Whirlwind Bul-Kathos Barbarian

[Warden 8]

How are you able to use threatning shout in right mouse button and also battle rage in slot 3???  I thought you can only use one shout at a time...

 

You need to enable Elective Mode. Open your game menu, choose “options,” then “gameplay,” and check the “elective mode” box. Then you can put any skill to any spot on your bar, and choose more than one skill from the same section.

[Deadset 108]

Skull grasp is now an option? Does it increase Dust Devils damage now? If not, even if it's multiplicative to WW damage, it's still low, right?

 

It has been updated to affect Dust Devil damage.

[Guest Anthony]

So even with the Rend buff on the wastes set, it's still not viable in the build?  What GR have you hit with this setup? What changes would you make for using this build solo? (I'd assume after the Skull Grasp buffs, CoE would be swapped for Unity?)

 

 

[Circa 0]

How would one work Unity into this build nowadays? Tough choices!

[Deadset 108]

I'd still not include Rend in this build, it simply fits a dedicated Rend build better.In its current version, the build should reach somewhere in the 80-85 range. Have personally seen it clear 81.

 

If you need to work Unity into the build, then I'd replace CoE - bear in mind the loss of damage though!

[Guest Joe]

Pain enhancer, does this benefit from the rend buffs on the set bonuses?. If not, would it benefit to add rend into the rotation?

[Deadset 108]

Heya, no - the Pain Enhancer effect is separate from Rend. :)

[Guest Darblen]

what about rend?

 

[uberNoobZA 1]

Hi. Thanks for all the great work and time you spend on these builds. What you you say to replacing The Furnace with Blade of the Tribes in the cubed weapon slot (I tend to spam War Cry and Threatening Shout) ?

 

-EDIT - Actually - ignore this question. I see the error of my playstyle now :-)

Edited May 30, 2016 by uberNoobZA
Answered my own question :-)

[Guest Jewels and cube]

I think better option in Canai  cube in armor slot is Hexed Pants of Mr. Yan it boosts our dmg nicely cus we are moving when using WW. 2nd is Jewels... id disagree that the one jewel what gives +15% dmg to rift Guardian is must have. Id go Taeguk instead of it and in cube Furnace and Skullgrasp in cube. In fingers set of 50% dmg rings. Look @ my profile nothing can stop me. Ps we dont need cdr cus we are killing stuff even w/o berserker. Better invest to leech life in WW is rune for it bloodshed i guess (im playing PL version of game. Thx

[Guest BlazeFire]

Hey, commenting as a guest here. Just wanted to say thanks. This is definitely a world-class build in the right hands. If it's not working for you then you aren't doing something right. My Wrath is ready 100% WHENEVER I need it. It's actually easier to maintain a 100% up-time in higher level greater rifts than it is in T10. This build is way too OP for T10.

My 2 cents: I actually stumbled upon this by accident, but I crafted a Hellfire Amulet that dropped with the Unforgiving passive ("You no longer degenerate Fury. Instead, you generate 2 Fury every 1 second.) Now, while I originally was less than pleased at first. I tried it out (It dropped with +18% Phys. Dmg., re-rolled for 100% CHD, 9.0% CHC, and reduce control effects by 23%. So I felt like I had to use it!) Anyways, with Unforgiving I literally stay between 98-100% Fury ALL THE TIME, NO EXCEPTIONS!!!

So... I made the following changes to the build:

Chestpiece: Aquila Cuirass (Take 50% less damage while above 90% primary resource) <-- 100% active. You'll need to wear RoRG obviously. I swapped out the Convention Ring (great ring though) and cubed Skull Grasp. I'd rather have 50% reduced damage literally 100% of the time.

Passives: Took out Ruthless (+40% extra damage to enemies below 30% health) and added Berserker Rage (+25% damage while near max Fury) <--This is active for me ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the time because of the Unforgiving passive on my amulet. In fact, EVERY SINGLE active skill is able to be reused upon expiration. So, basically never-ending Wrath, Ignore Pain, WW, Threatening Shout, Battle Rage and War Cry.

Someone said this build will only get you killed? Well, you're character is not setup correctly. Try re-reading the guide. Or, if you're still having a problem keeping up Fury then try my suggestions. My Fury orb icon thing at the bottom left of the screen, you know that thing? Mine DOESN'T MOVE. IT DOESN'T DROP. PERIOD.

