D&D 5e Barbarian Subclasses Ranked Worst to Best
by Prince Phantom
The Barbarian has a pretty defined style of play no matter what subclass they choose, it’s really more of a question of how that subclass enhances that playstyle. Sadly, the majority of the time, the answer to that is not very much at all. That’s a real shame too, because the base Barbarian is already one of the weakest classes in the game, so it could really use some help from its subclass.
9: Path of the Berserker
Behold, Path of the Berserker. One of the few instances in 5e where taking a subclass hurts your character more than it helps. Frenzy is absolute garbage, giving you a level of exhaustion every time you dare actually use your subclass’s main feature. That plus you can’t actually start making bonus action attacks until the turn after you rage, as raging requires a bonus action as well. Also, bonus action attacks are very easy to get through feats and racial selections, and none of those force exhaustion on you.
Intimidating Presence keys off of an ability score that you probably had to dump, and is still a terrible feature even if you do have a good Charisma as using it likely means you will drop your Rage since you didn’t attack that turn. The reaction attack provided by the 14th level feature is an increase in damage, but if you took Polearm Master, you’re likely already making reaction attacks nearly every turn, so this actually won’t provide many more attacks than you were already making.
The only decent feature here is Mindless Rage, which should honestly be standard for all Barbarians. Steer clear of this one, and warn your friends too.
8: Path of the Beast
Wow Barbarian, why does WOTC let you have two subclasses that make you noticeably worse than the base class? In all seriousness, you can play Path of the Beast in a way that does provide benefits to the base class, but they will be very small. The only good option from our 3rd level feature is Tail, as the other two are vastly outclassed by traditional weapons and the feats associated with them. Even then, all we’re using it for is the parry, as attacking with it is worse than attacking with a weapon in every possible way. 6th level isn’t much more than a ribbon feature, 10th level requires you to attack with the natural weapons in order to use it, meaning you have to play suboptimally to use your 10th level feature, and the bonus for doing so does not justify the cost.
14th level is the only feature here that I can even count as good, and it’s just a little temporary HP and a bonus d6 damage once per turn for your allies, assuming they are actually making attack rolls to benefit from this in the first place. Neat flavor, terrible mechanics. Find another way to play as a werewolf in 5e.
7: Path of the Storm Herald
Well, we’re finally at the point where our subclass is helping us rather than hurting, but just barely. Each of the auras in Path of the Storm Herald give extremely minor benefits, from as little as 2 damage to just as few temporary hit points. At later levels, we get one resistance, then get to share that with friends inside the aura, but they still might be suffering the adverse effects of the aura! There’s some mildly interesting options at 14th level, but there’s no incentive to ever take this that far. This will help you, but you’ll barely notice.
6: Path of the Battlerager
Often maligned for the dwarf only restriction (which I have never known a DM to actually uphold), Path of the Battlerager is a subclass that I come around to more and more every time I read it. The first feature is decent, giving us a bonus action attack (that doesn’t induce exhaustion, suck it Berserker) and a tiny bit of damage when we grapple.
Also, this subclass mostly only functions if you have this special spiked armor. Hopefully, your DM isn’t a jerk and makes this armor available, and hopefully gives you some form of magical spiked armor to help you scale into the late game.
The real reason for taking this subclass is the 6th and 10th level features, the first giving you temporary HP equal to your Con mod every time you use Reckless Attack. That’s actually a decent defensive tool, allowing you to soak more damage than most other Barbarians thanks to how Rage helps make the most of temporary HP. 10th level lets us dash as a bonus action while raging, and while that’s not as useful, it will still help you keep up with the ever increasing mobility of monsters as you reach higher levels. Just ignore the 14th level ability, it’s a tiny bit of passive damage that is nice I suppose, but will basically never make a significant difference in a fight.
5: Path of Wild Magic
Unlike the Wild Magic Sorcerer, this subclass can’t literally blow up in your face. Nothing on this unusually small table is bad, but none of them are all that good either. Outside of mechanics, this subclass really fails to deliver as a Wild Magic Barbarian. This is the most boring wild magic I’ve ever seen.
