Call to Arms rewards characters for doing exactly what its name suggests: making some noise before charging into the fight.
Being affected by a Shout unlocks its real power, adding five Skill Ranks alongside more Maximum Life and Primary Resource while the effect remains active.
That temporary surge sits on top of permanent All Skills, Attack Speed, and a damage multiplier, making Call to Arms especially potent for builds that regularly maintain Shout effects.
How to Get Call to Arms?
Call to Arms is created through the Horadric Cube using five specific Runes and a compatible Common one-handed weapon or off-hand as the crafting base.
The recipe requires Amn, Ral, Mal, Ist, and Ohm, making this a more expensive craft than the simpler two and three-Rune combinations.
Several base types are supported, allowing Call to Arms to be crafted for different classes rather than functioning exclusively as a Barbarian weapon.
How to Craft Call to Arms?
Combine a compatible Common one-handed weapon or off-hand with Amn + Ral + Mal + Ist + Ohm, then transmute everything through the Horadric Cube.
The complete Call to Arms recipe requires:
- Amn Rune
- Ral Rune
- Mal Rune
- Ist Rune
- Ohm Rune
- Compatible Common base
Compatible bases include a One-Handed Axe, Dagger, Flail, Focus, One-Handed Mace, Totem, One-Handed Scythe, One-Handed Sword, or Wand.
Call to Arms Effects
Call to Arms combines several powerful permanent bonuses with a Unique effect that activates whenever the character is affected by a Shout Skill.
Its effects include:
- Weapon Damage
- x40% All Damage Multiplier
- +40% Attack Speed
- +1 to All Skills
- +5 to Shout Skills
While affected by a Shout Skill, Call to Arms additionally grants +5 Ranks to All Skills, +15% Maximum Life, and +15% Maximum Primary Resource.
What Happens When You Shout?
The defining mechanic of Call to Arms remains inactive until the character becomes affected by a skill carrying the Shout tag.
Once that happens, the weapon grants +5 Ranks to All Skills, providing a considerable temporary increase to abilities throughout the character’s skill set.
Maximum Life also increases by 15%, while Maximum Primary Resource receives another 15% multiplier, providing additional survivability and resources during the same window.
Stacking the Extra Skill Ranks
Call to Arms already provides +1 to All Skills permanently, so activating its Shout effect pushes that contribution to +6 Ranks to All Skills.
Shout Skills have another advantage because the weapon separately provides +5 to Shout Skills, allowing those abilities to benefit from multiple Skill Rank bonuses.
This makes maintaining a Shout especially rewarding for builds capable of taking advantage of several upgraded abilities during the resulting buff.
Why Barbarians Get So Much From Call to Arms?
Barbarians are an obvious match for Call to Arms because Challenging Shout, Rallying Cry, and War Cry provide natural ways to activate its Unique effect.
A build already incorporating these abilities does not need to add an unrelated mechanic simply to access the extra Skill Ranks, Life, and Maximum Fury.
The weapon’s +5 to Shout Skills further complements this playstyle, making Call to Arms particularly attractive when Shouts already form an important part of the build.
More Than a Barbarian Weapon
Call to Arms is not restricted to Barbarians, and several other classes can craft it using compatible weapon or off-hand bases.
Its Unique effect cares about being affected by a Shout Skill, making access to that tag more important than the character class printed beside the build.
This distinction matters when evaluating the weapon, since a character unable to maintain a Shout loses access to the strongest part of Call to Arms.
Attack Speed and All Damage
Even before its Unique effect activates, Call to Arms provides 40% Attack Speed and an x40% All Damage Multiplier.
Neither bonus requires a particular damage type, enemy family, or Lucky Hit activation, allowing them to support many different offensive approaches.
This gives Call to Arms a useful baseline while its Shout mechanic supplies the larger temporary increase when the appropriate effect is active.
Keeping the Shout Bonus Active
Call to Arms becomes considerably stronger when Shout uptime is high, so builds using it should consider how consistently they can remain affected by one.
Reducing downtime between Shouts allows the additional Skill Ranks, Maximum Life, and Primary Resource bonus to influence a larger portion of combat.
This makes cooldown management especially valuable when the build already relies on Shouts for other offensive or defensive benefits.
Choosing the Best Base for Call to Arms
The wide selection of compatible bases allows Call to Arms to fit several classes, but the correct choice should always match the requirements of the intended build.
Barbarians can use a One-Handed Axe, Mace, or Sword, while other classes can take advantage of alternatives such as Daggers, Scythes, Wands, Focuses, or Totems.
An Ancestral Common base can also be used to create the corresponding Ancestral version when crafting Call to Arms later in progression.
Best Builds for Call to Arms
Shout-heavy builds naturally have the strongest synergy because they can activate the Unique effect as part of their normal combat rotation.
Builds that scale strongly with additional Skill Ranks can also gain considerable value, especially when several important abilities benefit simultaneously.
Attack-focused characters receive another layer of value from the weapon’s Attack Speed and damage multiplier instead of relying entirely on the Shout bonus.
Is Call to Arms Worth Using?
Five Runes make Call to Arms a noticeably larger investment than early crafts such as Strength, Stealth, or Lore, so its Unique effect should factor heavily into the decision.
Characters capable of maintaining Shout effects gain Skill Ranks, Life, and additional resource capacity on top of an already impressive set of permanent properties.
Without reliable access to Shouts, much of what makes Call to Arms special disappears and another weapon may provide more relevant benefits.
Verdict
Call to Arms transforms Shouts from useful abilities into opportunities for a substantial character-wide power spike whenever their effects are active.
Its combination of additional Skill Ranks, Life, Primary Resource, Attack Speed, and general damage gives Shout-based builds several benefits from the same weapon.
Barbarians are particularly well positioned to exploit that package, but any compatible build with reliable Shout access has reason to consider answering the call.
