[VESSEL OF HATRED] Whirlwind - Barbarian Build for Diablo 4

Build Introduction

Welcome to the build guide for one of the most iconic Barbarian builds across multiple Diablo titles, the Whirlwind Barbarian! Beloved by many, this simple playstyle will have you moving with ease through hordes of demons across the open world and nightmare dungeons, slicing through anything in your way as you become an unstoppable hurricane of steel. Thanks to the updates to some aspects in Patch 1.4.0, we will also be spawning some mighty tornadoes to help us mow down demons even faster. If you like simple but fun playstyles and tons of screen-clearing potential, this may be the build for you.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

Great Damage For AoE and Helltides
Great Mobility
Good Defensive Layers
Huge screen sized whirlwinds through tempering

Weaknesses

Fury management
Cooldown management
Low single target damage

To see how this build compares to the other builds on our site, you can check out our build tier lists.

Build Requirements

Optional Uniques

Required Aspects (Non-codex)

Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

Follow the points allocated in the image above for the complete 71 point build. The additional 12 skill points are completed using the Renown system.

Arsenal System and Weapon Selection

For the Whirlwind build, we will be focused on using the expertise of Two-Handed Axe for the bonus damage against Vulnerable Damage.

We will want to assign our Whirlwind skill to use our Dual-Wield Weapons to benefit from Ramaladni’s Magnum Opus. As a reminder, we want our non-Ramaladni’s weapon to be a one-handed mace to benefit from Wallop.

Paragon Board

We recommend using the following Legendary nodes and Glyphs to truly take this build into the endgame. Note that each Glyph’s information and radius listed below is for the Level 100 version. Note that glyph’s reach their maximum radius and legendary bonuses at level 46. Let’s take a look!

Mercenaries

As you play through the campaign in Vessel of Hatred, you will unlock various NPC Mercenaries who can join you on your quest to slay demons. Each Mercenary has their own small talent tree that will give them bonuses and skills to help you. Additionally, you can assign a Mercenary that you don’t take with you as a reinforcement to jump in when you activate certain skills. Let’s take a look at how we want to set this up for this build.

We hire Raheir, the Shieldbearer:

Core Skill: Ground Slam
Core Skill Passive: Raheir’s Aegis
Iconic Skill: Bastion
Iconic Skill Passive: Inspiration

Our Reinforcement Mercenary will be Varyana, The Berserker Crone:

Opportunity Skill: War Cry
Reinforcement Skill: Bloodthirst

Gear, Gems, Elixirs, and Stats

Loot Reborn brought us an incredible shift in how gear and itemization are done. It is major and will affect the game beyond Season 4’s confines. For further details, make sure to read our Tempering and Masterworking section below.

Legendary Aspects

Below you will find all of the best-in-slot Aspects found on Legendary items that are important for this build. Remember that with Patch 1.4.0 all Legendary powers can be added into your Codex once you salvage or extract the item. You can still find some aspects through dungeons as you could in previous seasons but now you have the option to upgrade these affixes if you find a higher roll of that affix. Let us go over what aspects you will need.

Gear Slot	Gems	Aspect / Unique	Aspect / Unique Power
Helm	Grand Ruby	Tuskhelm of Joritz the Mighty	– When you gain Berserking while already Berserk, you have a [40-60%] chance to become more enraged granting x15% increased damage, 2 Fury Per Second, and 10% Cooldown Reduction
Chest	Grand Ruby	Rage of Harrogath	– Lucky Hit: Inflicting Bleeding on an enemy has up to a [20-40%] chance to reduce the Cooldowns of your Skills by 1 second
Gloves	N/A	Fists of Fate	– Your attacks randomly deal 1% to [200-300%] of their normal damage
Pants	Grand Ruby	Tibault’s Will	– You deal [10-20%] increased damage while Unstoppable and for 5 seconds after. When you become Unstoppable gain 50 of your primary resource
Boots	N/A	Ghostwalker Aspect	– While Unstoppable and for 4 seconds after, you gain [10-30%] increased Movement Speed and can move freely through enemies
Amulets	Grand Diamond	Locran’s Talisman	– Your skills gain + [0.10-0.40%] Critical Strike Chance bonus per point of Primary Resource you have, up to + [10-40%]. Each point of Primary Resource above 100 grants x0.2% Critical Strike Damage instead.
Ring 1	Grand Diamond	Bold Chieftain’s Aspect	– Whenever you cast a Shout Skill, its active Cooldown is reduced by [10-30%] per nearby enemy, up to a maximum of 50%
Ring 2	Grand Diamond	Starlight Aspect	– Gain [25-40] of your Primary Resource for every 20% of life that you heal
Two-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon	Bac and Wat Runes OR Grand Emerald	Dust Devil’s Aspect	– Whirlwind leaves behind Dust Devils that deal [X] damage to enemies in their path
Two-Handed Slashing Weapon	Xol and Yom Runes OR Grand Emerald	Devilish Aspect	– After generating 100 Fury, your next direct damage creates 3 Dust Devils that deal [X] damage to enemies in their path
Dual-Wield Weapon 1	Grand Emerald	Aspect of Fierce Winds	– Your Shout Skills create 3 Dust Devils that deal [X] damage to enemies along their path. Your Dust Devils are [5-25%] bigger and deal 1% increased damage for each 1% their size is increased
Dual-Wield Weapon 2	Grand Emerald	Ramaladni’s Magnum Opus	– Skills using this weapon deal [0.2-0.5%] increased damage per point of Fury you have, but you lose 10 Fury Per Second.

