Whirlwind (EQ) Barbarian Endgame Build Guide
Welcome to The Whirlwind Barbarian Guide! Whirlwind, the best and most versatile skill in the game, is a core and iconic playstyle of any ARPG, commonly and affectingly known as "Spin to Win" - because you always win if you are playing Whirlwind.
No matter what content you plan to engage in, Whirlwind offers one of the most chill and comfy playstyles while still slaughtering all your enemies; be it in speedfarm content, as you see your enemies fall behind you, or even Pit Pushing the highest Pit Tiers... if you are willing to make the sacrifice. Regardless of what content you want to do, there is always a Whirlwind build for you.
In Season 8 we are once again relying on Earthquakes for the majority of our damage. Even with the nerfs to Earthquake damage, they are still the strongest weapon in Whirlwind's arsenal. So if becoming a human blender and conjuring up natural disasters sounds like your idea of a good time, then let out your loudest Rallying Cry as we Whirlwind our way through this Endgame Barbarian Guide!
For the Whirlwind purists that love to do damage with Whirlwind itself, check out the Variants Section as there is never a wrong way to play Whirlwind.
Requirements for this build
- Tec (this is how we make Earthquakes!)
This build guide assumes you have a Level 60 Character and unlocked Torment 1. To get there, level up with one of our Barbarian Leveling Guides. See how this Build compares against others with our various Build Tier Lists.
Boss Powers
Season 8 is the Season of Belial's Return. It allows you to tap into Boss Powers obtained from World, Event, and Lair Bosses throughout Sanctuary. The new seasonal mechanic, Apparition Incursions, is available at any difficulty level and gives you the opportunity to unlock a subset of these powers very early on. Various Apparition Monsters appear in these special timed events throughout Sanctuary. Defeating these monsters spawns 1 of 10 Apparition Bosses to hunt you down and defeating them grants you their Boss Power. After defeating the first Boss, continue the event for a chance to fight a second Apparition Boss, after which Belial himself joins the fray.
There are 24 Boss Powers available and the first time you defeat one of these Bosses, you claim their power for yourself. Boss Powers each have Main and Modifier effects to boost your build. 13 are available in all difficulties (from Apparition Incursions and World Bosses), while 11 can only be acquired in Torment 1 difficulty or higher from Lair Bosses and Lilith. You can equip 1 Main Power and 3 Modifiers, and all powers can be upgraded up to Rank 20, increasing the potency of both the Main and Modifier effect. You use Spectral Ash to upgrade these powers, dropped from Apparition Incursions and by defeating any Bosses. Boss Powers also scale with your Paragon Level, growing stronger as you progress.
Best-in-Slot Boss Powers
Main Power
Wandering Death's Chest Beam - Easy 50% multiplier for any Whirlwind build, easily procs Lilith's Wind of Hate and Harbinger of Hatred's Volley modifier effects.
Modifiers
- Harbinger of Hatred's Volley- You only need to recast Whirlwind every 5 seconds and you easily get 30% free extra damage against Vulnerable targets.
- Lilith's Wind of Hate - Allows you to easily dispose of Elite enemies. In situations where you can not kill the blisters in time, like during Boss fights, it ensures you have 100% Shout uptime thanks to Bold Chieftain's having 2 additional targets to hit.
- Blackmailer's Sabotage - Insane defensive layer considering we can generate ridiculous amounts of Fortify thanks to Strategic Rallying Cry.
Alternate Boss Powers
- Sinerat's Flames - Good alternative option if you want to double down on extra damage, since all our damage is converted to Fire thanks to Ugly Bastard Helm and Incendiary Fissures.
Learn more details about the season theme in our full Season Guide.
Skills & Gameplay
- Lunging Strike two points need to be spent on it to progress to the Core Skills. We don't really use it too much, although it has its uses early on if you find yourself constantly starved for Fury.
- Whirlwind is our main skill and is used to apply Bleed, generate resource and our way of generating Earthquakes, which are most if not all our damage currently.
- Rallying Cry is mainly used for the Unstoppable effect and to generate Fortify but it also provides us with a nice movement speed buff and some extra Fury generation while active.
- War Cry gives us a nice extra source of multiplicative damage and, even though we will not rely too much on it, gives us a couple of extra seconds of Berserking.
- Challenging Shout provides us with a massive damage reduction buff and will make sure we are able to survive some of the most difficult challenges in the game.
- Ground Stomp is used to provide us with some starter Fury and also because it drastically reduces Ultimate cooldown, it however is a flexible skill and can easily be swapped off for Iron Skin if you feel you need the extra survivability.
- Call of the Ancients, our BOYS; this is a great source of additional multiplicative damage, can generate some Fury and can give us a bit of extra clear thanks to Arreat's Bearing. This item lets the Ancients spawn Earthquakes and Dust Devils, and because we already take Heavy Hitter for Earthquakes damage scaling, it affects them as well.
For the Pit Pushing and Speedfarm Skill Tree check the Variants Section down below.
Skill Rotation
- Use your Shouts as they come off cooldown; thanks to Bold Chieftain's, they should have nearly 100% uptime.
- Keep in mind that you need to have 3 enemies in radius if you have a 24% or more Bold Chieftain's, and 4 enemies if you have less than that for maximum effect. It might be worth to wait one or two seconds to make sure there are enough targets on your screen.
- Our Ultimate, Call of the Ancients, can be used freely when off cooldown as it is just another damage boost for the most part.
- Ground Stomp is there for the initial Fury, if needed, and to reduce our Ultimate cooldown. Remember to use it for these reasons and to not spam it when your Ultimate is, for example, 0.5 seconds away from already being off cooldown.
- Always make sure you are Spinning to ensure you are Winning.
