Barbarian Boulder Toss Build with the Raekor set
Introduction
Empowered by the Legacy of Raekor
set, this Barbarian build emphasizes ranged devastation and pulverizes
enemies into the ground with Ancient Spear
Boulder Toss, with a vast
array of buffs and tremendous mobility at his disposal. The build version on
this page is meant for Greater
Rift solo progression, but this build also has a Nephalem Rift Farming
Variation; follow the link above for that particular alteration.
Quick Reference
Skill Setup
The basic skill setup of the Raekor Boulder Toss Barbarian is displayed below. Read the dedicated Skills page for detailed information on choices, alternatives and build customization.
Active Skills |
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Passive Skills |
Gear Setup
The required gear setup for Raekor Boulder Toss Barbarian is listed below. Check the Gear page for detailed information on choices, alternatives, gemming, Kanai's Cube and Paragon distribution.
- Helm:
Raekor's Will
- Shoulders:
Raekor's Burden
- Gloves:
Raekor's Wraps
- Chest:
Raekor's Heart
- Belt:
Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle
- Pants:
Captain Crimson's Thrust
- Boots:
Raekor's Striders
- Bracers:
Skular's Salvation
- Amulet:
The Traveler's Pledge
- Ring 1:
The Compass Rose
- Ring 2:
Band of Might
- Weapon 1:
The Three Hundredth Spear
- Weapon 2:
Arreat's Law
Season 29: Paragon Cap
Season 29 introduces a season-specific cap to stat benefits from Paragon levels, all while updating how Paragon point distribution is handled. For the duration of this Season, you can only assign 800 Paragon stat points to your character, removing the long-standing practice of main-stat stacking (with some gearing implications — see below) after you reach Paragon 800.
On top of that, you could only allocate 50 Paragon stat points to each of the four stats in a given Paragon category (Core, Offense, Defense, and Utility). In Season 29, you can allocate up to the full 200 points per category into any attribute, allowing you to more easily reach necessary build breakpoints (as outlined in the Gear page of the guide) for Cooldown Reduction, Resource Cost Reduction, etc.
With the changes to Paragon in mind, we recommend using the following Paragon distribution for this build:
- Core: Movement Speed: 200 points.
- Offense: Critical Hit Chance and Critical Hit Damage: Allocate points so they are as close to the desirable 1:10 ratio between the two stats, as displayed in your Character Details sheet. For dual-wielding 1-handed builds, this is usually achieved with 150 points into Critical Hit Chance and the remaining 50 into Critical Hit Damage.
- Defense: Life and All Resistance: Allocate points to maximize survivability; for Barbarians, this is usually achieved by evenly splitting 100 points into Life (directly increasing your Health pool) and All Resistance (to complement the naturally high Armor stat of Strength-based characters).
- Utility: Area Damage: 200 points.
Season 29: Gearing Considerations
In terms of gear, keeping the Paragon cap in mind is paramount, as it stymies the traditional endless supply of main stat after Paragon 800. This means re-rolling mainstat off your gear is no longer desirable, and full equipment augmentation with your main stat is even more critical. Additionally, you should take a careful look at your build and consider if you can fit the following changes to strengthen your damage and survivability:
- Guardian's Jeopardy: This is a craftable armor set, and the recipe
for its creation drops from Bounty farming. Guardian's 2-piece provides a
decent damage reduction bonus, but the true powerhouse of the set is the
3-piece bonus, which nets you an additional 100% of your main stats from
equipped items. This is a tremendous benefit in an 800 Paragon capped Season.
If the Guardian set can fit into the build with minimal sacrifices (other
craftable sets, tertiary damage multipliers, etc.), consider its
implementation. The available pieces are
Guardian's Aversion (Wrists),
Guardian's Case (Waist), and
Guardian's Gaze (Head). Of course, you can wear 2 pieces of the set and complete the full 3-piece bonus with a
Ring of Royal Grandeur (found from Act I bounty caches).
- Endless Walk:This is a jewelry set consisting of
The Traveler's Pledge (Amulet) and
The Compass Rose (Ring), and is randomly found through farming, gambling Blood Shards, and/or Kanai's Cube recipes. The Endless Walk set is a nice compromise between damage bonuses (building up while stationary) and defensive bonuses (building up while moving). It can replace glass cannon choices like the Bastions of Will set (
Focus and
Restraint) and
Squirt's Necklace with acceptable losses to DPS.
Unity: A character wearing this ring, along with another
Unity on their follower plus an immortality relic for them (i.e.,
Enchanting Favor), will reduce their damage taken by 50%.