The first wall I hit with this build was a level 66 GR. I completed it (2 of them actually), but not under 15 min and the only reason for that is I wasn't using Bane of the Stricken (the GR Guardian literally took 5-6 minutes to kill both runs.)

Anyways, the build works. Confirmed.

I'm running at the moment:

+50.40% CHC

+485% CHD

46% cooldown reduction (seems to be MORE THAN ENOUGH to keep 100% up-time on Wrath. Anyone suspect of that I can post a Vid. Heck, it's not a hard thing to accomplish. Run the Bul-Katho's passive and beef up your cooldowns on the right pieces of gear. Also, whoever made the comment about the gear slots not being optimized in this writeup, YOU SIR are mistaken. Mostly a standard order of which perks are wanted on which gear.

Lastly, I have 4.7% Chance to Freeze on my Pride of Cassius. It DOES NOT seem to proc the Ancient Parthan Defenders, I could be mistaken here, but I haven't noticed the icon pop up with the other active modifiers. The chance to Freeze itself is nice anyway I guess. I do agree with you though, APD is BiG for this build once you can build up a decent overall Chance to Stun among a few pieces of gear.

Thanks a million for the build man! Keep up the great work!

Deadset, let me know what you think of my mods on the build!

[Guest BlazeFire]

I tried to add this to my previous post, but couldn't figure out how...

I meant to ask why the Gem Taeguk is not one of the top 3 options for the build? Mine is Rank 66 and offers:

*4.64% increased damage (stacks 10 times easily)

*gain 2% armor for every stack (again I'm almost always at 10 stacks with this thing.)

How is this not one of the best 3?

I'm running Bane of the Trapped, Taeguk, and now Bane of the Stricken (just replaced Pain Enhancer).

Thanks!

[Deadset 108]

On 6/6/2016 at 0:24 AM, Guest BlazeFire said:

Deadset, let me know what you think of my mods on the build!

Heya, and thanks for the kind words!

If I understand correctly, you're wearing Aquila Cuirass + 5 piece Wastes set, wear RoRG and Zodiac and cube Skull Grasp, right? The setup can definitely work (as you already know :) ), but I don't think very highly of RoRG as a ring due to its lacking natural rolls (forced IAS and Life per Hit), and try to dodge it any setup I can. A suggestion I can give you is running Skull Grasp and Unity (+ a Unity on the follower and an immortality relic for him), and cubing Zodiac. This will give you the best split of potential damage while still retaining the sweet 50% damage reduction, this time coming from the Unity combo. I see you've pushed the build a couple of times, and yes - Bane of the Stricken is sorely needed in this setup, it specializes in AoE but lacks severely in Single Target.

Ruthless offers a multiplicative damage increase, making it a stronger passive than Berserker Rage - BUT! its impact is mostly noticeable in Greater Rifts and especially against Guardians. BRage can be a viable swap during speedfarm.

Note that Ancient Parthan Defenders (sadly) have no UI icon or visible sheet effect to denote their activation/duration/number of affected enemies! Both Chance to Stun and Chance to Freeze should proc it though.

On 6/6/2016 at 0:41 AM, Guest BlazeFire said:

I meant to ask why the Gem Taeguk is not one of the top 3 options for the build?

Hello! The reason for this is somewhat obscured by game mechanics, but in short: the attack speed increase provided by the gem affects both your Zodiac ring procs (meaning faster resets of important cooldowns) and your Dust Devils tick rate (as the skill deals damage based on intervals affected by attack speed).

[Guest BlazeFire]

16 hours ago, Deadset said:

Heya, and thanks for the kind words!

If I understand correctly, you're wearing Aquila Cuirass + 5 piece Wastes set, wear RoRG and Zodiac and cube Skull Grasp, right? The setup can definitely work (as you already know :) ), but I don't think very highly of RoRG as a ring due to its lacking natural rolls (forced IAS and Life per Hit), and try to dodge it any setup I can. A suggestion I can give you is running Skull Grasp and Unity (+ a Unity on the follower and an immortality relic for him), and cubing Zodiac. This will give you the best split of potential damage while still retaining the sweet 50% damage reduction, this time coming from the Unity combo. I see you've pushed the build a couple of times, and yes - Bane of the Stricken is sorely needed in this setup, it specializes in AoE but lacks severely in Single Target.

