Furious Charge IK/Raekor Barbarian Speed Farming Variation

The Raekor Furious Charge Barbarian deals with Normal Rift farming excellently, and can only suffer minor setbacks during Bounty farming from single target boss bounties, where the build slows down. We have solo speed GR rankings and solo speed T16 rankings if you want to know more about which builds are best for speed farming.

Within the limited scope of regular difficulties, the necessary damage and toughness to triumph over the enemy is significantly smaller. Thus, your best course of action is to improve utility and speed.

Active Skills
Furious Charge Merciless Assault Seismic Slam Rumble 1 Battle Rage Ferocity 2 Sprint Marathon 3 Wrath of the Berserker Insanity 4 Call of the Ancients Together as One
Passive Skills
Rampage Berserker Rage Ruthless Pound of Flesh

When you are speed farming regular rifts, parts of your playstyle will adapt to the lowered challenge and focus more on speed and utility.

The build maintains both Wrath of the Berserker and Call of the Ancients up throughout the rift; and while Berserker needs to be cast on cooldown, the Ancients are very unlikely to die in regular Rifts — so only resummon if necessary. Charge Barbarians thrive in density, so try to aim your Furious Charges in the thickest of fights — usually oneshotting them and resetting the cooldown via Merciless Assault. Your built up Fury reserves need to be dumped on priority, higher health targets through Boulder Toss. As usual, reapply Sprint as soon as it runs out, and keep up Battle Rage throughout the runs.

Parts of the skill and passive selection will overlap with the base Greater Rift progression build, but others will have to change according to the task at hand. The ability to cross over great distances faster and more efficiently takes precedence.

• Furious Charge remains the main damage dealing skill, with all the runes at your disposal due to the Raekor 4-piece bonus. You can also retain Ancient Spear Boulder Toss as your Fury dump, or switch to Seismic Slam Rumble for ease of AoE during speed farm.
• Sprint Marathon is maintained between specs, as it both scales your damage due to the Standoff legendary bonus, and its movespeed properties fit the speed farming purposes nicely.
• Battle Rage is present in the speed farming build as well, but the rune is swapped from the progression-oriented Bloodshed to the extra movement speed of Ferocity.
• Both Call of the Ancients Together as One and Wrath of the Berserker Insanity are still part of your skill lineup.
• Rampage, Berserker Rage and Ruthless are still a solid foundation of your passive selection.
• You can change the flexible fourth passive slot from progression staples like Nerves of Steel to the globe-consuming Pound of Flesh to further speed up your clears.

Most of the gear from the Greater Rift progression build will still make sense for speed farming, but a few variations will be necessary in order to maximize your productivity and momentum during regular Rift clears.

The recommended 5 Immortal King / 3 Raekor set piece split, as well as the Ring of Royal Grandeur in the Cube, are maintained from the main progression build. The same applies to your amulet, The Flavor of Time, whose Pylon duration doubling powers retain usefulness across all difficulties, and the damage mitigation staple Band of Might.

The recommendation for your second ring shifts from the timing-based damage bonuses of Convention of Elements to the utility-oriented Avarice Band. This is an Act 3 cache legendary ring that increases your gold and health globe pickup radius as you pick up gold, stacking to the massive, half-screen circle of 30 yards — all for a generous 10 second duration. Its legendary power will greatly assist you in maintaining the movespeed bonuses of Boon of the Hoarder, as well as Pound of Flesh.

During speedfarming, where the multiple runes of Wrath of the Berserker that come from Mortick's Brace are overkill in many regards, the preferred bracers become Warzechian Armguards, for the environment destruction speed buffs that are easily provided by the AoE of this build. The former favorites, the elite spawning Nemesis Bracers, are still very valuable, but they can now be equipped on the follower while still getting their bonus via the Emanate mechanics. You should still equip them in groups, where you cannot have a follower with you. The Nemesis Bracers value comes from the additional loot — not to mention progression — coming from the extra elite spawns. They let you finish standard rifts that much faster, and acquire the coveted GR keys in greater amounts.

To help you with farming the gear you need for your builds, we have two very useful guides that you can access by clicking the links below: a Salvage Guide to help you quickly check whether or not you can safely salvage a piece of gear and a Legendary Farming Guide to help you efficiently farm legendaries and set items.

This Season comes with the theme of Angelic Crucibles — consumable items that empower Legendary items with perfected Ancient-level stats, as well as infuse them with one of three unique, powerful, class-specific abilities at random. For this build, we recommend aiming for the Wrath of the Berserker Sanctification, which adds the following power to your build:

• Wrath of the Berserker Sanctification: Hitting enemies generates stacks of Tempest Rhythm. Activating Wrath of the Berserker consumes 50 stacks of Tempest Rhythm and startles enemies within 16 yards, causing them to take 2% increased damage per stack for 20 seconds. Max 50 stacks.

Use Angelic Crucibles on an item that crosses over most (if not all) variants of a build, and is also an item that is relatively harder to perfect than other slots (since sanctifying an item maximizes its stats). In the case of this build, a good candidate for Sanctification is the Band of Might.

You can read more on Angelic Crucibles and the sanctification process in our dedicated Angelic Crucible Mechanics guide.

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.

Bane of the Trapped remains a universally desired damage amplification gem.

Boon of the Hoarder is a great speed farming inclusion, as it increases both your gold income (necessary for empowering GRs) as well as your movement speed (which directly affects the damage of Charge Barbs).

To maximize your damage and mobility, use Wreath of Lightning in one of your jewelry sockets. Since the movement speed proc of the gem (from its level 25 property) feeds into the legendary effect of Standoff, the gem's inclusion squeezes the last bit of DPS possible into the build. If you prefer to have some extra defense in this slot (with a minor drop in overall damage), you can use Bane of the Powerful for its balanced approach to damage amplification and mitigation.

For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.

Your Cube selections will remain untouched between the progression build and the speedfarming variation. Both Standoff and Vile Ward are retained as weapon and armor Cube choices respectively; these cornerstone legendaries dictate the damage of a Furious Charge-based build. Ring of Royal Grandeur is naturally required in a build that mixes between two big sets.

The Kanai's Cube can be used for much more than simply extracting Legendary powers from items. Please refer to our Kanai's Cube guide for more information.

The recommended follower for this build during standard rift farming for keys is the Enchantress due to her numerous utility bonuses, allowing you to smooth out your speed runs even further.

For more information regarding followers, we advise you to read our Follower Guide, which contains detailed advice for choosing the skills and the gear of your follower.

The recommended potion for Charge Barbs during speed farming is Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid, as it allows you to break through Waller affixes — a great boon to a build that is highly dependent on mobility, and the only thing that can meaningfully slow you down in regular Rifts.