Whirlwind Barbarian Build

Whirlwind Barbarian Build submitted by Kstreet.

I just wanted to share my experience for others who are in the same boat. I got a monk up and DH up to 60, and then got in a rut. I could only reliably farm Act 1 with the DH, and we all know about how much fun that is. Anyway, I decided, "OK. One more character, and if that's no fun, I'm putting it down."

The Barb has been a blast. Even before spinning to win Garen (pre nerf) style, he was fun. When he hit a demon, you felt it. I also enjoyed his skill set - which was much more get-in-your-face than the monk (mine was reduced to kiting by act 2 inferno). Once I found the spin-to-win build, it was incredibly fun.



I think I put ~5 million gold into the equip to make it happen. The key is getting 1500 LoH by hook or crook. I just got done blowing through act1 and act2 on my brand new lvl 60. When I hit act3? Not a brick wall!

The main thing is that it feels like how D2 played - hordes of monsters (and risk of dying), but being able to manage your skills to survive. Seeing yellow numbers flying everywhere, melting elites, and being able to just sprint/ww through trash mobs to get where you want to go is great fun.



General Tips:
  • Life on Hit! I see folks talking about how they are getting destroyed, and then mention "a few hundred" LoH. You are spamming "hits". WW, Sprint, and Overpower means that, in a big pack, it wouldn't surprise me if you're putting out hundreds of "hits". (Overpower's reflect damage counts as a hit - I like to pop it and move towards a poison pool to heal.)
  • I use a mighty weapon main hand. With weapon master (3 fury per hit), it helps reduce your dependence on criticals (as I have only ~20%).
  • The DPS on your off-hand doesn't matter, and the damage you do has nothing to do with your "details" stated damage. For starters, you never swing your off-hand. In addition, while I'm not sure about WW, sprint (your main ability) only pulls damage from you main hand (or so I read in the thread I linked to). I can confirm that I only have 10k dps on my details sheet, but I destroy act 2, and do just fine in act 3 (I've only done the first part, though).
  • For defense, you want enough to be able to take a few hits before dying (more the better of course). I know it sounds risky, but you are truly healing at an amazing rate. When you pop overpower (which should near constant if you get more crit than me) you are just about invincible anyway.