Gems

Listed below are the best gems to socket into gear for each slot type.

For your jewelry, it may be necessary to change the Grand Diamond for another gem of a specific type such as Grand Sapphire to ensure all of your resistances are capped at 70%.

Runes

Runewords return from Diablo 2 in Vessel of Hatred! You are limited to two Runewords across your gear and it requires two sockets in the same item. So this limits creating Runewords by combining two Runes to either Helm, Chest, Pants, or Two-Handed Weapons. We generally recommend them in both of your Two-Handed Weapons for Barbarian. Let’s jump in.

Which Elixir Should You Use?

Visit the Alchemist in any main town to craft helpful Elixirs that increase stats, and experience gain for 30 minutes. Make sure to forage plants and pick up the necessary crafting materials during your adventures; they randomly spawn around the world. Use an Elixir providing any Resistance you need most, or the new Elixir of Resource (Resource cost reduced by 10-20%). Maximum resource increased by 10-25) for more efficient spins!

Return to the Alchemist again every 5 to 10 levels to upgrade your potion. The extra healing is essential to survival.

Gear, Stats, Tempering, and Masterworking

Below are the affixes to prioritize on gear. Each line of affixes is listed in order of importance. Tempering Manuals and their recommended affixes are provided in the second column, and the bolded yellow affixes are the most important targets for Masterworking upgrades. Be sure to check our Tempering guide and Masterworking guides for more details about these topics.

Slot	Gear Affixes	Tempering Affixes
Helm	1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Maximum Resource 3. Strength	1. Dust Devil Size Wasteland Innovation 2. Iron Skin Cooldown Reduction Barbarian Strategy
Chest	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Needed Resistance	1. Dust Devil Size Wasteland Innovation 2. Iron Skin Cooldown Reduction Barbarian Strategy
Gloves	1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Strength 3. Lucky Hit: Chance to make Enemies Vulnerable for 2 Seconds	1. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse 2. Dust Devil Size Wasteland Innovation
Pants	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Needed Resistance	1. Dust Devil Size Wasteland Innovation 2. Iron Skin Cooldown Reduction Barbarian Strategy
Boots	1. Strength 2. Fury Per Second 3. Movement Speed	1. Movement Speed Natural Motion 2. Crowd Control Duration Natural Schemes
Amulet	1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Critical Strike Chance 3. Movement Speed	1. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse 2. War Cry Cooldown Reduction Brawling Efficiency
Rings	1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Lucky Hit: Chance to make Enemies Vulnerable for 2 seconds 3. Critical Strike Damage	1. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse 2. War Cry Cooldown Reduction Brawling Efficiency
Two-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon	1. Strength 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Fury on Kill	1. Chance for Dust Devils to Cast Twice Sandstorm Augments 2. Critical Strike Damage Berserking Finesse
Two-Handed Slashing Weapon	1. Strength 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Maximum Life	1. Chance for Dust Devils to Cast Twice Sandstorm Augments 2. Critical Strike Damage Berserking Finesse
Dual-Wield Weapons	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Critical Strike Damage	1. Dust Devil Size Sandstorm Augments 2. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse

Rotation and Playstyle

The extremely popular Spin2Win playstyle remains intact in Diablo 4 for the Barbarian class. Let’s do a quick pass over our skills and how we use them in this straight forward but powerful build.

Use War Cry and Rallying Cry to generate resources and for their buffs.
Hold down Whirlwind and carve through enemies in your way. If possible, never let go of this skill while fighting.
Cast Iron Skin and Challenging Shout for defense whenever you’re in a tough spot.
Use Wrath of the Berserker whenever you run into elites and bosses to call the squad for big damage and resource generation to help your single target sustain.

