Whirlwind Barbarian Endgame Build Guide for Diablo 4 (Season 5)

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. Thanks to the updates to some aspects in Patch 1.4.0, 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.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

Great Damage For AoE and Helltides
Great Mobility
Good Defensive Layers
Huge screen sized whirlwinds through tempering

Weaknesses

Fury management
Cooldown management
Low single target damage

To see how this build compares to the other builds on our site, you can check out our build tier lists.

Build Requirements

Optional Uniques

Required Aspects (Non-codex)

Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

Follow the points allocated in the image above for the complete 58 point build. The additional 10 skill points are completed using the Renown system.

Arsenal System and Weapon Selection

For the Whirlwind build, we will be focused on using the expertise of Two-Handed Axe for the bonus damage against Vulnerable Damage.

We will want to assign our Whirlwind skill to use our Two-Handed Slashing Weapon, and we want to be wielding a Polearm in that slot to benefit from its buffed weapon expertise as well as provide synergy with one of our paragon glyphs, the Executioner Glyph.

Paragon Board

We recommend using the following Legendary nodes and Rare Glyphs to truly take this build into the endgame. Note that each Rare Glyph’s information and radius listed below is for the Level 21 version.

Starting Board

Warbringer

Rotate three times before attaching.

Carnage

Rotate twice before attaching.

Blood Rage

We attach this board to the North of the Carnage Board. Do not rotate this board when attaching it.

Decimator

We attach this board to the East of the Blood Rage Board. Do not rotate this board when attaching it.

Bone Breaker

We attach this board to the south of the Decimator. Rotate this board twice before attaching it.

Flawless Technique

We attach this board to the East of the Bone Breaker Board and rotate it once before attaching it.

To view the Paragon Boards in their entirety CLICK HERE.

Gear, Gems, Elixirs, and Stats

Loot Reborn brought us an incredible shift in how gear and itemization are done. It is major and will affect the game beyond Season 4’s confines. For further details, make sure to read our Tempering and Masterworking section below.

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 with Patch 1.4.0 all Legendary powers can be added into your Codex once you salvage or extract the item. You can still find some aspects through dungeons as you could in previous seasons but now you have the option to upgrade these affixes if you find a higher roll of that affix. Let us go over what aspects you will need.

Gear Slot	Gems	Aspect / Unique	Aspect / Unique Power
Helm	Royal Ruby	Tuskhelm of Joritz the Mighty	– When you gain Berserking while already Berserk, you have a [40-60%] chance to become more enraged granting x15% increased damage, 2 Fury Per Second, and 10% Cooldown Reduction
Chest	Royal Ruby	Rage of Harrogath	– Lucky Hit: Inflicting Bleeding on an enemy has up to a [20-40%] chance to reduce the Cooldowns of your Skills by 1 second
Gloves	N/A	Aspect of Anger Management	– While above [40-55] Fury, you are Berserk, but you lose 4 Fury per second.
Pants	Royal Ruby	Aspect of the Iron Warrior	– Iron Skin grants Unstoppable and [25-35%] Damage Reduction
Boots	N/A	Ghostwalker Aspect	– While Unstoppable and for 4 seconds after, you gain [10-25%] increased Movement Speed and can move freely through enemies
Amulets	Royal Diamond	Conceited Aspect	– Deal [15-25%] increased damage while you have a Barrier active
Ring 1	Royal Diamond	Bold Chieftain’s Aspect	– Whenever you cast a Shout Skill, its Cooldown is reduced by [1.0-2.0] seconds per nearby enemy, up to a maximum of 6 seconds
Ring 2	Royal Diamond	Starlight Aspect	– Gain [25-40] of your Primary Resource for every 20% of life that you heal
Bludgeoning Weapon	Royal Emerald	Dust Devil’s Aspect	– Whirlwind leaves behind Dust Devils that deal [X] damage to enemies in their path
Slashing Weapon	Royal Emerald	Devilish Aspect	– After generating 100 Fury, your next direct damage creates 3 Dust Devils that deal [X] damage to enemies in their path
Dual-Wield Weapon 1	Royal Emerald	Aspect of Fierce Winds	– Your Shout Skills create 3 Dust Devils that deal [X] damage to enemies along their path. Your Dust Devils are [5-20%] bigger and deal 1% increased damage for each 1% their size is increased
Dual-Wield Weapon 2	Royal Emerald	Aspect of Elements	– Gain + [20-30%] increased damage to a set of damage types for 7 seconds. This effect alternates between 2 sets: Fire, Lightning, and Physical. Cold, Poison, and Shadow.

