Barbarians are one of the strongest end-game classes in the Diablo 4 tier list, thanks to their huge Attack Power coming from four weapon slots, in addition to their core class design granting lots of defensive stats, damage modifiers, and resource generation to get them in the mood for fighting. Perhaps one of the strongest Diablo 4 Barbarian Builds is one that uses Whirlwind, which makes the Barb spin to win in both open world, and instanced content. If you’re in the market for this playstyle, let us take a closer look at this Diablo 4 Barbarian Whirlwind Build for season 0.

TOC:

• Skills
• Arsenal System
• Passives
• Stats
• Legendary & Unique BiS Gear
• Paragon & Glyphs

Diablo 4 Barbarian Whirlwind Build¶

Before we go any further, there are two version of this build: One that uses a basic attack, and another that does not. You will use a Basic Skill until you get Gohr’s Devastating Grips which is the unique item that adds extra effects to Whirlwind. You can also substitute Wrath of the Berserker for Call of the Ancients when you’re still progressing through the early end game, thanks to the ultimate offering a lot of flexibility when pressed, but its not necessary.

Basic Skill: Lunging Strike > Enhanced Lunging Strike > Combat Lunging Strike. This build grants Berserking when you crit for a brief moment, and grants healing, which is why you want to use this as damage for Whirlwind, sustain and movement speed bonuses, and resource generation.

Core Skill: Whirlwind x5 > Enhanced > Furious Whirlwind. Speccing Whirlwind like this grants additional bleed damage to your skill, which is handy for synergy with weapon damage through your expertise system, and via some of the bleeding passives in your legendary effects and paragon board and glyphs.

Skill 1: Rallying Cry x5 > Enhanced > Tactical. Your Rallying Cry now generates more Fury, and grants additional resource generation, while offering Unstoppable, so you can spin and move freely between mobs while doing so.

Skill 2: Challenging Shout > Enhanced > Tactical. This skill and its modifiers grants a taunt, damage reduction, bonus Maximum Life, and Fury regeneration when you take damage. This allows you to get hit, get more generation, and also be more tanky, which is useful since you beyblade straight into lots of packs for damage and fury generation.

Skill 3: War Cry > Enhanced> Power War Cry. Using this skill and its modifiers, grant increased damage dealt, with it increasing further if you’re surrounded by 6 enemies when activated. It also grants Berserking, which is an important buff for even more damage and movement speed.

Skill 4: Wrath of the Berserker > Prime > Supreme. This ultimate and its nodes both grant Berserking and Unstoppable, which increase damage and movement speed, and grant you the ability to move freely through mobs. Combine this with other damage buffs via War Cry, and all the resource generation via your shouts, and it means that you turbo buff Whirlwind into a super weapon.

Skill 5: You take Iron Skin > Enhanced > and Strategic Iron Skin for additional survivability when you replace Lunging Strike. Remember to remove the enhanced and cap passive from Lunging Strike and redirect points here.

Diablo 4 Whirlwind Build: Arsenal System¶

Whirlwind gets the most scaling from its bleed modifier by using Two-Handed Swords, and so, that should the the weapon you cycle to for the Whirlwind skill. It has good synergy with certain legendaries later on, which you will use for the Berserking ultimate synergy via the legendary Aspect of Berserk Ripping, which you get from Mournfield, a dungeon in the Dry Steppes. Only worry about this when you start using the Berserker ultimate, though, as it has little synergy outside of that

As for the Weapon Expertise, Two-Handed Axe is valuable option, thanks to it scaling your Vulnerability, which is a multiplicative damage bucket, and is something you want to abuse via the Exploit Glyph, and the Pressure Point passive you take (More on these later.)

Diablo 4 Whirlwind Build: Passives¶

Here is a list of all the passives you take with this build from your Skill Tree:

• Core Passive - Pressure Point x3: Lucky Hit: Your Core Skills have up to 30% Chance to make enemies Vulnerable for 2 seconds.
• Brawling Passive - Booming Voice x3: Your Shout Skill effect durations are increased by 24%.
• Brawling Passive - Guttural Voice x3: Your Shout Skills cause enemies to deal 12% less damage for 5 seconds.
• Brawling Passive - Raid Leader x1: Your Shouts also Heal Allies for 1% of their maximum life per second.
• Brawling Passive - Aggressive Resistance x1: Gain 3% Damage Reduction while Berserking.
• Brawling Passive - Prolific Fury x3: While Berserking, Fury Generation is increased by 18%.
• Weapon Mastery Passive - Pit Fighter x3: You deal 9% increased damage to Close Enemies and gain 6% Damage Reduction.
• Weapon Mastery Passive - Hamstring x1: Your Bleeding Effects Slow enemies by 10%.
• Ultimate Passives - Heavy-Handed x3: While using Two-Handed Weapons, you deal 15% increased Critical Strike Damage.
• Ultimate Passives - Tempered Fury x1: Increase Max Fury by 3. - You’re taking this just to get to the other passive.
• Ultimate Passives - Invigorating Fury x3: Heal for 9% of your Maximum Life for each 100 Fury Spent.