Arsenal System
The Arsenal System allows us to use a specific weapon for every attack skill, with each weapon granting different bonuses. We also have what is called the Technique Slot. With this, we can use any weapon of our choosing to always reap the benefit from, regardless of which weapon we have equipped.
For the purpose of this guide, the Polearm Expertise is our main weapon choice. This is a great weapon to wield because it enables us to inflict Bleeds with Furious Whirlwind. The inherent 15% damage multiplier it gives us is quite nice, and it also has one of the best weapon-based damage Glyphs, Executioner.
In the Technique Slot, the Two-Handed Axe allows us to deal 10% more damage to Vulnerable enemies. This build has good Vulnerable uptime with some points in Pressure Point and the Riving affix on our gloves. Unfortunately, its secondary effect does not apply here - the limitation of the Technique Slot is that it does not allow us to benefit from the second bonus that is normally gained from reaching rank 10 with any weapon expertise.
Learn more details and how to unlock this system in our full Barbarian Class Overview.
Paragon & Glyphs
Carefully check your Paragon Boards to ensure correct board rotation. Glyphs go from a radius of 3 to 4 at level 15 and from 4 to 5 at level 46. Some of them cannot be activated before reaching these thresholds! Progress through The Pit to rank up your Glyphs.
Use the slider to see the progression steps. At around Paragon 200, leveling slows down significantly and all important Rare clusters, Legendary nodes and Glyph sockets should be unlocked. Afterwards, you can min/max your build with minor tweaks and by picking up additional smaller nodes.
Whirlwind Barbarian Endgame Paragon
- For the Pit Pushing and Speedfarm Paragon Boards check the Variants Section down bellow.
Some Glyph position swaps, board changes and other pathing adjustments may occur as you unlock your full potential. The setup displayed by default is the final version of the build before spending additional points that do not significantly impact your character's power.
Optional Glyphs
- Revenge
- Used in Pit Pushing variant.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
Level 15
- Challenger
- Marshal
- Rumble
- Ire
- Executioner
Level 46
- Rumble
- Ire
- Marshal
- Executioner
- Challenger
Learn more details about the Paragon System in our in-depth Paragon Boards and Glyphs guide.
Runes
You can have up to two Runewords in your setup, each consisting of one Ritual and one Invocation Rune. Socket them in Two-Handed Weapons if your build calls for them, otherwise place them into your Armor pieces to replace normal gems. The Whirlwind Barbarian focuses on the following combos:
Best in Slot
- Bac + Tec - This combination allows us to spawn Earthquakes while channeling Whirlwind. We get the majority of our damage from this Runeword.
- Igni + Thul - This Runeword combo gives us the Sorcerer's Frost Nova, providing us with another source of Vulnerable and a 15% damage multiplier.
Alternative choices
If you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top runes, you can also benefit from these options:
- Poc - Alternative for Bac early on since it is easier to get.
- Gar - Extremely useful early on and if you need to cap Critical Strike Chance.
- Yax - Cheap way to get a lot of offering early on before we get better Runes.
- Zec - Can assist with keeping our Ultimate off cooldown; useful early on when lacking Cooldown Reduction.
Learn more about Runes and how they work in our dedicated Runewords Overview and Runewords Tier List.
Mercenaries
Mercenaries are unlocked during the Vessel of Hatred campaign and assist you in battle. There are 4 separate Mercenaries to choose from, each with their own skill trees and abilities. You can have one hired (permanent) mercenary during solo play and a reinforcement who assists you from time to time in certain situations.
Hired: Raheir
Raheir is mainly use for Raheir's Aegis as it makes dealing with resists much more trivial and he also provides us with a bit of extra damage multipliers from Inspiration.
Subo is also a nice alternative if you can get maximum resistances without Raheir's Aegis as Subo's Opening Fire gives us roughly the same damage we would get from Raheir with the added advantage of Seeker.
Reinforcement: Aldkin
Aldkin's Field of Languish gives us an extra damage reduction every so often which ends up making a difference in the long run, specially on Pit Pushing.
Learn more about Mercenaries and how they work in our dedicated Mercenaries Overview.
Stat Priorities & Item Progression
To enable the Whirlwind Barbarian to perform optimally, hunt for these stats on your gear with good rolls and aim to Temper ⚒️ & Masterwork Crit ↑ them accordingly. The green arrow ↑ indicates which affix is most impactful to Masterwork Crit, and it does not indicate how many Masterwork Crits you need on that particular affix. Keep in mind that certain stats, such as Armor, Resistances, Extra Size Tempers, Attack Speed, and more, have caps that may affect your priorities according to the items and Paragon points available at that moment.
Recommended Endgame Stat Thresholds
- 90%+ Critical Strike Chance (with Gar)
- 70%+ Chance for Earthquakes to Cast Twice
- 35%+ Earthquake Size
- 25% Earthquake Duration
- 450%+ Damage while Berserking (Blood Rage)
- 500%+ Damage to Close Enemies (Force of Nature)
- 4000+ Strength
- Armor Capped 1,000
- Resistance Capped 70%+
- 13,000+ Life
- 180%+ Movement Speed
- 60%+ Ultimate Cooldown Reduction
Item Progression Goals
Before you dive into the Endgame with the Whirlwind Barbarian, take a look at this overview of the items used in the build. See below for further details about the different progression steps and variants. Some of your Skill Tree choices depend on what Legendary Aspects and Unique items are available to you. Keep in mind that while we can guarantee that everyone has access to the same Codex of Power Aspects, the exact progression is different for everyone.
Learn more details and how to farm Legendary Aspects and Uniques in our General Farming Guide.