Uniques and Mythic Uniques

Below you will find information on Uniques and Mythic Uniques that are useful for this build. Moreover, if you are interested in target farming Mythic Uniques, check out our How to Farm Mythic Uniques guide.

Uniques

Below you will find the useful uniques for this build. Let’s dive in.

Rage of Harrogath – With its update in Patch 1.4.0 this will help us provide a substantial amount of cooldown resets for our shouts and defensive options as well as our ultimate.Wrath of the Berserker We will be inflicting Bleed through various methods near constantly to get the most out of it.
Tuskhelm of Joritz the Mighty – A powerful helm that can rival the infamous “shako” helm in terms of usefulness to certain Barbarian builds. This happens to be one of those builds and this helm fits right in with our setup giving us damage, resource, and cooldown reduction.
Ramaladni’s Magnum Opus – This sword has been strong since the game’s release and is no less powerful in Vessel of Hatred. A cornerstone of this whirlwind setup, definitely don’t skip on this item. The downside might seem harsh but it can be largely ignored thanks to our gear setup and we get nothing but upsides.
Locran’s Talisman – Introduced during season 5, it retains its power in Vessel of Hatred and season 6. Giving us tons of resource, critical strike chance and damage it proves to be a potent addition to this setup.
Tibault’s Will – These pants were once the cream of the crop for offensive stats on a defensive item slot, this hasn’t changed in Season 6 and Vessel of Hatred. Giving us tons of resources whenever we become Unstoppable and a huge damage bonus, we want to equip these as soon as we’re able.
Fists of Fate – An item that was long seen as a joke or meme. However, the unique updates in season 5 drastically shifted this item’s power. Now in Vessel of Hatred with a massive 51% lucky hit chance or more if you get a Greater Affix on it, this item has a lot of power. The math works out such that it’s almost always a 50% damage if you get one to roll 300% on the Unique Power, it may seem scary or like it’s nerfing you but it is only bringing you huge upsides and tons of power. A must have for any build that attacks rapidly like Whirlwind.

Mythic Uniques

Ring of Starless Skies – This Mythic Unique ring provides an amazing source of damage and resource management and will skyrocket the build even further. If you are lucky enough to acquire one replace the ring with Starlight Aspect with it.
Harlequin Crest – The most powerful helm and most coveted item in Diablo 4. It provides us with substantial damage reduction and cooldown reduction as well as plenty of ranks to our skills. If you’re lucky enough to acquire one it’s definitely worth the equip.
The Grandfather – An infamous two-handed sword that provides a massive critical strike damage multiplier sending your damage into the stratosphere. The rework in Season 5 also adds a flat 300% increased damage which makes it even more massive. If you get one, replace your Slashing Weapon with it, dropping Devilish Aspect entirely.
Tyrael’s Might – A new Mythic Unique introduced in Season 4, it was buffed midway through that season and proved to be quite strong. The Season 5 rework makes it just as powerful as it was before with movement speed, maximum max resistances, an incredible amount of all resistances and an innate damage reduction which stacks with Harlequin Crest‘s damage reduction if you have both.

Season 6: Season of Hatred

Like pevious seasons, Season 6 comes with a new faction to gain reputation with the Zakarum Remnants. Additionally, throughout the world you will find regions afflicted with Mephito’s hatred. Within these regions are massive demons called ‘Realmwalkers’ which after spawning and charging up begins to walk in search of sacred ground. While walking in this phase the Realmwalker’s are invulnerable but fearsome Bloodbound Guardians spawn to protect it. Slay them to remove chunks of the Realmwalker’s health. Once it reaches its destination it will spawn Hatred Spires which you can kill to finally attack the Realmwalker itself. Once slain it leaves behind a portal to a Seething Realm.

Within the Seething Realm you can offer up certain materials at Realm Gates to determine the reward once you complete the dungeon within the realm. These realms also offer a new currency, Seething Opals. A new type of Elixir that provides a 15% experience increase along with another bonus for 30 minutes. The experience bonus from a Seething Opal, stacks with the experience bonus of normal Elixirs allowing you to level even faster!

