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How to find and beat The Butcher in Diablo 4

The D4 Butcher is a returning boss, but it’s not easy to find him, and fighting him depends a lot on how lucky, or unlucky, you are.

The Butcher from Diablo 4, a large horned beast, holds a large cleaver with an animal's skull on the end.

Where is the The Butcher in Diablo 4? You might have heard of some players having gone up against the legendary Butcher while he’s nowhere to be found in your game, and your confusion as to his location isn’t misplaced. We, too, took a while to find the Butcher, and it turns out there’s a good reason.

The Butcher turns up in Diablo 4 randomly, so it could take a while for you to come against the hulking killer. This does mean you don’t have to worry about going after him specifically, and you can just work through the campaign until you find the boss. It doesn’t matter which of the D4 classes you choose as The Butcher will appear for any, and his unique drop can be wielded by any class, too. He is a tough foe though, so make sure whichever class you choose, you’re using the best build when you go up against the D4 Butcher.

Where is The Butcher in Diablo 4?

The Butcher appears randomly in dungeons across Sanctuary, so you won’t find him in the outside world, strongholds, cellars, or world events. Instead, enter any of the normal, non-campaign dungeons that appear on your map, and The Butcher will eventually spawn.

You can also reset Diablo 4 dungeons, so if you’re struggling to find The Butcher, try resetting and going again.

The Diablo 4 butcher wields a spiked hook

Diablo 4 The Butcher guide

Here’s how to beat The Butcher in Diablo 4:

  • Stay close
  • Dodge behind him to attack
  • Watch for attack indicators
  • Use strong melee attacks

The Butcher is, unsurprisingly, a tough boss to take down. He has some incredibly brutal attacks, and you can see from his health bar when he spawns that there are only three phases to his battle. While less phases might sound better, it actually means you might get less health potion drops, which could leave you more vulnerable.

The best tip against The Butcher is actually to stay close to him, as he has a very powerful lunge attack when you get too far away. Instead, try and stay right up against the boss, and dart behind him when you can. It will be obvious when The Butcher is about to unleash one of his strongest attacks, giving you the chance to dodge, while you should be able to withstand his normal melee attacks.

Diablo 4 The butcher boss screams menacingly with glowing eyes and horns protruding from his head.

How to get The Butcher’s Cleaver in D4

The main reason to seek out the devastating Butcher is for his drop – The Butcher’s Cleaver. This Unique weapon can be used by any class, and is remarkably strong, so it’s worth killing the monster for. Due to The Butcher’s random spawning, if you die or leave the dungeon, The Butcher won’t respawn with you, so you must defeat him first time to claim the cleaver.

It does seem as though the cleaver is not a guaranteed drop on killing The Butcher, so you might need to keep resetting dungeons to farm the weapon.

Now you know everything there is to know about the Diablo 4 Butcher, find out what happened when PCGamesN chatted to Blizzard about the Butcher fight. As we mentioned above, you’re going to need the best class build when you go against this beast, and we’ve got you covered whichever class you choose. Take a look at our best Diablo 4 Barbarian build, the best sorcerer build, the best druid build, the best necromancer build, or the best rogue build, to give yourself the ultimate chance of success against The Butcher.