Build Variants
This section is designed to guide your Whirlwind Barbarian from a fresh level 60 into the very late endgame using the three variants Starter, Ancestral and Mythic. At the final step, you should be fully decked out with a great all-rounder build. From there, follow the other min/max variants if you want to optimize around certain activities such as Pit Pushing, Speedfarming and more.
If you are fresh in Torment 1 coming from a leveling guide, this is where you begin. Since only some Aspects can be guaranteed from Dungeon unlocks for the Codex of Power, focus on acquiring the additional Aspects via gambling with Murmuring Obols.
Gear & Skills
Optional Early Paragon route that prioritizes rushing your Power Spikes to ensure a stronger Starter Experience.
- Note: If arriving here after following the Whirlwind Barbarian Leveling Guide, it's perfectly fine to continue using the Starter variant described in that guide if there are no issues. There is often more than one way to play a build successfully; feel free to choose or even combine ideas from both to customize the experience!
- During early progression, Armor & Resistances should be prioritized in order to survive. Each Torment difficulty adds a penalty of -250 Armor and -25% to all Resistances and it's recommended to keep both capped at all times; this means having a value of 1,000 for Armor and 70% for each Resistance. As masterworking levels and Paragon points are unlocked, character power naturally scales into the higher difficulties. As this happens, most of these stats can start being replaced with utility or offensive-oriented ones.
- Iron Skin is used here just as an extra layer of safety early on, as you might be missing some defensive layers or have bad uptime on them. If you feel like you are not getting any use out of it, congrats, you are a pro gamer - default back to Ground Stomp for some extra damage.
- Earthquakes are the core damage of our build, as such make sure to chase the thematic aspects to greatly increase your damage output:
- Earthquakes
- Executioner's
- Incendiary Fissures
- Bul-Kathos (mostly for the damage reduction in Season 8)
- Juggernaut's is quite importat to grab early on as it is needed to max out our armor for higher difficulties.
- Steadfast Berserker's will ensure your fortify is always maxed out.
- Anger Management is the easiest and most efficient way for us to obtain 100% Berserking uptime on Whirlwind.
- Bold Chieftain's greatly reduces the cooldown of our Shouts, allowing us to have almost 100% uptime on them and generate Fury much easier. Make sure to prioritize grabbing Rings from the Obol Vendor after you get good weapons to increase your chances to get this Aspect.
- Vocalized Empowerment trivializes Fury generation, especially after you obtain the coveted Bold Chieftain's, until you do, or in case you have one with a low roll, you might need to stagger your Shouts, cast one Shout and wait until it's effect ends before you cast another, as they are your only way to generate enough resource to keep Whirlwind going.
- Vehement Brawler's is a nice general damage multiplier, and thanks to the +2 ranks to Ultimate Skills, it helps reduce Call of the Ancients cooldown even further to ensure 100% (or close) uptime.
- Dust Devil's is another great general damage multiplier since our Earthquakes themselves generate Dust Devils, so you should have nearly if not 100% uptime on it. Alternatively, Conceited is also a great choice after you obtain the Blackmailer's Sabotage Boss Power recommended earlier in the guide.
- Ghostwalker is used in tandem with Rallying Cry for a large Movement Speed increase.
- If Resource is an issue:
- Roll Resource Cost Reduction instead of Vulnerable Damage on weapons.
- Use Poc (or any other trigger) + Lum to recoup some Fury.
- Use Lunging Strike! Optional points can be taken in Endless Fury as well.
- Roll Fury per Second (can be rolled on Helm, Chest and Boots).
The goal here is to progress through the Torment difficulties as you unlock Ancestrals, Paragon points, all Legendary Aspects, Temper mods and the most important Uniques to pilot this build. Some Legendary Aspects are used temporarily to fill slots that may be replaced with more Unique items later on.
Gear & Skills
- As gear is upgraded to Ancestral and more masterworking levels and Paragon points are unlocked, we can focus on replacing Armor and Resistance rolls with more desirable stats; however, staying capped at 1,000 Armor and 70% for all Resistances should always remain a priority for the current difficulty level that being said it will be trivialized quite a lot by our new uniques Arreat's Bearing and Mantle of Mountain's Fury.
- Ugly Bastard Helm is an incredible and super strong item for Barbarians as it gives us a massive damage multiplier when we are Berserking. Note that even though part of the Unique effect description mentions Wrath of the Berserker, for the damage multiplier you only need to be Berserking, which we simply achieve by using Anger Management. On top of what was previously mentioned, it also has other great stats like + ranks to Aggressive Resistance (a really good defensive layer) and Prolific Fury, which makes any potential previous Fury issues a thing of the past. Wrath of the Berserker cooldown is a dead stat for us since our Ultimate of choice is Call of the Ancients, but it is well worth the sacrifice.
- Arreat's Bearing single-handedly maxes out cooldown reduction (75%) on Call of the Ancients and covers most of our resistances at the same time. On top of that, it also has a nice amount of Maximum Life and allows one of our BOYS (Korlic) to spawn Earthquakes as well.
- Note: If you are not fortunate enough to grab a pair of Arreat's Bearing with GA Call of the Ancients Cooldown Reduction, worry not, as you can easily swap one of the Resource Cost Reduction tempers on the Rings or the Movement Speed temper on the Amulet to this stat to cover for what you are lacking; one of these should be enough.
- Mantle of Mountain's Fury is a no brainer considering it allows our Earthquakes to deal double damage while also providing a huge amount of armor, making it that much easier to reach the cap of 1000 on Torment 4. It also offers + ranks to Defensive Stance, which gives a good bit of extra damage reduction and life regeneration. Both ranks to Hammer of the Ancients and the Unique effect are mostly irrelevant for our build but once again, it is well worth the sacrifice.
