Whirlwind Bul-Kathos Barbarian

[Deadset 108]

The build is okay'ish, but you can do better! Use Unity or Convention of Elements in Cube. Use Strongarm Bracers and Furious Charge with Merciless Assault (You can replace Threatening Shout with this). You will deal 130%~ more damage!

 

Heya, this build is exclusively targeted at pushing the Leaderboard and optimizing between survivability and damage. It currently holds the highest Barbarian clear on the S4 leaderboard at GR72. :) A Furious Charge variation definitely exists, but it's mostly for speedfarming.

[Guest diablo fan]

diablo fan, here's a tip to get that belt, in case you don't know it: use the Upgrade Rare item option in the Cube.

You're completely right:  I was using Blood Shards until I realized that the normal 10% chance to get a leg. was only a 5% chance with belts since I got about 50% belts, 50% mighty belts.  (It's not a horrible method, it just means you're basically spending 50 shards for a chance.)  Upgrading a rare is better since there are only 8 mighty belts (including IK), although I'm still not sure if PoC still has a lower chance to get made or not.  (Anyone know?)

The downside is that Deaths Breaths are a major crafting component now - that's the expensive part of the recipe.  Dumping 200 of those for 8 chances at the belt is no small expenditure.

 

I did find it much more useful for the mighty one-handed swords, though:  there are only 7 (non-craftable) of those and 2 are the ones you need!

Re: Furious Charge, I'm not sure 130% more damage is what you mean - I think you mean 30% more, or 130% damage.  Second, the main issue with that is that when you are not WWing, you are dying.  WW is your everything:  it's your DR, it's your regen, it's your movement speed, and it's your CD reduction - which is also indirectly your damage, since CDR is your uptime on Wrath (and IP).  I'm sure you're right, but I don't know if it would be worth the survivability hit.

Related:  knockback immunity on mobs, is that a thing?  I know 2.3 changed how this worked a bit but I don't really understand if the final effect is that some yellows/bosses can be knockback immune (and thus extra damage immune) or not.

[Warden 8]

You're completely right:  I was using Blood Shards until I realized that the normal 10% chance to get a leg. was only a 5% chance with belts since I got about 50% belts, 50% mighty belts.  (It's not a horrible method, it just means you're basically spending 50 shards for a chance.)  Upgrading a rare is better since there are only 8 mighty belts (including IK), although I'm still not sure if PoC still has a lower chance to get made or not.  (Anyone know?)

The downside is that Deaths Breaths are a major crafting component now - that's the expensive part of the recipe.  Dumping 200 of those for 8 chances at the belt is no small expenditure.

 

I did find it much more useful for the mighty one-handed swords, though:  there are only 7 (non-craftable) of those and 2 are the ones you need!

 

Yeah, for armor I mostly use blood shards, since they only cost 25 each.  If it's something class-specific like a mighty belt and I'm having trouble, I might upgrade.  One thing I do to cut costs is try first with blood shards, then use the rare items I get that way to upgrade in the cube.  Then I'm not spending ingredients (or not as many) crafting rares to upgrade.

 

I have converted dozens of items in the last couple weeks and I think the odds of getting one item vs another is the same as from monster drops.  So you end up with about 20 Sultan of Blinding Sands for every Furnace. :D

[Guest diablo fan]

I have converted dozens of items in the last couple weeks and I think the odds of getting one item vs another is the same as from monster drops.  So you end up with about 20 Sultan of Blinding Sands for every Furnace.

Your plan is a good one (use blood shards and then convert what rares you get) and I wouldn't be surprised if the "drop" rate was the same.  I've nearly given up on getting a Furnace - it may be worse than the belt!

Also, I misspoke earlier:  I said the main thing this build brought to the table with 2.3 was adding Unity, but really it effectively just replaced CotA with War Cry.  War Cry isn't nearly as powerful when it comes to total damage reduction, but it DOES have a MUCH shorter CD - which allows you to focus more on DPS than on CDR, which - thanks to multiplicative things like the Hexing Pants - yield even greater results.  You can still focus on CDR and use CotA instead of War Cry and achieve semi-permanent uptime on Wrath AND CotA, but you'll give up a huge chunk of total damage - probably ~25-30% by my math - for your DR gain.  I don't know if the really high Grifts require better DR or DPS so I'm not sure which is best, but this guide favors DPS, so there's a solid clue. 