There are 5 types of Seething Opals:

Seething Opal of Equipment which causes enemies to drop additional equipment for 25 Murmuring Obols.
Seething Opal of Materials which causes enemies to drop extra herbs and crafting materials for 5 Murmuring Obols.
Seething Opal of Gold which causes enemies to drop extra gold for 1 Iron Chunk.
Seething Opal of Socketables which causes enemies to drop additional gem fragments and rarely, Runes, for 3 Angelbreath.
Seething Opal of Torment Challenges which causes enemies to drop extra Artificer’s Stones and occasionally Boss Summoning Materials or Infernal Compasses for 200 Sigil Powder.

Note that the Torment Challenges Opal is only available beginning in Torment 1 difficulty and beyond and is not available in earlier difficulties. While this season does not offer any direct power increase to characters it provides extra loot and bonuses to find the most powerful items and materials to strengthen your character for their journey into Vessel of Hatred!

Advanced Information

Build Mechanics

This is perhaps the most iconic playstyle for Barbarians. Get your shouts up, pop Wrath of the Berserker and hold down Whirlwind and spin2win. Be sure to hold Challenging Shout and Iron Skin for nasty elites and bosses to provide solid damage reduction so you can just keep spinning and chop them up into bits.

This build does struggle against some higher level single target bosses but should mop up any large groups with the greatest of ease. A truly old-fashioned and iconic playstyle from all the way back in Diablo 2 now here in Diablo 4 with whirlwinds the size of the screen!

Paragon

We recommend these Legendary Nodes and Glyphs to truly take this build into the endgame and further into The Pit. Note that each Glyph listed below is a max Level version.

Let’s break down each of these beneficial nodes and where our Paragon Points are positioned in each of the Paragon Boards we use. This part of the build is presented in order of importance. If you do not have enough Paragon Points for use in your Paragon Tree, just slowly work towards each step.

Important Notes

Make sure you select the correct Legendary Boards and rotate them into the correct orientation to match the images shown above.
Attach the boards in the order shown as bonus requirements of Rare Nodes increase with their placement order.
Additional bonuses on Glyphs may not be obtainable until they gain the increased radius at level 15 and again at level 46.

Starting Board

Start by heading right and grabbing Brawn and the surrounding magic nodes.
Next go left and path to the socket through Tenacity and slot in Exploit.
Pick up a ton of Dexterity nodes near the socket as well as both rare nodes Iron Strength and Raw Power.
Exit the board by marching north on the right side path and connect the Warbringer board to it.

Warbringer

Start by heading up and left and through Hungering Fury.
Continue north and then take Fire Resilience before a sharp right to the Legendary Node Warbringer.
Head back to the beginning and go right to the glyph socket, slot in Wrath and begin picking up Dexterity nodes nearby including both rare nodes Brute Force and Raw Power.
Head north from the radius and ensure you grabbed Core Reserve and some nearby magic nodes.
Lastly exit the board to the east and connect the Carnage board.

Carnage

Begin by pathing east and go right for the glyph socket, slot in Ambidextrous.
Grab both nearby rare nodes and their magic node clusters Berserker and Fierce.
Head down and east to the Legendary node Carnage and make a small detour to grab Brash.
Head south and connect the Decimator board to the southern gate. Once Decimator is finished, return to the Carnage board.
Head north from the glyph socket and grab Enraged and the trio of magic nodes in front of it. Continue pathing to the Northern gate and connect the final of our five boards, the Blood Rage board.

Decimator

Head straight down and take the left path towards the glyph socket, grab Twister.
Grab both nearby rare nodes Demolish and Destroyer.
Continue south by grabbing Strength on the left side of the socket, make your way down and grab the Legendary node Decimator.
Before leaving this board to head back to Carnage, take both the east and west path from the Legendary Decimator node to grab Brawn and Pillage and all the surrounding magic nodes.

Blood Rage

Begin by heading up and to the right, take another turn north along a series of Strength nodes.
Turn left and head to the Glyph socket and slot in Challenger and begin picking up the strength nodes as you head west grabbing Revel.
Go north from the socket through Wrath and then continue north to take a small detour to pick up Restorative.
To finish this board off head west and pick up the Legendary node Blood Rage.
From the Legendary node, continue west and pick up Grit and the surrounding magic nodes.
With that we come to the end of our paragon journey, sort of.

Concluding

At this point, you should have most of your paragon points spend, all 5 boards unlocked, and all of your Glyph’s empowered with their bonuses. You will have anywhere from 40 to 50 points remaining to spend. Getting to the maximum paragon level in Vessel of Hatred is a truly arduous task that requires many many hours. If you are truly one of those few who are hardcore enough to max out your Paragon, we suggest spending these extra points to grab any Rare Nodes and magic clusters nearby the paths we took on your boards that we didn’t take in our initial journey or any normal nodes for stats you might be lacking to gain bonuses for your various rare nodes. Congratulations on making it this far!

