Hello this is a build guide around a unique axe called the Minotaur

The main skill is Whirlwind

This guide is about enabling a unique item to be an actual build, its about fun and flavour, it is not about being competitive but it will be a capable character regardless of what other more powerful equipment

To get the maximum fpa (5) for Whirlwind while using a Glorious Axe we need 125ias, the equipment slots therefore make sense to enable this

Equipment:

Helmet: Giant Skull , this is the closest thing to looking like a Minotaur so obviously we use it (also 2x 15ias jewels to give 30ias) Alternative choice is any 2 or 3 socket barbarian helm, with best in slot being a Jewellers barb helm of choice suffix with + to specific barb skills

Body Armour: Black Hades with 3x 15ias jewels to give 45ias, you could use Treachery but the black style Shadow Plate and 1000+ extra defense is more in line with being a Minotaur and if you have extra adds on the 15ias jewels the Black Hades option becomes much better than Treachery. If you have a helm with 3 sox then you can use Black Hades eth or other socketed armour choices

Weapon: The Minotaur! ethereal upgraded + Zod , while the up to 200ed isnt exciting this axe does have other mods that are very useful with Whirlwind, the "slows target 50%" does work while Whirlwinding and the Crushing blow is also strong. Once upgraded this axe can do over 430 average damage making the 1 hit damage comparable to a 1 handed Grief

Boots: Gore Rider , Deadly , OW and Crushing to further enhance the Minotaur

Gloves: Crafted Blood gloves with 10 cb and 20ias

Belt: Nosferatus coil for the extra slows target 10% in line with what we are trying to do and also the essential 10ias

Amulet: Highlord for 20ias

Rings: 1x Raven Frost and 1x Dual Leech ring

Total IAS: 125
Total Crushing Blow: 65
Total Slows Target: 60%

Inventory charms are 15@res grandcharms until your resists are ok, any remaining space will need to be exclusively attack rating , even with no resistances on gear you will be able to get max res with 5-6 grandcharms, any space for other grand charms should be either Masteries or Combat Skills Grandcharms as they both give a % boost to attack rating and damage

I dont consider the Mercenary any part of the enabling of a build but some ideas for a Mercenary for this build the Holy Freeze Act 2 Merc would make enemies incredibly slow in combination with The Minotaurs slows target, this is fun :-)


Stat Points:

Strength: enough to wear equipment including upgrades, meaning 230 for Black Hades, we get a nice amount of strength from the equipment

Dexterity: as this build will have a notable absence of attack rating we will need to invest some points into Dex until the Attack Rating is no longer a problem

Vitality: All spare points into this

Energy: 0


Skill Points:

20 to Whirlwind

variable amount to Berserk and its synergies

20 to Battle Orders

20 to Axe Mastery

variable amount to Shout

1 point into Battle Command and all prerequisites

Alternatively you can put less points into Berserk to enable Find Potion and Find Item, Berserk can work off 1 point, we use Berserk because its quicker to kill phys immunes with it rather than use Bonebreak

a suitable option that includes find item would be something like this:

20 WW 20 Find Potion 10 Find Item (enough to get to about 70% chance) 20 Axe Mastery 20 Battle Orders 10 Berserk, this would be 112 points

It would be a fun build to lvl up to 99 and then use for duelling as a gatekeeper for lower level characters to test their strength against

But mostly it is a build that enables The Minotaur axe and will very capably clear Hell difficulty and most content

You will also look really kool, the graphic of The Minotaur axe especially ethereal puts a lot of other weapons to shame :-)

This post was edited by me4444 on Feb 7 2026 10:18am

The only thing I dislike is the stupid "max out find potion" part vs Find item... is the fact that you don't use Find potion for potions, you use Find Item... so why not add to Find item first because you RELY 100% of this every time.

Honestly... if you had to play Solo from level 1 plus, are you going to use Find Potion and max it out from level 1 to level 70+... NO YOU WOULDN'T, oh don't bother talking about Respec... what the fudge, you are building a character from the END PRODUCT and not the foundation.

You can not play the game from the start without a good foundation, and these builds are... END GAME builds with lack of substance.

Find Potion is a synergy to Find Item, you get 1% extra chance for Find Item per point into Find Potion

Hard points into Find Item itself tail off quickly and you soon get less % increase than the 1% per level from the synergy

20 into find potion + 10 into find item gives way more than 20 into find item and 10 into find potion

The find item thing is also a sidequest for a build I only included it because its obviously popular, chill your ocd and use of caps pls and dont start off by saying "The only thing I dislike is" and then go on to list more things you dislike it makes you sound less credible ok

Have you ever contributed anything which is base on facts? You should stop posting comments in these sections. You are incorrect on such a vast amount of d2 relaxed topics

Oh... Find Item:



If you noticed, there isn't a 48% chance when diminishing returns happen, also, 1 base point to find item = 13% Chance to find item, not 1% using Find potion synergy, you would need 13 hard points to Find Potion vs 1 point Find Item for 13% chance.

Are you both fools or what? Stat to Find item first is better starting out in your climb, encouraging you to find more items at lower levels while leveling up... DOH... you got the Homer Simpson vibe now to my post? No, is that because you are talking END game and not climbing game.

Get a clue.

EDIT: rephrase... 1 point Find Item = 13%, 2nd point = 19%, vs 1 point Find item + 6 points Find Potion to = 19% ... Hmm

Slvl 16 is the optimum base points for Find Item = 49%, this is where you pump synergy, you already have 1 base point to find potion, so this means it if 50% already, so another 19 = 69% ... You want 70% ... then slvl 18 = 70%

Hi: 2 user(s) are reading this topic: izParagonzi, SinsOfTheSun

This post was edited by izParagonzi on Feb 7 2026 09:20am

So when you get to level 75 (pointless talking about this build before level 73 as the centerpiece of the build The Minotaur Glorious Axe requires level 73 ) you will already have +3 from torch +1 from anni +1 from highlord maybe +3 from a jewellers barb helm instead of giant skull? (will update with this option)

You will have between 5 and 8 to your base amount from items, this means the optimum amount of points to get to the sweet spot of 69% as you already called optimum level 16 would be between 8 and 11 points investment and my guide already suggested 10 points....

The last part of your comment agrees with 20 points into find potion too