Updated for Season 8
Strengths and Weaknesses
- Great Damage For AoE and Helltides
- Great Mobility
- Good Defensive Layers
- Huge screen sized whirlwinds through tempering
- Fury management
- Cooldown management
- Low single target damage
Build Introduction
Welcome to the build guide for one of the most iconic Barbarian builds across multiple Diablo titles, the Whirlwind Barbarian! Beloved by many, this simple playstyle will have you moving with ease through hordes of demons across the open world and nightmare dungeons, slicing through anything in your way as you become an unstoppable hurricane of steel. We will also be spawning some mighty tornadoes to help us mow down demons even faster. If you like simple but fun playstyles and tons of screen-clearing potential, this may be the build for you.
Build Requirements






Quick Navigation
Want to skip ahead? Use the table below to jump to the sections you are looking for.
Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points
Follow the points allocated in the image above for the complete 71 point build. The additional 12 skill points are completed using the Renown system.
Barbarian Class Mechanic – The Arsenal System
The Barbarian can wield four weapons simultaneously as well as choose a weapon expertise to use as their Technique allowing them to gain that weapon’s bonus even if they’re wielding another weapon type. Finally, the Barbarian can assign its skills to use different weapon types shuffling between Two-Handed Bludgeoning Weapons, Two-Handed Slashing Weapons, and Dual-Wield Weapons.
For the Whirlwind build, we will be focused on using the expertise of Two-Handed Axe for bonus damage against Vulnerable Enemies as our Technique of choice.
We will want to assign our Whirlwind skill to use our highest DPS two-handed weapon. This will normally be our Two-Handed Bludgeoning weapon.
Gear, Stats, Gems, and Runes
The following sections will cover all systems that are critical if you want to improve the power of your character and move towards the highest difficulties in the endgame of Diablo 4.
Legendary Aspects
Below you will find all of the best-in-slot Aspects found on Legendary items that are important for this build. Remember that all Legendary powers can be added into your Codex of Power once you salvage or extract the item. You can still find some aspects through dungeons though they will always be at the minimum power level. To get the most out of this system, combine these Aspects with the right stats.
Gear Slot | Gems/Runes | Aspect / Unique | Aspect / Unique Power |
---|---|---|---|
Helm | ![]() | ![]() | – Explode when activating ![]() |
Chest | ![]() | ![]() | – ![]() |
Gloves | N/A | ![]() | – ![]() |
Pants | ![]() | ![]() | – You deal [10-20%] increased damage while Unstoppable and for 5 seconds after. When you become Unstoppable gain 50% of your Primary Resource. |
Boots | N/A | ![]() | – While Unstoppable and for 4 seconds after, you gain [10-30%] increased Movement Speed and are Unhindered |
Amulets | ![]() | ![]() | – ![]() |
Ring 1 | ![]() | ![]() | – Whenever you cast a Shout Skill, its active Cooldown is reduced by [10-30%] per nearby enemy, up to a maximum of 50% |
Ring 2 | ![]() | ![]() | – Gain [25-40] of your Primary Resource for every 20% of life that you heal |
Two-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon | ![]() ![]() OR ![]() | ![]() | – Each point of Fury you generate while at Maximum Fury grants your next Core Skill within 5 seconds x [1-3%] increased damage up to 15 times |
Two-Handed Slashing Weapon | ![]() ![]() OR ![]() | ![]() | – Critical Strikes with Core Skills increase your Attack Speed by +[10-30%] for 5 seconds |
Dual-Wield Weapon 1 | ![]() | ![]() | – Casting an Ultimate Skill increases your damage by [10-30%] for 8 seconds. Gain 2 additional Ultimate Skill Ranks |
Dual-Wield Weapon 2 | ![]() | ![]() | -Skills deal up to x[5-25%] increased damage based on your available Primary Resource when cast, receiving the maximum benefit while you are at full primary resource |
To see how this build compares to the others on our site, you can check out our Endgame Build Tier list.
Stat Priority and Tempering Affixes
Below are the affixes to prioritize on gear. Each line of affixes is listed in order of importance. Tempering Manuals and their recommended affixes are provided in the second column, and the bolded yellow affixes are the most important targets for Masterworking upgrades. Be sure to check our Tempering guide and Masterworking guides for more details about these topics.
