Rend Barbarian

[Deadset 108]

On 6/16/2020 at 7:21 PM, Guest MxDx said:

Dears, how come this build is quoted as the best of Barbarian ones? Tried this some time back and struggled as the rest. Went back to Frenzy "Horde of the Ninety Savages", a little modified than Deadset's. With Frenzy I can solo GR120 (@1000 paragon). Whirl-Rend kind of expires at GR100.

Hey there! While I can see Frenzy HotNS being a little more straightforward, the Whirlwind/Rend WotW does top out higher, and the leaderboard confirms the claim. In short, this can be attributed to Rend's superior survivability (not needing to facetank is a great boon in higher tiers!), and it also scales much better with density - at least compared to the largely single target-oriented Frenzy spec. In very high tier GR pushing, the need to "fish" for open maps with greater monster density becomes a big part of successful attempts, and Rend pulls ahead in these circumstances.

 

On 7/11/2020 at 8:53 AM, briala said:

(...) None of this was too hard to figure out, but as a general site-wide aide to less advanced players like me, it might be nice if there was a more straightforward presentation of the interim builds that work on the way to perfection, and also explicit differentiation of the speed run types (...)

Thanks for the feedback! I have tried to provide some minor clarifications, for beginners, i.e. in the 'speed variation' of the guide I go over a general, casual-oriented recommendation for Bul-Kathos's set over a "perfected" Ambo's + Echoing Fury combo - but I can see how a little more guidance can go a long way. In a future iteration of the guide,

I will also make sure to point out the difference between farming normal Rifts where gold drops over farming low tier GRs; I can see how it can confuse a newer player. In the meantime and for anyone reading, a minor alteration from Boon of the Hoarder into Bane of the Powerful and dropping Goldwrap from the Cube for, say, Nemesis Bracers for extra elites (and thus, faster farming) will go a long way in a speed GR farming setup.

As far as bounties go, you intuited correctly into the alteration of Pound of Flesh into Nerves of Steel for the cheat death proc; there are situations, as you say, where gold-induced invulnerability is simply not an option!

[Guest Varrik]

Why do i need rend on my bar when ambo's pride applies rend, is there a reason to have it on the bar?

[Orthios 271]

13 minutes ago, Guest Varrik said:

Why do i need rend on my bar when ambo's pride applies rend, is there a reason to have it on the bar?

You want Rend on your bar so that you get the effect of the chosen rune.  If it's not on your bar then the rend applied from Ambo's Pride is the basic rend with no rune.

[Guest Unmortal king]

Hi i tried this build but how do you get fury at the start of rifts? From my research it says I need to get hit to gain fury but even at low level GR i could die on one hit. Can I substitute ground smash and/or ancient spear to some more defensive abilities like ignore pain and war cry - veteran’s warning? 

[Deadset 108]

On 9/7/2020 at 5:42 PM, Guest Unmortal king said:

Hi i tried this build but how do you get fury at the start of rifts? From my research it says I need to get hit to gain fury but even at low level GR i could die on one hit. Can I substitute ground smash and/or ancient spear to some more defensive abilities like ignore pain and war cry - veteran’s warning? 

The outlined setup in the base page is optimized for high end Greater Rift pushing; you can certainly make adjustments as you get comfortable with the build, or that suit your needs and playstyle better. I'd replace Ancient Spear, as it gains value in the upper end of pushing, and put in something like Furious Charge - Merciless Assault for more mobility + Fury generation, or War Cry like you mention.

[Killigraphy 1]

On 9/7/2020 at 10:42 AM, Guest Unmortal king said:

Hi i tried this build but how do you get fury at the start of rifts? From my research it says I need to get hit to gain fury but even at low level GR i could die on one hit. Can I substitute ground smash and/or ancient spear to some more defensive abilities like ignore pain and war cry - veteran’s warning? 

 

 

Shout/WoTB - Get hit. As soon as you start spinning, you'll go about earning fury. Also if the RNG gods are good to you that day, get the Bul Kathos swords (1 han) set, and go about Whirling. Honestly, even with Little Rogue and Slanderer, the entire set has been nerfed compared to last season.

[Guest miniFX]

I actually equip BK swords until I'm at max fury then swap to rogue/slanderer right before I start a GR, so I start the GR basically at full fury. Bazinga!

[DeathMonger 0]

The guide says to wear COE and ORotZ, cubing BoM.  I assume if you have a perfect BoM you should wear it instead of a perfect ORotZ, giving you CHC-CHD-CDR/Area over CHC-CHD-AS.  CHD over AS is an improvement, as well as possibly having area damage in place of CDR if you have enough CDR on other pieces.  Anything I'm missing?

