Frenzy HotNS Barbarian Nephalem Rift Speed Farming Variation

The HotNS Frenzy Barbarian is a capable build for Normal Rift and Bounty farming all the way through the highest Torment difficulties. The build variation suffers from the minor inconvenience of being a predominantly single target build, but with the correct playstyle (mostly ignoring trash and focusing down elite after elite), it handles the task with ease. We have solo speed GR rankings and solo speed T16 rankings if you want to know more about which builds are best for speed farming.

Within the limited scope of regular difficulties, the necessary damage and toughness to triumph over the enemy is significantly smaller. Thus, your best course of action is to improve utility and speed.

Active Skills
Frenzy Vanguard Furious Charge Merciless Assault 1 War Cry Veteran's Warning 2 Sprint Marathon 3 Battle Rage Ferocity 4 Wrath of the Berserker Insanity
Passive Skills
Berserker Rage Rampage Boon of Bul-Kathos Pound of Flesh

When you are speed farming regular rifts, parts of your playstyle will adapt to the lowered challenge and focus more on speed and utility.

During speed farming, you are allowed much more liberal use of Wrath of the Berserker; you can pop it as soon as you enter the Rift and keep it up pretty much indefinitely thanks to the powers of In-geom. Aside from WotB, keep up War Cry and Battle Rage up at all times as your staple buffs, and reapply Sprint as soon as it falls off. The remainder of the core rotation stays the same; you will be using Furious Charge to jump between packs and one-shotting the priority target with one or two quick Frenzy slashes. Due to the single target nature and In-geom proc dependency of this build, always keep in mind to focus on elites and very dense trash packs, largely ignoring stragglers on your way as they will only slow down your runs.

Parts of the skill and passive selection will overlap with the base Greater Rift progression build, but others will have to change according to the task at hand. Ability to cross over great distances faster and more efficiently take precedence.

• Frenzy is still your main damage dealer, but since you will be dropping progression-oriented weaponry like Azurewrath (and losing the elemental damage bonus as consequence) for In-geom (see gearing section below) you can change from the Cold rune Berserk or the Fire rune Maniac to any one you like. For the sake of example, we have swapped to Vanguard, though it should be noted you receive all rune effects regardless, due to The Undisputed Champion.
• Furious Charge retains its role as a movement skill, along with the cooldown-resetting powers of the rune Merciless Assault.
• Battle Rage is present in the speed farming build as well, but the rune is swapped from the progression-oriented Bloodshed to the extra movement speed of Ferocity.
• When you are solo speed farming, use the slot usually occupied by Threatening Shout for the short bursts of speed from Sprint Marathon — useful when there is no one to Furious Charge to, and especially so in Bounties.
• War Cry stays in the build not so much for its defensive properties (although they are welcome), but for its speed farming synergy from a cubed or worn Chilanik's Chain — providing a substantial, party-wide movement speed buff.
• Wrath of the Berserker Insanity is still part of your skill lineup, and will have much higher uptime due to In-geom.
• You will retain the vast majority of your passive lineup from the solo GR progression build. Boon of Bul-Kathos is still quite useful for WotB uptime even with In-geom present, while Rampage and Berserker Rage are consistent and straightforward damage buffs for a generator build in speed farming.
• If you feel you confidently overpower the chosen difficulty, you can take off the excessive damage of Ruthless (or the defense of Nerves of Steel, depending on your choice) for the extra movement speed of Pound of Flesh, which synergizes excellently with Avarice Band.

Most of the gear from the Greater Rift progression build will still make sense for speed farming, but a few variations will be necessary in order to maximize your productivity and momentum during regular Rift clears.

The Horde of the Ninety Savages set is still worn almost in its entirety, but it is recommended that you use the Depth Diggers legendary pants as a worn piece (instead of cubed, as in the progression version). They replace the Leggings of Savages and necessitate the use of Ring of Royal Grandeur in your jewelry Cube slot to complete the 6-piece HotNS bonus. This change however nets you a valuable armor Cube slot for utility bonuses — see the Cube section below.

During standard rift speed farming, the timing and positioning-reliant bonuses of the Endless Walk set is greatly diminished in usefulness. In its place, try wearing a combination of an Avarice Band (or Rechel's Ring of Larceny) and a Band of Might. Avarice Band is an Act III bounty cache legendary ring that increases your gold and health globe pickup radius as you pick up gold, stacking to the massive, half-screen circle of 30 yards — all for a generous 10 second duration. Its legendary power will greatly assist you in maintaining the movespeed bonuses from both Boon of the Hoarder and Pound of Flesh. Starting in Patch 2.7 however, your chosen follower can wear this ring and emanate its power to your character, meaning you get its powers for free. As such, your next best choice is Rechel's Ring of Larceny, whose Fear-based speed proc (and innate Fear on hit roll, making it proc itself) will make your runs even faster.

Lastly, complete the jewelry with a Hellfire Amulet of Strength (with Ruthless) in solo play, or with The Flavor of Time in groups. The latter doubles the duration of Pylon pickups, which in most speed farming cases covers for a third to half of a rift clear, further smoothing out runs. It is not recommended in solo play simply because it can be worn by the follower and emanated onto you.

During low tier GRs or normal rift speedruns in solo play, an optimized character can avoid the overkill of toughness in the bracer slot by swapping to Warzechian Armguards for the additional environment destruction-based speed boost. The usual recommendation, Nemesis Bracers, can be worn by the follower starting from Patch 2.7, but should still be taken by the character themselves in group play.

