List of popular Whirlwind builds and their estimated Single Target Damage output (Huge shoutout to Shadow from the bnet forums):

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/17084928946

Orotz is projected to be the base of any winning build era 3. I have seen the potential and know it is true, it just requires VERY specific gear rolls to be very good (Mainly need 2 amazing ancient BK swords + Lacunis)



Legend:

IAS = attack speed %
WOTB = Wrath of the Berserker
Orotz = Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac
BK = Bul-Kathos Oath Set
WW = Wrath of the Wastes
CDR = Cool down reduction
CoTA TaO = Call of the Ancients with Together as One rune
IP = Ignore Pain
TS = Threatening Shout
OPKS/OPCA = Over Power - Killing Spree, Crushing Advance
CoE = Convention of Elements
EDPS = Effective damage per second
StP = Swords to Ploughshares rune for Battle Rage
APS = Attacks per second
Rorg = Ring of Royal Grandeur


This guide will cover everything I have found out testing the WW6/BK2/Orotz build.

This is the most gear roll intensive build, but with the right gear it is the best by far.

Variations of the build I believe are best for ANYTHING in the game, including bounties/t6 rifts/speed grifts/high solo grifts.

The Orotz allows permanent uptime on any cooldown skills you use, requiring increasing amounts of CDR the more cooldown skills you are using.

The Orotz build does not rely on Unity for toughness so it is amazing for group play (You can even use Warcry/TS+WOTB Striding Giant+COTA TaO+IP+OPCA? for INSANE toughness).

You don't need to use Ring of Royal Grandeur, instead you can use a full DPS ring, and there are none better than Convention of Elements.



Pros:

-Highest single target damage of any WW build
-Highest mitigation of any WW build
-100% uptime on any cooldown skill
-100% Crowd Control immunity

Cons:

-Low health pool without exceptionally good gear (Can get insta gibbed easy in higher rifts if Ignore Pain/COTA are down) [If you are low paragon/don't have good gear rolls I suggest Diamonds/Amethysts in Chest/Pants and even some paragon points into vitality to get yourself to a respectable 650-675k HP]
-Extremely gear intensive





A Greater Rift 54 clear in 10:36 (End was cutoff due to free version bandicam..)

My gear is still pretty mediocre and I'm still pretty low paragon so damage can be much higher (Was also using StP for Battle Rage).

Waiting for some upgrades to push higher probably..

Build is easily capable of 57+





Whirlwinds Mechanics:

I'll just go over the basics, if you want more detailed information a quick google search should get you what you need.

Damage for the Dust Devils will alternate between mainhand and offhand weapons, so if you have one high DPS sword and one low DPS, half the Dust Devils will be doing significantly less damage, so ideally you want both to be Ancient with high DPS.

Whirlwind% on gear affects the damage of the Dust Devils.

The Element type of the rune chosen for Whirlwind will change the damage of the Dust Devils to that Element. The Dust Devils will also be buffed by stacking that Element% on Amulet/Bracers/SOJ.

The number of Dust Devils spawned is based on attack speed, making the 30% IAS we get from Bul-Kathos set very valuable.

Attack speed has "breakpoints" meaning there will be "voids" where if you go slightly over a breakpoint it will have no effect on how many Dust Devils you are spawning or if you are just slightly under a breakpoint you will still be at the lower one meaning you have wasted IAS% somewhere.

Attack speed "snapshots" your current APS each time you start channeling Whirlwind, so if using Gogok you must re channel after getting 15 stacks, and after casting WOTB as well to ensure you are hitting at your breakpoint.

The only breakpoints we care about with WW6/BK2/Orotz are: 2.8572, 3.0001, and 3.3334 (I don't recommend trying for 3.3334, it requires IAS% rolls on both weapons, I highly recommend hitting 3.0001).

**It's important to know that the 30% IAS multiplier from Bul Kathos set does not show up anywhere in your character screen so you must know how much IAS% you will need from gear/paragon to hit the breakpoints**




Convention of Elements bug:

Currently (Possibly will be fixed in a future patch) the Dust Devils are only getting buffed by the Physical cycle of the ring (Regardless of what element you choose for Whirlwind).

But fear not! Element % from gear (Bracers/Amulet) will still affect the rune you have chosen for Whirlwind, so if you are using Wind Shear then stack Lightning%, if using Blood Funnel then stack Physical%.




Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac Mechanics:

Lots of testing has been done on it what we know so far:

The number of procs is based on your Whirlwind breakpoint.

Dust Devils don't proc it, you have to hit with Whirlwind.

Density only has some effect on how many procs you get, basically as long as you are hitting you will be getting the maximum number of procs that you can get.

So theoretically if you could hit a million monsters at once with WhirlWind you would get no more procs than hitting a single target (But if in a sparse rift you will get no procs while hitting nothing).

The ring allocates procs to skills that are on cooldown, the more skills that are on cooldown the less reduction each will get.

This means the more cooldown skills you have the more CDR you will need to keep them all at 100% uptime.

This also means for maximum optimization you only want to use skills as you need them so that the skill doesn't "eat up" (Taking away procs from CoTA and/or WOTB) unnecessary zodiac procs.

For example: Ignore Pain will only be "eating up" procs that could be going to CoTA/WOTB when it is on cooldown, so if the skill becomes available again but you still have the Ignore Pain buff up you want to wait until just before it runs out to re activate it (During the time when it is not on cooldown you will be getting more procs allocated to WOTB/COTA).




How much CDR?

**All CDR values listed are what would appear in your character screen, not how much you need from gear/paragon, and assuming 3.0001 breakpoint in WOTB**

If using Orotz its tough to say exactly how much you will need since because of the way that Orotz behaves, it will depend on the players ability to time the re application of skills and possibly their latency to the server, how many cooldowns they are using and what breakpoint they are hitting.

Using Ignore Pain + WOTB then around 44% CDR (Pre Gogok) with Orotz is enough to maintain 100% WOTB uptime (Changing Helm gem Diamond to Ruby for exp runs).

If using the 3 big cooldown build (IP+WOTB+COTA) then 57.76% CDR stacked (50.29% Pre Gogok) makes it pretty comfortable for me to keep all at 100% uptime (Requires 81.5% CDR from gear+paragon+Gogok, 20 from weapons+16 from rings+8 shoulder+12.5 helm gem+15 Gogok+10 Paragon) I suspect 54.10% CDR stacked (Dropping one 8% CDR roll) would be fine if you were able to time your cooldowns perfectly.

Also an option is dropping 10% cdr on one weapon for an 8% roll elsewhere once gear is optimized, to be able to have vitality+10% damage on one BK sword.



Hitting the IAS Breakpoints:

Since I know a lot of you out there can't math, i'll help you out!

The Bul-Kathos set bonus is actually multiplicative meaning you multiply your attack speed by 1.3 to get your final APS.

Since we are dual wielding we gain 15% attack speed.

When in WOTB we also gain another 25% IAS for a total of 40% IAS.

using Gogok gem we gain another 15% at max stacks for a total of 55% attack speed base.

To hit the 2.8572 breakpoint with 1.3 base weapons you will need (69.1% minus 55% base) so 14.1% IAS from gear/paragon when in WOTB.

To hit the 3.0001 breakpoint with 1.3 base weapons you will need (77.6% minus 55% base) so 22.6 % IAS from gear/paragon when in WOTB.

If you are using a weapon with IAS% rolled on it, it changes the base weapon speed that it is on. This changes the amount of IAS needed, you can find calculators for this or you can use my simple formula:

Breakpoint you want to hit divided by base weapon speed (Including BK bonus) = APS multiplier needed.

For example : 3.3334 (desired breakpoint) / [1.391*1.3]=1.8083 (BK sword with 7%ias multiplied by BK set bonus ) / = 1.844 (Means you need 84.4% ias to reach this breakpoint) and we already have 55% base from dual wield+WOTB+Gogok, so you would need 29.4% IAS from gear/paragon to hit the breakpoint.

