HotA Raekor Barbarian Speed Farming Variation
Raekor HotA Barbarian Speed Farming Variation
The Raekor HotA Barbarian deals excellently with Normal Rifts and Bounty farming all the way through the highest Torment difficulties. This variation is highly recommended for Rifts in particular, since it is able to fit in the Sage's set for Death's Breath farming. We have speed farming 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 |
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Passive Skills |
Adapting Rotation
When you are speed farming regular rifts, parts of your playstyle will adapt to the lowered challenge and focus more on speed and utility.
In a Reakor HotA build, Furious Charge is at the heart of your
rotation, used both as a mobility and damage amplification tool from the Raekor
set. During speedfarming, take advantage of the burst potential of HotA builds
and try to jump from elite to elite, killing trash enemies as collateral damage
instead of them being the focus. Build up
Furious Charge stacks and dump
them with reckless abandon through
Hammer of the Ancients, keeping
Ignore Pain and
Battle Rage up at all times and
Sprint in
between packs if necessary. Apply
Wrath of the Berserker and
Call of the Ancients as soon as they come off cooldown — hopefully
with minimal downtime due to
In-geom procs.
Adapting Skills and Passives
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.
Hammer of the Ancients remains the main damage dealing skill, along with the highest damage dealing rune —
Smash.
Furious Charge retains its role as a movement and damage amplification skill (due to the Raekor set bonuses).
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
Ignore Pain for the short bursts of speed from
Sprint
Marathon — useful when there is no one to
Furious Charge to, and especially so in Bounties. If you are clearing standard rifts with a group, you can consider using
War Cry in this slot and cubing
Chilanik's Chain for the party-wide movement speed buff.
Wrath of the Berserker
Insanity is an omnipresent self-buff in both versions of the build, with a complementary
Call of the Ancients to attain the
Remorseless damage multiplier.
Rampage,
Ruthless and
Boon of Bul-Kathos are still a solid foundation of your passive selection.
- In your passives, you can optionally replace
Brawler with the globe-fueled movement speed bonuses of
Pound of Flesh.
Adapting Gear
This build takes advantage of the full Raekor set bonus, incorporating five
of the six set pieces available and cubing a Ring of Royal Grandeur to
complete its powers. Since this is a Hammer of the Ancients-centric playstyle,
you will have to keep
Bracers of the First Men as a cornerstone piece of
your damage output.
This is a speed farming build that can take advantage of the inclusion of the
Sage's Journey set for extra Death's Breath drops, and we recommend that you do
so. Replace Pride of Cassius with
Sage's Ribbon and one Raekor piece
of your choice with another Sage piece —
Sage's Apogee,
Sage's Passage, or
Sage's Purchase. You are not forced to, of
course, and you can opt to retain the traditional 6-piece Raekor setup with
Pride of Cassius, and potentially include
Focus and
Restraint as your speed farming rings.
As noted above, your jewelry during farming can be the Bastions of Will set
( Focus and
Restraint); however, once you perfect your
character and no longer want for burst, you should use utility-focused jewelry
instead. A combination of
Avarice Band and
Band of Might (for
protection) or a Fire damage
Stone of Jordan (for consistent extra DPS)
will serve you much better during farming. The union of
Avarice Band with
Boon of the Hoarder will greatly improve your speed, as well as feed into
your gold reserve for the costly GR empowerments.
Complement these rings either with a Hellfire Amulet of Strength with a
synergistic fifth passive, or with a
Squirt's Necklace for another massive
damage multiplier (make a point to swap
Bane of the Powerful for
Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard if you opt for the latter). The former favorite
for the amulet slot,
The Flavor of Time, is not recommended in solo play
simply because it can be worn by the follower and emanated onto you — but
should be worn during group play.
During speed farming, the value of attack speed from Echoing Fury
drops off, since fights will be much shorter — almost down to one-shots,
in fact. As such, swap this slot out for
In-geom, whose elite kill-based
CDR procs will greatly improve your
Wrath of the Berserker and
Call of the Ancients uptimes.
Slot | Pieces | Stat Priority |
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Head |
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Shoulders |
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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.
Adapting Gems
Bane of the Trapped remains a universally desired damage amplification
gem, and
Gogok of Swiftness retains its value for the cooldown reduction
and attack speed bonuses it feeds into the build.
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, if you are not comfortable with your
toughness (or if you are doing a Death's Breath farming alteration), you can use
the defensive bulwark of
Esoteric Alteration in this slot.
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
Cubing the The Gavel of Judgment is a natural choice for a HotA-centric
build, since this two handed mighty weapon is the basis of your Fury management
with its refund mechanic, and also offers a massive skill damage bonus.
In speedfarming, a well-progressed character should not need the overkill
buffs of Mortick's Brace; stay with that item for early progression, but
transition as soon as you are comfortable into speedfarming staples like
Warzechian Armguards (solo play) or
Nemesis Bracers (in groups).
As mentioned above, in order to maintain the Raekor and Sage set bonuses in
full, you will have to use Ring of Royal Grandeur in the jewelry Cube
slot. In case you opt out of the Death's Breath farming option, you should use
a speedfarm-appropriate item like
Avarice Band in this 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.
Follower
The recommended follower for this build during standard rift farming for keys is the Enchantress due to her numerous utility bonuses, allowing you to smooth out your speed runs even further.
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.
Legendary Potion
The preferred potion for this build is Bottomless Potion of the Leech due
to its Life per Hit bonuses, which synergize perfectly for the high attack speed
and sustain-through-attacks playstyle of the build.
Changelog
- 31 Mar. 2021: Revised gear and skill recommendations, and added follower recommendation.
- 18 Nov. 2020: Added S22 Cube recommendation.
- 30 Jun. 2020: No changes required for Season 21.
- 12 Mar. 2020: No changes necessary for Season 20.
- 19 Nov. 2019: Guide revised and updated for Season 19.
More Barbarian Guides
Builds from Other Classes
Farming Guides
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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