Whirlwind Barbarian Endgame Build Guide for Diablo 4 (Season 4)

Build Introduction

Welcome to the build guide for one of the most iconic Barbarian builds across multiple Diablo titles, the Whirlwind Barbarian! Beloved by many, this simple playstyle will have you moving with ease through hordes of demons across the open world and nightmare dungeons, slicing through anything in your way as you become an unstoppable hurricane of steel. Thanks to the updates to some aspects in Patch 1.4.0, we will also be spawning some mighty tornadoes to help us mow down demons even faster. If you like simple but fun playstyles and tons of screen-clearing potential, this may be the build for you.

Strengths and Weaknesses

To see how this build compares to the other builds on our site, you can check out our build tier lists.

Build Requirements

Optional Uniques

Rage of Harrogath

Ramaladni’s Magnum Opus

Required Aspects (Non-codex)

Aspect of Grasping Whirlwind

Devilish Aspect

Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

Skill Bar Setup for the Whirlwind Build (Order does not matter)

Whirlwind Iron Skin Wrath of the Berserker Rallying Cry War Cry Challenging Shout

Follow the points allocated in the image above for the complete 58 point build. The additional 10 skill points are completed using the Renown system.

Arsenal System and Weapon Selection

For the Whirlwind build, we will be focused on using the expertise of Two-Handed Axe for the bonus damage against Vulnerable Damage.

We will want to assign our Whirlwind skill to use our Dual-Wield Weapons with Ramaladni’s Magnum Opus and a One-Handed Mace to trigger Wallop and Concussion.

Paragon Board

We recommend using the following Legendary nodes and Rare Glyphs to truly take this build into the endgame. Note that each Rare Glyph’s information and radius listed below is for the Level 21 version.

Starting Board

Warbringer

Rotate three times before attaching.

Carnage

Rotate twice before attaching.

Blood Rage

We attach this board to the North of the Carnage Board. Rotate this board 4 times before attaching.

Decimator

We attach this board to the East of the Carnage Board and rotate three times before confirming.

Flawless Technique

We attach this board to the South of the Carnage Board and rotate it twice.

To view the Paragon Boards in their entirety CLICK HERE.

Gear, Gems, Elixirs, and Stats

The Season of Loot Reborn brings us an incredible shift in how gear and itemization are done. It is a major and will affect the game beyond Season 4’s confines. For further details, make sure to read our Tempering and Masterworking section below.

Legendary Aspects

Below you will find all of the best-in-slot Aspects found on Legendary items that are important for this build. Remember that with Patch 1.4.0 all Legendary powers can be added into your Codex once you salvage or extract the item. You can still find some aspects through dungeons as you could in previous seasons but now you have the option to upgrade these affixes if you find a higher roll of that affix. Let us go over what aspects you will need.

