Frenzy HotNS Barbarian RGK Variation
Horde of the Ninety Savages Frenzy Barbarian Rift Guardian Killer Variation
The HotNS Frenzy Barbarian can deal reasonably well with the role of a Rift Guardian Killer in high tier Greater Rifts. Although the build is not considered the best for the role, it can viably take the RGK spot and serve in a non-competitive party composition.
The Rift Guardian Killer role demands focus from the character entirely into single target damage, eschewing any consideration for Area Damage or trash killing purposes. Your skill and especially your gear choices will reflect that.
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Passive Skills |
Adapting Rotation
When serving as the Rift Guardian Killer, most of the Frenzy HotNS Barb
rotation remains the same as the solo progression build. You will still be
applying the trio of shouts — Battle Rage,
War Cry and
Threatening Shout — whenever applicable, either to refresh their
duration or affect a newly engaged group of enemies.
Frenzy
— either empowered by
Wrath of the Berserker, or on its own —
will be your main damage dealer, and its tremendous attack speed in
conjunction with a socketed
Bane of the Stricken will be taking the Rift
Guardians down. Your value to the group comes in the form of toughness buffs
(the aforementioned
War Cry), as well as an additional long range pull
via
Ancient Spear
Rage Flip.
Adapting Skills and Passives
The vast majority of your skill and passive selection will overlap with the base Greater Rift progression build, with minor adjustments to accommodate the group progression playstyle.
- The Frenzy HotNS Barb retains nearly all of its GR solo skill setup, using
Battle Rage
Bloodshed,
Threatening Shout
Falter and
War Cry (albeit with
Impunity for a greater team benefit) as the Shout-related set base, as well as
Wrath of the Berserker for its tremendous self buffs during damage output. The Passives lineup sticks with staples like
Ruthless,
Boon of Bul-Kathos and
Berserker Rage. The final slot can be either
Nerves of Steel during high end group GR pushing, or altered to
Rampage during slightly lower XP farm.
- It should be noted that due to the focus on this group variation on pure
attack speed and Rift Guardian killing, you will be dropping the solo staple
Azurewrath and its Freeze mechanics for more generic, element-neutral equipment (see below).
- Deviating from the main build, you will be using
Ancient Spear
Rage Flip as an efficient way of spending Fury for the
Focus and
Restraint bonus, while also assisting your support with pulls. When you are still learning the build, or if you are too bothered by the lack of mobility in such a setup, you can alter this skill slot to
Whirlwind
Wind Shear for a cheap repositioning tool (which will still proc the ring set bonus).
Adapting Gear
Most of the gear from the Greater Rift solo progression build will still make sense for the group RGK variation, but a few alterations will be necessary in order to maximize your potential in this role.
You will be wearing the entirety of the Horde of the Ninety Savages set,
but when it comes to gear rolls, you can drop any consideration of Area Damage
rolls from the Spines of Savages and
Claws of Savages. You will
maintain the overall direction with stat priority over the rest of the gear,
getting
Frenzy skill bonuses on both the belt
(
The Undisputed Champion) and
Leggings of Savages, focusing on
high toughness rolls on the
Skull of Savages (alongside Crit Chance),
and committing fully to it on the
Markings of Savages and
Heel of Savages.
Unlike solo progression where there is room for preference,
Mortick's Brace is the mandatory bracer for RGK, as you will focus
entirely on damage and leave mitigation and healing considerations to your
Support teammates.
There is some room for variation in your jewelry, either by trying to balance some survivability in your setup (generally recommended), or fully glassing out for the purposes of your group.
In a more balanced spec, you will be wearing the Endless Walk set —
The Traveler's Pledge and
The Compass Rose along with a
Convention of Elements, which provides at least a measure of protection
as you move from fight to fight. If you choose to commit fully to glass cannon
damage dealing however, you can squeeze out every last bit of DPS with a
combination of
Focus and
Restraint, plus a
Squirt's Necklace. Naturally, you will be proccing the generator portion
of
Focus and
Restraint with
Frenzy, and you
will have to pull with
Ancient Spear (or tap
Whirlwind for a
second) to maintain the spender half of the bonus.