*I do not recommend going IAS% on weapons, CDR/Damage %/Vitality are too important*




The Gear:

**Secondary rolls are very important and can be the difference between 2-3 GR levels, stacking physical resist rolls is important to survive the rifts you will be fishing for (High density melee mobs)**

Weapons:

- Bul-Kathos swords : CDR,Damage% and Vitality are priority rolls, its hard to get good ancient ones with the stats you need.. I recommend at least one vitality roll on gloves/weapon slot, at least one sword should be full damage (CDR+Damage %)



Helmets:

- Wrath of the Wastes Helm : Ideal rolls are Strength/Crit Chance/Whirlwind% (This affects Dust Devil damage)/Socket, If you feel you need more toughness (Low paragon, few ancient rolls) then you can drop cc/ww% for vitality

- Leorics Crown : Ideal rolls are Strength/Crit Chance/Whirlwind%/Socket (Can be used for speed bounties with a Diamond gem or for max EXP% stacking with a Ruby gem, requires dropping CoE for Rorg though)



Shoulders:

- Wrath of the Wastes Shoulders : Ideal rolls are Strength/Vitality or life%/All res/CDR



Chest:

-Wrath of the Wastes chest : Ideal rolls are Strength/Vitality/Reduce damage from Elites (If it has good secondary resist) else All res/3 socket



Amulets:

-Hellfire Amulet :Ideal rolls are Element%/Crit Chance/Crit Damage/Socket (The best possible DPS amulet for this build, with a good passive... Stoneboy?)

-Immunity Amulet : Ideal rolls are Element%/Crit Chance/Crit Damage/Socket (Poison Immune Amulet + Fishing Rifts for a poison Guardian can make some of the highest clears possible)

-Flavor of Time :Ideal rolls are Element%/Crit Chance/Crit Damage/Socket/CDR! (Quite an amazing amulet for this build, freeing up one CDR slot is huge)

-Other Amulet :Ideal rolls are Strength or Element%/Crit Chance/Crit Damage/Socket (Any old amulet with these rolls works just fine)



Gloves:

-Wrath of the Wastes Gloves : Ideal rolls are Strength/Attack Speed % or Vitality or CDR/Crit Chance/Crit Damage (If you dont have Lacunis you will likely need attackspeed roll here)



Belts:

-Chilaniks Chain : Ideal rolls are Strength/Vitality/Life % or All Resist/Life per fury spent (Used for speed runs, with Orotz this is up permanently)

-The Witching Hour : Ideal rolls are Strength/Vitality/Attack speed % / Crit Damage or All Resist (Can be used to reach a higher IAS breakpoint, not recommended though)

-Pride of Cassius : Ideal rolls are Strength/Vitality/Life %/All res (Permanent Ignore Pain using Orotz) *6 seconds is not needed but HIGHLY recommended*



Bracers:


-Steady Strikers : Ideal rolls are Strength/Crit Chance/Attack Speed %/Element % (Can be used for hitting the 3.0001/3.3334 Breakpoints, not really recommended since the loss of vitality hurts)

-Lacuni Prowlers : Ideal rolls are Strength/Vitality/Crit Chance/Attack Speed %/Element % (Best Bracers for this build, allows more DPS/Toughness elsewhere)

-Slave Bonds : Ideal rolls are Strength/Vitality/All resist/Crit Chance/Element % (Extra primary roll)

-Reapers Wraps : Ideal rolls are Strength/Vitality/Crit Chance/Element % (Can be used to generate extra fury, not needed ever in my opinion)

-Nemesis Bracers : Ideal rolls are Strength/Vitality/Crit Chance/Element % (More Elites = Faster clears! Not good to use in high greater rifts, very good for group play)

-Warzechian Armguards: Ideal rolls are Strength/Vitality/Crit Chance/Element % (Can be used for even more movespeed in speed runs, synergizes with Wreath of Lightning gem)



Rings:


-Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac : They always roll pretty much the same, roll off the reduce resource cost for a socket, at least 6% IAS will be required to hit the ideal breakpoint (Required)

-Ring of Royal Grandeur : Ideal rolls are Strength/Attack Speed %/Crit chance or Crit Damage or CDR/Socket (Used for full EXP stacking but lowering DPS, since it replaces CoE)

-Convention of Elements : Ideal rolls are Strength or Attack Speed % or Crit Damage/Crit Chance or CDR/Crit Damage or CDR/Socket, The absolute best roll would be CDR/CC/CHD/Socket (Best damage output ring when another ring slot is occupied)

-Stone of Jordan :Ideal rolls are Elite Damage/Physical Damage %/Socket/Strength or one of CC-IAS%-CHD-CDR (Arguably better for sustained damage in lower greater rifts compared to the 4 second burst of Elements Ring)


Boots:

-Wrath of the Wastes Boots : Ideal rolls are Strength/Vitality/All Resist/Whirlwind%



