Rend Barbarian

[Deadset 108]

On 6/9/2021 at 7:33 PM, Guest Boniem said:

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.

Hey there! Could you roughly describe your current gear, and its respective rolls? It would be hard to give a solid recommendation without knowing a bit about your character first. In general, I would try to follow as close to the gearing and stat rolls recommendations that I've written down as I can, and go from there.

[Guest The Grandfather]

It is recommended in the guide to use The Grandfather with the legendary power of Oathkeeper? I think this is a mistake and copypasted from the frenzy build (since I don't see any mention of using a primary skill with this) I guess messerschmidt or the furnace powers would be better.

[Guest Darth_Berserk]

Did Skull Grasp get a buff? I thought best in slot was CoE, Ring of Might or Obsidian 

[Guest WWBarb]

I can barely seem to keep up fury with this.  Not to mention I'm super slow and can't really play with people.  Makes me want to ignore the ethereal and use Bul-Kathos still.  Am I missing something?

[Bubble181 14]

On 6/9/2021 at 6:33 PM, Guest Boniem said:

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.

For one thing, be aware that the Band of Might requires you to reactivate the proper skill every 8 seconds - that's OFTEN.
Secondly, the builds here really assume you're going for end game high progression and probably have a couple of hundreds (minimum) or thousands (more likely) Paragon points to throw around. If you're struggling at lower levels, it may very well be advisable to replace one or two pure offensive items (CoE, most obviously) for something that offers more mitigation. Also, be aware this build loses a lot of defense the moment it stops spinning around. Never stand still, never stop, keep moving, keep twirling, keep doing pirouettes. 

[Deadset 108]

On 7/25/2021 at 7:24 PM, Guest The Grandfather said:

(...) messerschmidt or the furnace powers would be better.

This is correct, and the powers of either The Furnace or Ambo's Pride (during GR solo pushing), or Messerschmidt's Reaver (during GR speed farming) would be better. I've committed a small fix and it should be up on the website shortly.

4 hours ago, Guest WWBarb said:

I can barely seem to keep up fury with this.  Not to mention I'm super slow and can't really play with people.  Makes me want to ignore the ethereal and use Bul-Kathos still.  Am I missing something?

Keep in mind that the base build on the main page is meant for solo Greater Rift pushing; from your comment, I gather you're playing in a party, and you're doing speed farming runs. Bul-Kathos's set is still relevant there, but if you want to make use of the fancy Ethereal powers, consider combining Echoing Fury with the Ethereal weapon Glimmershred (with either Ambo's Pride or Messerschmidt's Reaver as weapon power), and using Ambo's / Messer in the Cube - whichever power you're missing from the weapon. The powers of these weapons are SPECIFICALLY made for speed farming, so you'll have a much better time than with The Grandfather.

[Guest WWBarb]

Awesome! thanks a bunch for the reply and help.  I'll give that a shot 🙂

[Guest Bob]

This build is pretty baller. I switched the ground stomp out for Furious Charge - Merciless Assault. It makes it a lot easier to both manage Fury and keep the Band of Might bonus up. Also switched the ancient spear out for Ignore Pain - Ignorance is Bliss to use as an 'oh crap' button. Haven't really missed the pulling capabilities, can just Furious Charge to anything.

[Bubble181 14]

7 hours ago, Guest Bob said:

This build is pretty baller. I switched the ground stomp out for Furious Charge - Merciless Assault. It makes it a lot easier to both manage Fury and keep the Band of Might bonus up. Also switched the ancient spear out for Ignore Pain - Ignorance is Bliss to use as an 'oh crap' button. Haven't really missed the pulling capabilities, can just Furious Charge to anything.

I don't like using the Ancient Spear either; it's too costly and I use it too often by mistake.

Having said that, Ground Stomp does come in handy when you want to pull enemies closer. Especially in less-dense rifts, it can save a bunch of time, arguably more than FC. 

In my T16 speed variation I use the Lut Socks in the Cube and Leap with whatever the pulling rune's called on that. Works pretty well, too.

[Guest TheProgramer]

Why Convention of Elements which only gives you a 200% increase in damage every so often, instead of the Skull Grasp which gives you 400% increase in damage always?

[Bubble181 14]

19 hours ago, Guest TheProgramer said:

Why Convention of Elements which only gives you a 200% increase in damage every so often, instead of the Skull Grasp which gives you 400% increase in damage always?

Because despite what it may look like, your damage does not come from Whirlwind. Even at 400% extra, at higher levels it just doesn't factor in at all. Easily 90+% of your damage is done by the Rends applied automatically through Whirlwind, stacking twice, and dealing their damage in 1 second. 

Skull Grasp may have been intended to help WW Barbs, but it targets the "wrong" skill for this build. 

 

Quick back of the napkin calculation, ignoring a bunch of other bonusses.

Whirlwind with Skull grasp:
340% skill damage
x10K% for the set
x4 Skull Grasp
= 34000% weapon damage

Rend:
1100% skill damage
x500% per second
x3 (triple duration)
x150% (Lamentation)
x2 (stacks twice, Lamentation)
x10000% (set)
= 4950000% weapon damage (all applied in 1 second and for free because of Ambo's pride, and in an area of effect because of Bloodbath)

That's literally over 100x a much damage as WW is bringing...WITHOUT including the Convention of Elements, which you can more-or-less consider a permanent 75% bonus for calculating in this sort of build that doesn't really care about the rotation as much. It's no contest.

Edited August 23, 2021 by Bubble181

[Guest Bul'Kathos]

Hey guys, I tried out this set and just wanted to point out that the set weapons Istvan's paired blades we're giving me trouble with fury generation which ended up with me dead without fury most of the time. I suggest the Bul-Katho's Oath so that you can infinitely use whirlwind and use ground stomp to increase your lack of toughness

[Guest Labra]

You can keep bul'kathos while farming or lower GR.

