Boulder Toss Raekor Barbarian Speed Farming Variation

The Raekor Boulder Toss Barbarian deals excellently with Normal Rifts and Bounty farming all the way through the highest Torment difficulties. 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
Battle Rage Ferocity Ancient Spear Boulder Toss 1 Sprint Marathon 2 War Cry Veteran's Warning 3 Furious Charge Merciless Assault 4 Wrath of the Berserker Insanity
Passive Skills
Rampage Relentless No Escape Nerves of Steel

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 Boulder Toss build, Furious Charge is at the heart of your rotation, used both as a mobility and damage amplification tool from the Raekor set. During T16 speed farming, take advantage of the burst potential of Boulder Toss 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 in singular, devastating Ancient Spear Boulder Tosses. Keep War Cry 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.

• Ancient Spear Boulder Toss remains the main damage dealing skill, but you will be dropping its generator counterpart Weapon Throw, since the extra damage amplification it provides will be superfluous for T16 rifts. You will still be wearing Arreat's Law for the baked-in damage amp to Ancient Spear, however. The freed up skill slot should be taken up by Sprint. Along with the Marathon rune, it will provide useful mobility when there is no one to Furious Charge to — a situation that comes up often in Bounties.
• 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 T16 speed farming, use the slot usually occupied by Ignore Pain for the all-around buff from War Cry Veteran's Warning.
• Wrath of the Berserker Insanity is an omnipresent self-buff in all versions of the build.
• Rampage remains one of the best damage amplification passives you can take, easily capped with the T16 kill speed. No Escape can also be taken to solidify your burst. Since you will be dropping the generator skill, you should take Unforgiving to ease your resource management. Lastly, take Nerves of Steel to prevent any careless mishaps as you jump from one brawl to another.

You will largely keep the gear pieces from your Greater Rift progression setup. When it comes to armor sets, you will still use the 6-piece Raekor and 3-piece Cpt. Crimson bonusеs, using 5 pieces from the former and 2 from the latter and cubing a Ring of Royal Grandeur to complete their power. Since this remains a Boulder Toss-centric playstyle, you will have to keep Skular's Salvation, The Three Hundredth Spear and Arreat's Law as cornerstone pieces of your damage output.

The notable differences are in the jewelry slots, where you can make some adaptations to complement T16 farming. Instead of the slow-and-steady Endless Walk set, you should use a combo of Squirt's Necklace and a Physical damage Stone of Jordan — both of which will provide a consistent damage bonus suitable to bursting enemies down. Your second ring should be Rechel's Ring of Larceny, which has a Fear-based movement speed proc and comes with an innate Chance to Fear on Hit roll, essentially proccing itself.

Note that former favorites for the jewelry slots in T16 — like Nemesis Bracers, The Flavor of Time, and Avarice Band — can now be equipped on your Follower, and their bonuses "Emanate" (meaning, their effect applies to you as well). Obviously, you should consider fitting these pieces back into the build, if you are farming T16s in a group.

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.

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.

Zei's Stone of Vengeance remains a universally desired damage amplification gem. Swap the CC-dependent Bane of the Trapped for Bane of the Powerful, which provides an all-around damage and survivability bonus as long as you maintain an above-abysmal farming speed.

Boon of the Hoarder is a great T16 speed farming inclusion, as it increases both your Gold income (necessary for empowering GRs) as well as your Movement Speed (via its interaction with the Follower-worn Avarice Band) and your Toughness (through its interaction with Goldwrap).

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

In-geom will cut down your Cooldowns in 10-second chunks with every Elite kill, allowing you to chain Wrath of the Berserker without interruption and enjoy the tremendous benefits of this omnipotent buff.

The power of the triumvirate interaction between a Follower-worn Avarice Band (massively extends your pickup radius), a Boon of the Hoarder socketed in your jewelry (provides a constant stream of Gold), and Goldwrap in the armor Cube slot (scales Armor as you pick up Gold) cannot be understated in T16 farming.

In order to mix in the Raekor set with the craftable Captain Crimson set, you will need a Ring of Royal Grandeur: a cache legendary ring from Act I bounties, to tie the two set bonuses together.

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 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.

The preferred potions for this build are Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid (allows you to break up walls that impede your ranged DPS) and Bottomless Potion of the Unfettered (provides a secondary source of crowd control immunity during Wrath of the Berserker downtime).

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:

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).

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).