Unity can roll excellent offense-oriented stats and has an innate Extra Damage to Elites roll, which somewhat offsets losing all-out offense jewelry.
Legendary Gems
- Legendary Gem 1:
Bane of the Trapped
- Legendary Gem 2:
Bane of the Stricken
- Legendary Gem 3:
Zei's Stone of Vengeance
Kanai's Cube
- Weapon Slot:
The Furnace
- Armor Slot:
Ancient Parthan Defenders
- Jewelry Slot:
Ring of Royal Grandeur
How To get This Build Going?
In this section, we will briefly go over how to kickstart this build into reality; which items you should aim for with priority when farming and gambling, and what is their relative priority for the functioning of this spec. Note that these suggestions are exclusively aimed at getting you up and running into endgame farming, and might not reflect the gear you need to wear for high-end Greater Rift solo or group pushing. This section also assumes a fresh Season's start, which usually is the point where most players work on assembling their first build with a particular set.
If the Raekor set is part of the Haedrig's Gift for the Season, your simplest and most straightforward path to assembling the build is to complete the Seasonal Journey chapters up to Chapter IV. The Seasonal Journey chapters will gradually give you a complete class-specific set, giving 2-3 pieces for Chapters II, III and IV.
From the pre-game menu, choose and do this week's Challenge Rift. When
successfully completed, this weekly event will grant you 5,1 million Gold, 475
Blood Shards, 370 Reusable Parts, 350
Arcane Dust, 125
Veiled Crystals, 35
Death's Breaths, and 15 of each Bounty cache
material:
Khanduran Rune,
Caldeum Nightshade,
Arreat War Tapestry,
Corrupted Angel Flesh, and
Westmarch Holy Water. This will allow you some early Seasonal leeway to
extract and reforge items in Kanai's Cube, speeding up the assembly of this
build with the items recommended below.
Having some materials at your disposal, either from farming or the Challenge
Rift, is particularly important when you get duplicate pieces of your desired
set. When you do, you can use Kanai's Cube Skill of Nilfur recipe (10x
Forgotten Souls, 10x
Death's Breaths, 1x Set item) to convert into
another item from the same set. You should never salvage duplicate pieces
of a desired set before you have it assembled.
In order to assemble a Raekor Boulder Toss Barbarian, you should do the following.
- Gather the full 6-piece Raekor set using the advice above, or by spending Blood Shards at Kadala. In order of gamble chance, you should spend for: Pants, Shoulders, Boots, Gloves, Helm, and Chest. A trick you can also use is to gamble for duplicate pieces with an easier gamble chance (i.e., Pants) and convert them into another piece from the same set using the Skill of Nilfur recipe in Kanai's Cube.
- Upgrade rare (Hope of Cain recipe in Kanai's Cube) One-Handed Spears to get
The Three Hundredth Spear and
Arreat's Law; these are build-defining legendary weapons that increase
Ancient Spear damage and provide additional
Weapon Throw utility that ties into the mechanics of the Raekor set. Getting these two spears is trivial, since as of Patch 2.7.3 they are the only legendary spears that Barbarians can acquire.
- Gamble Rings on a Level 1 Barbarian (either your starting character or an alt)
to get
Band of Might, a massive source of damage reduction and a universally useful item for Barbarians. It is one of the two legendary Rings available to level 1 Barbarians, making the gamble significantly easier.
- Upgrade rare One-handed Swords to get
In-geom; doing this on a level 1 Demon Hunter alt will improve your chances due to their lowest loot pool of legendary swords.
In-geom greatly benefits early game Raekor Barbarians, since it makes
Wrath of the Berserker a much more readily available buff.
- Gamble or upgrade rare Bracers to get
Skular's Salvation; this legendary piece gives you another massive damage increase to
Ancient Spear
Boulder Toss. As a bonus, gambling or upgrading this slot can yield
Ancient Parthan Defenders, which should be cubed and used as a protective piece —
Furious Charge procs the bracer with the Freeze of
Cold Rush. Even better, gambling on this slot can yield
Nemesis Bracers, which are a staple farming item for your Follower.
- Do Act I bounties to attain the act-specific
Ring of Royal Grandeur from Bounty caches. This will be helpful either in completing the basic set bonus, or mixing other helpful legendaries in the build as described in the dedicated endgame Raekor Barbarian guide. Bounties will net you craftable set recipes as well, so you will be killing two birds with one stone. Bounties will also net you
Avarice Band (Act III), another farming-oriented staple for most builds and classes, this one included.
