Barbarian Boulder Toss Build with the Raekor set
Introduction
Empowered by the Legacy of Raekor set, this Barbarian build emphasizes ranged devastation and pulverizes enemies into the ground with Ancient Spear Boulder Toss, with a vast array of buffs and tremendous mobility at his disposal. The build version on this page is meant for Greater Rift solo progression, but this build also has a Nephalem Rift Farming Variation; follow the link above for that particular alteration.
Quick Reference
Skill Setup
The basic skill setup of the Raekor Boulder Toss Barbarian is displayed below. Read the dedicated Skills page for detailed information on choices, alternatives and build customization.
Active Skills |
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Weapon Throw Balanced Weapon Ancient Spear Boulder Toss 1 Battle Rage Bloodshed 2 Ignore Pain Iron Hide 3 Furious Charge Merciless Assault 4 Wrath of the Berserker Insanity |
Passive Skills |
Gear Setup
The required gear setup for Raekor Boulder Toss Barbarian is listed below. Check the Gear page for detailed information on choices, alternatives, gemming, Kanai's Cube and Paragon distribution.
- Helm: Raekor's Will
- Shoulders: Raekor's Burden
- Gloves: Raekor's Wraps
- Chest: Raekor's Heart
- Belt: Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle
- Pants: Captain Crimson's Thrust
- Boots: Raekor's Striders
- Bracers: Skular's Salvation
- Amulet: The Traveler's Pledge
- Ring 1: The Compass Rose
- Ring 2: Band of Might
- Weapon 1: The Three Hundredth Spear
- Weapon 2: Arreat's Law
Season 33 Theme — 4th Kanai Slot
With this Season's addition of a 4th slot in Kanai's Cube as a theme, your ideal setup will be:
- Kanai's Cube 4th Slot: Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac
Altar of Rites
The former Season 28 theme, the Altar of Rites, has been revised and re-added to Diablo 3 as a permanent character progression mechanic. — For virtually all builds and players of all skill levels — from casual to advanced — we recommend progressing through the Altar tree using the path outlined below. The suggested path is geared towards maximum quality of life first, then amplifying damage, and then mopping up the tree with defensive and edge case utility nodes.
Note that while they require reaching them with a Seal, Legendary Potion Powers are not part of the Seal cost system; Potions unlock with a separate resource called Primordial Ashes, obtained from salvaging Legendary or Set items of Primal (red bordered) quality. Upgrade them as soon as possible, and in the order shown below (courtesy of Caleko's Altar of Rites planner).
You can read more on the Altar of Rites, Seals and Legendary Potion Powers in our dedicated Altar of Rites Mechanics guide.
Legendary Gems
- Legendary Gem 1: Bane of the Trapped
- Legendary Gem 2: Bane of the Stricken
- Legendary Gem 3: Zei's Stone of Vengeance
Kanai's Cube
- Weapon Slot: The Furnace
- Armor Slot: Ancient Parthan Defenders
- Jewelry Slot: Ring of Royal Grandeur
- 4th Slot (Season 33): Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac
How To get This Build Going?
In this section, we will briefly go over how to kickstart this build into reality; which items you should aim for with priority when farming and gambling, and what is their relative priority for the functioning of this spec. Note that these suggestions are exclusively aimed at getting you up and running into endgame farming, and might not reflect the gear you need to wear for high-end Greater Rift solo or group pushing. This section also assumes a fresh Season's start, which usually is the point where most players work on assembling their first build with a particular set.
If the Raekor set is part of the Haedrig's Gift for the Season, your simplest and most straightforward path to assembling the build is to complete the Seasonal Journey chapters up to Chapter IV. The Seasonal Journey chapters will gradually give you a complete class-specific set, giving 2-3 pieces for Chapters II, III and IV.
From the pre-game menu, choose and do this week's Challenge Rift. When successfully completed, this weekly event will grant you 5,1 million Gold, 475 Blood Shards, 370 Reusable Parts, 350 Arcane Dust, 125 Veiled Crystals, 35 Death's Breaths, and 15 of each Bounty cache material: Khanduran Rune, Caldeum Nightshade, Arreat War Tapestry, Corrupted Angel Flesh, and Westmarch Holy Water. This will allow you some early Seasonal leeway to extract and reforge items in Kanai's Cube, speeding up the assembly of this build with the items recommended below.
