Whirlwind Barbarian Leveling Guide

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.

Leveling/Best-in-Slot Boss Powers

Alternate Boss Powers

• Allek's Talons - [Main] - Good replacement before you get your hands on Ashava's Poison Breath.
• Wandering Death's Chest Beam - [Main] - This Boss Power works only while Channeling a Skill, which makes Whirlwind the only choice to incorporate it.
• Flesh Reaper's Disruption - [Modifier] - Source of a strong damage multiplier that works both for base the Whirlwind hit and the Bleed part of Furious Whirlwind. Temper Crowd Control Duration in Utility slots and watch your damage skyrocket!

Ground Stomp

Ground Stomp with its upgrade, Tactical Ground Stomp, deals tons of damage and also applies Vulnerable effect on enemies. Consider it your single target ability to deal with Elites and Bosses.

Charge

We'll be using Charge for some added mobility. With enough ranks, it has a relatively low cooldown and can be used frequently as a traversal tool. Paired with our speed while channeling Whirlwind, we move quickly from one pack of enemies to another.

Mighty Throw

Mighty Throw is a new ability added with patch 2.0. It is a perfect addition to our build since it is one of the best single target abilities in the Barbarian kit. It supplements our Boss damage, and the best time to use it is just after making an enemy Vulnerable with Ground Stomp.

Key Passive

We finally pick up our Key Passive Barbed Carapace, which has great synergy with Needleflare. We activate this power by using an ability with a cooldown. Try to use your abilities in intervals to keep permanent uptime. Spending Fury with Whirlwind will additionally boost your Thorns value; all of these things combined drastically speed up our leveling process and help alleviate any resource issues that may be present early on.

Final Journey to Level 60

At this point, most of the key synergies are unlocked and the gameplay loop is almost complete. As you level up, you unlock a lot of extra points that go into various offensive and defensive passives or max out certain skills. Check out the skills progression above to see where to put your points as you go, but feel free to deviate from the order displayed as necessary. For example, if you need extra defense or healing, you may pick up Iron Skin instead of Rallying Cry. If single target damage is not a problem for you and you would rather move faster, take Leap instead of the Mighty Throw.

Barbarian Arsenal System

The Arsenal System allows Barbarians to use a specific weapon for every attack skill, each granting different Bonuses. The Technique Slot grants us 1 additional Arsenal Power of our choosing for every attack. The Weapon Expertise bonus we get from our currently equipped weapon and the Weapon Expertise bonus we get from the Weapon Technique slot stack with each other.

Unlocking the Arsenal System

The Arsenal System automatically unlocks when you reach Level 5. Opening the Expertise tab (Shift + C) shows all the different weapon types and their bonuses when using them. The Technique Slot unlocks at Level 15 via the Masters of Battle quest in the Dry Steppes which is very easy to complete. Simply walk northeast of town, kill some enemies, then walk west to a cave to slay the beast. After returning to town the Technique Slot will be yours!

How the Arsenal System Impacts Leveling

Weapon type - We assign Lunging Strike to our Dual-Wield weapons to generate Fury faster.

We assign Whirlwind to our Two-Handed Slashing weapon to benefit from Furious Whirlwind.

We keep all other abilities on Auto-Select so they deal as much damage as possible depending on our strongest weapon.

Weapon Technique - Two-Handed Axe Expertise is the best choice for this build since it grants increased damage to Vulnerable enemies. Ground Stomp is a reliable source of this status, so focus on applying it to tougher enemies to get rid of them quicker. If you find yourself wielding a Two-Handed Axe, consider using the Two-Handed Mace Expertise.

To get started as a Whirlwind Barbarian, focus on upgrading your weapons constantly. While the focus should be on Two-Handed Slashing weapons (like Axes, Polearms and Swords), if you manage to find a juicy Two-Handed Mace or set of nice looking One-Handers, consider assigning them to your Whirlwind. Otherwise, follow the priority list below. While you don't have all of the desired temper manuals available, simply try to get anything useful on your gear until you acquire the right ones. For example, % Damage, Damage to Close, Vulnerable Damage, etc. all work as long as you activate their conditions. Likewise, you can temper multiple defensive options such as Resistances, Life, Armor to fill gaps in your survivability. Tempering low level gear is relatively cheap and the results can be very impactful!

Tip: For the early game, Elemental Surge Weapon Tempers are very powerful due to their high base damage, especially if you are twinking. If you find these, you may want to keep imprinting them on your weapons for an easy time.

The Codex of Power is a collection of Legendary Aspects you can imprint onto Rare or Legendary items at the Occultist. They unlock after completing specific Dungeons located around Sanctuary or salvaging items with these powers. Check out our Map Tool to locate these Dungeons.

For leveling, there are a few powers that can significantly help us if we have the funds to imprint them. In addition, keep an eye out for powerful Unique items you may find for this or other builds.

Must-have Dungeon unlocks

1. Needleflare (Yshari Sanctum - Kehjistan)
2. Slaking (Maulwood - Fractured Peaks)

Nice-to-have Dungeon unlocks

1. Numbing Wrath (Heathen's Keep - Hawezar)
2. Death Wish (Penitent Cairns - Scosglen)
3. Bul-Kathos (Light's Refuge - Hawezar)

Great Uniques for this build

1. Razorplate
2. Rage of Harrogath
3. Gohr's Devastating Grips

Jackpot Drops

As you level up, you may get lucky and find some great random drops. Some of these can massively amplify your power and speed up the leveling by switching to another build. Keep in mind that there are many more Aspects and Uniques that can be useful to multiple builds; this just lists some of the most impactful ones. While we usually recommend starting with Endgame Builds at level 60, you often can make them work earlier with these drops:

Build-defining Combinations

1. Executioner's + Incendiary Fissures + Tec (enables the Endgame Earthquake Barbarian and Endgame Whirlwind Barbarian)
2. Moonrise + Adaptability + Shard of Verathiel (enables the Endgame Bash Barbarian)
3. Rage of Harrogath + Ring of the Ravenous (enables the Endgame Rend Barbarian)
4. The Third Blade (enables the Endgame Mighty Throw Barbarian)

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

• Moni + Tec - Potent mixture to add even more damage to our setup. Jump into the heat of the battle with Lunging Strike to spawn Earthquake.
• Cem + Lum - Using our Evade will generate Fury.

Alternative choices

As long as you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top Runes, you can also benefit from these options:

• Bac - Very strong replacement for Moni, but drops only on Torment difficulties.
• Cir - Great early choice to generate offering with Lunging Strike spam.
• Gar - Potent source of Critical Strike Chance.
• Wat - Spawns Decrepify to lower the damage dealt by enemies around you.

In Diablo 4, you can level by completing the Campaign, collecting Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers, completing Helltide activities, grinding Dungeons, clearing Strongholds, fighting in the Undercity of Kurast or interacting with the Seasonal Mechanics. While there are many ways to level up in Diablo 4, not all of them are equal.

Paragon & Glyphs

Use the slider to see 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.

Glyph Leveling Priorities

Coming Soon!

The Whirlwind Barbarian is a fun to play leveling build that scales very well into the lategame.

• Use newly added abilities to unleash your full potential!
• Focus on scaling generic damage modifiers instead of skill-specific effects to boost your damage.
• Crowd control enemies to stay safe and increase your output.
• Gather Fury per Second, Armor & Resistances on your armor pieces.
• Mount a steering wheel on your desk and mow through the hordes of enemies!

Written by Kondyss