Ruthless offers a multiplicative damage increase, making it a stronger passive than Berserker Rage - BUT! its impact is mostly noticeable in Greater Rifts and especially against Guardians. BRage can be a viable swap during speedfarm.

Note that Ancient Parthan Defenders (sadly) have no UI icon or visible sheet effect to denote their activation/duration/number of affected enemies! Both Chance to Stun and Chance to Freeze should proc it though.

Hello! The reason for this is somewhat obscured by game mechanics, but in short: the attack speed increase provided by the gem affects both your Zodiac ring procs (meaning faster resets of important cooldowns) and your Dust Devils tick rate (as the skill deals damage based on intervals affected by attack speed).

Thanks for the reply!

I am questioning the passives B-Rage vs Ruthless. I looked up some info on Ruthless, being that you said it's multiplicative. Its seems that this multiplies with area damage, among others, and stacks with that. So, does that multiplicative damage stack onto a single target (i.e. a Guardian)?

A lot of times my biggest test will be against just a single target Guardian. The build definitely works better with Bane of the Stricken (Just cleared a 71 GRift pretty handedly, whereas I was struggling finishing 66s not using it). Anyway, Since I am running Unforgiving (on my Hellfire Amulet) stacked with Weapons Master and I am ALWAYS near "max fury" wouldn't it be better for me to run B-Rage against a single Rift Guardian. I'm getting 25% additive damage 100% of the time versus 40% multiplicative damage 30% of the time, but since that Passive damage is being multiplied with the area damage I don't see how it adds damage to a single target. Unless of course a single target can be affected by its OWN area damage???

Also, Taeguk! Wouldn't a similar case be true for this gem? I get 3% IAS for each bleeding target within however many yards if I use Pain Enhancer, but if it's just me and the Guradian??? I don't get where any huge benefit would come into play here. Isn't the +30% IAS from the Bul-Katho's Set swords enough IAS??? I don't seem to have ANY sort of problems refreshing attacks with cooldowns. They're ready to go! Also, not much trouble with mobs either. Apparently, "(their) flesh is weak!", according to my barbarian. So, idk if the extra IAS from the bleeding ememies is best, or rather have +40ish% damage AND +20% armor if I run Taeguk instead? I'm not saying it's better it just sounds really good to me "on paper", if you know what I mean.

As for the Aquila Cuirass, I'm taking into consideration what you said. I'm not sure how much I like the idea of splitting damage with my follower. He can be a bit of a scrub, and even if he can't die I'm not sure I like the idea of him taking some big hit and me having to absorb half the damage.

As for the rings... Since I'm running Unforgiving AND Weapons Master that 50% reduced damage is ALWAYS active for me. Right now I'm on the lookout for a Zodiac I can make God-Roll (I hope this is possible - Roll off the IAS for CHD or whatever). Then wear Zodiac and Skull Grasp (I already have a pretty good one) and I'll cube RoRG. Either that or break down and take off Aquila Cuirass (I'd so miss it though).

Good to know about the APDs!

Thanks for everything!

[Warden 8]

2 hours ago, Guest BlazeFire said:

I'm not sure how much I like the idea of splitting damage with my follower. He can be a bit of a scrub, and even if he can't die I'm not sure I like the idea of him taking some big hit and me having to absorb half the damage.

The thing that's never explicitly said, yet universally assumed you know, is that followers wearing "cannot die" items take zero damage.  At all.  Ever.  So wearing a Unity Ring in this scenario is just an across-the-board 50% damage reduction.

[Guest BlazeFire]

19 hours ago, Warden said:

The thing that's never explicitly said, yet universally assumed you know, is that followers wearing "cannot die" items take zero damage.  At all.  Ever.  So wearing a Unity Ring in this scenario is just an across-the-board 50% damage reduction.

Ohhhh nice! I might look into that then. :)

I have another question (sorry): Is it possible to roll a Helm of the Wastes with a socket, strength, vitality, chc, AND Whirlwind damage as well, or if you get the first 4 stats listed then you can't get whirlwind damage as well?? I have an ancient helm now with a socket (mandatory), strength (mandatory), vitality and chc. Just wanting to know if it's possible for one to drop with the WW damage as a completely additional perk to the other 4 primary stats. It doesn't seem possible to me because you can't re-roll specific resistances (i.e. poison, arcane/holy, etc.) into additional damage for specific attacks (i.e. Whirlwind), BUT I just want to make 100% sure.

Thanks to everyone!

