• Home
  • The Horadrim Corner: Whirlwind Barbie

The Horadrim Corner: Whirlwind Barbie

by - 9 years ago

Welcome to the Horadrim Corner! Come gather by the fire and talk about the builds you all want to see! Let the ancient knowledge of the Horadrim assist your quest for greatness as you slaughter the demons that stand in your way. For all that is good, build yourself into a warrior worthy of Pandemonium!


This week’s build is about our favorite raging muscle-bound mountain man, the Barbarian, submitted by none other than our own Leviathan. With Patch 2.2, Barbarians are back with a spiraling vengeance. The addition of the Wrath of the Wastes set in particular enables everybody’s favorite Spin-to-Win skill. This is a Barbie’s new and preferred choice for slaying the demons of Pandemonium. Fortunately with the improvements to the Immortal King’s Call set, the two may be combined to create true devastation upon the battlefield. The limits of this build are potentially sky high (even without the infamously removed Mortick’s Brace), allowing you to quickly progress through the Greater Rifts.  Without ado, let the spinning commence:

Skills

Actives

Rend – Mutilate: Great for both team and solo play, this will give everybody a 10% damage boost. Rend also helps supplement your Whirlwind, giving you another damage source, which is boosted via the 2-piece set bonus of Wrath of the Wastes. You may also use the Blood Lust rune here for increased survivability, especially in solo play.
Whirlwind – Blood Funnel: With the Wrath of the Wastes set, you will be given the Dust Devils rune for this skill free of charge, sending out tornadoes from your spin. This functionally grants you a couple of options here. For survivability and for a Physical elemental focus, use the Blood Funnel rune. For crowd control and a Cold elemental focus, use the Hurricane Rune to suck in enemies as you slice through them.
War Cry – Impunity: One of many defensive rune options, this is the strongest among them. All Resistance presents the biggest bang for your buck when it comes to a Strength class like the Barb.
Battle Rage – Swords to Ploughshares: This particular rune increases your potential health regeneration via an increase in Health Globe drops. Used  in combination with Reaper’s Wraps, this skill continues to fuel your Fury generation. At its base, of course, you gain more Critical Hit Chance and damage.
Wrath of the Berserker – Striding Giant: The choice rune for a Hardcore player, this gives the same effect as the Unity combo. For Softcore players, Insanity is a consideration for the extra DPS.
Call of the Ancients – Ancients’ Fury: With sustained Fury generation necessary to continue being a living tornado, this is needed as you climb through your progression. Note: As you get to higher GRifts, it may become necessary to summon the Ancients more often to keep them alive.

Passives

Nerves of SteelThe collective “HOORAH!” has been heard all throughout Sanctuary as the Barbs finally have a cheat death passive.
Boon of Bul-KathosCombined with the Immortal King set, this will help you on your way to permanent Wrath of the Berserker.
Weapon Master: Using this with Immortal King’s Boulder Breaker is another way to sustain your Whirlwind.
Rampage/RuthlessWith a maximum of 25% Strength increase from Rampage, this will help increase both your Damage and your Defense. An argument may be made for Ruthless, as this passive will help with clear speed as you push up higher into those Rifts, but is dangerous since it will sacrifice a bit of your survival.

Stats Preferences

Strength>Vitality>Critical Hit Chance>Critical Hit Damage>All Resist>Elemental Damage %>Attack Speed>Life %>% Skill Damage (Whirlwind, Call of the Ancients, Rend)>Armor

With Wrath of the Berserker having essentially permanent uptime due to the 4-piece set bonus of Immortal King’s call, cooldown reduction is unnecessary to have as an affix. Life per Fury Spent is also an interesting affix to use for sustain, which you can get on your Immortal King’s Tribal Binding and Immortal King’s Boulder Breaker.

Inventory

Items

Core:
Immortal King’s Boulder BreakerThe main weapon for this build. This will help make up your 4-piece IK set, along with boosting your Ancients.
Immortal King’s Tribal BindingThe other necessary Immortal King piece. You may use any other piece to get up to the 4 piece set bonus.
Pauldrons of the WastesThe only necessary piece of the Wrath of the Wastes set. You will need four other pieces to get to the full 6-piece bonus.
Ring of Royal GrandeurThe infamous RoRG will allow you to have both 4-piece IK and 6-piece Wastes, creating huge amounts of power.

Optional:
Reaper’s Wraps: Helpful in generating Fury to sustain your spin across the battlefronts of Hell.
Amulet: 
A very flexible slot. The best choice would be a well-rolled Hellfire Amulet. However, any of the defensive amulets, such as Mara’s Kaleidoscope or Eye of Etlich, are also high-end options.
Rings: With one slot already filled with the RoRG, there are a couple of strong options to use here. For offense, Convention of Elements (further reviewed in Ars Arcanum) is a great choice, especially if Rend and Whirlwind are using different elemental runes, allowing utilization of more elements. For defense in solo play, Unity may further up the durability of your Barb. Other options may include the Oculus Ring or Stone of Jordan.

Legendary Gems:
Bane of the Trapped
Easily the strongest offense choice. When you need damage, go with BotT.
Taeguk
Due to the nature of Whirlwind and the defensive bonuses gained while Whirlwinding due to the 4-piece set bonus of Wrath of the Wastes, you will be consistently and continually spending resource, so your Taeguk stacks will add up very quickly and stay maxed out. A great choice that provides both offense and defense simultaneously.
Pain Enhancer: In the Physical version of this build, there is no better choice than Pain Enhancer. Having a damage-over-time effect allows you to successfully kite monsters through Greater Rifts and do chip damage. The second half of Pain Enhancer also buffs up Dust Devil output and your Ancients as you may temporarily hit higher break points due to the increased Attack Speed.


Each week, we will be featuring a different build for a different class, rotating through to spread the love around. If you have a cool build that you are using and would like to share with the community, send it over to my email: threedaysjpt@blizzpro.com. Send me pictures, notes, items, skills, everything!


JR Cook

JR has been writing for fan sites since 2000 and has been involved with Blizzard Exclusive fansites since 2003. JR was also a co-host for 6 years on the Hearthstone podcast Well Met! He helped co-found BlizzPro in 2013.


Comments are closed.