Squirt's Necklace
provides a massive damage bonus with an equally painful damage intake
trade-off, which you will be able to mitigate in groups thanks to the Support
characters.
Weapons-wise, you will maintain Oathkeeper from the main build, but
solo-oriented choices like
The Burning Axe of Sankis and its extra
survivability, and the
Azurewrath and its hard CC procs have no place
in group progression. In their stead, you have the choice between
Pig Sticker for its unrivaled attack speed and elite damage
capabilities (preferred for high end group GR progression) and
Sun Keeper for its generic elite damage bonuses (for GR group XP
farming).
Slot | Pieces | Stat Priority |
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Torso |
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Wrists |
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Hands |
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Waist |
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Legs |
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Feet |
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Amulet |
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Ring #1 |
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Ring #2 |
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Weapon #1 |
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Weapon #2 |
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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.
Altar of Rites
The former Season 28 theme, the Altar of Rites, has been revised and re-added to Diablo 3 as a permanent character progression mechanic. — For virtually all builds and players of all skill levels — from casual to advanced — we recommend progressing through the Altar tree using the path outlined below. The suggested path is geared towards maximum quality of life first, then amplifying damage, and then mopping up the tree with defensive and edge case utility nodes.
Note that while they require reaching them with a Seal, Legendary Potion Powers are not part of the Seal cost system; Potions unlock with a separate resource called Primordial Ashes, obtained from salvaging Legendary or Set items of Primal (red bordered) quality. Upgrade them as soon as possible, and in the order shown below (courtesy of Caleko's Altar of Rites planner).

You can read more on the Altar of Rites, Seals and Legendary Potion Powers in our dedicated Altar of Rites Mechanics guide.
Adapting Gems
You will maintain the same legendary gem setup as the solo GR progression
build, with Bane of the Trapped,
Simplicity's Strength and
Bane of the Stricken remaining as your most desirable gems. The Frenzy
Barb's ability to quickly stack the latter opens its viability in the RGK role
in the first place.
Slot | Gems |
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Jewelry | |
Helm | |
Torso and Pants |
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Weapon |
For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.
Adapting Kanai's Cube
Both Bastion's Revered and
Depth Diggers are maintained from
the main solo GR progression spec, as they are mandatory for the function of
the build overall.
Bastion's Revered extends the stacking mechanic of
Frenzy and provides a valuable damage chaining effect (although
less pronounced in the RGK role), while
Depth Diggers are a straight up
DPS increase in Primary skill-focused build.
Your final Cube slot depends on your jewelry setup, as explained above. In
the general Endless Walk-wearing version, you will be cubing
Squirt's Necklace for an extra source of damage multiplication. In the
daredevil
Focus and
Restraint wearing version, you will be
amping up your DPS even further with a cubed
Convention of Elements.
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.
Legendary Potion
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.
Season 35 Theme — Eternal Conflict
This Season revives the Pandemonium Kill Streak buff from Season 19. Each stack grants a bonus to movement speed and damage, capping at +50% movement speed and +100% damage at 1000 kills. Hitting specific kill thresholds unleashes powerful effects. Read more in our dedicated Season of the Eternal Conflict Mechanics Guide!
While speedfarming sees limited use from this theme, Greater Rift
pushing benefits significantly. Effects like Geysers (150),
Meteors (400), and Angels (500) can clear elites and Rift
Guardians instantly. Players may reset streaks after 150 kills to repeatedly
trigger Geysers or push for 500+ kills near boss fights, often using
Nemesis Bracers to spawn extra enemies.