Now that I've finally gotten to play with a very non-optimized version of this build, the effective toughness granted by Wastes 4 piece + Unity + Ignore Pain is undeniable.  And even without strong CDR, you can still tend to keep Wrath up during packs and elites fairly well, and just allow it to drop while you're moving or otherwise don't need it.  My ideal average including 25% uptime on my semi-bad CotE yields about 675 mil dps, or 774 with Threatening Shout, and that's with crappy drops.

 

My only changes to the build listed are to use Goguk instead of Pain Enhancer, and that's for three reasons:

- CDR is still useful and probably more so than the small DPS from PE

- The 15% ASI is better and more consistent than PE's 3-infinity% (but usually 3% on bosses)

- From what I am gathering from the forums, things like Area Damage and Pain Enhancer are contributors to the massive lag issues at very high Grift levels (it's more complex than that, but they aren't helping) so it's slightly more group-friendly to use Goguk, especially if you have lag issues

 

...and to use Ignorance is Bliss instead of Iron Hide on Ignore Pain.  This is because Ignore Pain uptime isn't hard to maintain - although shorter refreshes do lead to less uptime on Wrath, which isn't good - but the healing provided by Ignorance is Bliss is insane.  The best part is that you don't even have to be hitting things in order to heal, so you can run away from the nasty purple lines and still get yourself back to full.

 

 

Also, people have asked what ring to use instead of Unity if you're in a group, and while the loss of DR is very heavily felt, I think the Oculus Ring isn't a bad choice.  The main things Unity brings are elite damage and DR, so you need something that can compliment that if possible.  Oculus brings ASI and elite DR (the most important DR) as a given, and you can roll resist all off for a socket.  At least for the APS-based build, you only lose a bit of personal DPS (depending on how well your Unity rolled), and theoretically you should gain a ton for your group.

 

 

One thing the guide specifically said it would not get into was attack speed breakpoints, but for those wondering, here they are:

 

Including Goguk (or whatever you feel like Pain Enhancer is doing for you), Wrath, your paragon points, and all equipment (i.e. WHILE you are in the middle of a WW with Wrath on and Goguk/PE maxed) you should have a sheet APS on both weapons of:

 

2.2 - This is sort of a minimum in my opinion because that nets you 10 APS with WW and 6 APS on the dust devils, and keeps you attacking fast enough to keep yourself alive.  Any lower and your dust devils aren't attacking fast enough as well.

 

2.31 - This is a huge jump because it's the next breakpoint for the dust devils, giving you 6.67 APS on them.  This is really ideal, especially if you're also pushing CDR.

 

2.57 - This is the next breakpoint for both WW and the dust devils and is another huge jump in DPS, not to mention you're doing 12 APS with WW and 7.5 with dust devils.  Your fury spent on WW alone is 25.7 / sec.  It's quite expensive to get to this point, though.

 

2.89 - This is the next breakpoint for dust devils, but I've not seen it and I don't think it's possible to get there without Pain Enhancer and large packs - you just can't get enough ASI from your gear alone.  In any case, it's not worth chasing.

[Guest diablo fan]

Here are more breakpoints, on the same scale as above:

 

1.93 - Ok, this is really the minimum, because it's incredibly easy to hit, and you can still make a solid build out of it if you have enough of everything else... but it's still a bit low.  This is 8.57 APS for your WW and 5.45 for the dust devils (DD).

 

2.10 - This is much better because you've gotten to the next DD breakpoint (now 6 APS), and it's easy to get as well, even if all you have are your wrists and Goguk/PE and a few paragon points.  My personal suggestion is to shoot for this at a minimum, and I feel like the guide is also pushing you toward this breakpoint (generally).  2.2 is nice for the self-healing boost from more crits (and more fury spending if using Ignorance is Bliss) but it won't do much for your damage and nothing for your cooldowns.