Diablo 4 Whirlwind Build: Stat Priority, Gems and Malignant Hearts¶

• Vulnerability Damage - the best damage bucket in the game, which will help with damage scaling all the way through the end game.
• Crit Chance - The better chance you have to crit, the more your Whirlwind does to all enemies at once.
• Crit Damage - Crit is very handy for bigger burst, and you get crit amp via talents.
• Cooldown Reduction - Lowers the Shouts, meaning more DPS buffs, Unstoppable windows, and better resource generation. It’s desirable on gear, but at end game, you can grab the Disembowel Glyph and Blood Rage board to make it better if gear RNG is not on your side.
• Fury Cost - Lower costs mean better uptime for Whirlwind, especially if you drop the basic skill/
• Strength - Primary stat scaling and grants armor for the Barbarian
• Damage to Core Skill and general damage buff in general

In terms of the Diablo 4 Malignant Hearts, it largely depends on what you need for your build. For an offensive option, you may consider using Determination. This Malignant Heart offers the player better resource generation, and reduces resource drain against you, meaning your shouts do much better at gaining rage, offering better Whirlwind spin up time. The Barber is also okay if you get the Gohr’s Rage, as the explosion is back fro season 1. If that crits, you can then cause a lot of really strong burst with your subsequent Whirlwind damage and Gohr’s explosion. If you would prefer more defensive options, largely thanks to slow nerfs, then The Calculated, Resurgent Life, or Prudent Heart are great choices.

As for Gems, you may consider Emeralds for Crit Damage, Skulls for Physical damage reduction in jewelery, and Sapphire in armor for damage reduction while Fortified, to scale with your shout barrier generation.

Diablo 4 Whirlwind Build: Legendaries & Uniques¶

There are two unique items you want to get for your build, which are:

• Gohr’s Devastating Grips - Whirlwind Unique
• Rage of Harrowgath - Bleeding enemies has a chance to lower cooldown of non-ult skills, aka your shouts.

The optional uniques are:

• Harlequin Crest (Shaco), which is one of the rarest uniques in the game. If you get this, it will be BiS, as it has +4 Ranks to all Skills, which apply to your shouts and core skills. Making those incredibly strong.
• Temerity for more survivability, but, it’s not necessary, especially if you find other aspects like Aspect of Disobedience work for your leg slot.
• The Grandfather: Grandfather is another incredibly rare weapon unique that can drop, which offers an absolutely massive bonus to crit damage. However, it’s incredibly rare to get. If you get it, its BiS, but, don’t worry too much about it.

The other BiS Legendary Aspects you want are as follows:

• Aspect of the Dire Whirlwind: Whirlwind Crit Strike Chance increases each second it is channeled, up to a cap.
• Aspect of Berserk Ripping: Dealing damage while Berserking has a chance to deal additional damage as Bleeding Damage.
• Chieftain: When you cast a Shout skill, its cooldown is reduced per nearby enemy, up to a maximum of 6 seconds.
• Aspect of Echoing Fury: Your Shout Skills generate Fury per second while active. This is a BiS Aspect, as you want to press Shouts whenever you can, and it also scales with the Booming Voice passive.
• Edgemaster’s Aspect: This increases damage based on primary resource. If you get this while you have your Shout legendary aspects, then this is very good, as you can be quite high on resource most of the time

Optional Legendaries.

• Dust Devil: If you are lacking uniques, you can get this for some more damage on your Whirlwind
• Relentless Berserker’s Aspect: Whirlwind can extend Berserking durations, handy for when you Berserk using your Shout Skills.

Diablo 4 Whirlwind Build Paragon Board and Glyphs¶

1. Starting Board: Exploit - Applies Vuln when damaging enemies for three seconds. Occurs once every 20 seconds.
2. Blood Rage: Marshal. Killing bleeding enemies can grant Berserking for 5 seconds. Marshal grants Shout Skills to reduce every other Shout skills cooldown by 1.2 seconds.
3. Decimator - Two Handed Slashing Weapons have a chance to make enemies Vuln. More Vuln extension for that damage bucket. You want to use Disembowl Glyph, which grants more cooldown reduction for Shout Skills when you kill bleeding enemies.
4. Warbinger - Fury spending grants Fortify. You want to socket Wrath for increased Core Skill damage and Fury generation when you crit.
5. Flawless Technique: You only want this board for its Glyph slot, which you place Undaunted for damage, while Fortified, which you get from your Iron Skin, if you have switched to that. It also grants more damage reduction while Fortified. Only take this if you are at the point you can switch to Iron Skin. Otherwise, it is fairly useless to the build.

This Concludes the Diablo 4 Barbarian Whirlwind Build, showing you all the stats, skills, and end game effects you want in your build. Good luck and have fun spinning to win on the enemy, and clearing maps efficiently for your XP farms, as you grind to the end-game level 100 cap.