- Assuming your Fury issues should have subsided by now, you can swap the places of Vehement Brawler's and Vocalized Empowerment to increase your damage even further.
This is the final version of the build's progression, including all regular Unique items, Mythic Uniques, Legendary Aspects, Temper mods and Masterworking, leaving you with a great all-rounder build for all content in the game. Additional variants use this as a baseline to optimize around certain activities.
Gear & Skills
- Ring of Starless Skies is almost always a staple on Whirlwind builds as it provides a large damage multiplier which Whirlwind can easily have 100% uptime on, and big Resource Cost Reduction, which when paired with Enhanced Whirlwind easily allows Whirlwind to sustain itself - assuming your enemies are able to survive a couple of hits. Not only that, it also provides a large amount of Critical Strike Chance which we quite fancy. The rest of the stats on Ring of Starless Skies are quite useless in regards to this build, but this Ring still easily outshines any other option.
- In this variant we are taking Grasping Whirlwind to help with grouping up enemies.
- If you are having Fury issues in this setup: because you are a massive gamer and the enemies are easily felled by your blade, worry not as your BOYS (Supreme Call of the Ancients) also generate a fair bit of Fury. If you are an even bigger gamer, and there isn't even anything left for your BOYS to hit, you always have the option of taking Fury on Kill instead of Critical Strike Damage on your Polearm.
This Speedfarming variant optimizes the build for easy activities like Helltides, Whispers, Nightmare Dungeons and lower Pit Tiers after you have finished the Mythic variant and reached a plateau in your progression.
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Gear & Skills
- In this Variant we swap Thul for Jah. This Runeword gives us the Sorcerer's Teleport ability, allowing us to run around Sanctuary at Mach 10 speed.
- Since we are killing enemies so fast we need to get Fury on Kill on our Polearm to keep up with Fury costs.
- Since we want to go fast, we are also taking a Movement Speed Affix on our Amulet.
- Why not run Fists of Fate?
- Fists of Fate has an incredibly high damage variance, resulting in enemies sometimes not dying to your Earthquakes before you leave. Considering the damage difference between Fists of Fate and a good Legendary pair of Gloves is minimal, the latter is preferred for consistency.
This setup optimizes the build to push the highest possible Tiers in The Pit after you have finished the Mythic variant and reached a plateau in your progression.
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Gear & Skills
- This variant of the build makes heavy use of the Weapon Swap mechanic; a lot of our damage and most of our Fury generation comes from this interaction when using this setup.
- There are two new Aspects we are using related to the Weapon Swap mechanic:
- Battle-Mad on our Amulet, giving us a massive damage multiplier and Berserking.
- Earthstriker's on our One-Handed Sword, allowing us to reliably Overpower with Hammer of the Ancients, giving us a 40% damage multiplier from Violent Hammer of the Ancients and enabling both the Warpath and Decimator damage bonus as well.
- Hammer of the Ancients is mandatory to be taken for any Pit pushing Earthquake build, as it is used together with Mantle of Mountain's Fury to explode our Earthquakes for BIG DAMAGE. To take advantage of this interaction further, we swap some of our + ranks to Heavy Hitter tempers to Earthquake Duration tempers. Hammer of the Ancients, as mentioned above, is also used for Weapon Swapping and to trigger Overpower multipliers.
- Wrath of the Berserker is the best Ultimate when it comes to Pit Pushing, assuming you can keep 100% uptime on it in order to not drop Supreme Wrath of the Berserker stacks. To that end, we swap Ring of Starless Skies for a Legendary Ring in order to get the extra Wrath of the Berserker Cooldown Reduction we desperately need.
- Berserking uptime is easily achieved, single-handedly, by Battle-Mad. That being said, we also have some extra sources such as Wrath of the Berserker and War Cry, which are sure to cover any gaps.
- Fists of Fate is an incredibly good item and we are taking full advantage of it:
- It gives us an insane damage multiplier; make sure to get a pair with 300% Unique effect as it is the most important part of this Unique.
- Easily takes care of Vulnerable uptime for us.
- Attack Speed and Lucky Hit Chance are good quality of life stats for the build.
- As mentioned in the introduction, there are some sacrifices you have to make if you want to be one of the Top Whirlwind Gamers. This is the best way to Pit Push with Whirlwind but (good news or bad news depending on how you look at it), there is a way to further maximize your damage by doing The Dance:
- Group large packs of enemies - if played properly the build can easily pull and face tank 4+ packs of Elites thanks to the Blackmailer's Sabotage Boss Power.
- Constantly Weapon Swap between Whirlwind and Hammer of the Ancients. This can easily be done by holding down Whirlwind and Shift and constantly clicking Hammer of the Ancients.
- Note: Be careful to not accidentally cast too many Hammer of the Ancients in a row as you will easily run out of Fury. If this happens you will need to wait for Unstoppable to drop off so you can cast either Wrath of the Berserker or Rallying Cry to once again gain Unstoppable and proc Tibault's Will Unique Effect.
- Try to only explode your Earthquakes every 4 seconds to allow them to tick for a bit before exploding them for extra damage.
- Try to hit your enemies with Wandering Death's Chest Beam Boss Power. Remember, the beam starts aimed at the location of your cursor at the start of a Whirlwind channel.
- To achieve the previous two points you need to try to Whirlwind in the direction of your enemies and Hammer of the Ancients away from your Earthquakes, unless it is time to drop The Nuke.
This setup aims to fill the niche for those that want to experience a true, pure Whirlwind build and/or just want to try out and mess around with the new Gohr's Devastating Grips.
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Gear & Skills
- Before you pick up this variant be aware that it more than likely is weaker than the Earthquake variants by a long mile. If that does not dissuade you and you just want the good old true Whirlwind build, this build is here for you.
