Diablo 4: Barrier Generation Explained

You are going to want to boost your defense in Diablo 4 to keep yourself from falling victim to the spawns of hell. Shields, abilities, and more can all work together to help keep your health as high up as possible. All of these can be integral to playing through the game’s story and quests.

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One such concept you will want to keep an eye out for is Barrier, and thus, Barrier Generation. Barriers help mitigate the damage being done to your character. The generation of these abilities is a good focus to keep an eye on as well. Unfortunately, Barriers and Barrier Generation are not things that the game explains very explicitly, leaving you trying to figure out just what it is that it does.

Updated by Shane Black on July 6th, 2023: This guide was updated to provide more details about how players can generate barriers throughout the game beyond just using armor skills. It also added some more links to relevant guides and articles to help players get the most out of their time in Diablo 4.

Barriers In Diablo 4

Barriers are a form of shielding that your character can use outside of physical shields. It forms a small aura around your character that can absorb a certain amount of damage before your character’s health takes the brunt of it. Barriers can be a lifesaver for any weak characters you may be building to help negate minimal health.

Each class in the game comes with its own version of Barriers, and the ability to use a Barrier can come from various items and equipment you find scattered around the world. Keep an eye out for the item description when you pick something up to see if it will give you a certain amount of Barrier.

• Iron Skin (Barbarian)
• Earthen Bulwark (Druid)
• Ice Armor (Sorcerer)
• Aspect of Shielding Storm (Necromancer)
• Snap Frozen Aspect (Rogue)

You can also unlock Passive abilities to help with Barrier.

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How Does Barrier Generation Work

This is the rate at which your Barrier will regenerate as you play and take damage. Some of the damage that enemies dish out will be absorbed by your Barrier, and as that number is decreased or depleted completely, then the Barrier Generation is how quickly your Barrier will come back.

So, the higher your Barrier Generation stat is, the quicker your Barrier will regenerate after it has taken damage from an enemy’s attacks.

Equipment will come with its own base stat for Barrier Generation, and that stat will clue you in on how quickly or slowly, you will regenerate your shield. You can also find items like Diamond Gems to slot into sockets to boost their Barrier Generation further. It is a great way to passively keep your defenses up and make sure that your character can withstand enough damage in a fight.

Also, landing attacks like Lucky Hits will help you to boost your Barrier Generation and get your shield back faster. These are attacks whose frequency is determined by your equipment stats and more.

Equipment & Skills With Barrier Generation

While Barrier Generation is not an Affix that is relevant to only specific pieces of gear, there are a handful of gear types that you can get Barrier Generation with:

• Helm
• Chest
• Ring
• Offhand
• Shield

When you are given a piece of loot, the game may roll you a piece of gear with Barrier Generation and a certain kind of rate at which you will regenerate. It’s really up to luck and what the game decides, and unfortunately, it’s not really up to you how and when you get the kind of Barrier Generation that you want.

One of the best pieces of gear that you can use with Barrier Generation is the Aspect of the Protector. This Aspect will give you increased Barrier Generation when you are attacking Elite enemies, which you will be doing quite often in the game. This is a great way to keep your Barrier up as high as you can get it.

You can visit the Occultist and reroll certain Affixes to try and get the Barrier Generation that you are working for, but again, it’s not a guarantee. There are also certain Skills that you can unlock to give you Barrier Generation, and they spread over just about every Class in the game:

• Iron Skin
• Enhanced Iron Skin
• Strategic Iron Skin
• Preserving Iron Skin
• Earthen Bulwark
• Enhanced Earthen Bulwark
• Strategic Earthen Bulwark
• Innate Earthen Bulwark
• Preserving Earthen Bulwark
• Ice Armor
• Enhanced Ice Armor
• Mystical Ice Armor
• Shimmering Ice Armor
• Protection
• Cold Front
• Icy Veil

It’s also important to note how using two different Skills with Barrier Generation will combine into one. So if you use two Skills that each has 50 Barrier Generation, you won’t have two Shields up with 50 Barrier each, instead, you will have one with 100 Barrier.

Builds Using Barrier Generation

If you are looking for certain builds that use Barrier Generation to their benefit, then you have a wide variety to choose from since you can use Barrier Generation in any of them. However, there are absolutely some builds that will benefit the most from higher Barrier Generation, and these are mainly specific to the Sorcerer and Rogue Classes due to their squishy nature.

• Elemental Sorcerer
• Fire & Ice Sorcerer
• Ice Barrage Sorcerer
• Battlemage Sorcerer
• Cold Archer Rogue
• Frozen Rain Rogue
• Barrage Rogue
• Shadowblade Rogue

Barrier Generation is not an Affix that is relegated to one kind of play type, and it is incredibly useful to just about any kind of build. Whether you’re looking to be offensive or you are trying to be more on the defensive side, Barrier Generation is a tool that you can use to keep yourself upright and moving.

NEXT: Diablo 4: Complete Blacksmith Guide