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Build Guide

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Build Introduction and Purpose
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Welcome to the 2.6.6 Season 18 guide for Raekor-HOTA.

This build guide explains in painstaking detail the Raekor-HOTA (R6 HOTA) build, the most powerful Barb build for solo play. It's also one of the more difficult to put together in terms of gear, and it requires a lot of skill developed through practice. This isn't the easiest Barb build, but it's certainly one of the most rewarding.

For more information on the Top 5 Solo Barb Builds, check out this thread: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/d3/topic/20752500376#post-1

I do not own this build. This build, like any build, belongs to the community and is the result of many fellow Barbs discussing, testing, and refining the build. This guide is created by Free as an English-language version of Lucioandido's original Portuguese-language guide. Some of the text was written by Free while some of it is a translation from Lucio's guide.

You can find the original from Lucioandido here: https://us.battle.net/forums/pt/d3/topic/20763616199

Here is a link to the Free build guide on the Diablo forums: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/d3/topic/20763976285

D3planner of push build with ideal rolls: https://www.d3planner.com/920025767

Read this guide carefully and thoroughly. Even minor deviations from the guide can result in a much weaker build.

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Terminology
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Before we begin, I'll cover some common abbreviations in case you're new. If you see terminology throughout the guide that you don't understand, please do a little research before you ask questions.

IB - Istvan's Paired Blades Swords Set
PoC - Pride of Cassius Belt
Perma-IP - Permanent (or nearly) uptime on Ignore Pain skill
CoE - Convention of Elements Ring
dibs - damage increase by skills
CHC - Critical Hit Chance
CHD - Critical Hit Damage
AD - Area Damage
OS - Open Socket

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Part 1: R6-HOTA: The Build
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R6-HOTA is very demanding in terms of gear and play style, and takes quite a lot of practice to master its very specific style of play.

The build uses the Legacy of Raekor and Istvan's Paired Blades sets along with supporting legendaries. If you lack the IB set or prefer to play it with two-handed weapons, you can also use The Furnace and Gavel of Judgment, though that will ultimately be slightly weaker.

General Requirements

To properly play this build, you must have the following items and stats:

• 50-54% CDR (combined total from gear, Paragon, and diamond in helm--see below for CDR calculator)
• 90%+ AD
• 20% Elemental damage on Amulet and bracer
• 600k-850k Life
• Complete Raekor set
• Complete IB set
• Complete Endless Walk set
• One Band of Might ring
• One CoE ring
• Bracers of the First Men
• Gavel of Judgment (Cubed)
• Aquila Cuirass (Cubed)
• Legendary Gems: Bane of Trapped, Bane of Stricken, Gogok of Swiftness or Esoteric Alteration (see below)

Skills

Here are the essential skills for the R6-HOTA:

Hammer of the Ancients (Smash): This is the build's main skill and damage dealer.

Furious Charge (Cold Rush): This is the build's source of mobility. We charge to gain stacks from the Raekor set. These stacks are what make HOTA so powerful. This skill also stacks Stricken on the RG and heals us with Life per Hit. We use the Cold Rush rune to squeeze out just a little more DPS on our Cold CoE cycle, then follow it up with big-time Fire damage. However, the rune used here is not a make or break decision.

Wrath of the Berserker (Insanity): As a separate damage multiplier, this skill is a major booster shot to the build's DPS. It also boosts your toughness (Dodge) and movement speed. You want this active when you unload on your Fire cycle, but you don't need it active while building Raekor stacks or moving around the map.

Battle Rage (Bloodshed): Bloodshed is a massive AOE damage boost. Since it does 20% of recent critical hit damage to nearby enemies every second, it scales nicely with attack speed, crit chance and crit damage, and density. You want to spam this skill, but only enough for a little healing via Life per Fury and to keep IB stacks up. Don't spam this skill non-stop as it may slow down the speed at which you acquire Raekor stacks. Don't spam this when you're unloading on your Fire cycle.