- Although this Variant also uses Earthquakes they are only there to enable Earthquakes so ti can provide Whirlwind with a 120% damage buff.
- In case you are really opposed to running any Earthquakes in your build you can change Earthquakes for Conceited, moving it to the Amulet slot and Limitless Rage to the Two-Handed Mace. Don't forget to also swap your Tec Rune for either Vex or Qax.
- This build works without Runes and it even works without the DLC. For that you have to change Earthquakes for Conceited, moving it to the Amulet slot and Limitless Rage to the Two-Handed Mace.
FAQ & Mechanics
Once a guide is released, many players have questions on why and how we are approaching certain choices. In this section you can find the answers to the questions that have been asked the most.
- Bring up your active skills (default keybind: [s]).
- Hover over the skill you wish to assign a weapon to.
- Cycle through the available weapons to choose which to assign to the skill (default keybind: MOUSE3).
To see which weapons for each skill are used in this build, hover over the skill bar in the introduction of this guide.
This build can be very resource intensive, especially in the early stages. Some things that can help:
- Prioritize Rallying Cry being active as often as possible. This is especially valuable when combined with the Vocalized Empowerment Aspect.
- Fury Cost Reduction can be be rolled on Two-Handed Weapons. Replace an offensive stat like Vulnerable Damage or Critical Strike Damage with this instead. Fury on Kill is another great option in this slot.
- Roll Fury per Second on gear, notably Boots, since this slot is often not occupied by a Unique item.
- Use skills like Ground Stomp and Call of the Ancients to help recoup Fury. There's no shame in resorting to a Basic Skill generator like Lunging Strike, either.
- Ring of Starless Skies, though it can't be obtained until much later, is huge for minimizing Fury consumption.
- The Lum Rune is great for passively generating Fury. It can be combined with trigger Runes like Poc or Igni.
- Try to avoid Attack Speed on gear whenever possible; this stat makes Whirlwind consume Fury at a much faster rate.
- When there are no enemies around, just run! There is no need to spam Whirlwind while travelling if it's only going to drain Fury.
Mechanics
Much of the information in this section has been carefully and thoroughly tested by Icytroll and is extracted directly from the Barbarian Compendium. This should be your main source for the most accurate and up-to-date explanations on all mechanics that pertain to the Barbarian class.
- Earthquakes tick for damage every 0.5s
- Earthquakes only use skill variance: [dmg*0.9,dmg*1.1].
- You can have 10 Earthquakes active at the same time (including Tec and "cast twice" EQ's)
- Earthquakes can not trigger Lucky Hit effects.
- Earthquakes can not Overpower.
Earthquake sources and their Skill% scaling at max ranks are:
Earthquake source | Weapon Damage scaling |
Earthquakes | 229% (458% for ticks) |
Bul-Kathos | 260% (520% for ticks) |
Call of the Ancients with Arreat's Bearing | 270% (540% for ticks) |
Executioner's | 481% (962% for ticks) |
Tec | 1680% (3360% for ticks) |
With "Skill% scaling" we mean the value used as "Skill%" in the general damage formula found in our In-Depth Damage Guide.
Interactions that work with Earthquake
The following interactions have been verified through damage recording or footage to ensure they are functional. Anything not listed here has not explicitly been verified during the creation of this list.
- Aspects
- Berserk Ripping
- Bul-Kathos
- Earthquakes
- Elements
- Executioner's
- Incendiary Fissures
- Inner Calm
- Retribution
- Skills and Passives
- Belligerence
- Counteroffensive
- Gushing Wounds with Berserk Ripping
- Heavy Handed
- Heavy Hitter
- Pit Fighter
- Slaying Strike
- Wallop
- Warpath
- Prime Call of the Ancients
- Supreme Wrath of the Berserker
- Unconstrained
- Walking Arsenal
- Legendary Nodes
- Blood Rage
- Flawless Technique
- Hemorrhage with Berserk Ripping
- Force of Nature
- Glyphs
- Ambidextrous
- Bloodfeeder
- Cleaver
- Executioner
- Might
- Revenge
- Rumble
- Uniques and Mythic Uniques
- Arreat's Bearing
- Fists of Fate
- Mantle of Mountain's Fury
- Ramaladni's Magnum Opus
- Stats
- Earthquake Size temper (scales area, capped at 100%)
- Earthquake Duration temper (not capped)
- Earthquake Cast Twice temper (capped at 100%)
- Earthquake Damage paragon nodes
- Runes
- Tec
Interactions that partially work with Earthquake
The following interactions have been verified through damage recording or footage to ensure they have buggy/unintutive interactions. Anything not listed here has not explicitly been verified during the creation of this list.
- Aspects
- [BUG] Earthquake ticks currently deal 100% more damage than expected by their tooltip.
- [BUG] The tooltip above the skill bar showing that you are standing in a Bul-Kathos Earthquake and have increased Damage Reduction, uses the Earthquake damage multiplier, while the real value for the Damage Reduction is 30% as indicated by the aspect tooltip.
- Runes
- [BUG] Earthquakes from the Tec Rune does x20% more damage than expected compared to the base value of 1400%.
- Skills and Passives
- When you spawn an Earthquake by any means the rank 10 Polearm bonus from Polearm Expertise drops until you use a skill that has a Polearm selected as its arsenal selection.
Interactions that do not work with Earthquake
The following interactions have been verified through damage recording or footage to ensure they are not functional. Anything not listed here has not explicitly been verified during the creation of this list.
- Aspects
- Edgemaster's
- Skills and Passives
- Furious Upheaval
- Glyphs
- Earthquake crits do not count towards Wrath Fury gain.
- Whirlwind can not Overpower.