Once you'll reach GR 80-90 trash mobs become more resistant an you can switch to Istvan and keep fury all along

[Bubble181 14]

On 12/23/2021 at 9:17 AM, Guest Bul'Kathos said:

Hey guys, I tried out this set and just wanted to point out that the set weapons Istvan's paired blades we're giving me trouble with fury generation which ended up with me dead without fury most of the time. I suggest the Bul-Katho's Oath so that you can infinitely use whirlwind and use ground stomp to increase your lack of toughness

Definitely the easier-to-play gear setup for lower rifts (well, "lower" as in "up to 100 or so"). The guides on this page are always made for the purpose of absolutely squeezing the utmost out of a build at the very top levels - at which point Istvan's will outperform Bul Kathos'. 

I do tend to think the builds on IV could use a bit of love in this regard - while some builds do include lower-level ease-of-life variations in text, most don't. A LOT of the posts I see here are like this post. I personally, for example,  almost always jettison the CoE ring because I don't like the timing mechanic, replacing it with something fitting for the build - simplifying and speeding up rotations. Some more pointers per build like "this item can be replaced with X for more survivability, this rune can be replaced by Y for more clearing speed on lower levels, this legendary gem can be replaced until you need more Z" for those of us not hyper-optimizing could maybe help.

[Guest K1ngR3ese]

I also do not like COE (I play on xbox) so timing anything is too difficult on my 40" TV with my old man eyes.  This led me to ask this here for you wonderful people.  I dropped CoE for RoG threw on frostburn gauntlets and swapped the recommended season 25 weapon gem for Remnant of Pain. Once you apply the freeze from WW or stun from ground stomp, rend crits.  Have you guys looked into this?  I just cleared GR 100 with 600 paragons and mediocre gear at best.  The Freeze and stun are great for survival.  Rift Gaurdian took some time to kill though.

[Guest Kal]

Hello, can someone explain why down where the weapons/armor is listed that The Grandfather is listed as Best in Slot for Weapon #1? Should I still just be running the Slanderer/Lil Rogue with this build? Thanks

[Guest Val]

Hi Guys, I tried the GR Solo build on this guide, but I simply can't do anything with it, because I ran out of Fury almost immediately and can't keep it up. As soon as I replace the Istvan's swords set with the Bul Kathos's one and the Ancient Spear with Furious Charge everything works like a charm. At Paragon 1000 I managed to beat GR 114, couldn't go any higher though. Any suggestions?

[Bubble181 14]

On 3/15/2022 at 6:35 PM, Guest Kal said:

Hello, can someone explain why down where the weapons/armor is listed that The Grandfather is listed as Best in Slot for Weapon #1? Should I still just be running the Slanderer/Lil Rogue with this build? Thanks

It's a leftover from season 24. The "Grandfather"' intended is NOT the normal legendary with that name, but was the Ethereal Weapon only available for that one season with the same name. It's a minor fix but apparently they forgot to remove that one mention of it. The Speed Farming version also still lists Gimmershred, by the way, same deal.

Use Slanderer/Rogue if possible; I don't remember off the top of my head but I think other (less effective) options include the Bul Kathos set or Ambo's Pride with Echoing Fury.

[Sabrast 7]

one question about rend rune,

since we cannot kill mobs that easily in higher difficulties, we cannot take that much value from bloodbath rune (i guess). so is it possible to go with lacerate rune?

[Guest Wakka4War]

One thing that drove me a tad crazy about this guide (it is my favorite build btw) is that you mention Rend cannot crit, but fail to mention it's damage is still increased by the crit and crit damage stats (i apologize if i somehow missed this, but i did look over and over).  For a long while you had me questioning why on earth i'd prioritize two stats that at first glance it appears dont increase your most damaging ability.

 

my two cents, the band of might is a must - you can easily get enough CDR to cast any of the 12 second runes every 8 seconds.  80% is MASSIVE, but you cannot let this fall off, it is insta death in most cases.

 

I have had a ton of luck running a double "cheat death" combo with the templars final skill and the normal barb death save.  Very rarely am i ever in a situation where one of the two is not off cooldown with this build.  I went with the hurricane rune and am stacking cold damage using the cold rune for rend as well, which when applied makes the enemy take 10% more damage from all sources.  I find the bul kathos weapons to make life easier - you will be stuck with wind shear if you dont use them and although on paper/in calculations the layout you provided is best i think in practicality the bul kathos is nearly even and is just much more simple to manage.

 

great guide though, i appreciate it.  

[Guest Mr.E]

The guide recommends sanctifying Pauldrons with Angelic Crucible. When you try this, it says "cannot sanctify this item". Must not work with set items.

[Guest Conso]

For  Rend Barb, I see the guide says that The Grandfather is BiS for progression. Is that correct?

[Guest Conso]

On 9/1/2022 at 1:46 PM, Guest Mr.E said:

The guide recommends sanctifying Pauldrons with Angelic Crucible. When you try this, it says "cannot sanctify this item". Must not work with set items.

It does, I have my shoulders Sanctified and the WW pull effect. Maybe its a bug? I've done it several times on my barb until i got the WW pull effect and had no issues. I do seem to recall having this issue on my 'sader though, cant remember what fixed it. Assuming you tried full reboot of the game?

[Guest smorz]

how can you have rend and whirlwind both? aren't they in the same skill slot?

[KomodoDragoon 3]

On 1/5/2023 at 8:00 AM, Guest smorz said:

how can you have rend and whirlwind both? aren't they in the same skill slot?

You need to turn on Elective Mode, which will allow you to use multiple skills that are in the same category.