 

 

Playing around with the numbers more, the stat priorities given in the guide are certainly good, but I would suggest two changes:  on both the shoulders and your weapons, put CDR > area damage (make it your 4th stat, in other words).  The reason is because 1) area damage is still somewhat suspect in the high lag situation, although this is less important for solo, 2) area damage does very little for you on bosses (nothing unless they are spawning adds), and 3) CDR is cheap to put on those spots and can really help a ton with Wrath uptime (especially on weapons).  From my calculations, you can take your uptime from about 58% to about 83% (ideal) with just these slots (assuming max rolls), which does a great deal for your total average damage (and help much more against single targets).  (And this is assuming Goguk - without that, the uptime is much worse on single targets:  just under 50%.)

 

Another possibility is to put ASI > vit on your hands.  This will hurt a bit in the toughness department, but it's much easier to hit the 2.2 breakpoint that way.  Alternately, you could dump one of the crit stats on one of your rings for ASI.  However, the only reason you would do one of these is if you decided to do both of these, which together would enable you to hit the 2.31 breakpoint (along with a few paragon points).  This would actually both increase your base damage AND increase your uptime on Wrath (about 6% more), which should increase your total effective damage quite a bit (about ~10%).  However, the vitality loss will drop you about 100k life, which may or may not be worth it.

 

Alternately you could get a bunch of bad rolls and decide to go ASI on both of those and another jewelry piece and actually hit the 2.57 breakpoint like me, which while technically gets slightly higher on single targets than the guide's advice, is almost definitely inferior to all the above.  The high attack speed is amazing for healing, but the gain in WW damage does not make up for losing so much damage from those crit stats.

[Guest Guest]

 

What ring do I use instead of unity if I am playing with 3 other people?

 

Not sure if you are still looking for this answer, but the answer is to get a Stone of Jordan with %Physical Skills on it. A perfect Stone of Jordan has %elemental damage, Critical Hit Damage, Elite Damage, and a socket.

 

Or get Focus and Restraint and remove Threathening Shout for Furious Charge - Merciless Assault. You will proc both rings cuz Furious Charge works as a generator and WW is the spender. Also if you hit at least 3 mobs, you will have another charge ready so you can keep up the buff permanantly if there are some enemies.

[GFRay 0]

 

The build is okay'ish, but you can do better! Use Unity or Convention of Elements in Cube. Use Strongarm Bracers and Furious Charge with Merciless Assault (You can replace Threatening Shout with this). You will deal 130%~ more damage!

 

Heya, this build is exclusively targeted at pushing the Leaderboard and optimizing between survivability and damage. It currently holds the highest Barbarian clear on the S4 leaderboard at GR72. A Furious Charge variation definitely exists, but it's mostly for speedfarming.

 

For solo GR this build is the best. For group GR would it not be better to replace the rings for Focus and Restraint and swap Threatening Shout for Furious Charge - Merciless Assault?

 

Because the FC proc's one part and WW the other part of F/R, so that's way more dmg then CoE can ever give you. And it's up 100% of the time if you can hit at least 3 enemies constantly with FC within 5 sec.

 

You will sacrifice toughness, but in group play that seems less relevant especially when you have a monk on your team.

[Deadset 108]

For solo GR this build is the best. For group GR would it not be better to replace the rings for Focus and Restraint and swap Threatening Shout for Furious Charge - Merciless Assault?

 

Because the FC proc's one part and WW the other part of F/R, so that's way more dmg then CoE can ever give you. And it's up 100% of the time if you can hit at least 3 enemies constantly with FC within 5 sec.

 

You will sacrifice toughness, but in group play that seems less relevant especially when you have a monk on your team.

 

 

This is undisputed, yes. :) A Furious Charge/Focus & Restraint deviation is great for speedruns. I made some corrections to the guide to reflect the needed changes in speed farming.

[Guest Rune]

I can't make this buld work properly in Grifts. I mean it is really great for huge swats of mobs, but it takes 3 mins to kill a grift guardian at 54.

Single target wise I can't make this build work. Is there a trick to not sucking vs single targets?

[Guest Klaatu]

In the team scenario you recommend going with the Focus/Restraint combo since you can't share Unity with a follower, and using Furious Charge to proc the Wrath Generator half. I tried it, works great! One question, which of the recommended skill slots do you recommend trading off in order to pick up Furious Charge?