Pants:

-Wrath of the Wastes Pants : Ideal rolls are Strength/Vitality/All resist/2 Sockets




My Preferred Gear Set ups:

-T6 Speed Rifts/Speed lower Greater Rifts : Normal gear (CoE+Wastes Helm+Chilaniks) Sprint+Anything, I use OPKS

-Speed ~40-45 Greater Rifts : Up to you whether you go more EXP with leorics or DPS with CoE but use Chilaniks Chain, I use Ignore Pain Iron Hide but no COTA (You have low EHP with this build unles you have some really good gear, so IP is nice for nasty elites) and switch to a Physical build to use Blood Funnel for healing, usually use Nemesis Bracers for the group, and last skill can be OPKS or Sprint Forced March

-High Solo/Group Greater Rift Pushing : COTA TaO + IP Ignorance is Bliss + Warcry/TS Demoralize/OPKS or OPCA (I usually just use Warcry, I feel too squishy otherwise) *Shown in video*



Squeezing out the max potential of this build:

Lacunis. These can be the bane of your existance, I am easily over 80,000 shards spent and nothing even close to the roll I need.

If you manage to get a nice pair of Lacuni AND have the ideal rolled CoE (CDR,CC,CHD,socket) then it opens the door for you to gain a lot of damage/toughness.

You wont need IAS% rolled on your gloves so you can add either CDR or Vitality there, if you go CDR on gloves you could choose to drop CDR on a weapon for either 10% damage or Vitality, or you could drop CDR on shoulders for 15% life.

The best route for damage would be to roll vitality on gloves allowing you to have two full DPS swords (10% damage, 10% CDR) or just some extra HP.


Gearing/Speccing your follower:

There is a couple of nice items you can get to really deck out your follower.

Priority rolls are CDR and IAS% on follower gear.

They can only have 150% CHD its capped so get to that then stack crit chance and damage if you can.

You can go for Templar or Enchantress.

The Templar offers heals and 10% extra fury generation, can help to keep up fury for Berserker Rage.

The Enchantress offers great Crowd Control and some ranged damage reduction/armor even some extra IAS if you need it to hit a breakpoint.

I prefer the Enchantress since she provides excellent crowd control without stunning, and if you are fishing rift guardians who spawn adds then stunning them stops that sometimes lowering your EDPS.



-The Ess of Johan : Pulls enemies together!

-Bul-Kathos's Wedding Band Ring : Actually does decent damage even from your follower

-Eun-Jang-Do Dagger : Permenently freezes enemies 17-20% life (Damage must be rolled to lightning if using Wyrdward ring)

-Thunderfury : Next best weapon after Eun-Jang-Do for Templar

-The Sultan of the Blinding Sand : Great Crowd Control for the Enchantress

-Immunity Token : Required for followers, or they are always dead

-Wyrdward Ring : Stuns a decent amount with some IAS and lightning damage rolled on weapon

Oculus Ring : Two IAS rolls, use if you are fishing and dont want the stun from wyrdward



Legendary Gems:

-Bane of the Trapped : Top DPS gem

-Taeguk : Top overall gem for this build, your stacks should only fall off if you die. Huge damage+toughness boost

-Esoteric Alteration : Top defensive gem, mostly what will kill you is elemental damage

-Gogok of Swiftness : Required for the CDR and IAS%

-Wreath of Lightning : Used for speed runs where you dont feel you need Trapped / Taeguk

-Boon of the Hoarder : Used for speed runs where you dont feel you need Trapped / Taeguk



Skills:

The Core Skills:

-Whirlwind (Blood Funnel or Wind Shear runes): I only use Blood Funnel for my speed run build

-Battle Rage (Bloodshed or Swords to Ploughshares runes) : You are going to be Critting a lot, the damage from this gets pretty rediculous when there is a lot of stuff grouped up, Ploughshares can be used to extra healing for you and your CoTA

-Wrath of the Berserker (Insanity or Striding Giant runes) : Breaking Crowd Control and being immune to it while having a huge damage/survivability burst? Sign me up. 100% Uptime.