In order to ensure very high uptime of Wrath of the Berserker during speed farming, you should drop the Azurewrath recommendation from the progression build and use an In-geom. The cooldown reduction upon elite kill powers of this legendary sword directly correspond to the elite hunting playstyle of this build. For the most part of character progression, your other weapon should still be Oathkeeper for the significant damage bonuses it provides. Note however that a high Paragon, optimized gear character can afford to drop Oathkeeper in favor of Echoing Fury to enhance the uptime of Rechel's Ring of Larceny. The Fear proc synergy between those two items will further amplify your mobility.

Slot	Pieces	Stat Priority
Head	Skull of Savages	Strength Socket Crit Chance Vitality Crowd Control Reduction (Secondary Stat) Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Shoulders	Spines of Savages	Strength Cooldown Reduction Area Damage Vitality Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat) Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Torso	Markings of Savages	Strength 3 Sockets All Resistance Elite Damage Reduction Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat) Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Wrists	Warzechian Armguards (solo) Nemesis Bracers (groups)	Strength Critical Hit Chance Elemental Damage acc. to Frenzy rune Vitality or Life per Hit Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Hands	Claws of Savages	Strength (or Area Damage at high Paragon) Critical Hit Chance Critical Hit Damage Cooldown Reduction Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat) Stun on Hit % (Secondary Stat)
Waist	The Undisputed Champion (Best in Slot) Chilanik's Chain (Alternative)	Strength Frenzy Skill % Vitality All Resistance Freeze on Hit % (Secondary Stat)
Legs	Depth Diggers	Strength 2 Sockets Frenzy Skill % Vitality Life per Kill (Secondary Stat) Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Feet	Heel of Savages	Strength Vitality All Resistance Armor Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat) Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)
Amulet	Hellfire Amulet of Strength (solo) The Flavor of Time (groups)	Socket Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Chance Elemental Damage acc. to Frenzy rune Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat) Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Ring #1	Rechel's Ring of Larceny (solo) Avarice Band (groups)	Socket Critical Hit Chance Critical Hit Damage Area Damage Strength Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Ring #2	Band of Might	Socket Critical Hit Chance Critical Hit Damage Average Damage or Area Damage
Weapon #1	In-geom	Socket (preferably from Ramaladni's Gift) High Weapon Damage Strength Cooldown Reduction Attack Speed (on Oathkeeper) Freeze/Stun/Fear on Hit (Secondary Stat)
Weapon #2	Oathkeeper (Best in Slot) Echoing Fury (Alternative)	Socket (preferably from Ramaladni's Gift) High Weapon Damage Strength Cooldown Reduction Attack Speed (on Oathkeeper) Freeze/Stun/Fear on Hit (Secondary Stat)

To help you with farming the gear you need for your builds, we have two very useful guides that you can access by clicking the links below: a Salvage Guide to help you quickly check whether or not you can safely salvage a piece of gear and a Legendary Farming Guide to help you efficiently farm legendaries and set items.

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.

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.

Simplicity's Strength remains a universally desired damage amplification gem for Primary skill-focused builds.

Boon of the Hoarder is a great speed farming inclusion, as it increases both your gold income (necessary for empowering GRs) as well as your movement speed.

Early on in character progression, you can use Bane of the Trapped for its solid damage increase against targets under the effects of crowd control. Once you are confident in your damage output however, it is advisable to change into Wreath of Lightning simply for its level 25 movement speed increase, further smoothing out farming runs.

Slot	Gems
Jewelry	Boon of the Hoarder Simplicity's Strength Bane of the Trapped Wreath of Lightning (alt)
Helm	Flawless Royal Diamond
Torso and Pants	Flawless Royal Ruby (Damage) Flawless Royal Diamond (Toughness)
Weapon	Flawless Royal Emerald

For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.

Tucked away in the cube, Bastion's Revered offers a key legendary effect for the build — the extension of Frenzy stacks from 5 to 10. The result is a whopping 150% increase to Frenzy attack speed at cap, as well as a 25% damage buff from Maniac and 50% additional movement speed from Vanguard.

As outlined above, taking Depth Diggers into your worn item selection frees up this slot for the substantial movement speed increase of Chilanik's Chain. Its legendary powers trigger when using War Cry, necessitating that you pop it at least once every 10 seconds to maintain the solid, party-wide MS buff. During solo play, or if you do not particularly care to boost your speed further than the skill and worn item recommendations, you can slot Goldwrap here for its synergy with Boon of the Hoarder and the Avarice Band worn by the follower, and enjoy near-invulnerability as you farm content that drops gold.

In order to balance the 6-piece bonus of the Horde of the Ninety Savages set with the aforementioned speed farming prerequisites, you will need to slot a Ring of Royal Grandeur in the jewelry Cube slot.

The Kanai's Cube can be used for much more than simply extracting Legendary powers from items. Please refer to our Kanai's Cube guide for more information.

The recommended follower for this build during T16 rift farming for keys is the Enchantress due to her utility-laden arsenal of skills, and especially her cooldown reduction bonus, which assists your significant CDR needs during farming. Her balance of increasing survivability while also improving damage makes her an excellent choice during speed farming of any kind.

For more information regarding followers, we advise you to read our Follower Guide, which contains detailed advice for choosing the skills and the gear of your follower.

You have two viable potion options for this build; either lean into extra health sustain with Bottomless Potion of the Leech for its Life per Hit bonuses, or try to compensate for your lack of permanent CC immunity due to lesser WotB uptime with Bottomless Potion of the Unfettered.