Gear Slot	Gems	Aspect / Unique	Aspect / Unique Power
Helm	Royal Ruby	Juggernaut’s Aspect	– Gain [X] Armor, but your Evade has a 100% increased Cooldown
Chest	Royal Ruby	Rage of Harrogath	– Lucky Hit: Inflicting Bleeding on an enemy has up to a [20-40%] chance to reduce the Cooldowns of your Skills by 1 second
Gloves	N/A	Aspect of Grasping Whirlwind	– Whirlwind periodically pulls enemies to you
Pants	Royal Ruby	Aspect of the Iron Warrior	– Iron Skin grants Unstoppable and [25-35%] Damage Reduction
Boots	N/A	Ghostwalker Aspect	– While Unstoppable and for 4 seconds after, you gain [10-25%] increased Movement Speed and can move freely through enemies
Amulets	Royal Diamond	Edgemaster’s Aspect	– Skills deal up to [5-20%] increased damage based on your available Primary Resource when cast, receiving the maximum benefit while you have full Primary Resource
Ring 1	Royal Diamond	Bold Chieftain’s Aspect	– Whenever you cast a Shout Skill, its Cooldown is reduced by [1.0-2.0] seconds per nearby enemy, up to a maximum of 6 seconds
Ring 2	Royal Diamond	Conceited Aspect	– Deal [15-25%] increased damage while you have a Barrier active
Bludgeoning Weapon	Royal Sapphire	Aspect of Limitless Rage	– Each point of Fury you generate while at Maximum Fury grants your next Core Skill within 5 seconds [1-2%] increased damage up to [15-30%].
Slashing Weapon	Royal Sapphire	Devilish Aspect	– After generating 100 Fury, your next direct damage creates 3 Dust Devils that deal [X] damage to enemies in their path
Dual-Wield Weapon 1	Royal Sapphire	Ramaladni’s Magnum Opus	– Skills using this weapon deal [0.2-0.4%] increased damage per point of Fury you have, but you lose 2 Fury every second.
Dual-Wield Weapon 2	Royal Sapphire	Aspect of Elements	– Gain + [20-30%] increased damage to a set of damage types for 7 seconds. This effect alternates between 2 sets: Fire, Lightning, and Physical. Cold, Poison, and Shadow.

Gems

Listed below are the best gems to socket into gear for each slot type.

Weapon Gems	Armor Gems	Jewelry Gems
Royal Sapphire for Vulnerable damage	Royal Ruby for increased Maximum Life	Royal Diamond for all resistances

For your jewelry, it may be necessary to change the Royal Diamond for another gem for a specific type such as Royal Sapphire to ensure all of your resistances are capped at 70%

Which Elixir Should You Use?

Visit the Alchemist in any main town to craft helpful Elixirs that increase stats, and experience gain for 30 minutes. Make sure to forage plants and pick up the necessary crafting materials during your adventures; they randomly spawn around the world. Use an Elixir providing any Resistance you need most, or the new Elixir of Resource (Resource cost reduced by 10-20%). Maximum resource increased by 10-25) for more efficient spins!

Return to the Alchemist again when you reach Level 20, 30, 45, 60, 70, 80, and 90, to upgrade your potion. The extra healing is essential to survival.

Gear, Stats, Tempering, and Masterworking

With all of the new systems in mind, let us dive into what stats we will want on our gear, what tempers we’d like to use, and what stat we would prefer to be pumped either through a Greater Affix, Masterworking, or both. Affixes that are bolded in yellow are the most important targets for Masterworking upgrades on the special enhancement levels. The names of the Tempering Manuals you will need to apply the affixes will be listed next to the affix we want.

Slot	Gear Affixes	Tempering Affixes
Helm	1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Maximum Resource 3. Needed Resistance	1. Challenging Shout Cooldown Reduction Barbarian Strategy 2. +Ranks to Concussion Barbarian Control
Chest	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Needed Resistance	1. Challenging Shout Cooldown Reduction Barbarian Strategy 2. + Ranks to Concussion Barbarian Control
Gloves	1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Attack Speed 3. Strength	1. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse 2. Stun Duration Barbarian Control
Pants	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Needed Resistance	1. +Ranks to Concussion Barbarian Control 2. Needed Resistance Natural Resistance
Boots	1. Strength 2. Fury Per Second 3. Movement Speed	1. Mobility Cooldown Reduction Natural Motion 2. Stun Duration Barbarian Control
Amulet	1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Critical Strike Chance 3. Movement Speed	1. Resource Generation with Dual-Wielded Weapons Weapon Attunement — Barbarian 2. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse
Rings	1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Fury on Kill 3. Critical Strike Damage	1. Resource Generation with Dual-Wielded Weapons Weapon Attunement — Barbarian 2. Damage to Close Enemies Natural Finesse
Two-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Fury on Kill	1. Whirlwind Size Berserking Augments 2. Damage to Close Enemies Natural Finesse
Two-Handed Slashing Weapon	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Fury on Kill	1. Whirlwind Size Berserking Augments 2. Damage to Close Enemies Natural Finesse
Dual-Wield Weapons	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Critical Strike Damage	1. Chance for Dust Devils to Cast Twice Sandstorm Augments 2. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse

Rotation and Playstyle

The extremely popular Spin2Win playstyle remains intact in Diablo 4 for the Barbarian class. Let’s do a quick pass over our skills and how we use them in this straight forward but powerful build.