Swappable Skills:

-War Cry (Impunity or Charge! runes) : Good survivability boost, tops us up on fury, and procs Chilaniks Chain. Use Charge! rune for T6 runs or speed low Greater Rifts where you dont need the extra resists and want to be spamming sprint, it also lasts for 60 seconds so if used in a high CDR Orotz build it wont "eat up" zodiac procs for long

-Sprint (Marathon or Forced March runes) : Used for speed runs

-Overpower (Killing Spree or Crushing Advance runs) : Crit chance is so strong so Killing Spree is a great choice, OPCA can be used in place of War Cry in high grifts

-Ignore Pain (Iron Hide, Ignorance is Bliss, Bravado runes) : Bravado can be used for speed runs though I prefer Overpower, usually use Ignorance is Bliss for healing with Lightning spec, for Physical speed runs I use Iron Hide

-Threatening Shout (Demoralize rune) : Can be used in high greater rift for extra survivability and kiting monsters, I prefer War Cry

-Call of the Ancients (Together as One rune) : Used for extra toughness and single target damage



Passive Skills:

-Berserker Rage : Must have with this build, you should have full fury even on a single target (Except with speed build unless you use Reapers Wraps)

-Ruthless : I always use this, a must have in my opinion helps a lot on single target

-Weapons Master: If you dont use Wind Shear you need this for fury

-Rampage : Must have, so much damage in high density rifts and with rift guardians who spawn adds

-Boon of Bul-Kathos : 30 seconds off WOTB+COTA cooldown, must have

-Nerves of Steel : Cheat Death! Always good, use in hardcore ofcourse, for softcore its not needed

-Superstition : Solid Defensive Passive if you want to go defensive

-Tough as Nails : I prefer it over Superstition when going full defense

-Brawler : Solid DPS passive for fighting big groups, though does not help you vs. most Rift Guardians, would be a nice pickup if you have a nice Hellfire

will this build be good in patch 2.3?

obsidian ring + skull grasp OR obsidian + conveiton of elements?

This post was edited by FamilyGuyViewer on Jun 26 2015 04:54pm

gg guide

No pain enhancer as an option for gem?

I cant predict the future

and skull grasp sucks so unless they rework it..



This build needs the CDR from gogok, and PE requires holding snapshots and even more RNG to perform well

I wonder, why don't you take Skull Grasp into consideration? Does it work only for WW, not for Dust Devil?

Right, Skull Grasp only affects WW and not DD.

so the main dmaage is WW or DD?

DD.

I think the skull grasp ring is going to become a lot more useful and should eventually become the ring of choice for all whirlwind barbs. I'm actually testing it out now (rolled a 395 % whirlwind damage one that was ancient). And I finally found two ancient bul kathos swords that both do close to 3000 damage apiece, one has a flawless royal diamond (increase 20 % damage to elites) and the other has a flawless royal emerald (130 % critical hit damage). I used a Ramaladni's Gift on both.

I'm actually noticing that I'm killing a lot faster than I ever did with convention of elements.

I use the Ring of Royal Grandeur on my other ring slot. The few Obsidian rings I found weren't good enough to my liking. I breeze by elites with the set bonuses from Aughild helm + bracers, and blackthorne's amulet + belt (effective bonuses all across the board). I still have the full 6-piece set bonuses from the Wrath of the Wastes set using the five pieces (Armor, Shoulders, gloves, boots, pants).

I finally soloed a personal best, greater rift 48. I know it's not great or anything but for me it was.
My previous high was only 36. I upgraded to 51 but I'll try to take it down later. We'll see. I think I can do it.


Why not take advantage of both? When you have so much damage against elites and so much reduction against elites, you just see things dying fast and I'll take the damage where I can get it. People complain about the skull grasp ring not working with dust devils but who cares if it's beefing up your whirlwind already. Against elites I find it more effective. In crowd control, regular monsters, the dust devils do help me most certainly.

Only going by my eye test, I did a few tweaks and found things more useful to better suit my playing style. Rather than relying on the gossip of others. See for yourself which helps you more. If you only go by what others say then you'd never use certain items, which could help make you really good if you roll a good ancient version.

Your best is all you can do. You are not trying to be somebody elses best. The experiences and progression is why I enjoy Diablo III. I think the main reason why people feel too bored with D3 is that they always try to rush things and don't actually appreciate the little things, and how long it actually takes, to become good. Playing the way I do is more rewarding. Some days I can only play for 25 to 30 minutes and I still feel like I progressed even if it's ever so slightly.

This post was edited by Madmartigan on Jul 19 2015 06:26am