- Whirlwind snapshots Attack Speed effects at the start of its channel. Buffs/effects that are procced during a channel do not apply before you stop the current channel and start a new one.
- Using Whirlwind applies a 25% penalty to your Movement Speed, meaning if you have 150% Movement Speed you'd only have
150%*(1-25%) = 112.5%
Movement Speed when using Whirlwind. Being Unhindered while using Whirlwind cancels the 25% penalty meaning you move with full speed. - Whirlwind spends 40% of the in-game tooltip Fury amount for each attack animation. For example:
- If we have 0% Resource Cost Reduction (RCR), 0% Attack Speed and assigned a 2H Mace for Whirlwind (26 frames for attack animation, you can find breakpoints in the Attack Speed Breakpoints menu below), we will drain:
25*40%*(60/26) = 23.077
Fury per second. - If we instead have 15% RCR, 30% Attack Speed and assigned Dual Wield weapons for Whirlwind (16 frames for attack animation), we will drain:
25
Fury per second.*(1-15%)
*40%*(60/16) = 31.875
- If we have 0% Resource Cost Reduction (RCR), 0% Attack Speed and assigned a 2H Mace for Whirlwind (26 frames for attack animation, you can find breakpoints in the Attack Speed Breakpoints menu below), we will drain:
Attack Speed
The following Attack Speed % sources function for Whirlwind. For a more in-depth explanation of how Attack Speed works, please read our Attack Speed Mechanics article.
Cap 1
- Moonrise
- Elixir of Advantage II
- Attack Speed (Gear Affix)
- Attack Speed while Berserking (Gear Affix)
- Nimble
- Enhanced Mighty Throw
- Duelist
- Artillery Shrine (100% AS)
Cap 2
- Accelerating
- Carnage
- One-Handed Axe Expertise Rank 10 BonusWarrior's Rupture
- One-Handed Sword Expertise Rank 10 Bonus
- Walking Arsenal
- Prime Call of the Ancients
Frames | APS | 2H Mace/Axe/Polearm AS% | 2H Swords AS% | Dual Wield AS% |
---|---|---|---|---|
26 | 0.900 | 0% | - | - |
25 | 0.934 | 3.8% | - | - |
24 | 0.963 | 7% | 0% | - |
23 | 1.005 | 11.7% | 0.5% | - |
22 | 1.044 | 16% | 4.4% | - |
21 | 1.093 | 21.4% | 9.3% | 0% |
20 | 1.148 | 27.5% | 14.8% | 4.3% |
19 | 1.202 | 33.5% | 20.2% | 9.2% |
18 | 1.264 | 40.4% | 26.4% | 14.9% |
17 | 1.339 | 48.8% | 33.9% | 21.7% |
16 | 1.412 | 56.9% | 41.2% | 28.4% |
15 | 1.505 | 67.2% | 50.5% | 36.8% |
14 | 1.605 | 78.3% | 60.5% | 45.9% |
13 | 1.719 | 91% | 71.9% | 56.3% |
12 | 1.847 | 105.3% | 84.7% | 67.9% |
11 | 2.005 | 122.8% | 100.5% | 82.3% |
10 | 2.192 | 143.5% | 119.2% | 99.2% |
9 | 2.407 | 167.4 | 140.7% | 118.8% |
8 | 2.677 | 197.4 | 167.7% | 143.3% |
7 | 3.009 | - | - | 173.5% |
Interactions that work with Whirlwind
The following interactions have been verified through damage recording or footage to ensure they are functional. Anything not listed here has not explicitly been verified during the creation of this list.
- Aspects
- Retribution
- Inner Calm
- Elements
- Edgemaster's
- Accelerating
- Dust Devil's
- Skills and Passives
- Concussion
- Counteroffensive
- Gushing Wounds with Berserk Ripping
- Heavy Handed
- Pit Fighter
- Slaying Strike
- Wallop
- Enhanced Whirlwind
- Furious Whirlwind
- Violent Whirlwind
- Legendary Nodes
- Blood Rage
- Carnage
- Hemorrhage with Berserk Ripping
- Weapons Master
- Glyphs
- Ambidextrous
- Bloodfeeder
- Cleaver
- Crusher
- Dominate
- Executioner
- Might
- Revenge
- Wrath
- Uniques and Mythic Uniques
- Mother's Embrace
- Ring of Starless Skies
- Stats
- Whirlwind Size temper (scales area, capped at 100%)
Interactions that do not work with Whirlwind
The following interactions have been verified through damage recording or footage to ensure they are not functional. Anything not listed here has not explicitly been verified during the creation of this list.
N/A
- The Unconstrained (UC) Key Passive increases the global damage multiplier of Berserking from 25%[x] to 60%[x], and while below 65% HP you are always Berserking and gain 30% physical damage reduction.
- The interaction with Wrath of the Berserker functions the same as with the base 25%[x] multiplier here, increasing the 60%[x] Berserking multiplier by 25% for every 50 Fury spent:
Total Fury spent | Calculation | Resulting damage increase of Berserking |
50 | 60%[x] * 1.25 | 75%[x] |
100 | 60%[x] * 1.5 | 90%[x] |
150 | 60%[x] * 1.75 | 105%[x] |
200 | 60%[x] * 2 | 120%[x] |
- The physical damage reduction does not have any effect on the hit that takes you below 65% HP, the physical DR is only applied to damage taken while you are below 65% HP.
- [BUG] Unconstrained raises the maximum Berserking time to 10 seconds instead of 5 seconds even though the tooltip does not indicate this.
- [BUG] Using Shroud of False Death while having a point in Unconstrained adds an additional point which adds another 35% damage making Berserking a 95%[x] multiplier (190%[x] with Wrath of the Berserker) instead of just a 60%[x] multiplier.