Obol Gambling

A final point on acquiring gear in Season 6 and beyond is using your Obols to target farm specific slots instead of randomly spending them on random drops. Similar to Kadala in Diablo 3, you can use Obol vendors in town to try and get what you’re missing. With the expansion when a level 60 Character spends Obols, all gear from that vendor will be 750 item power, the highest non-ancestral power allowing you to fill out gear with the affixes or Legendary Aspects you need while also having a small chance to grant Ancestral item power 800 gear.

Check out our Obol Gambling Tool HERE.

Changelog

November 27th 2024: Aspects and Mythic Unique section updated for mid-season patch
October 24th 2024: Paragon section updated for post-launch boards
October 3rd 2024: Guide updated for Season 6 and Vessel of Hatred
August 2nd 2024: Guide updated for Season 5 and Patch 1.5.0
June 13th 2024: Updated stat priority
May 4th 2024: Updated guide format and added Season 4 information
May 2nd 2024: Updated for Season 4 and Patch 1.4.0, ownership of page transferred, guide restructured
March 5th 2024: Updates for Patch 1.3.3.
February 5th 2024: Marshal Glyph changed to Seething.
January 30th 2024: Marshal Glyph changes.
January 21st 2024: Season 3 speculative changes.
October 23rd 2023: Build revamped for Season 2.
October 13th 2023: Build Adjusted to prepare for Season 2 launch.
September 6th, 2023: New format and updates
August 2nd, 2023: Patch 1.1.1 section added with build specific changes.
July 20, 2023: Guide updated for Season 1.

Weapon Gems	Armor Gems	Jewelry Gems
Grand Emerald for increased Critical Strike Damage	Grand Ruby for increased Strength	Grand Diamond for increased All Resistance

Runes	Rune Effects
Bac	Gain 50 Offering: Travel 5 Meters
Wat	Requires 100 Offering: Cooldown 1 second, Evoke the Necromancer’s Horrid Decrepify slowing enemies, reducing their damage, and letting you execute them
Xol	Gain 150 Offering: Evoke power from another class
Yom	Requires 500 Offering: Cooldown 5 seconds, Evoke the Druid’s Petrify stunning enemies and generating 100 Primary Resource

Rare Glyphs and Legendary Nodes	Effect
Exploit	– For every 5 Dexterity purchased within range, you deal + [2%] increased damage to Vulnerable targets. Additional bonus when 25 Dexterity points are purchased within the Glyph’s radius: When an enemy is damaged by you, they become Vulnerable for 3 seconds. This cannot happen more than once every 20 seconds per enemy. Legendary Bonus: Increases your damage to Vulnerable targets by [X%]
Wrath	– For every 5 Dexterity purchased within range, you deal + [3%] increased Critical Strike Damage Additional bonus when 25 Dexterity points are purchased within the Glyph’s radius: Skills that Critically Strike generate 3 Fury Legendary Bonus: Increases your Physical Damage by [X%]
Ambidextrous	– Grants + [25%] bonus to all Magic Nodes within range Additional bonus when 40 Strength points are purchased within the Glyph’s radius: You deal x8% increased damage while wielding One-Handed Weapons Legendary Bonus: Increases your damage by [X%]
Twister	– For every 5 Strength purchased within range, your Dust Devils deal [13.2%] increased damage Additional bonus when 40 Strength points are purchased within the Glyph’s radius: You deal 13% increased damage for 4 seconds after creating a Dust Devil Legendary Bonus: Increases your Dust Devil damage by [X%]
Challenger	– Grants + [30%] bonus to all Normal Nodes within range Additional bonus when 40 Strength points are purchased within the Glyph’s radius: You deal x8% increased damage while wielding One-Handed Weapons Legendary Bonus: Increases your damage to Elites by [X%]
Warbringer	– For every 75 Fury you spend, gain 15% of your Maximum Life as Fortify
Carnage	– While Berserking, Critical Strikes increase your Attack Speed by 2% up to 16% for 6 seconds
Blood Rage	– Killing a Bleeding enemy has a 10% chance to grant Berserking for 5 seconds. Your damage is increased by 10% of your Damage While Berserking bonus, up to a maximum of 30%
Decimator	– Each time you make an enemy Vulnerable, your damage is increased by 10% for 5 seconds. Overpowering a Vulnerable enemy grants an additional x10% bonus for 5 seconds.

Whirlwind – Barbarian Build for Diablo 4