[Warden 8]

7 hours ago, Guest BlazeFire said:

Is it possible to roll a Helm of the Wastes with a socket, strength, vitality, chc, AND Whirlwind damage as well, or if you get the first 4 stats listed then you can't get whirlwind damage as well?? I have an ancient helm now with a socket (mandatory), strength (mandatory), vitality and chc. Just wanting to know if it's possible for one to drop with the WW damage as a completely additional perk to the other 4 primary stats. It doesn't seem possible to me because you can't re-roll specific resistances (i.e. poison, arcane/holy, etc.) into additional damage for specific attacks (i.e. Whirlwind), BUT I just want to make 100% sure.

Normally--and I don't know if there are any exceptions to this or not--but normally you get 4 primary stats and 2 secondary stats.  The socket is considered one of the primary stats, and strength is guaranteed, leaving you two more.  Since vitality, CHC, and WW damage are all primary stats, you can only get two of the three.

You might try looking at http://www.d3planner.com/ to get a feel for what stats are possible.  Be careful, because it just let me add an extra primary stat and I'm not sure why--I don't think it's supposed to.  But as to which stats are primary, which are secondary, and which ones can't be used together...  Just set it to Barbarian, click on the head armor, choose Helm of the Wastes, and then start opening up the stats, setting them to different things, to see what works.

[Guest BlazeFire]

On 6/8/2016 at 7:59 PM, Guest BlazeFire said:

As for the rings... Right now I'm on the lookout for a Zodiac I can make God-Roll (I hope this is possible - Roll off the IAS for CHD or whatever). Then wear Zodiac and Skull Grasp (I already have a pretty good one) and I'll cube RoRG.

Okay, I've realized this setup is impossible to accomplish with the Zodiac, so I'm looking out for a Skull Grasp I can roll to perfection. I'll have to eat a +50% CHD loss on one of my rings in the end, but is worth it to me right now for that extra damage mitigation from the Aquila Cuirass. I'll still plan on cubing RoRG in the end.

[Guest Fatedhand]

Hello All - am I missing something that perhaps happened in a recent patch.  I can't seem to find battle rage or threatening shout.  Thanks all.

[Damien 1,514]

1 hour ago, Guest Fatedhand said:

Hello All - am I missing something that perhaps happened in a recent patch.  I can't seem to find battle rage or threatening shout.  Thanks all.

Battle Rage and Threatening Shout definitely haven't gone anywhere :)

[Warden 8]

18 hours ago, Guest Fatedhand said:

Hello All - am I missing something that perhaps happened in a recent patch.  I can't seem to find battle rage or threatening shout.  Thanks all.

Have you enabled Elective Mode?  Otherwise, the game only lets you assign them to a certain button.  If you're trying to assign them to a different button, they won't show up as an option.

Or you could be like me.  I have a special ability to not see things that are right in front of me... :D

[Deadset 108]

On 6/9/2016 at 2:59 AM, Guest BlazeFire said:

I'm getting 25% additive damage 100% of the time versus 40% multiplicative damage 30% of the time, but since that Passive damage is being multiplied with the area damage I don't see how it adds damage to a single target.

 

Area Damage triggers separately from your main damage, so it doesn't come into play in pure single target situations. :) But it doesn't mean Ruthless doesn't affect your hits in general. I've compiled the BiS stuff for the build in a handy d3planner link: http://www.d3planner.com/920898664 . You can turn passive effects on and off here to see their effect on your overall damage, as well as see the formula behind your Whirlwind DPS.

I am considering Taeguk more and more these days, it's very comparable to PE and offers a defensive edge too. I might include it in the next iteration of the build.

A helm can only have primary stats, so Strength, Vitality, Crit Chance and a Socket is your desired goal. You can roll Whirlwind damage, but it's not considered a priority over Vit since you will drop a large amount of health (1000 potential Vit on an ancient helm).

[Guest BlazeFire]

2 hours ago, Deadset said:

 

Area Damage triggers separately from your main damage, so it doesn't come into play in pure single target situations. :) But it doesn't mean Ruthless doesn't affect your hits in general. I've compiled the BiS stuff for the build in a handy d3planner link: http://www.d3planner.com/920898664 . You can turn passive effects on and off here to see their effect on your overall damage, as well as see the formula behind your Whirlwind DPS.

I am considering Taeguk more and more these days, it's very comparable to PE and offers a defensive edge too. I might include it in the next iteration of the build.