• Use War Cry and Rallying Cry to generate resources and for their buffs
• Hold down Whirlwind and carve through enemies in your way. If possible, never let go of this skill while fighting.
• Cast Iron Skin and Challenging Shout for defense whenever you’re in a tough spot
• Use Wrath of the Berserker for its big damage and berserking against Bosses and Elites to help with the build’s low single-target damage.

Uniques and Uber Uniques

Below you will find information on Uniques and Uber Uniques that are useful for this build. Moreover, if you are interested in target farming Uber Uniques, check out our How to Farm Uber Uniques guide.

Uniques

Below you will find the useful uniques for this build. Let’s dive in.

• Rage of Harrogath – With its update in Patch 1.4.0 this will help us provide a substantial amount of cooldown resets for our shouts and defensive options as well as our ultimate Wrath of the Berserker. We will be inflicting Bleed through various methods near constantly to get the most out of it.
• Ramaladni’s Magnum Opus – A powerful option and our main reason for assigning Whirlwind to the Dual-Wield Weapon slot through the Arsenal System. We will want the highest roll on the unique power of this item we can get our hands on to maximize our damage.

Uber Uniques

• Ring of Starless Skies – This Uber Unique ring provides an amazing source of damage and resource management and will skyrocket the build even further. If you are lucky enough to acquire one replace the ring with Conceited Aspect with this item.
• Harlequin Crest – The most powerful helm and most coveted item in Diablo 4. It provides us with substantial damage reduction and cooldown reduction as well as plenty of ranks to our skills. If you’re lucky enough to acquire one it’s definitely worth the equip

Season 4: Loot Reborn

Unlike past seasons there is no overarching theme for season 4 as Blizzard are focused on the absolutely massive loot overhaul which is sure to change the game in big ways. There will also be a reputation to be gained with the new Ironwolves during Helltides and this faction grants several tempering manuals and even a resplendent spark! Below we will list some changes relevant to the Whirlwind Barbarian beyond the affix changes, tempering, greater affixes, and masterworking.

• Barbarian’s innate 10% Damage Reduction has been removed.
• Two-Handed Axe Technique has been reduced from 15% vulnerable damage to 10%
• Marshal ‘s cooldown reduction has been reduced to 2 seconds from 4 seconds
• Blood Rage ‘s Damage increased by Berserking bonus has been reduced from 25% to 10% and caps at 30%
• Dust Devil’s Aspect now causes Whirlwind to leave behind Dust Devils that deal 0.4-0.6 (increased from 0.22-0.32) damage to surrounding enemies every 0.75 seconds (increased from every 1.5 seconds)
• Rage of Harrogath has changed. Its new effect is “Inflicting Bleeding on an enemy has up to a 20-40% chance to reduce the cooldowns of your skills by 1 second.”

Below, you will find every additional piece of information you need to know for a more in-depth look at this build.

Advanced Information

Build Mechanics

This is perhaps the most iconic playstyle for Barbarians. Get your shouts up, pop Wrath of the Berserker and hold down Whirlwind and spin2win. Be sure to hold Challenging Shout and Iron Skin for nasty elites and bosses to provide solid damage reduction so you can just keep spinning and chop them up into bits.

This build does struggle against some higher level single target bosses but should mop up any large groups with the greatest of ease. A truly old-fashioned and iconic playstyle from all the way back in Diablo 2 now here in Diablo 4 with whirlwinds the size of the screen!

