multiplier gear.
That being said, if you get unlucky with spins, feel free to go with Projectile Tome.
Progression Gear puts an emphasis on disruption to navigate around giant elite spawns. My priority would be:
Main
Ice Wand 2*
Fire Orbs
Bombs
Ice Wand Max
Chain Lightening
Boomerang
You can run Ice Wand and Boomerang for double disruption if you have the DPS to make it work. Otherwise, go with ice wand and chain lightening for damage.
Tomes to compliment the build are:
Cooldown
Area
Duplicator
Damage
Movement
Life
Jewel priority for Barbarian is very straightforward and follows the best practices for most heroes. The jewel priority is:
Ultimate Charge
Ultimate Duration
Vulnerability
Cooldown til 60%
Projectile (P)
Area
Explosion
You cap cooldown at 60% because you get 30% from cooldown tome. 90% is the max cooldown cap in Normal, Hard, Arena, Boss, and Guild modes.
The soft cap on Area Of Effect is when the inner ring of 4* Fire Orbs hits the side of the screen.
You have some leeway here to use much higher-level jewels instead of lower-level cooldown jewels. For example, I'd consider a level 7 Projectile (P) over a level 1 cooldown. You can always test which does more damage in your game by doing the same run with the same gear and weapons but changing the jewels.
I would not use Barbarian for farming because nothing in his kit increases key chance, gold, or experience.
The best pet for the Barbarian is your highest-level pet. Typically, that means the Pyrokraken or Emberpaw. I just now, after about 300 eggs, got the Hydro Basilisk. The highest-level pet should do the most damage.
The Barbarian doesn't have any disruption (Freezes, Stuns, or Slows) in his kit, so you can use pets to add some. Earthstriker's slow passive is my favorite, but Aquastriker can also work.
I typically pair one of these disruption passives with a damage passive from my second-highest pet. Right now, I use Emberpaw for the circle of damage.