Slot | Gear Affixes | Tempering Affixes |
---|---|---|
Helm | 1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Maximum Resource 3. Strength | 1. Whirlwind Size ![]() 2. Iron Skin Cooldown Reduction ![]() |
Chest | 1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Needed Resistance | 1. Whirlwind Size ![]() 2. Iron Skin Cooldown Reduction ![]() |
Gloves | 1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Strength 3. Attack Speed | 1. Damage While Berserking ![]() 2. Whirlwind Size ![]() |
Pants | 1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Needed Resistance | 1. Whirlwind Size ![]() 2. Iron Skin Cooldown Reduction ![]() |
Boots | 1. Strength 2. +Ranks to ![]() 3. Movement Speed | 1. Movement Speed ![]() 2. Whirlwind Size ![]() |
Amulet | 1. +Ranks to ![]() 2. + Ranks to ![]() 3. Strength% | 1. Damage While Berserking ![]() 2. Wrath of the Berserker Cooldown Reduction ![]() |
Rings | 1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Strength 3. Critical Strike Damage | 1. Damage While Berserking ![]() 2. Wrath of the Berserker Cooldown Reduction ![]() |
Two-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon | 1. Strength 2. Fury on Kill 3. Maximum Life | 1. Chance for ![]() ![]() 2. Damage While Berserking ![]() |
Two-Handed Slashing Weapon | 1. Strength 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Maximum Life | 1. Chance for ![]() ![]() 2. Damage While Berserking ![]() |
Dual-Wield Weapons | 1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Critical Strike Damage | 1. Chance for Dust Devils to Cast Twice ![]() 2. Damage While Berserking ![]() |
Uniques and Mythic Uniques
Below, you will find information on Uniques and Mythic Uniques that are useful for this build. Moreover, if you are interested in target farming Mythic Uniques, check out our How to Farm Mythic Uniques guide.
Uniques
Below, you will find the useful uniques for this build. Let’s dive in.
Ugly Bastard Helm – A new unique from the Vessel of Hatred launch, this helm went largely underrated in the previous season but has received a substantial boost to its power in Season 8 and fits nicely into our build, turning us into a burning whirlwind of destruction.
Gohr’s Devastating Grips – These gloves were once the apple of spin2win barbarian’s eye. But after receiving nerfs shortly before season 1, they fell out of favor. Season 8 brings back them into favor with a revamp and some substantial buffs to direct damage whirlwind. These allow us to deal huge fire explosions that get boosted by our helm based on our whirlwind’s damage which now scales with attack speed as well once again bringing these once sought after items into the game
Tibault’s Will – These pants help sustain our resources and provide us with a juicy chunk of damage while we’re unstoppable which should be nearly constantly thanks to
Enhanced Rallying Cry and
Wrath of the Berserker
Mythic Uniques
Ring of Starless Skies – This Mythic Unique ring provides an amazing source of damage and resource management and will skyrocket the build even further. If you are lucky enough to acquire one replace the ring with
Starlight Aspect with it.
Shroud of False Death – This extremely powerful chest makes a return giving us all the juice for this new direct whirlwind setup if you’re lucky enough to find one. It provides large damage bonuses and survivability bonuses
The Grandfather – An infamous two-handed sword that provides a massive critical strike damage multiplier sending your damage into the stratosphere. If we’re lucky enough to find one this season replace your
Accelerating Aspect with it ASAP as it will provide far more damage.
Gems and Runewords
Listed below are the best gems to socket into gear for each slot type.
Gems
Weapon Gems | Armor Gems | Jewelry Gems |
![]() | ![]() | ![]() |
For your jewelry, it may be necessary to change the Grand Diamond for another gem of a specific type such as
Grand Sapphire or
Grand Skull to ensure all of your resistances are capped at 70% and your Armor is at 1000.
Runes
Runewords return from Diablo 2 in Vessel of Hatred! You are limited to two Runewords across your gear and it requires two sockets in the same item. So this limits creating Runewords by combining two Runes to either Helm, Chest, Pants, or Two-Handed Weapons. We generally recommend them in both of your Two-Handed Weapons for Barbarian. Let’s jump in.
Runes | Rune Effects |
![]() | Gain 50 Offering: Travel 5 Meters |
![]() | Requires 100 Offering: Gain +1 rank to all skills for 10 seconds. |
![]() | Gain 25 Offering: Stores offering every 0.3 seconds. Cast a Non-Basic Skill to gain the stored offering |
![]() | Requires 25 Offering: Gain 2.5 Critical Strike Chance for 5 seconds, up to 25% |
Paragon Board
We recommend using the following Legendary nodes and Glyphs to truly take this build into the endgame. Note that each Glyph’s information and radius listed below is for the Level 100 version. Note that glyph’s reach their maximum radius and legendary bonuses at level 46. Let’s take a look!
Boss Powers (Season 8)
Season 8 brings a slew of powers to equip similar to Season 2’s Vampiric Powers. You can equip a total of 4 powers. A single main power that will trigger its primary effect when certain conditions are met and three modifier powers that modify the main power and other skills for even more power. For this build we recommend the following combination:
Main Power
- Wandering Death’s Chest Beam – This is active as long as we’re channeling
Whirlwind which we should be doing constantly, it also gives an extra 50% multiplier whenever enemies are struck by it and makes the rest of our kit extremely powerful.
