Whirlwind GR Wastes Barbarian Speed Farming Variation

The Whirlwind Barbarian deals with Normal Rift farming and Bounty runs excellently, making it a preferred build even outside Solo GR content. 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
War Cry Charge! Whirlwind Blood Funnel 1 Ignore Pain Bravado 2 Wrath of the Berserker Insanity 3 Battle Rage Bloodshed 4 Sprint Marathon
Passive Skills
Berserker Rage Ruthless Weapons Master Rampage

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 Whirlwind Barb does not alter significantly as a playstyle during speed farming — you are still Whirlwinding throughout the Rift, reapplying important buffs as they come off cooldown. Wrath of the Berserker has the biggest priority, and you will be aiming to reset its cooldown as fast as possible through In-geom resets (meaning you should prioritize elites slightly when picking your fights). Battle Rage will be applied for the extra speed of Ferocity, and War Cry — for the temporary boost of Chilanik's Chain. Pull abilities will not be necessary in standard content, so you can use the freed up skill slot for a final speed bump from Sprint Marathon.

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.

• Whirlwind is still your main damage dealer, and you can either maintain the rune Blood Funnel from progression, or alternate to Hurricane (and adjust elemental rolls on gear accordingly) for the vortex effect on enemies.
• The protection-focused runes of Ignore Pain ( Iron Hide and Ignorance is Bliss) will not be necessary during speed farm, so you can switch to the extra speed of Bravado.
• When you become confident in outdamaging and easily surviving the content, you should also change your Battle Rage rune to the Ferocity movement speed increase.
• While it might not seem like a speed farming-appropriate choice, maintain War Cry on your bar in order to trigger a party-wide movespeed buff from the cubed Chilanik's Chain.
• When you are solo speed farming, use the slot usually occupied by Threatening Shout for the short bursts of speed from Sprint Marathon.
• Wrath of the Berserker Insanity is an omnipresent self-buff in both versions of the build.

You will still use the full 6-piece Wrath of the Wastes set, wearing all available pieces and leaving the jewelry slots for stronger utility options. Naturally, the Bul-Kathos's Oath is still yor weapon set of choice, and it complements farming needs nicely with its innate movement speed bonuses. Keep Pride of Cassius as well, even though it will serve another purpose — extending the duration of the movement speed bonuses of Bravado.

Jewelry-wise, both Hellfire Amulet of Strength and Skull Grasp are necessary for fluid farming. The cyclical damage bonuses from Convention of Elements however are too slow for the tempo of standard rift fights, and the ring is better replaced by the consistent damage buff of Stone of Jordan of the appropriate element as your Whirlwind rune of choice (Physical for Blood Funnel or Cold for Hurricane).

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.

Bane of the Trapped remains a universally desired damage amplification gem, and Taeguk remains an extremely potent addition to channeling builds such as Whirlwind (though you can consider dropping one of these gems for the extra movespeed from Wreath of Lightning once you comfortably outscale the content).

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. Early on in character progression, if you are not comfortable with your toughness (or if you are doing a Death's Breath farming alteration), you can use the defensive bulwark of Esoteric Alteration in this slot.

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

In speed farming, where you lose Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac for the all-out offensive combo of the worn Skull Grasp and Stone of Jordan, you should make up the cooldown reduction loss with an In-geom. This will ensure a near unbroken chain of Wrath of the Berserker activations, keeping up your damage and speed at a constant high.

Chilanik's Chain can easily swap Mantle of Channeling; the loss of damage and toughness will be insignificant in farming difficulties, and the party-wide movement speed buff after using War Cry will come in nicely.

Last but not least, you should also consider cubing an Avarice Band for the synergy with a socketed Boon of the Hoarder.

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.