[Guest Reborn]

I have a genuine question. If the recommended rings for season 22 is focus and restraint then why would I use the rings if I can only proc on of the effects while using the CDR variant of the build? I may be seeing this wrong but removing ground stomp also removed a resource regenerator skill for one of the rings set piece effects. Does it matter if I am only utilizing half of the set bonuses affects. I can keep the resource spender up all the time with my abilities but the build doesn't have a resource regenerator. Any insight would be great I am new to the game.

 

[Deadset 108]

12 hours ago, Guest Reborn said:

If the recommended rings for season 22 is focus and restraint then why would I use the rings if I can only proc on of the effects while using the CDR variant of the build? I may be seeing this wrong but removing ground stomp also removed a resource regenerator skill for one of the rings set piece effects.

Sorry, what do you mean by CDR variant? Do you mean the Speed Farm version of the build, which drops Ground Stomp for Furious Charge? If so, you'll be glad to know Furious Charge is a generator as well, allowing you to proc the generator half of Focus & Restraint as well.

[Guest Anonymous]

Is it possible to create a non-seasonal version of the build?
If so - could you please do so?

[Guest Hopefully Helpful]

On 11/28/2019 at 1:13 PM, Guest Never any fury said:

Build seems to work besides that i never have any fury, ive sacrificed the ancient spear for a primary skill just so i can have some fury. Any sugestions?

Yes, instead of the slanderer and the little rogue use the bul kathos blades; solemn vow and warriors blood, they up the fury generation to 15 and when you're using whirlwind you gain 45% movement and attack speed.

[Zhronne 0]

This feels almost unusable the second you run out of monsters to use your Whirlwind on.
Ground stomp doesn't generate anywhere enough fury. Also it's a real problem if you die or at the start of a GR, you won't even have enough Fury to start Whirlwinding, what are you even supposed to do if you get oneshot just for getting close enough to something to use Stomp and generate Fury (if Stomp doesn't hit at least one target, it won't generate Fury).

Swapping to Slanderer/LittleRogue solves the issue but sacrifices a lot of damage.
I've been thinking to swap Rampage for Unforgiving but I'm still not fully convinced.
Rampage is incredibly nice but sometimes you kill so slow it's hard to make use of it. Granted in that scenario one could arguably say that you need to step down in difficulty to kill faster and more efficicently  (and hence making Rampage worth it again)

 

Also I'm not sure about two things:
1) Why do you have to select Rend as one of your active abilities? Given that you have Cubed Ambo's Pride. My guess is that if you don't pick Rend as an active ability, the one applied by Ambo's Pride through Whirlwind would be a rune-less one?
2) What use is the Ancient Spear? Another fury spender given the extreme fury needs this build has in several circumstances sounds pointless. I soloed up to GR100 without even feeling like I ever needed it.

Edited April 20, 2021 by Zhronne

[Zhronne 0]

I "solved" the issue swapping Ancient Spear with Warcry. Impunity Rune because I feel All Resist is what a Barb needs more, over Dodge or Armor or antything else, but ideally any rune works here. For the pure purpose of Fury Generation of course Charge! rune is the best, but I felt I wanted to mix together the fury generation aspect of War Cry with some additional utility tool for myself and my group, hence why I chose Impunity.

With that I'm mostly fine.
With this build you're a bit of a glass cannon though, almost. If you forget to have Band of Might proc up (from Stomp) even for just 1 second you're dead meat.

Edited April 20, 2021 by Zhronne

[Deadset 108]

Heya!

It's understandable to run into some issues with the build given we have presented its "highest tiers of GR pushing" form, which necessitates some changes to the general playstyle, as well as an extra bit of understanding of the metagame when it comes to what rifts can even be cleared, what monster composition you are looking for in your clears, monster affixes and such.

Though all of it is explained in detail in the Skills and Runes page, I'll try to go over these choices briefly:

• Ancient Spear is taken to control enemies and the flow of the fight, dragging stragglers into one big clump, as well as chaining fights together as you methodically whirlwind your way through the level. That problem with running out of monsters? Careful Ancient Spear solves that.  It's very useful in high progression, not so much in low-to-mid tier Greater Rifting and definitely not for T16 runs. It can be viably altered to SprintMarathon if you are comfortable with handling the difficulty and simply seek more utility and speed, or - you found a good one yourself! - to War Cry 🙂 
• Ground Stomp is mostly a source of control (both stun and a pull) and a Band of Might proc, and the generated Fury is gravy on top. In speed farming, this skill slot can be viably replaced with Furious ChargeMerciless Assault for an additional movement / Fury generation tool that will also proc Band of Might .
• You are indeed correct in your assumption; Rend needs to be slotted in order to inherit a rune.
• The Bul'Kathos weapons are amazing for speed farming, but GR progression with them is a double edged sword, and I highly recommend that you get used to the Istvan Blades for pushing - especially if you feel too glassy, as you will notice the latter set scales Armor as well as damage.
• Unforgiving is similarly a farming convenience / don't-want-to-think-about-resources kind of tool, and it can become a bad habit for GR progression.