Ignore Pain (Ignorance is Bliss): This skill mitigates damage, provides CC immunity, and offers a massive amount of healing. It's vital to keep this skill up and running at all times (hence why we wear the PoC). If you're a little short on CDR or having trouble managing cooldowns, another option is to use Iron Hide for the extra uptime. This gives you more leeway, but you will lose a lot of healing which, depending on your gear and Paragon, you may need. Note that Resource Cost Reduction will negatively impact the healing from Ignorance is Bliss, so make sure you don't have any RCR in Paragon or on gear.

Threatening Shout (Demoralize): This skill helps group mobs and so you can deal damage with AD, Bloodshed, and HOTA. Even better, it also reduces incoming damage. Use this right before you unload with your Fire cycle.

Passive Skills

Passives are key to a winning build. Below I'll briefly detail the essential passives. I'll also include a small list of other desirable passives to get on a Hellfire Amulet.

Ruthless: Big DPS boost.

Berserker Rage: Big DPS boost vs single-target RGs.

Rampage: Large DPS boost when unloading on Fire cycle

After those three, you can choose your third and fourth passives according to your needs:

Boon of Bul-Kathos: Helps with Wrath cooldown--less important if you use Gogok.

Brawler: DPS boost still active when you dump Fury.

Bloodthirst or Nerves of Steel: If you don't have Life per Hit on gear, Bloodthirst might be essential.

Other Desirable Passives: Superstition, Tough as Nails, Relentless.

Gear

You'll need six pieces of the Raekor set, the IB set, and the various supporting legendaries listed above. Though ancient pieces are the goal, ideal rolls take precedence. Good secondary rolls are absolutely crucial for pushing top tiers.

Helm (Raekor)

Strength
CHC 6% or Vitality (see below)
HOTA dmg 15% (or Vitality)
OS (diamond)
Secondaries: Physical/Lightning resist
Augment: Strength

Shoulder (Raekor)

Strength
All Res
AD 20% or Vitality
CDR 8%
Secondaries: Pickup radius or Health Globe Bonus
Augment: Strength

Chest (Raekor)

Strength
Vitality
All Res or Life % or Reduced Elite Damage
OS (diamonds)
Secondaries: Reduced melee damage and reduced ranged damage
Augment: Strength

Glove (Raekor)

Strength (or AD 20%)
CDR 8%
CHC 10%
CHD 50%
Secondaries: Physical resist, Health Globe Bonus
Augment: Strength

Bracer (First Men)

20% Fire Damage
Strength or Life per Hit (see below)
Vitality or Life per Hit (see below)
CHC 6%
Secondaries: Physical/Lightning resist, Health Globe Bonus
Augment: Strength

Belt (Pride of Cassius)

Strength
Vitality
All Res
15% Life
+6 seconds to Ignore Pain
Secondaries: + Max Fury
Augment: Strength

Pants (Raekor)

Strength
Vitality
All Res
OS (diamonds)
Secondaries: Health Globe Bonus, or Life After Kill
Augment: Strength

Boots (Raekor)

Strength
Vitality
All Res
HOTA dmg 15%
Secondaries: Health Globe Bonus, or Life After Kill
Augment: Strength

Sword 1 (IB)

Strength or 10% dmg
10% CDR
Life per Hit or 24% AD (see below)
OS (Emerald)
Secondaries: Any
Augment: Strength

Sword 2 (IB)

Strength or 10% dmg
10% CDR
24% AD or Life per Hit (see below)
OS (Emerald)
Secondaries: Any
Augment: Strength

Ring 1 (Compass Rose)

CHC 6% or Strength (see below)
CHD 50%
CDR 8%
AD 20%
OS
Secondaries: Physical/Lightning resist, Health Globe Bonus, or Life After Kill
Augment: Strength

Ring 2 (CoE)

CHC 6% or Strength (see below)
CHD 50%
CDR 8%
OS
195%+ elemental damage bonus
Secondaries: Physical/Lightning resist, Health Globe Bonus, or Life After Kill
Augment: Strength

Ring 3 (Band of Might)

CHC 6% or Strength (see below)
CHD 50%
CDR 8%
OS
75%+ damage reduction
Secondaries: Physical/Lightning resist, Health Globe Bonus, or Life After Kill
Augment: Strength