[Deadset 108]

In the team scenario you recommend going with the Focus/Restraint combo since you can't share Unity with a follower, and using Furious Charge to proc the Wrath Generator half. I tried it, works great! One question, which of the recommended skill slots do you recommend trading off in order to pick up Furious Charge?

 

I would cut one (or more, if I'm doing Rifts in T8-10) of the defensive skills, in the following order: Threatening Shout < Ignore Pain < War Cry.

[Guest whiteobjectz]

hey this guide is super! thank you!! i'm stuck on improvment tho, T8 rift i do easy with others, T9 solo with templar, GR 45 solo and 45 with others. i can't get any better. any chance anyone can help me by taking a look at my gear? My name on d3 pc is WhiteObjectz. Thanks

[mattar0 0]

not sure if im double posting cause i tried earlier as guest and didnt see it. so ill try again. thoughts on blade of the tribes in cube over furnace?

[Guest Ryan]

Hey Deadset, have you considered Mantle of Channeling for this build?

 

[Guest Firefly]

From what I have read on the internet, Zodiac has been changed and now needs Attack Speed to function as it did before in 2.3.

 

Pain Enhancer is set in stone, cannot be replaced I don't think, I've been running with Goguk, PE and Striken, the WW barb seems to be very very focused on Attack Speed now, but also with a little CDR to help things along.

 

The new MoC shoulders (in cube) will give you some more DR, but, and its a big but, they do not increase Fury generation, and can cause problems with Fury, plus they seem a little buggy at the mo, not sure they are even working as intended at the moment?

[Guest NotSure]

This build is no longer viable, it WW was totally changed http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/19891169223

[Guest Rasalom]

That is a post on how they can change it..not actual changes

I use PE,BotS, and Gogok and with Wrath up I am hitting the 2.72 BP for nados. Keep in mind that all BPS are slightly different for WW and DR so make sure you're hitting your DD breakpoints even if you don't hit the next WW one.

[Guest Guest Diablo fan]

What skill should I replace with furious charge when using F & R?

[Warden 8]

What skill should I replace with furious charge when using F & R?

My guess is Threatening Shout.  It is purely a damage increase, so you wouldn't lose any defense, and the damage increase you get from F&R should more than make up for it.

[GoreMonger 0]

I dont understand the use of Berserkers rage in this or theHotA build, it seems to me you'll be using your fury more than itll be at full. or is it like the firebird build for the wiz where the AP cost is reduced to the point where its almost non existant

[Warden 8]

I dont understand the use of Berserkers rage in this or theHotA build, it seems to me you'll be using your fury more than itll be at full. or is it like the firebird build for the wiz where the AP cost is reduced to the point where its almost non existant

 

I stay at or near maximum fury with this build, but I have a Hellfire Amulet with Rampage on it, so I run Weapons Master as one of my passives.  Without it, I did not stay at max fury.

 

It's been a few weeks since I played my HotA barb, so I don't remember how the fury was.  But as long as you hit 3 or fewer enemies, the weapon returns more fury than you spend so you actually generate fury.  Hammering away on a rift guardian or tough elite keeps you pegged at 100% fury.  And in trash mobs the damage from Berserker Rage doesn't matter so much, but in those cases you also get a lot of fury from Furious Charge and the Ancient's Fury rune (from the shoulders.)  So I would think the buff procs most of the time...

Edited March 2, 2016 by Warden

[Guest fenny]

Anyone think about using the Mantle of Channeling (from replacing CotE or Unity with RoRG)?

 

It's a pair of shoulders that gives +25% damage reduction and a 20-25% damage multiplier while using a channeling skill, which includes Whirlwind. You'd either need to give up the Hexing Pants or either your DPS or defense ring to use it, though, so I'm not entirely sure if it's worth it.

[Guest Paul]

This build is junk. This build was junk in 2.3 when it was made. All the rolls are all wrong on the gear. You'll just get yourself killed using this. Go to the US Diablo 3 forums and use Free's guide.

[Guest barbarianROS]

How are you able to use threatning shout in right mouse button and also battle rage in slot 3???  I thought you can only use one shout at a time...

[Guest ulundor]

Skull grasp is now an option? Does it increase Dust Devils damage now? If not, even if it's multiplicative to WW damage, it's still low, right?