- While largely undesirable due to high costs, gambling or upgrading rare
Jewelry is also possible; the Endless Walk set (
The Compass Rose and
The Traveler's Pledge),
Convention of Elements, and
Squirt's Necklace will all drastically improve this and other builds, with other standout pieces that can also substitute or be temporarily helpful in the face of
Unity, or
Oculus Ring and
The Flavor of Time for your Follower.
Changelog
- 13 Sep. 2023 (gear page): Added Season 29 Paragon Cap and Gearing recommendations.
- 13 Sep. 2023 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 29.
- 13 Sep. 2023 (this page): Added Season 29 Paragon Cap and Gearing recommendations.
- 22 Feb. 2023 (gear page): Added Season 28 Altar of Rites recommendations.
- 22 Feb. 2023 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 28.
- 22 Feb. 2023 (this page): Added Season 28 Altar of Rites recommendations.
- 26 Aug. 2022 (gear page): Added Season 27 Angelic Crucible recommendations.
- 26 Aug. 2022 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 27.
- 26 Aug. 2022 (this page): Added Season 27 Angelic Crucible recommendations.
- 13 Apr. 2022 (gear page): Thorough rework of this guide into an Ancient Spear - Boulder Toss build.
- 13 Apr. 2022 (skills page): Thorough rework of this guide into an Ancient Spear - Boulder Toss build.
- 13 Apr. 2022 (this page): Thorough rework of this guide into an Ancient Spear - Boulder Toss build.
- 09 Dec. 2021 (gear page): Added Season 25 Soul Shard recommendations.
- 09 Dec. 2021 (skills page): Reviewed for Season 25.
- 09 Dec. 2021 (this page): Added Season 25 Soul Shard recommendations.
- 22 Jul. 2021 (gear page): Added S24 Ethereal recommendation.
- 22 Jul. 2021 (skills page): No changes required for Season 24.
- 22 Jul. 2021 (this page): Added S24 Ethereal recommendation.
- 31 Mar. 2021 (gear page): Revised gear recommendations, and added follower recommendation.
- 31 Mar. 2021 (skills page): Adjusted skill recommendations.
- 31 Mar. 2021 (this page): Revised gear and skill recommendations, and added follower recommendation.
- 18 Nov. 2020 (gear page): Added S22 Cube recommendation.
- 18 Nov. 2020 (this page): Added S22 Cube recommendation.
- 17 Nov. 2020 (skills page): No changes required for Season 22.
- 30 Jun. 2020 (gear page): No changes required for Season 21.
- 30 Jun. 2020 (skills page): No changes required for Season 21.
- 30 Jun. 2020 (this page): No changes required for Season 21.
- 12 Mar. 2020 (gear page): No changes necessary for Season 20.
- 12 Mar. 2020 (skills page): No changes necessary for Season 20.
- 12 Mar. 2020 (this page): No changes necessary for Season 20.
- 19 Nov. 2019 (gear page): Guide revised and updated for Season 19.
- 19 Nov. 2019 (skills page): Guide revised and updated for Season 19.
- 19 Nov. 2019 (this page): Guide revised and updated for Season 19.
- 22 Aug. 2019 (gear page): Item recommendations were revised for Season 18.
- 22 Aug. 2019 (skills page): Skill selection was clarified for Season 18.
- 22 Aug. 2019 (this page): Item recommendations were revised for Season 18.
- 13 May 2019 (gear page): Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 17.
- 13 May 2019 (skills page): Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 17.
- 13 May 2019 (this page): Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 17.
- 27 Jan. 2019 (skills page): Minor revision to the passive selection options.
- 27 Jan. 2019 (this page): Introduced minor improvements to the guide and adjusted the Raekor variant according to the meta.
- 17 Jan. 2019 (gear page): Added suggestions for the baseline Ring of Royal Grandeur for Seasonal characters.
- 17 Jan. 2019 (this page): Guide was revised with additional recommendations for Season 16.
- 16 Jan. 2019 (skills page): Information was reviewed and approved for Season 16 with no changes required.
- 20 Sep. 2018 (this page): Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 15.
- 14 Jun. 2018 (this page): Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 14.
- 16 Nov. 2017 (this page): Added the Raekor build variation for GR progress.
- 31 Oct. 2017 (gear page): Changed the weapon recommendation to a dual setup with The Istvan's Paired Blades replacing The Gavel of Judgment (which is now cubed).
- 31 Oct. 2017 (this page): Overhaul of the guide to reflect the 2.6.1 buffs that made this build the best build of the season for Barbarians.
- 26 Jun. 2017 (this page): Guide updated for 2.6 and moved to new format.
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This build is presented to you by Deadset, one of the very few professional Diablo 3 players. Deadset regularly publishes video guides on Youtube and streams on Twitch, where you can see how this and other builds play out in practice.
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