Because the most potent effects (Geysers, Meteors, Angels) can obliterate Rift Guardians instantly up to GR150, players can retool builds for efficiency and comfort. Here’s how:
Legendary Gem Considerations
Since you can rely on killstreak procs to clear the Rift Guardian,
Bane of the Stricken can be safely omitted in favor of:
- Another generic damage-scaling legendary gem (
Bane of the Trapped for builds with any form of crowd control and/or melee range,
Zei's Stone of Vengeance for far ranged builds,
Taeguk for channeling builds,
Simplicity's Strength for primary attack-focused builds,
Enforcer for pet-oriented builds, etc.)
- A survivability-oriented legendary gem (
Esoteric Alteration,
Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard), or additional utility (
Gogok of Swiftness for CDR-reliant builds,
Pain Enhancer for attack speed-heavy builds, or
Wreath of Lightning for extra movement speed).
Equipment and Skill Flexibility
Adjust your equipment to items that favor durability, health sustain, and ease of movement. Consider adjusting non-essential skills for the build to ones that pull, reposition, or otherwise displace enemies to facilitate large pulls of enemy packs. In more concrete terms, this means:
- For class-specific items, Barbarians should consider
Band of Might if it's absent from the build; this is a powerful damage reduction item that incentivizes you to be mindful of mobility (through
Furious Charge and
Leap) and utility (through
Ground Stomp) — both of which synergize well with the killstreak theme.
- For additional defense, other helpful cross-class jewelry includes
Unity and the Endless Walk set (
The Traveler's Pledge and
The Compass Rose).
- Situational items that can bolster your defenses include
Stone Gauntlets (the drawbacks of which are negated via CC-immunity effects like
Wrath of the Berserker,
Ice Climbers, or Altar of Rites CC-immunity node),
Aquila Cuirass (for low Fury-spending builds), and truly edge-case inclusions like
Justice Lantern and
String of Ears.
- For situational items that improve your utility, strongly consider
Nemesis Bracers as the extra elites equal both killstreak upkeep and GR progression. When soloing, they should be equipped by your follower; in groups, at least one party member should commit to wearing them. Edge cases will see the inclusion of
Warzechian Armguards or
Krelm's Buff Belt (more speed for easier scouting and pulls), and
Chilanik's Chain (for a group-wide boon). To facilitate large pulls, consider using a Follower equipped with
The Ess of Johan, a proc-based analogue to an enemy-pulling skill (albeit outside your control).
- Skill-wise, make sure to include at least one movement skill tool
(
Furious Charge,
Leap or
Sprint) and/or an enemy-pulling tool like
Ground Stomp
Wrenching Smash or
Ancient Spear
Rage Flip. Take a look if you can include passives like
Boon of Bul-Kathos (for solo) or
Inspiring Presence (for groups).
Changelog
- 03 Jun. 2025: Added Season 35 Eternal Conflict killstreak recommendations.
- 18 Jan. 2025: Added Season 34 Angelic Crucible recommendations.
- 21 Oct. 2024: Added Season 33 advice for 4th Kanai slot.
- 09 Jul. 2024: Added Season 32 advice for ethereal weapons.
- 10 Apr. 2024: Guide reviewed for Season 31.
- 08 Jan. 2024: Revised guide for the permanent addition of the Altar of Rites, and added Season-specific Soul Shard recommendations.
- 13 Sep. 2023: Added Season 29 Paragon Cap and Gearing recommendations.
- 22 Feb. 2023: Added Season 28 Altar of Rites recommendations.
- 26 Aug. 2022: Added Season 27 Angelic Crucible recommendations.
- 10 Apr. 2022: Guide reviewed for Season 26.
- 09 Dec. 2021: Added Season 25 Soul Shard recommendations.
- 22 Jul. 2021: Added recommendations for Season 24 ethereal weapon.
- 06 Apr. 2020: Included additional information. Minor clarifications and fixes.
- 28 Mar. 2021: Revised skill recommendations.
- 18 Nov. 2020: Revised rune and weaponry choices. Added S22 Cube recommendation.
- 30 Jun. 2020: No changes required for Season 21.
- 09 Mar. 2020: Page added.
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