- The base functionality adds Earthquake damage to your additive damage bucket based on how much strength is found in the glyph range.
- [BUG] The additional bonus of dealing 10%[x] increased damage against bosses and crowd controlled enemies for each active Earthquake up to 50%[x], is applied in steps of 10% multiplicatively and thus goes above the 50% cap for a total damage increase of: (1+10%)^5 - 1 = 61.1%[x].
- The legendary bonus works as expected and is a separate multiplier on Earthquake damage.
- Blood Rage is a global multiplier [x] for all your damage which scales off of your Damage while Berserking stat, up to a cap of 45%[x] damage increase with 450%[+] Berserking damage.
- Force of Nature is a multiplier [x] for Earthquake damage which scales off of 40% of your Close Damage, up to a cap of 200%[x] damage increase.
- [BUG] It appears that the tooltip of Force of Nature scales with the statsheet value of Close Damage (which is affected by Pit Fighter and Ire multipliers), however only the Ire glyph works an actual damage increase to the Force of Nature multiplier, ranks in Pit Fighter will increase the tooltip value but won't actually increase the actual damage output. In summary, Ire double-dips its Close Damage multiplier for Earthquakes by being a global multiplier and also increasing the Force of Nature multiplier.
- Every time you swap weapons, i.e. you cast a skill that uses a different weapon than the one you're currently holding, Weapons Master generates 8% of your maximum Fury.
- This works even when using the different attacks of Iron Maelstrom.
- [BUG] Weapons Master applies its 30% as both an additive and a multiplicative value for damage vs Healthy and Injured enemies, meaning if you no other additive damage vs Healthy stats for instance, your statsheet value will be:
(1+additive%)*multipliers-1 = statsheetValue
->(1+30%)*1.3-1 = 69%
(same for damage vs Injured).
The new Barbarian unique for Season 7 introduces a new mechanic, in the form of being able to detonate active Earthquakes for their total damage in one big hit by hitting them with a line that shoots out from your character when you use Hammer of the Ancients. Lets look at some of the affixes.
Chance for Earthquake to Deal Double Damage. When an Earthquake is created the affix rolls a die, and if successful that Earthquake will deal double damage for all of its damage ticks and a subsequent explosion if detonated via the Unique effect.
HotA shoots out a line that explodes any Earthquakes it passes through. The explosion damage is based off of the total damage an earthquake would deal over it's duration. So if we were to write out the damage an Earthquake would deal per tick it would look like:
EQtickDmg = [wpnDmg] * [Skill%] * [1+mainstat/1000] * [1+add%] * [multipliers] * 2 * 1/8
where the 2
is from Earthquakes having a bug that makes them deal double damage compared to their tooltip values, and the 1/8
represents the damage of 1 tick (4s duration with a tick every 0.5s). The total tick damage of an Earthquake and a detonation is simply written as:
EQtotalTickDmg = [wpnDmg] * [Skill%] * [1+mainstat/1000] * [1+add%] * [multipliers] * 2 * [1+(EQduration%-mod(EQduration%,12.5%)]
EQdetonationDmg = [wpnDmg] * [Skill%] * [1+mainstat/1000] * [1+add%] * [multipliers] * 2 * [1+EQduration%]
which is roughly the same amount when we account for the number of EQ ticks only going up by 1 every step of 12.5% duration, by comparison the explosion damage scales continously with more duration. Each Earthquake tick has a separate roll to cause a Critical Strike on each individual enemy hit, where as an Earthquake detonation just rolls a Critical Strike on each individual enemy hit as it's 1 instance of damage instead of several ticks.
Some findings about the detonations:
- EQ duration affects the explosion damage.
- The unique effect on the chest has no effect on the explosion damage.
- The size of the explosion scales with increased Earthquake Size and goes further than the area covered by an Earthquake (exception being the Tec Rune where the explosion only happens within the area of an Earthquake).
- The number of exploded Earthquakes has no effect on their damage, each Earthquake tracks its own explosion damage.
- The damage of a detonation is not affected by how long an Earthquake has already been active, popping it after 0.5 or 3.5s yields the same detonation damage.
- The damage increase from Violent Hammer of the Ancients is a dynamic multiplier which means it affects detonation damage even if it wasn't active when an Earthquake was spawned.
- Spawning an Earthquake while wielding Ramaladni's Magnum Opus increases the damage of an Earthquake for all its damage ticks by an amount corresponding to how much Fury we had when that Earthquake was spawned, and this damage multiplier also carries over to when that Earthquake is detonated (i.e. it's snapshotted at Earthquake spawn).
- The weapon that you are wielding when spawning an Earthquake is also snapshotted, meaning if you're holding an ilvl 800 2H Mace compared to wielding ilvl 800 1H Swords, the Earthquake that was spawned while holding a 2H Mace will deal more damage when detonated compared to if it was spawned while wielding 1H Swords.
- The Ring of Starless Skies buff is dynamic for Earthquake ticks and is also dynamic for the detonation.
- A list of aspects and passives that are applied to Earthquake explosions include but is not limited to:
- Bul-Kathos
- Earthquakes
- Incendiary Fissures
- Executioner's
- Force of Nature
- Heavy Handed
- Heavy Hitter
- Pit Fighter
- Slaying Strike
- Wallop
- Warpath
- Weapons Master (adds +30% additive damage and a x30% multiplier vs Healthy and Injured enemies)
In general, if a multiplier snapshots to an Earthquake for its regular tick damage when that Earthquake is created, it will also be active for the detonation. See the Earthquake header for more information on Earthquake interactions.