Amulet (Traveller's Pledge)

20% Fire Damage (if you can't roll elemental damage here, Strength or Average Damage are also options)
CHC 10%
CHD 100%
OS
Secondaries: Physical/Lightning resist or Health Globe bonus
Augment: Strength

Legendary Gems

Bane of Trapped - Pure DPS
Bane of Stricken - Pure DPS on the RG
Gogok of Swiftness (high-Paragon, CDR and Dodge) or Esoteric Alteration (low Paragon, mitigation - see below)

Cube

Gavel of Judgment
Aquila Cuirass
CoE or Band of Might

If you don't have a good IB set or can't get the necessary rolls on your weapons, you can use Furnace and Gavel instead. Cube your worse weapon or the one with the lower legendary affix and try to get the following rolls on your weapon:

Furnace or Gavel

10% CDR
24% Area Damage
Max Life per Hit

The better option is, of course, to have a perfect Gavel for its + Max Fury secondary, but it’s hard to get a Gavel with a perfect legendary affix. The more likely route is to equip Furnace and Cube Gavel. This build variant deals more elite damage, but has several drawbacks. First, you lose two attack speed bonuses--one from dual-wielding, and one from the IB set. That means you'll attack slower, stack Stricken slower, and burn through fewer Raekor stacks per Fire Cycle. Against elites and RGs, the extra elite damage almost makes up for this, but you'll also miss out on the extra damage and Armor offered by the IB set. This means you'll be slightly more squishy. You'll also lose 1 CDR roll and 1 Area Damage roll, and this will affect you much more in the higher GR tiers.

I estimate a 2-5 tier gap between using this variant and the IB set, but the gap could be much larger. If you want the best possible results with this build, use the IB set.

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Part 2: How The Build Works
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R6-HOTA requires you to master the following play cycle:

1. Group density and elites.
2. Build Charge stacks and maximize Endless Walk damage bonus via wall-charging.
3. Unload in your Fire cycle and begin the process anew.

While doing this, you have to stay alive. That's it. Very simple on paper, but quite difficult to master. Learning the build often feels like learning to use your off-hand for very precise tasks. It takes some practice.

Here are some tips from a top worldwide player:

Well, one simple rule is do not wall charge while Ignore Pain is not active. During that time, charge at mobs and utilize EW's defensive buff. You can find this in my video. And when IP is active, spamming battle rage will help you to keep wall charging.

When you get a good map like festering woods or battlefield, and enough density, try to kill all elites regardless of its affixes. Generally, Juggernaut, Illusionist, and Wormhole elites are very annoying for this build.

If you use Eso, try to get more physical resistance and melee damage reduction on your secondary rolls. For example, my physical resistance is 17XX(others are 12XX) and I have 12% melee damage reduction. Maybe these are the main reasons I withstand incoming damage in GR 110+.

It's important to note that he has cleared GR 120 with less than 2k Paragon. He also pushed 110+ with less than 1k Paragon and no Augments. Not everyone can do that--he's incredibly skilled--but it goes to show you what this build is capable of when played properly. R6 HOTA is insanely powerful.

In addition, here are my own observations from learning and pushing 105+:

• AD makes a huge difference. Getting 80+ AD is essential.
• Don't fight every elite. If they run away or scatter, they're not worth it unless they're in some seriously thick density.
• Elites that are soft or rely on melee, on the other hand, can be fought regardless of density. If you see a lone pack of blues and can easily sucker them into some wall-charging, go for it. This is provided you can wipe them out in 2-3 Fire cycles, max, and that you're not behind on the timer. If you're behind, skip them.
• It's okay to stop and explode a juicy pack of trash even if there are no elites. Of course you should scout for elites, but if there are none nearby (or no good ones), feel free to spend a Fire cycle annihilating some density.
• It's also a good idea to skip bad maps and mob types. This build is fast and can skip whole floors without much trouble. If you have a terrible map that's mostly empty, skip it and see what's on the next floor. R6 HOTA is less fishy than other builds, but that doesn't mean you can waste time on empty floors with elites that like to run away.
• Conduits don't require as much scouting as other builds because you can spend a Fire cycle mid-Conduit to wreck an elite pack while the others take damage. If you have 1-2 packs and good density, pop that Conduit. Yes, it's better to get 3 packs and nuke the trash first, but if that scenario doesn't present itself, pop it and zap everything along your way.
• Channeling Pylons - free damage because Wrath and IP will be up 100% of the time. If you get one, scout for extra elites and density before you pop it. This makes wall-charging much, much safer.
• Speaking of wall-charging, don't be afraid to STOP wall-charging and get away when IP is down. Deaths in this build are really bad because they can wipe out tons of Charge stacks.