Paragon

We recommend these Legendary Nodes and Rare Glyphs to truly take this build into the endgame and further into The Pit. Note that each Glyph listed below is a max Level 21 version.

Rare Glyphs and Legendary Nodes	Effect
Exploit	– For every 5 Dexterity purchased within range, you deal + [8%] increased damage to Vulnerable targets. – Additional bonus when 25 Dexterity points are purchased within the Glyph’s radius: When an enemy is damaged by you, they become Vulnerable for 3 seconds. This cannot happen more than once every 20 seconds per enemy.
Territorial	– For every 5 Dexterity purchased within range, you deal + [10%] increased damage to Close targets. – Additional bonus when 25 Dexterity points are purchased within the Glyph’s radius: You gain 15% damage reduction against Close enemies.
Twister	– For every 5 Strength purchased within range, your Dust Devils deal + [39.6%] increased damage. – Additional bonus when 40 Strength points are purchased within the Glyph’s radius: You deal x13% increased damage for 4 seconds after creating a Dust Devil.
Marshal	– Grants + [125%] bonus to all Magic Nodes within range. – Additional bonus when 40 Strength points are purchased within the Glyph’s radius: After casting a Shout Skill the active Cooldown of every other Non-Shout Skill is reduced by 2 seconds.
Ire	– For every 5 Strength purchased within range, you deal + [5.3%] increased damage while Berserking – Additional bonus when 40 Strength points are purchased within the Glyph’s radius: While Berserking you take 10% reduced damage from Elites.
Ambidextrous	– Grants + [125%] bonus to all Magic Nodes within range. – Additional bonus when 40 Strength points are purchased within the Glyph’s radius: You deal x8% increased damage while wielding One-Handed Weapons.
Warbringer	– For every 75 Fury you spend, you gain 15% of your Maximum Life as Fortify
Blood Rage	– Killing a Bleeding enemy has a 10% chance to grant Berserking for 5 seconds. Your damage is increased by x25% of your Damage While Berserking bonus.
Decimator	– Each time you make an enemy Vulnerable, your damage is increased by 10% for 5 seconds. Overpowering a Vulnerable enemy grants an additional x10% bonus for 5 seconds.

Let’s break down each of these beneficial nodes and where our Paragon Points are positioned in each of the Paragon Boards we use. This part of the build is presented in order of importance. If you do not have enough Paragon Points for use in your Paragon Tree, just slowly work towards each step.

Important Notes

• Make sure you select the correct Legendary Boards and rotate them into the correct orientation to match the images shown above.
• Attach the boards in the order shown as bonus requirements of Rare Nodes increase with their placement order
• Additional bonuses on Rare Glyphs may not be obtainable until they gain the increased radius at level 15.

Starting Board

1. We’ll start going left and picking up Tenacity and then head up.
2. We’ll unlock the Glyph slot and socket Exploit and fill in the dexterity nodes around it.
3. Finally, we’ll head up on the right side for Iron Strength and then out to the Warbringer Board.

Warbringer

1. We’ll head left and pick up some Fury on Kill nodes including the Rare node Hungering Fury and finally up to the namesake legendary node Warbringer.
2. Next we’ll head to the glyph socket and unlock it and socket in Territorial and fill in Dexterity nodes around it along with Conditioned and Raw Power.
3. We head up and to the left to pick up a smattering of Fury and Life nodes including Core Reserve and then finally out to the right towards the Carnage board.

Carnage

1. We’ll head straight forward the socket and slot in Twister picking up as many Strength nodes as we can as well as Brash and Fierce for their effects and Strength bonuses.
2. We’ll head up towards Enraged and the Rare damage while Berserking nodes near it.
3. Carnage is the central board where all other boards connect but we’ll head north first and connect the Blood Rage board first since it gives us the most power.
4. After the Blood Rage board, head right towards Berserker and its surrounding Rare nodes and out right towards the Decimator board.
5. Finally after filling out the Decimator board, come back here and head south connecting the Flawless Technique board.