Gems

Listed below are the best gems to socket into gear for each slot type.

For your jewelry, it may be necessary to change the Royal Diamond for another gem of a specific type such as Royal Sapphire to ensure all of your resistances are capped at 70%

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 when you reach Level 20, 30, 45, 60, 70, 80, and 90, to upgrade your potion. The extra healing is essential to survival.

Gear, Stats, Tempering, and Masterworking

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. To masterwork, you will need rare materials that only drop from The Pit. Be sure to check our Tempering guide, our Masterworking guide, as well as our guide about The Pit for more details about these topics.

Slot	Gear Affixes	Tempering Affixes
Helm	1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Maximum Resource 3. Needed Resistance	1. Challenging Shout Cooldown Reduction Barbarian Strategy 2. Crowd Control Duration Natural Schemes
Chest	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Needed Resistance	1. Iron Skin Cooldown Reduction Barbarian Strategy 2. Crowd Control Duration Natural Schemes
Gloves	1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Strength 3. Lucky Hit: Chance to make Enemies Vulnerable for 2 Seconds	1. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse 2. Crowd Control Duration Natural Schemes
Pants	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Needed Resistance	1. Iron Skin Cooldown Reduction Barbarian Strategy 2. Crowd Control Duration Natural Schemes
Boots	1. Strength 2. Fury Per Second 3. Movement Speed	1. Movement Speed Natural Motion 2. Crowd Control Duration Natural Schemes
Amulet	1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Critical Strike Chance 3. Movement Speed	1. War Cry Cooldown Reduction Brawling Efficiency 2. Critical Strike Damage – Worldly Finesse
Rings	1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Fury on Kill 3. Critical Strike Damage	1. Damage While Berserking Berserking Finesse 2. War Cry Cooldown Reduction Brawling Efficiency
Two-Handed Bludgeoning Weapon	1. Strength 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Fury on Kill	1. Chance for Dust Devils to Cast Twice Sandstorm Augments 2. Critical Strike Damage – Worldly Finesse
Two-Handed Slashing Weapon	1. Strength 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Maximum Life	1. Dust Devil Size Sandstorm Augments 2. Critical Strike Damage – Worldly Finesse
Dual-Wield Weapon 1	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Critical Strike Damage	1. Chance for Dust Devils to Cast Twice Sandstorm Augments 2. Critical Strike Damage – Worldly Finesse
Dual-Wield Weapon 2	1. Strength 2. Maximum Life 3. Vulnerable Damage	1. Dust Devil Damage Sandstorm Augments 2. Critical Strike Damage Berserking Finesse

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.

Use War Cry and Rallying Cry to generate resources and for their buffs
Hold down Whirlwind and carve through enemies in your way. If possible, never let go of this skill while fighting.
Cast Iron Skin and Challenging Shout for defense whenever you’re in a tough spot
Use Call of the Ancients whenever you run into elites and bosses to call the squad for big damage and resource generation to help your single target sustain.

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.

Rage of Harrogath – With its update in Patch 1.4.0 this will help us provide a substantial amount of cooldown resets for our shouts and defensive options as well as our ultimate Call of the Ancients We will be inflicting Bleed through various methods near constantly to get the most out of it.
Tuskhelm of Joritz the Mighty – A powerful helm that can rival the infamous “shako” helm in terms of usefulness to certain Barbarian builds. This happens to be one of those builds. Thanks to the new Aspect of Anger Management we’ll be Berserking constantly and this helm fits right in with that setup giving us damage, resource, and cooldown reduction.