A helm can only have primary stats, so Strength, Vitality, Crit Chance and a Socket is your desired goal. You can roll Whirlwind damage, but it's not considered a priority over Vit since you will drop a large amount of health (1000 potential Vit on an ancient helm).

Okay, I ran the numbers via my own setup on that d3planner site. Here are the results:

Effective DPS (B-Rage ran with permanent uptime VS Ruthless):

No 4th Passive Selected: 9,003,555

                 B-Rage: 10,417,430 (100% uptime do to WM passive stacked with Unforgiving passive on my HF Amulet)

               Ruthless: 12,604,978 (30% uptime/During 70% downtime Effective DPS drops back down to 9,003,555)

Effective DPS including uptimes:

  B-Rage: (10,417,430 Effective DPS 100% of the time)

Ruthless: (12,604,978 Effective DPS  30% of the time/9,003,555 Effective DPS 70% of the time)
          

EFFECTIVE DPS (AVERAGE NET):

*Feel free to double check my math. I didn't include formulas, (it's just a basic average of the effective DPS while also factoring in the 30% uptime and 70% downtime of Ruthless).
___________________________

  B-Rage: 10,417,430

Ruthless: 10,083,981.9

 

Taeguk all the way!!!

As always, thanks to everyone!

 

[Guest BlazeFire]

2 hours ago, Guest BlazeFire said:

Okay, I ran the numbers via my own setup on that d3planner site. Here are the results:

Effective DPS (B-Rage ran with permanent uptime VS Ruthless):

No 4th Passive Selected: 9,003,555

                 B-Rage: 10,417,430 (100% uptime do to WM passive stacked with Unforgiving passive on my HF Amulet)

               Ruthless: 12,604,978 (30% uptime/During 70% downtime Effective DPS drops back down to 9,003,555)

Effective DPS including uptimes:

  B-Rage: (10,417,430 Effective DPS 100% of the time)

Ruthless: (12,604,978 Effective DPS  30% of the time/9,003,555 Effective DPS 70% of the time)
          

EFFECTIVE DPS (AVERAGE NET):

*Feel free to double check my math. I didn't include formulas, (it's just a basic average of the effective DPS while also factoring in the 30% uptime and 70% downtime of Ruthless).
___________________________

  B-Rage: 10,417,430

Ruthless: 10,083,981.9

 

Taeguk all the way!!!

As always, thanks to everyone!

 

I would like to add that, offensively, the suggested build will do more damage if you run what Deadset suggested as passives and add the 5th passive he suggested on a HF Amulet. I personally run the Aquila Cuirass chestpiece and maintain the damage mitigation it offers 100% of the time, which is nice for me because I play in groups sometimes and that lets me retain the damage reduction buff without having to rely on the Unity/Follower setup (which would actually be the preferred setup for this build over the Aquila chest because, as Deadset mentioned, RoRG rolls with some pretty bad inherent perks, and you're already fighting that issue with the Zodiac ring, which is why it's ultimately best to cube that 1 over the others with this build.

I also know that, as previously mentioned, Ruthless offers a multiplicative damage buff when dealing with mobs, so especially against anything but a single-target then Ruthless would be the way to go.

I just wanted to show that with this build B-Rage does more Effective DPS than Ruthless against a single-target (i.e. a Guardian) provided both passives Weapons Master and Unforgiving are chosen. This setup also then allows 100% uptime for any piece or perk having to do with being near max resource. :)

Thanks!

[Guest BlazeFire]

I would like to add to my above post.

You will do more damage (against multiple enemies) if you select the 5 passives Deadset suggested for the build.

The only reason I'm running B-Rage over Ruthless is because when i play in groups (and cannot use the Unity/Follower setup) I can still achieve a permanent 50% damage reduction with the Aquila chestpiece and permanent B-Rage due to the Unforgiving passive on my HF Amulet.

Ruthless is the way to go against mobs because the additional damage multiplies with your area damage as well.

I just wanted to show that, against a single-target, B-Rage (When taken with Weapons Master and Unforgiving) does more Effective DPS than Ruthess.

Running this gear plus Weapons Master and Unforgiving together also allow for near 100% uptime of anything requiring near max resource. :) Of course then you would need to cube RoRG over 1 of the other rings, so at minimum you'll lose +50% CHD from one of the rings, but hey I'll trade that for permanent 50% damage reduction!