Leap/Earthquake MotE Barbarian Speed Farming Variation

The Earthquake Barbarian can deal excellently with Normal Rift farming all the way through the highest Torment difficulties. Due to the great distances that need to be covered for certain Bounties and the deliberate pace of Leap, it is generally not a recommended build for that purpose. 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
Earthquake Cave-In Seismic Slam Rumble 1 War Cry Veteran's Warning 2 Leap Death from Above 3 Battle Rage Ferocity 4 Wrath of the Berserker Insanity
Passive Skills
Rampage Earthen Might 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 rotation of the Earthquake Barb remains pretty much unchanged between difficulties, retaining the cycle of triple Leap — Seismic Slam Rumble Fury dumps, as well as constant upkeep of buffs like War Cry (adding movespeed value in speed runs due to Chilanik's Chain) and Wrath of the Berserker. Battle Rage Ferocity is also added to the mixture for additional movement speed value, and should be kept active at all times.

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. Ability to cross over great distances faster and more efficiently take precedence.

• Earthquake remains the main damage dealer of the build, but for the convenience of speed farming, you can swap from the highly damaging Molten Fury rune to the pulling effect of Cave-In. Note that this requires a swap from Fire to Physical damage in your gear rolls.
• Leap Death from Above is still your method of delivering Earthquakes and building up Fury, and Seismic Slam Rumble is still the Fury dump that resets cooldowns, making both a mainstay in the build.
• Wrath of the Berserker Insanity is an omnipresent self-buff in both versions of the build.
• War Cry Veteran's Warning is also present in the speed farming version of the build, and aside from its survivability value, it adds a movement speed buff angle via the equipped Chilanik's Chain. In case you want to go the route of Goldwrap, you can alter this slot to Sprint Marathon.
• Since you can easily overkill on damage with a well-equipped character, simply swap your Threatening Shout slot to the movement speed boost of Battle Rage Ferocity.
• Rampage, Ruthless and Earthen Might are still a solid foundation of your passive selection.
• In the In-geom-reliant speed farming variation, you can exchange the flat CDR of Boon of Bul-Kathos for the movement speed bonuses of Pound of Flesh.

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 six pieces of the Might of the Earth set and the Blade of the Tribes are still integral parts of the Earthquake build, need to be worn during speed farming. The basic recommendations for the jewelry also still apply, with Hellfire Amulet of Strength as your amulet of choice (though alternatives like Squirt's Necklace in solo play and The Flavor of Time for groups can be considered), and the Bastions of Will set — Focus and Restraint — still fitting the playstyle overall. Note that the rings particularly can be experimented with; i.e. equipping a Physical damage Stone of Jordan and a Rechel's Ring of Larceny, capitalizing on the innate Fear Chance on the ring to proc the hefty movespeed increase legendary power.

When doing runs in the Torment difficulties, the extra Earthquake damage from Girdle of Giants can be overkill, so you can easily replace this belt with either Chilanik's Chain (for the extra movement speed when you use War Cry) or Goldwrap (its combo with Boon of the Hoarder and a cubed Avarice Band can render you practically immortal as long as you pick up gold).

During low tier GRs or normal rift speedruns in solo play, an optimized character can avoid the overkill of toughness in the bracer slot by swapping to Warzechian Armguards for the additional environment destruction-based speed boost. The usual recommendation, Nemesis Bracers, can be worn by the follower starting from Patch 2.7, but should still be taken by the character themselves in group play.

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. In the endgame, where you're testing this build to its upper limits, the pulling utility of the Whirlwind Sanctification edges over its competitors. Thus, we recommend substituting Battle Rage Ferocity from the regular build and using Whirlwind Dust Devils to proc the following power:

• Whirlwind Sanctification: Whirlwind pulls in and holds all enemies within 25 yards.

If you decide against this alteration, you can safely fall back to the (easier to use) Wrath of the Berserker Sanctification, which reads:

• 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 your main-hand weapon — usually Blade of the Tribes (although a combination of The Slanderer and Little Rogue is also viable in this Season-specific, Whirlwind-using alteration).

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.

In farming content the value of Bane of the Stricken diminishes greatly, and it is best replaced by the speedrun staple Bane of the Powerful for its overall damage and toughness increase.

During Normal Rift runs, you can also swap Gogok of Swiftness out for Boon of the Hoarder to encase yourself in a near-impenetrable layer of defense and speed from the interaction with the (potentially) worn Goldwrap and cubed Avarice Band.

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

The time and danger associated with champion and Guardian fights is significantly smaller when speed farming, and swapping the Weapon cube slot for In-geom will provide you with a steady flow of Wrath of the Berserker activations, greatly improving clear speed.

Lut Socks are an irreplaceable part of the Earthquake Barb playstyle, guaranteeing their spot in the armor Cube slot.

In Normal Rifts, the Jewelry cube slot can be used by Avarice Band in conjunction with a worn Goldwrap (optional) and a socketed Boon of the Hoarder in your jewelry (recommended) to bolster and speed yourself up significantly.

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.

Two legendary potions can be considered useful in an Earthquake Barb build. Bottomless Potion of Amplification adds some extra healing to your Life per Fury Spent tactics with Rumble. Alternatively, Bottomless Potion of the Diamond can be a straightforward addition that simply layers a short All Resist protective coating after drinking (All Resistance is the preferred form of mitigation stacking for Strength-based characters, since their mainstat scales Armor already.)