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 Aspect of Inner Calm with it
Harlequin Crest – The most powerful helm and most coveted item in Diablo 4. It provides us with substantial damage reduction and cooldown reduction as well as plenty of ranks to our skills. If you’re lucky enough to acquire one it’s definitely worth the equip
The Grandfather – An infamous two-handed sword that provides a massive critical strike damage multiplier sending your damage into the stratosphere. The rework in Season 5 also adds a flat 300% increased damage which makes it even more massive. If you get one, replace your Slashing Weapon with it, and move the Devilish Aspect to one of your Dual-Wield Weapons and drop Aspect of Elements entirely.
Tyrael’s Might – A new Mythic Unique introduced in Season 4, it was buffed midway through that season and proved to be quite strong. The Season 5 rework makes it just as powerful as it was before with movement speed, maximum max resistances, an incredible amount of all resistances and an innate damage reduction which stacks with Harlequin Crest‘s damage reduction if you have both.

Season 5: Season of the Infernal Hordes

The biggest new activity in Season 5 is, of course, the titular Infernal Hordes. A new endgame activity where you can earn powerful rewards for surviving waves of enemies and defeating a new boss, The Fell Council, at the end of these waves. There will also be a reputation to be gained with the season which provides numerous rewards and even a Resplendent Spark at maximum reputation! Below, you will find the changes in Patch 1.5.0 that affect this build.

Enhanced Iron Skin ‘s barrier amount increased from 20% to 25% of maximum life
Tactical Challenging Shout ‘s fury gain when taking damage increased from 3 to 6
Imposing Presence ‘s bonus to maximum health reduced from 6/12/18 to 5/10/15%
Unconstrained ‘s damage bonus reduced from 100% to 35%
Aspect of Grasping Whirlwind pulls enemies three times as frequently
Gohr’s Devastating Grips ‘s explosion size is now affected by increases to Whirlwind size

Below, you will find every additional piece of information you need to know for a more in-depth look at this build.

Advanced Information

Build Mechanics

This is perhaps the most iconic playstyle for Barbarians. Get your shouts up, pop Call of the Ancients and hold down Whirlwind and spin2win. Be sure to hold Challenging Shout and Iron Skin for nasty elites and bosses to provide solid damage reduction so you can just keep spinning and chop them up into bits.

This build does struggle against some higher level single target bosses but should mop up any large groups with the greatest of ease. A truly old-fashioned and iconic playstyle from all the way back in Diablo 2 now here in Diablo 4 with whirlwinds the size of the screen!

Paragon

We recommend these Legendary Nodes and Rare Glyphs to truly take this build into the endgame and further into The Pit. Note that each Glyph listed below is a max Level 21 version.

Let’s break down each of these beneficial nodes and where our Paragon Points are positioned in each of the Paragon Boards we use. This part of the build is presented in order of importance. If you do not have enough Paragon Points for use in your Paragon Tree, just slowly work towards each step.

Important Notes

Make sure you select the correct Legendary Boards and rotate them into the correct orientation to match the images shown above.
Attach the boards in the order shown as bonus requirements of Rare Nodes increase with their placement order
Additional bonuses on Rare Glyphs may not be obtainable until they gain the increased radius at level 15.

Starting Board

We’ll start going left and picking up Tenacity and then head up.
We’ll unlock the Glyph slot and socket Exploit and fill in the dexterity nodes around it.
Finally, we’ll head up on the left side for Raw Power and then out to the Warbringer Board.

Warbringer

We’ll head to the glyph socket and unlock it and socket in Ire and fill in Strength nodes around it along with Conditioned.
We head up and to the left to pick up a smattering of Fury and Life nodes including Core Reserve and then finally out to the right towards the Carnage board.

Carnage

We’ll head straight forward the socket and slot in Might picking up as many Strength nodes as we can as well as Brash and Fierce for their effects and Strength bonuses.
We’ll head up towards Enraged and the Rare damage while Berserking nodes near it.
Lastly we head out and connect the Blood Rage board to the north gate.

