Diablo 4: How To Unlock & Use Barbarians Arsenal Mechanic

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The Barbarian Class in Diablo 4 has generally not been well-received in Season 6, due to some significant nerfs and other overpowered classes performing better. However, with the re-vamped Arsenal mechanic, players can at least tailor the Barbarian class to their playstyle even more than before. You will want to have a large number of melee weapons to make the Arsenal system work well for you.

How To Unlock the Barbarian Arsenal Mechanic

Quests & Leveling-Up

You will automatically unlock the Arsenal Mechanic upon reaching level 15, and a quest will unlock called Barbarian: Masters of Battle. You will travel to Ked Bardu to start and finish this quest. You will then get access to the Expertise tab, where you will see all the different weapon types and their bonuses. When you first unlock the mechanic, you will start out at level 1.

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To upgrade it, you will have to use the corresponding weapon type. For instance, as you switch weapons as the Barbarian, you will get hits out of them and start gaining experience on those weapon types. That means you will likely want four different weapon types equipped at all times, as that will allow you to level up and get four different bonuses. While the stats and effects have changed, YouTuber Gamers Heroes' video shows you the basics of how weapon swapping works, which remains the same.

Best Barbarian Arsenal Weapons, Bonuses & Expertise

Using Weapon Expertise For Skills

An example of assigning an Arsenal Weapon to a skill in Diablo 4

In practice, you will be able to assign specific equipment to certain skills based on what you are aiming for. You could pair Bash with a bludgeoning weapon, for example. You will also immediately equip the best weapon in your loadout when you activate a certain skill, meaning that your character will be constantly switching between weapons, and you should have a diverse array of weapons in your loadout for that reason.

You will also now have the Weapon Expertise menu, which upon opening you will see a list of seven different techniques that all have various bonuses. You can select one of them which will apply that technique to any Weapon type for all of your skills. However, you will have to gain levels by using that type of weapon, so make sure to have at least one of that kind equipped.

You can level up your expertise by using the training dummies as practice , but it will also happen naturally through normal combat.

To assign weapons to particular skills to enable leveling them up, you will want to go to the Skill Assignment window, which is under Abilities. Find any damage-dealing Skill, hover over it, and select the option to “Switch Weapon.” Some skills only work with a particular weapon, but something like Walking Arsenal will require you to have more diverse skills that can each have a different weapon type assigned.

Notably, weapons gain experience on hits, but not on kills. So if you are one-shotting everything, you will not gain as much experience. You will also not gain experience during PvP mode.

To see what kind of bonuses you can get from these effects, see the table below:

Weapon Type

Rank 1 Expertise

Rank 10 Increased % + Bonuses

One-Handed Axe

One-Handed Mace

One-Handed Sword

Two-Handed Axe

Two-Handed Mace

Two-Handed Sword

Polearm

0.5% Increased Critical Strike Chance against Injured enemies. This is doubled if you are using 2 axes.	Increased to 10%
	Lucky Hit: Critical Strikes have up to 55% chance to grant +0.6% increased Attack Speed for 2 seconds. Double Attack Speed bonus when using 2 Axes.
1% Increased damaged to Stunned enemies. Double this when using 2 maces.	Increased to 10%
	Lucky Hit: Up to a 10% chance to gain Berserking for 1.5 seconds when you hit a stunned enemy. Double this when using 2 maces.
Lucky Hit: Up to a 1% chance to gain 5 Fury when hitting a Crowd Controlled enemy. Double this chance when using 2 swords.	Increased to 10%
	Killing a Crowd Controlled enemy grants +15% increased Attack Speed for 3 seconds. Double this amount for kills while using 2 swords.
1.5% Increased damage to Vulnerable enemies.	Increased to 15%
1.5% Increased damage to Vulnerable enemies.	10% Increased Critical Strike Chance against Vulnerable enemies.
Lucky Hit: Up to a 1% chance to gain 2 Fury when hitting an enemy. Double the amount of Fury gained when Berserking.	Increased to 10%
	You deal 15% increased Critical Strike damage while Berserking.
2% of direct damage you deal is inflicted as Bleeding damage over 5 seconds.	Increased to 20%
	You deal 30% increased Bleeding damage for 5 seconds after killing an enemy.
1% Increased Lucky Hit Chance	Increased to 15%
1% Increased Lucky Hit Chance	You deal 15% damage while healthy.

As you can see, at rank 1 it will not be as big of a bonus, but you will have to work to get every weapon expertise up to rank 10. Once you do the bonuses get bigger, and you will get the additional bonuses as well. This can help you get to the point where you are defeating a lot of enemies in a single shot, which is fine since you no longer need to gain experience at that point.

There are no right and wrong weapons for these skills, but you should likely pick your best weapon for that weapon type when you assign them. However, the best weapon will greatly depend on what you want to do and which Diablo 4 class build you are using. Every skill will want a different weapon type.

Experimentation with your current weapons will help you most in the long run, but pay attention when you do get an Ancestral or Mythic Unique item. For example, Doombringer might be a great choice for a one-handed sword. However, when you are just starting out on your Barbarian journey, you will simply want to have as many different weapon types available to you in your Arsenal to take advantage of the Weapon Expertise class mechanic in Diablo 4.

Video Credit: Gamers Heroes/YouTube