Having some materials at your disposal, either from farming or the Challenge Rift, is particularly important when you get duplicate pieces of your desired set. When you do, you can use Kanai's Cube Skill of Nilfur recipe (10x Forgotten Souls, 10x Death's Breaths, 1x Set item) to convert into another item from the same set. You should never salvage duplicate pieces of a desired set before you have it assembled.
In order to assemble a Raekor Boulder Toss Barbarian, you should do the following.
- Gather the full 6-piece Raekor set using the advice above, or by spending Blood Shards at Kadala. In order of gamble chance, you should spend for: Pants, Shoulders, Boots, Gloves, Helm, and Chest. A trick you can also use is to gamble for duplicate pieces with an easier gamble chance (i.e., Pants) and convert them into another piece from the same set using the Skill of Nilfur recipe in Kanai's Cube.
- Upgrade rare (Hope of Cain recipe in Kanai's Cube) One-Handed Spears to get The Three Hundredth Spear and Arreat's Law; these are build-defining legendary weapons that increase Ancient Spear damage and provide additional Weapon Throw utility that ties into the mechanics of the Raekor set. Getting these two spears is trivial, since as of Patch 2.7.3 they are the only legendary spears that Barbarians can acquire.
- Gamble Rings on a Level 1 Barbarian (either your starting character or an alt) to get Band of Might, a massive source of damage reduction and a universally useful item for Barbarians. It is one of the two legendary Rings available to level 1 Barbarians, making the gamble significantly easier.
- Upgrade rare One-handed Swords to get In-geom; doing this on a level 1 Demon Hunter alt will improve your chances due to their lowest loot pool of legendary swords. In-geom greatly benefits early game Raekor Barbarians, since it makes Wrath of the Berserker a much more readily available buff.
- Gamble or upgrade rare Bracers to get Skular's Salvation; this legendary piece gives you another massive damage increase to Ancient Spear Boulder Toss. As a bonus, gambling or upgrading this slot can yield Ancient Parthan Defenders, which should be cubed and used as a protective piece — Furious Charge procs the bracer with the Freeze of Cold Rush. Even better, gambling on this slot can yield Nemesis Bracers, which are a staple farming item for your Follower.
- Do Act I bounties to attain the act-specific Ring of Royal Grandeur from Bounty caches. This will be helpful either in completing the basic set bonus, or mixing other helpful legendaries in the build as described in the dedicated endgame Raekor Barbarian guide. Bounties will net you craftable set recipes as well, so you will be killing two birds with one stone. Bounties will also net you Avarice Band (Act III), another farming-oriented staple for most builds and classes, this one included.
- While largely undesirable due to high costs, gambling or upgrading rare Jewelry is also possible; the Endless Walk set ( The Compass Rose and The Traveler's Pledge), Convention of Elements, and Squirt's Necklace will all drastically improve this and other builds, with other standout pieces that can also substitute or be temporarily helpful in the face of Unity, or Oculus Ring and The Flavor of Time for your Follower.
Changelog
- 21 Oct. 2024 (gear page): Added Season 33 advice for 4th Kanai slot.
- 21 Oct. 2024 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 33.
- 21 Oct. 2024 (this page): Added Season 33 advice for 4th Kanai slot.
- 09 Jul. 2024 (gear page): Added Season 32 advice for ethereal weapons.
- 09 Jul. 2024 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 32.
- 09 Jul. 2024 (this page): Added Season 32 advice for ethereal weapons.
- 10 Apr. 2024 (gear page): Added Season 31 advice for the unbound Kanai's Cube slots.
- 10 Apr. 2024 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 31.
- 10 Apr. 2024 (this page): Added Season 31 advice for the unbound Kanai's Cube slots.
- 08 Jan. 2024 (gear page): Revised guide for the permanent addition of the Altar of Rites, and added Season-specific Soul Shard recommendations.
- 08 Jan. 2024 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 30.
- 08 Jan. 2024 (this page): Revised guide for the permanent addition of the Altar of Rites, and added Season-specific Soul Shard recommendations.
- 13 Sep. 2023 (gear page): Added Season 29 Paragon Cap and Gearing recommendations.
- 13 Sep. 2023 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 29.