[Zhronne 0]

I got to level 110 GR solo, failing of course, my DPS was nowhere near enough the required one.
I think I get a better understanding of what you meant with the Ancient Spear pulling and chaining groups together, plus the Potion to get rid of wallers.

I'm still a bit puzzled on how you "start" a GR push session with this build though. At the beginning of a GR you have zero fury, all your abilities are fury spenders and the only one that grants you fury is Ground Stomp, which has a very limited range (~14 yards).
So how exactely do you start? I guess activate Ground Stomp once (for Band Of Might's 80% DT reduction) then while the effect is still up get in range of at least one monster and use Ground Stomp again to stun him and hopefully more mob, pulling them in and giving you enough fury (15+) to start Whirlwinding, at which point the Wind Shear rune will do the rest and fill up your fury gauge.

Is this the method? And I guess the same applies if for whatever reason you find yourself in a section of the map with no monsters at all.

 

Sounds extremely risky; even with Band of Might's proc I don't think that's nowhere enough Damage Reduction for some monsters at GR110+
Maybe you just need more Paragon, I'm only at ~800 in Season 23 atm.
But yeah, this build is lots of fun and incredibly simple to play compared to other classes' builds I played over the years, love it 😄

[Deadset 108]

It absolutely is a Ground Stomp start; I fully realize how risky it plays out, but it's what Barbs do for endgame pushing! 😄 With all but the most aggresive mob types though, you have about a second to act before they do as you engage - and for pushing specifically, you are banking on high monster density anyway. Look up some high tier clears on YouTube and you'll see them do just that! 🙂 

[Guest Joel]

Is this build strictly for PC use? I use an Xbox and you can’t have some of the skills selected at the same time as the others you have listed.  Example: you want to have Rend and Whirlwind selected as active skills but You can’t do that on the Xbox.  You can only select either or.  Is there a site or another area that shows builds for Xbox?

[Guest eightyproof]

22 hours ago, Guest Joel said:

Is this build strictly for PC use? I use an Xbox and you can’t have some of the skills selected at the same time as the others you have listed.  Example: you want to have Rend and Whirlwind selected as active skills but You can’t do that on the Xbox.  You can only select either or.  Is there a site or another area that shows builds for Xbox?

you have to enable elective mode mate.

[Guest Joel]

3 hours ago, Guest eightyproof said:

you have to enable elective mode mate.

Thank you! I’ll check that out.

[Guest Maximus]

Good morning everyone,

A couple questions here:

- Without a few fury generating passives I seem to be running out rather quickly. I have most of the required gear for the build, any thoughts?

- Maybe this is a stupid question, by why does Rend need to be on the skill bar if Ambo applies it automatically? It it just for the secondary buff on the skill tree?

Overall this is an awesome build. I’m still a bit squishy without good gear rolls and ancients, but I’m pushing GR 60+ with ease.

[Brightforge 0]

On 4/29/2021 at 7:25 AM, Guest Maximus said:

Good morning everyone,

A couple questions here:

- Without a few fury generating passives I seem to be running out rather quickly. I have most of the required gear for the build, any thoughts?

- Maybe this is a stupid question, by why does Rend need to be on the skill bar if Ambo applies it automatically? It it just for the secondary buff on the skill tree?

Overall this is an awesome build. I’m still a bit squishy without good gear rolls and ancients, but I’m pushing GR 60+ with ease.

I suggest you read the thread. Every question you asked is answered quite extensively. Just finished reading it myself and I had the same questions/thoughts beforehand... Well, except for the bit about rend being on the skill bar. That's kind of obvious if you think about it. Cheers. 

[Guest Jran]

Dont you also want crit damage on band of might??

[Deadset 108]

You do, it's a remnant from an older recommendation for the same item slot. I've submitted a fix, it will be up on the website shortly.

[Guest Boniem]

Hey! I have a problem with the build. I have very high dmg but with very low defense. Almost everything 1 hit me on grs. I'm new to diablo so I don't know the basics.