The unique effect of Ugly Bastard Helm converts all your damage to Fire damage while you're Berserking and provides a Fire damage multiplier on top. The only exception to this is Bleed damage which stays as Physical damage but still gets the Fire multiplier on top. All other additive damage sources function as normal. In other words:
Additive damage matrix | Non-Bleed damage | Bleed damage |
Berserking without Ugly Bastard Helm | +Physical damage works +Fire damage doesn't work | +Physical damage works +Fire damage doesn't work |
Berserking with Ugly Bastard Helm | +Physical damage doesn't work +Fire damage works | +Physical damage works +Fire damage doesn't work |
- [BUG] The Fire Damage proc does not gain the Fire damage multiplier unless you are Berserking.
- The Fire Damage proc works with Berserk Ripping, and the resulting Bleed has no variance in its damage.
- The Fire Damage proc works with Ramaladni's Magnum Opus when Dual Wielding.
Berserking is a vital mechanic for the Barbarian, securing high Berserking uptime with your build is often essential to making your character as powerful as possible.
- Berserking provides a global 1.25[x] damage multiplier (1.6[x] with the Unconstrained key passive) and 25%[+] movement speed.
Working sources and interactions of Berserking
The following interactions have been verified through damage recording or footage to ensure they are functional. Anything not listed here has not explicitly been verified during the creation of this list.
- Aspects
- Anger Management
- Berserk Ripping
- Burning Rage
- Skills and Passives
- Aggressive Resistance
- Battle Fervor
- Prolific Fury
- Unconstrained
- Combat Lunging Strike
- Furious Double Swing
- Violent Upheaval
- Enhanced War Cry
- Warrior's Death Blow
- Fighter's Steel Grasp
- Wrath of the Berserker
- Supreme Wrath of the Berserker
- Legendary Nodes
- Blood Rage
- Carnage
- Glyphs
- Ire
- Uniques and Mythic Uniques
- Tuskhelm of Joritz the Mighty
- Ugly Bastard Helm
- Stats
- Damage while Berserking temper and paragon nodes
Interactions that do not work with Berserking
The following interactions have been verified through damage recording or footage to ensure they are not functional. Anything not listed here has not explicitly been verified during the creation of this list.
N/A
- Fortify can be seen as an extra layer of defense that acts alongside your health. It's built up through various skills, glyphs, passives and paragon nodes and can reach the same value as your max HP. While you have equal or more Fortify than your current HP, you have an additional 15% generic damage reduction.
- It should be noted that damage reductions are applied through inverse multiplication, which means if you're taking 1000 damage from a hit without being Fortified, you will take:
1000*(1-15%) = 850
damage if you instead were Fortified. If you for example are Fortified and have an additional 10% damage reduction against Close enemies, you will instead take:1000*(1-15%)*(1-10%) = 765
damage from Close enemies. This is how all separate damage reduction sources function in Diablo 4. - Fortify is a dynamic damage reduction. This means that if you have more HP than Fortify, but the next hit will bring your HP below your current amount of Fortify, the game will look at how big the incoming hit is compared to your current HP and Fortify amount and calculate how much of the 15% Fortify damage reduction should be accounted for. We can set it up a general equation which given your current HP, current Fortify and the damage you will take from the incoming hit without being Fortified ("dmg" in the formula below), will calculate your remaining HP and whether to account for a partial Fortify damage reduction:

- The above equation covers all 3 damage taken cases of:
- Your HP is lower or equal to your Fortify amount (full 15% reduction)
- The incoming hit will take you below your current Fortify amount (partial reduction)
- The incoming hit will not take you below your current Fortify amount (no reduction)
Interactions that work with Fortify
The following interactions have been verified through damage recording or footage to ensure they are functional. Anything not listed here has not explicitly been verified during the creation of this list.
- Aspects
- Steadfast Berserker's
- Numbing Wrath
- Tempering Blows
- Assimilation
- Skills and Passives
- Enhanced Bash
- Strategic Rallying Cry
- Strategic Iron Skin
- Mighty War Cry
- Defensive Stance is additive with the 15% base damage reduction of Fortify
- Thick Skin
- Counteroffensive
- Irrepressible
- Legendary Nodes
- Warbringer
- Stats
- Damage while Fortified paragon nodes
- Fortify Generation paragon nodes (are multiplicative, separate nodes are additive with each other)
- Damage Reduction while Fortified paragon nodes (separate DR from being Fortified, separates nodes are inverse multiplicative with each other)
- %Thorns while Fortified temper
Interactions that partially work with Fortify
The following interactions have been verified through damage recording or footage to ensure they have buggy/unintuitive interactions. Anything not listed here has not explicitly been verified during the creation of this list.
- Glyphs
- The additional bonus from the Undaunted glyph does not work as expected. The additional damage reduction is not applied based on the amount of Fortify you have before you take a hit, but by the amount of Fortify you have after you take a hit. If you for example have 100% HP and Fortify before taking a hit, if you have 50% Fortify after taking that hit you gain 50% of the Undaunted bonus, e.g. 10%*50% = 5% damage reduction for that hit.
Interactions that do not work with Fortify
The following interactions have been verified through damage recording or footage to ensure they are not functional. Anything not listed here has not explicitly been verified during the creation of this list.
N/A
Video Guide
Summary
The Whirlwind Barbarian is a very relaxed build that does well in most content, especially speedfarming. Here's why it's a great build:
- Extremely relaxed and chill gameplay!
- High uptime on all Shout buffs: Rallying Cry, War Cry and Challenging Shout (as needed).
- High Ultimate uptime with Call of the Ancients and Arreat's Bearing.
- High mobility; Whirlwind is one of the few skills that can be used continuously while moving.
- Great area of effect and damage via Earthquakes, with multiple ways to generate them.
Credits
Written by AoinoMiku
Contributions by Icytroll