Build Guide
This is the build I reached rank 1 US with. It's different in several ways from the most popular build that barbarians are running. Though the leaderboards are in constant flux, reaching rank 1 (and the third barbarian to clear a 50 this season) has shown that this is a viable setup, and frankly I think it's easier to make work than the physical setup. i.e. there are almost never deaths, it doesn't rely on healing, and the damage is extremely consistent. I thought it was worth posting an explanation of the build because no one else (like, literally no one else anywhere near the top of the leaderboard) is running it.
I use lightning instead of physical for a few reasons. With physical, you need to run CotA -- Ancient's Fury to sustain your damage. However, once you get to higher levels of grifts, it's very easy to die, especially in high-density situations. Because of that, I decided to run CotA -- Together as One. Unfortunately, that eliminated Ancient's Fury as an option for Fury generation, so I went Whirlwind -- Wind Shear, instead. Wind Shear allows you to generate Fury by hitting things, so it's fantastic for clearing trash and bosses with adds, and works well enough on pure single target bosses, in tandum with the Weapon Master passive (because the setup requires an IK Boulder Breaker) and Unforgiving. In addition to these decisions, I run Reaper's Wraps to make sure that I have as close to 100% DPS uptime on single target bosses as possible.
Together as One eliminated the need for the physical build's healing, so I was free to look at a Rend rune besides Blood Lust or Bloodbath. Lacerate (the lightning rune) seemed like a no-brainer, and some anecdotal testing revealed that it's "fine" because wearing lightning elemental damage gear buffs it significantly. However, I ultimately went with Mutilate (cold rune) because this build requires several minutes of uptime on the boss and multilate makes a huge difference on trash, so you get to the boss faster. It also helps on the boss, but lacerate might be better. More testing is needed. At any rate, Bloodbath/Blood Lust are just not necessary for this build to work.
The gear setup itself is pretty unremarkable and has become the de facto standard (for now). 6-piece Wrath of the Wastes, combined with 4-piece Immortal Kings (achieved with the IK belt and Boulder Breaker. Ring of Royal Grandeur is required, of course. One notable difference that I've already mentioned is that I'm running Reaper's Wraps with lightning damage. I run full strength gems because I have double Unity, but I cleared up to 47 with no Unity because I gemmed full diamonds. So make the choice best for your gear setup.
Legendary gems are Taeguk, Bane of the Trapped, and (somewhat controversially) Esoteric Alteration. Why Esoteric? With double Unity it's probably not necessary. Bane of the Powerful seems like it might be very useful for boss damage and faster clears. However, at least pre-Unity, it's quite useful.
The skill setup, some of which as already been covered, is also quite standard, with the exception of the runes I run. Together as One instead of Ancients Fury, Wind Shear instead of Blood Funnel, and Lacerate instead of a physical rune. I also run Battle Rage -- Swords to Ploughshares to keep globes spawning to keep ancients alive, as well as to supplement Fury for single target bosses. If you don't have Unity, you can substitute by using the Striding Giant Rune with Wrath of the Berserker, instead of Insanity, though you will be missing a considerable amount of damage.
Some of my passive skills are very different than what most people run. Ruthless is absolutely required. I also like the armor you get from the strength generated from Rampage, but Brawler is probably competitive for that passive slot, too. You'll notice I dropped Boon of Bul-Kathos. This is because I almost never die, so the default cooldown of the skill, in tandum with the 4-piece IK bonus, keeps both Wrath of the Berserker and Call of the Ancients up often enough. I run Unforgiving to help out for single target bosses, as well as Weapon Master because, again, on single target bosses, it helps with fury.
Basically, this is a very high AoE damage spec that's hard to kill, and if you have double Unity, it's frankly unkillable at 50 unless you get in nightmare kind of situation.
Where is your #1 ranking at?
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/rankings/season/3/rift-barbarian
I never die at 50. Also the leaderboard will continue to be in flux, as I already achknowledged in my post, every single day of the season. The point is, this is obviously viable and significantly different than the "mainstream" physical build, and is thus interesting.
Yeah, horrible build. Not effective at all. My bad.
i have been trying out this build (it wasn't too far off from what i was doing) and i really like it keep it up!
hes survivability is probably unity + Together as one.(as he states: double unity) aswell as esoteric gem. but wait you didnt read the guide did you, you just looked at the items and build and didnt understand anything.
He also states you can use striding giant rune of the Wrath of the berserker before you have unity. for extra defense.
Have you tested this yourself? Or can you give a link to a test that verifies this?
I really want to believe that this is true, but I would like confirmation, since this is the first I am hearing of this...
Thanks in advance
Every 50 % reduction (Ancients, Unityx2, Berserk with Striding Giant, 40 % from WW Set), effectively doubles your Thoughness by making you take only 50 % of the damage. AFAIK there is no diminishing return.
So if you have a good 20 million sheet thougness, you will have like 224 million effective Thougness after all buffs. And this is so powerful because it also doubles the effectiveness of your Healing.
I wanna try this but i play HC wich passive can i change ? Maybe unforgiving or weapon master ?
always empty fury on rb
Good Build wondering if some of the passives are changable for more dps tho. seems to be alot of fury generetion everywhere and lack of dmg passives
Yeah, that's the biggest weakness of the build, in my opinion. You can get away with dropping one of those Fury generation sources, but only if you're comfortable with betting that you'll get an AoE boss. Single target, they're all required to keep ~100% uptime on the boss. So the build is stretched really thin, balancing between mitigation, Fury gen, and straight-up damage. A Hellfire Amulet can go a long way toward addressing this.
If you're "empty" on Fury, you're either not running all of the generators I've listed in this build, or you're using Rend too often, and you're on a single target boss.
You could drop either, but if you do, you'll need to get lucky and get an AoE boss instead of single target. Every one of those sources of Fury generation are required for single target. A Hellfire Amulet will let you take almost everything you'd ever want.
that is not true and i have tested it out with the conventional elemental ring, the dust devil damage stays as physical regardless of what rune you have. When it rolls to physically my dust devil deals about 200m vs 70-80m when it isn't on physical i have a 200% 50%cd and 6%cc
Hey man which ammy should i use for this build? http://i.imgur.com/Px3anLP.jpg
edit: Btw this is a good build. I cleared a 48 which is the highest ive done so far..
Convention of Elements is bugged. It's quite easy to test the build without Convention and see that DD takes whatever element your WW is.
Tested and % lighting damage is indeed what works. Odd side note tho: the convention of the elements multiplies it when it's on physical damage, not lighting. This may be unintended.
I've always liked lightning based WW builds. I ran one with the old IK set before WotW was implemented and I would never die. It was awesome. I feel like this is the safer build to go despite the advantages of the physical build.
For a third gem, if you do not want Estoeric, would the Pain Enhancer still be worth the slot? Or any of those other elemental damage gems like Wreath of Lightning/Miranie/Effacious Toxin?
Great build 50 rift done on the first shot just took out unforgiven and put in brawler, single boss fury seemed fine with the extra globes.