HotA Raekor 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
Furious Charge Merciless Assault Hammer of the Ancients Smash 1 Battle Rage Ferocity 2 Sprint Marathon 3 Ignore Pain Iron Hide 4 Wrath of the Berserker Insanity
Passive Skills
Rampage Boon of Bul-Kathos Ruthless 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.

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 as soon as it comes off cooldown — hopefully with minimal downtime due to In-geom procs.

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 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. 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.
• You will keep using Ignore Pain for the damage reduction and crowd control immunity, but you should consider altering the rune; the healing of Ignorance is Bliss should not be necessary, so you can swap to the higher uptime of Iron Hide to ensure complete overlap of your main mitigation source.
• Wrath of the Berserker Insanity is an omnipresent self-buff in both versions of the build.
• 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.

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. Lastly, complete the jewelry with The Flavor of Time, which doubles the duration of Pylon pickups. In most speed farming cases, this extension covers for a third to half of a rift clear, further smoothing out runs.

During speed farming, the Istvan's Paired Blades is too cumbersome to maintain; you will be better off using a utility-driven combo like In-geom and The Burning Axe of Sankis. The former will greatly improve your Wrath of the Berserker uptime, while the latter will provide a solid 20% Fire damage increase and a generic Ignore Pain proc to boot.

Slot	Pieces	Stat Priority
Head	Raekor's Will	Strength Socket Crit Chance or Vitality (see above) Hammer of the Ancients % Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat) Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Shoulders	Raekor's Burden	Strength Cooldown Reduction Area Damage All Resistance Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)
Torso	Raekor's Heart	Strength 3 Sockets Vitality Reduced Damage from Elites Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat) Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Wrists	Bracers of the First Men	Strength Critical Hit Chance Fire Damage Vitality or Life per Hit (see above) Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Hands	Raekor's Wraps	Strength (replaced by Area Damage at High Paragons) Critical Hit Chance Critical Hit Damage Cooldown Reduction Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat) Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Waist	Sage's Ribbon (Best in Slot) Pride of Cassius (Alternative)	Strength Vitality All Resistance Life % Maximum Fury (Important Secondary Stat) Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Legs	Raekor's Breeches	Strength 2 Sockets Vitality All Resistance Life per Kill (Secondary Stat) Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Feet	Sage's Passage (Best in Slot) Raekor's Striders (Alternative)	Strength Hammer of the Ancients % Vitality All Resistance Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat) Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)
Amulet	The Traveler's Pledge	Socket Critical Hit Damage Critical Hit Chance Fire Damage Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat) Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Ring #1	Band of Might (Best in Slot) Focus (Alternative)	Socket Critical Hit Chance Critical Hit Damage Cooldown Reduction Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Ring #2	Avarice Band (Best in Slot) Restraint (Alternative)	Socket Critical Hit Chance Critical Hit Damage Cooldown Reduction Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Weapon #1	In-geom	Socket (preferably from Ramaladni's Gift) High Weapon Damage Strength Cooldown Reduction Life per Hit or Area Damage Chance to Chill on Hit (Secondary Stat) Life per Kill (Secondary Stat if LpH not present)
Weapon #2	The Burning Axe of Sankis	Socket (preferably from Ramaladni's Gift) High Weapon Damage Strength Cooldown Reduction Life per Hit or Area Damage Chance to Chill on Hit (Secondary Stat) Life per Kill (Secondary Stat if LpH not present)

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.

Bane of the Trapped remains a universally desired damage amplification gem.

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.

Bane of the Powerful is one of the best speed farming gems, as it offers a 20% multiplicative damage increase after killing an elite pack with a scaling duration of 1 second per level, starting out at a generous 30 — meaning you can afford to leave the gem at level 25 for a while in early progression and work on your more important gems. Its secondary bonus is a further increase in damge dealt and a reduction in damage taken from elites, solidifying its spot as a farming staple.

Slot	Gems
Jewelry	Boon of the Hoarder Esoteric Alteration (alt) Bane of the Trapped Bane of the Powerful
Helm	Flawless Royal Diamond
Torso and Pants	Flawless Royal Ruby (Damage) Flawless Royal Diamond (Toughness)
Weapon	Flawless Royal Emerald

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 damage reduction bonuses of the Aquila Cuirass; stay with that item for early progression, but transition as soon as you are comfortable into the speedfarming staple Nemesis Bracers.

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 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.

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.