Modifier Powers
- Sinerat’s Flames – Gives us some bonus elemental damage and since we’re converting our damage to fire via
Ugly Bastard Helm this is fantastic
- Harbinger of Hatred’s Volley – This give us another multiplier to vulnerable damage whenever we activate our main power which we should be doing near constantly
- Hatred’s Embarce’s Haste – Free bonus critical strike chance which we want as more crits means more
Gohr’s Devastating Grips procs
Mercenaries
We hire Raheir, the Shieldbearer:
- Core Skill:
Ground Slam
- Core Skill Passive:
Raheir’s Aegis
- Iconic Skill:
Bastion
- Iconic Skill Passive:
Inspiration
Our Reinforcement Mercenary will be Varyana, The Berserker Crone:
- Opportunity Skill:
War Cry
- Reinforcement Skill:
Bloodthirst
Build Mechanics
Rotation and Playstyle
The extremely popular Spin2Win playstyle remains intact in Diablo 4 for the Barbarian class. Let’s do a quick pass over our skills and how we use them in this straight forward but powerful build.
- Generate resources via
Rallying Cry and
War Cry as well as getting struck from
Tactical Challenging Shout
- Once near full resources take advantage of
Edgemaster’s Aspect and
Aspect of Limitless Rage and start spinning with
Whirlwind
- Use
Iron Skin on cooldown to trigger its heal and barrier which will grant resources through
Starlight Aspect
- Maintain
Wrath of the Berserker as often as possible for
Vehement Brawler’s Aspect
Runeword Synergy
Let’s take a moment to review our runes and how they interact with this build.
Bac grants us Offering for every 5 meters we move, which isn’t terribly far and as a Whirlwind Barb we should always be on the move looking for new monsters
Vex grants us extra skill ranks for
Whirlwind which will make it do even more damage leading to bigger and bigger explosions through
Gohr’s Devastating Grips
Igni builds up offering every 0.3 seconds, meaning every second it builds up 75 Offering for us whenever we use a Non-Basic Skill like our shouts.
Gar grants us a stacking crit buff up to 25% and since we’re spamming our shouts for resources these also trigger igni and keep our crit high. Higher crit means more frequent explosions through
Gohr’s Devastating Grips and generally higher damage
Which Elixir Should You Use?
Visit the Alchemist in any main town to craft helpful Elixirs that increase stats, and experience gain for 30 minutes. Make sure to forage plants and pick up the necessary crafting materials during your adventures; they randomly spawn around the world. Use an Elixir providing any Resistance you need most, or the new Elixir of Resource (Resource cost reduced by 10-20%). Maximum resource increased by 10-25) for more efficient spins!
Return to the Alchemist again every 5 to 10 levels to upgrade your potion. The extra healing is essential to survival.
Season 8 Updates
For a comprehensive look at what’s new in Season 8, please check out our Season Hub
Here is a quick list of the changes this season that are relevant to this build:
Whirlwind damage increased from 24% to 52%
Violent Whirlwind changed to now increase the damage of your next weapon mastery skill after holding whirlwind for 2 seconds
Gohr’s Devastating Grips reworked, now triggers an explosion every 3 seconds for [300-600%] of Whirlwind’s damage as Fire. Critical Strikes with Whirlwind reduce this time by 0.2 seconds down to a minimum of 1 second. Gohr’s damage now also scales with Whirlwind damage.
Whirlwind‘s damage now increases with attack speed
Wrath of the Berserker ‘s damage is now always 500% regardless of Skill Ranks
Aspect of Grasping Whirlwind Now pulls enemies to you every 6-3 seconds
Dust Devil’s Aspect Now also causes enemies hit to take 25%x damage from all other sources for 3 seconds
Obol Gambling
A final point on acquiring gear is using your Obols to target farm specific slots instead of randomly spending them on random drops. Similar to Kadala in Diablo 3, you can use Obol vendors in town to try and get what you’re missing. With the expansion when a level 60 Character spends Obols, all gear from that vendor will be 750 item power, the highest non-ancestral power allowing you to fill out gear with the affixes or Legendary Aspects you need while also having a small chance to grant Ancestral item power 800 gear.
Changelog
- April 25th 2025: Reformatted and updated for Season 8
- March 31st 2025: Skill tree recommendations updated
- February 6th 2025: Unique section and build mechanics updated
- January 19th 2025: Tooltips and Seasonal section updated for Season 7
- January 16th 2025: Updated for Season 7.
- November 27th 2024: Aspects and Mythic Unique section updated for mid-season patch.
- October 24th 2024: Paragon section updated for post-launch boards.
- October 3rd 2024: Guide updated for Season 6 and Vessel of Hatred.
- August 2nd 2024: Guide updated for Season 5 and Patch 1.5.0.
- June 13th 2024: Updated stat priority.
- May 4th 2024: Updated guide format and added Season 4 information.
- May 2nd 2024: Updated for Season 4 and Patch 1.4.0, ownership of page transferred, guide restructured.
- March 5th 2024: Updates for Patch 1.3.3.
- February 5th 2024: Marshal Glyph changed to Seething.
- January 30th 2024: Marshal Glyph changes.
- January 21st 2024: Season 3 speculative changes.
- October 23rd 2023: Build revamped for Season 2.
- October 13th 2023: Build Adjusted to prepare for Season 2 launch.
- September 6th, 2023: New format and updates.
- August 2nd, 2023: Patch 1.1.1 section added with build specific changes.
- July 20, 2023: Guide updated for Season 1.