- 13 Sep. 2023 (this page): Added Season 29 Paragon Cap and Gearing recommendations.
- 22 Feb. 2023 (gear page): Added Season 28 Altar of Rites recommendations.
- 22 Feb. 2023 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 28.
- 22 Feb. 2023 (this page): Added Season 28 Altar of Rites recommendations.
- 26 Aug. 2022 (gear page): Added Season 27 Angelic Crucible recommendations.
- 26 Aug. 2022 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 27.
- 26 Aug. 2022 (this page): Added Season 27 Angelic Crucible recommendations.
- 13 Apr. 2022 (gear page): Thorough rework of this guide into an Ancient Spear - Boulder Toss build.
- 13 Apr. 2022 (skills page): Thorough rework of this guide into an Ancient Spear - Boulder Toss build.
- 13 Apr. 2022 (this page): Thorough rework of this guide into an Ancient Spear - Boulder Toss build.
- 09 Dec. 2021 (gear page): Added Season 25 Soul Shard recommendations.
- 09 Dec. 2021 (skills page): Reviewed for Season 25.
- 09 Dec. 2021 (this page): Added Season 25 Soul Shard recommendations.
- 22 Jul. 2021 (gear page): Added S24 Ethereal recommendation.
- 22 Jul. 2021 (skills page): No changes required for Season 24.
- 22 Jul. 2021 (this page): Added S24 Ethereal recommendation.
- 31 Mar. 2021 (gear page): Revised gear recommendations, and added follower recommendation.
- 31 Mar. 2021 (skills page): Adjusted skill recommendations.
- 31 Mar. 2021 (this page): Revised gear and skill recommendations, and added follower recommendation.
- 18 Nov. 2020 (gear page): Added S22 Cube recommendation.
- 18 Nov. 2020 (this page): Added S22 Cube recommendation.
- 17 Nov. 2020 (skills page): No changes required for Season 22.
- 30 Jun. 2020 (gear page): No changes required for Season 21.
- 30 Jun. 2020 (skills page): No changes required for Season 21.
- 30 Jun. 2020 (this page): No changes required for Season 21.
- 12 Mar. 2020 (gear page): No changes necessary for Season 20.
- 12 Mar. 2020 (skills page): No changes necessary for Season 20.
- 12 Mar. 2020 (this page): No changes necessary for Season 20.
- 19 Nov. 2019 (gear page): Guide revised and updated for Season 19.
- 19 Nov. 2019 (skills page): Guide revised and updated for Season 19.
- 19 Nov. 2019 (this page): Guide revised and updated for Season 19.
- 22 Aug. 2019 (gear page): Item recommendations were revised for Season 18.
- 22 Aug. 2019 (skills page): Skill selection was clarified for Season 18.
- 22 Aug. 2019 (this page): Item recommendations were revised for Season 18.
- 13 May 2019 (gear page): Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 17.
- 13 May 2019 (skills page): Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 17.
- 13 May 2019 (this page): Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 17.
- 27 Jan. 2019 (skills page): Minor revision to the passive selection options.
- 27 Jan. 2019 (this page): Introduced minor improvements to the guide and adjusted the Raekor variant according to the meta.
- 17 Jan. 2019 (gear page): Added suggestions for the baseline Ring of Royal Grandeur for Seasonal characters.
- 17 Jan. 2019 (this page): Guide was revised with additional recommendations for Season 16.
- 16 Jan. 2019 (skills page): Information was reviewed and approved for Season 16 with no changes required.
- 20 Sep. 2018 (this page): Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 15.
- 14 Jun. 2018 (this page): Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 14.
- 16 Nov. 2017 (this page): Added the Raekor build variation for GR progress.
- 31 Oct. 2017 (gear page): Changed the weapon recommendation to a dual setup with The Istvan's Paired Blades replacing The Gavel of Judgment (which is now cubed).
- 31 Oct. 2017 (this page): Overhaul of the guide to reflect the 2.6.1 buffs that made this build the best build of the season for Barbarians.
- 26 Jun. 2017 (this page): Guide updated for 2.6 and moved to new format.
More Barbarian Guides
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This build is presented to you by Deadset, one of the very few professional Diablo 3 players. Deadset regularly publishes video guides on Youtube and streams on Twitch, where you can see how this and other builds play out in practice.
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