Blood Rage

1. We will head north and unlock the glyph slot here and slot in Marshal and pick up Strength nodes to activate its secondary effect including the Rare node Grit.
2. We head out to the left towards Revel and then take a turn north.
3. We will grab both Enraged and the board’s name sake Blood Rage.

Decimator

1. A pretty straightforward march towards the socket to slot in Ire and we will grab as many strength nodes as possible including Arrogance and Demolish.
2. We finish up the board by heading to its namesake and grabbing Decimator and then head back to the Carnage board.

Flawless Technique

1. We head straight to the socket and slot in Ambidextrous and grab Strength nodes around it to activate the bonus.
2. We grab the left and right Rare nodes Heavy Blows and Brash and their surrounding Rare nodes.
3. And with our final points here our paragon journey should be complete!

Tempering and Masterwork

Season 4 brings us an incredible shift in how gear and itemization are done. It is the major rework for Patch 1.4.0 and will affect the game beyond Season 4’s confines. Let us dive in.

Perhaps the biggest change is the number of affixes on items. Normal items have no affixes, Magic Items have 1 affix, Rare Items have 2 affixes, Legendary Items have 3 affixes, and Unique Items have 4 affixes. Even if you use your Codex of Power to apply a Legendary Aspect onto a Rare Item, it will still only have 2 affixes. This means for season 4 and beyond, barring any patch updates, Legendary Items will be superior in all slots at the end-game.

Additionally, a new feature is being introduced on Ancestral Legendary Items called a Greater Affix, which rolls a stat slightly higher than the normal stat ranges. An item can have 1, 2, or even 3 Greater Affixes which make the hunt for more powerful items more exciting than ever before.

Perhaps most important for this build are the Tempering System and Masterworking Systems. On any Rare Item or Legendary Item, you are able to add a new affix to it, some of which are exclusive to the Tempering System. If the item is Ancestral, you can add two new affixes to it through this system bringing the total affixes that can appear on Ancestral Legendary Items to 5! Unfortunately, Unique Items cannot be tempered and cannot have any additional affixes added to them. However, they can still be enhanced through the Masterworking System, which we will speak about below.

Once an item has all of its Tempering Slots filled out and is of Ancestral Quality, you can use the new crafting materials found in The Pit to enhance an item’s power similar to how the old Blacksmith upgrades functioned prior to Patch 1.4.0. The big differences are that there are now 12 upgrade slots per item instead of 5 and on upgrades number 4, 8, and 12 one of the affixes on the item will be chosen at random and be given a much larger boost instead of the typical 5% increase per level. The same affix can be chosen multiple times and in most cases, you will want the same affix on a piece of gear to be chosen on all three special enhancement levels during Masterworking.

Obol Gambling

A final point on acquiring gear in Season 4 and beyond is using your Obols to target farm specific slots instead of randomly spending them on random drops. Similar to Kadala in Diablo 3, you can use Obol vendors in town to try and get what you’re missing. With Patch 1.4.0 when a level 100 Character spends Obols, all gear from that vendor will be 925 item power, the highest in the game, allowing you to fill out gear with the affixes or Legendary Aspects you need.

Check out our Obol Gambling Tool HERE!

Changelog

• May 4th 2024: Updated guide format and added Season 4 information
• May 2nd 2024: Updated for Season 4 and Patch 1.4.0, ownership of page transferred, guide restructured
• March 5th 2024: Updates for Patch 1.3.3.
• February 5th 2024: Marshal Glyph changed to Seething.
• January 30th 2024: Marshal Glyph changes.
• January 21st 2024: Season 3 speculative changes.
• October 23rd 2023: Build revamped for Season 2.
• October 13th 2023: Build Adjusted to prepare for Season 2 launch.
• September 6th, 2023: New format and updates
• August 2nd, 2023: Patch 1.1.1 section added with build specific changes.
• July 20, 2023: Guide updated for Season 1.