Blood Rage

We will head north and unlock the glyph slot here and slot in Twister and pick up Strength nodes to activate its secondary effect including the Rare node Grit.
We head out to the left towards Revel and then take a turn north.
We will grab both Enraged and the board’s name sake Blood Rage.
Next we’ll take a small detour north and pick up Restorative and some life increasing magic nodes
Lastly we head out to the east of the board and connect the Decimator board to this gate.

Decimator

We begin by taking a small detour south and grabbing Brawn and some magic nodes.
Next we’ll head for the glyph socket and unlock it slotting in Executioner and grabbing both Demolish and Arrogance.
We make our way south and grab the namesake of the board, picking up Decimator
One final detour to the east to pick up Restorative and some magic nodes
Lastly we head out to the south and connect the Bone Breaker Board to the southern gate.

Bone Breaker

We begin by heading right for the socket and slotting in Wrath
We make sure to grab Vigor and the surrounding rare nodes before heading south
We detour to the west a bit and pick up Tenacity with some rare nodes nearby.
Finally we head east and connect the Flawless Technique Board to the eastern gate

Flawless Technique

We make a dash for the socket and slot in Marshal
We then grab the necessary Strength nodes around it to activate its secondary effects
Lastly we march south and grab Brash and some surrounding magic nodes and with that our paragon journey has come to an end!

Obol Gambling

A final point on acquiring gear in Season 4 and beyond 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 Patch 1.4.0 when a level 100 Character spends Obols, all gear from that vendor will be 925 item power, the highest in the game, allowing you to fill out gear with the affixes or Legendary Aspects you need.

Check out our Obol Gambling Tool HERE!

Changelog

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.

Weapon Gems	Armor Gems	Jewelry Gems
Royal Emerald for Critical Strike Damage	Royal Ruby for increased Maximum Life	Royal Diamond for all resistances

Rare Glyphs and Legendary Nodes	Effect
Exploit	– For every 5 Dexterity purchased within range, you deal + [8%] increased damage to Vulnerable targets. – Additional bonus when 25 Dexterity points are purchased within the Glyph’s radius: When an enemy is damaged by you, they become Vulnerable for 3 seconds. This cannot happen more than once every 20 seconds per enemy.
Might	– Grants + [125%] bonus to all Magic nodes within range. – Additional bonus when 40 Strength points are purchased within the Glyph’s radius: You deal x8% increased damage while wielding Two-Handed Weapons
Twister	– For every 5 Strength purchased within range, your Dust Devils deal + [39.6%] increased damage. – Additional bonus when 40 Strength points are purchased within the Glyph’s radius: You deal x13% increased damage for 4 seconds after creating a Dust Devil.
Marshal	– Grants + [125%] bonus to all Magic Nodes within range. – Additional bonus when 40 Strength points are purchased within the Glyph’s radius: After casting a Shout Skill the active Cooldown of every other Non-Shout Skill is reduced by 2 seconds.
Ire	– For every 5 Strength purchased within range, you deal + [5.3%] increased damage while Berserking – Additional bonus when 40 Strength points are purchased within the Glyph’s radius: While Berserking you take 10% reduced damage from Elites.
Executioner	– For every 5 Strength purchased within range, you deal + [5.3%] increased damage while wielding a Polearm. – Additional bonus when 40 Strength points are purchased within the Glyph’s radius: While wielding a Polearm, you deal x10% increased damage
Wrath	– For Every 5 Dexterity purchased within range, you deal + [15%] increased Critical Strike Damage
Blood Rage	– Killing a Bleeding enemy has a 10% chance to grant Berserking for 5 seconds. Your damage is increased by x25% of your Damage While Berserking bonus.
Decimator	– Each time you make an enemy Vulnerable, your damage is increased by 10% for 5 seconds. Overpowering a Vulnerable enemy grants an additional x10% bonus for 5 seconds.