Back to mechanics, the 6th level feature turns us into a battery of spell slots for the actually good characters in our party, so I’m sure they appreciate that. Past that, it’s just features that let us roll more often and with even more control, so nothing to get excited about. This subclass is a failure in flavor and mechanics, but it does provide more than the ones above it as the wild magic table can give some nice effects like extra damage and mobility. Yes, this is how low the bar is for Barbarian subclasses.
4: Path of the Zealot
Finally we have something that I’m mildly interested in. Path of the Zealot is the first subclass that gives us a reliable damage bump baked straight into the subclass, and it’s a fairly substantial one at that. The whole “free resurrections” thing is mostly just a ribbon, hopefully it doesn’t have to come up very often. 6th level gives rerolls against failed saving throws once per rage, which is fine but nothing to be excited over.
Zealous Presence is actually pretty good, especially if you can predict that everyone will be making saves against things like a dragon’s breath. 14th level is what everyone goes crazy over, letting you stay up and fighting even after you die so long as you can maintain your rage.
That last part kills it for me, as it is extremely easy for the kinds of monsters that a 14th level character will be facing to force a Barbarian to drop their rage. Not attacking, moving far enough away, or any of the laundry list of spells that can do the job such as Hold Person or Hypnotic Pattern. Don’t be fooled into taking this all the way to level 14, it’s not worth it, but the lower level features might be worth your time.
3: Path of the Totem Warrior
Bear gives you resistance to all but Psychic damage, and that’s about all I needed to tell many of you to convince you of this placement. Many will actually think that I’m too low on Path of the Totem Warrior, but I have my reasons.
Past the 3rd level options, you have a complete drought of good features until level 14, and even then those options are only okay. All the 6th level options are mostly ribbon features, and while Commune with Nature is a good spell, it’s not worth a whole subclass feature. Grab your Bear totem (or Wolf if you’re feeling spicy, that one’s pretty good too) and multiclass out after you get Extra Attack at level 5.
2: Path of the Giant
It only took them over a decade, but WOTC finally made a Barbarian subclass that has decent stuff at every level. Sadly, they’re only decent, never amazing. Growing to large size has some definite advantages, especially if you lean into it by focusing on grappling since we already have advantage on Strength checks thanks to Rage. You get a bit of extra damage from your 6th level feature along with the ability to turn any weapon (and I do mean any, check out our build for this subclass) into a thrown weapon that returns to your hand after attacking. That’s nice, and definitely has some build potential.
At 10th, we can throw creatures (willing or otherwise) around the battlefield, but even if you don’t have a dangerous area or cliff to throw them at, you can still just throw them straight up and have them fall, take damage, and land prone. You can even do this before you attack and get advantage on your attacks without having to use Reckless Attack. 14th level lets us attain huge size, along with an increase to damage and reach on top of what we already got. This is a good offering of mostly offensive features, making Path of the Giant the best barbarian in terms of pure damage in my opinion.
1: Path of the Ancestral Guardian
The Barbarian as a whole advertises a tank playstyle that focuses on soaking up damage in place of your less durable allies. This is a complete fallacy on all fronts for a multitude of reasons. First, Barbarians are actually much less durable than many classes thanks to enemies almost always having advantage against us due to Reckless Attack, our lower than average AC, and frequently terrible saving throw proficiencies.
Additionally, the 5e Barbarian has no way to actually incentivize enemies to attack it besides the threat of an opportunity attack. A “taunt” feature goes a long way to fixing this issue, and Path of the Ancestral Guaridan gives us this right at level 3. Even if the enemies ignore this taunt, they only deal half damage to our allies, meaning we are making our entire party more durable, not just ourself.
Once again, the higher level features are only nice bonuses, not much to be excited about, but the rarity of true taunt features in 5e make this Barbarian the best tank option in the class, and will be the most helpful of the subclasses to have around in the average party.
The Zealot can do more damage, and the Bear Totem may take less damage, but neither of them can keep a party alive like this one can. Seriously, this taunt feature is a house, but you may need to see it in play to be convinced of that. Even better if you can manage to make yourself a difficult or unattractive target to attack through spells like Armor of Agathys or Fire Shield. Now your foe has no one that they really want to attack!
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