How The Build Deals Damage

R6-HOTA deals damage in several ways:

1. Hammer of the Ancients: Obvious, right? When your Fire cycle is up, HOTA does incredible damage. When you're not on your Fire cycle, you're just tickling mobs. This is definitely a nuke build. Your HOTA damage is directly buffed by the Endless Walk bonus and your CoE Fire cycle. Together, they give you a 4x damage multiplier during your Fire cycle. When you add that to Bracers of the First Men, Stricken stacks, the Gavel's multiplier, and Wrath's additional multiplier, it adds up to a truly incredible amount of damage.
2. Bloodshed: This skill adds up to a ton of extra damage. It's hard to quantify what this adds up to over the course of a rift because it depends, again, on density, but keep in mind that the power of Bloodshed directly corresponds to the number and strength of your crits in a given time frame. That means when you unload on your Fire cycle, Bloodshed is doing insane damage.
3. Area Damage: AD does significant damage. It also turns elites into damage batteries while they're alive. 80% is good, 90% is great, and 100%+ is optimal.

Notes On Gear

Here are a few important thoughts to keep in mind about your gear:

• Vitality: Generally speaking, you want between 600k-850k Life. This isn't a hard rule; many experienced players push with less. But if you're new to the build or still learning its nuances, you want a bigger Life pool. Don't be afraid to pump Paragon points into Vitality if necessary. There may also be times when you need to sacrifice a roll (such as All Resist on chest) for Life %.
• CHC and CHD: Your CHC and CHD should be roughly at a 1:10 ratio while all buffs are active, thus if your CHC is 50% while Wrath and Battle Rage are up, your CHD should be at 500%. See the FAQ for an excellent calculator to help determine how to achieve this ratio and when or where you should trade-off.
• CHC/CHD Trade-Off: If you have CHC on both rings, you can drop CHC from helm for Strength or Vitality. You may also have to sacrifice a roll of CHD for CDR depending on your gear.
• Healing and Life per Hit: Healing occurs in three ways in this build: spamming Battle Rage, Life per Fury, and Life per Hit. The first two are connected. If you have Life per Fury on gear and/or through IP, you'll heal by spamming Battle Rage (yes,that counts as Life per Fury) and using HOTA. When it comes to Life per Hit, you want Life per Hit on at least one piece of gear (two is optimal). Ideally, you'll get it on a sword in place of AD. Please note that you can only get Life per Hit to roll on a sword the sword has a native Strength roll. You can also get it on your bracer in place of Strength or Vitality. This is very important for healing. Life per Fury on belt isn't a bad idea because it will stack with IP's healing.
• Rolls on Belt: Your PoC must have 6 seconds. If it doesn't, you'll likely need to use Iron Hide on Ignore Pain, and that means you'll miss you out on a lot of healing when you start hammering. For a secondary on your PoC, you want + Max Fury. This boosts your DPS via synergy with HOTA's mechanics.
• CDR: This is arguably the most important stat in the build. You need enough cooldown to keep perma-IP and to greatly reduce Wrath's cooldown. How much CDR you have depends on whether or not you're using Gogok or Esoteric as your third gem. Regardless of gem choice, max CDR rolls are required on the following items: both shoulder, gloves, both swords, and one ring. You also need max CDR from Paragon and a diamond in your helm. This will be a base sheet CDR of 50.05%.
If you use Gogok, you can stick with the base requirement above. Gogok will add enough extra CDR to make your CDR concerns non-existent.

If you use Esoteric, you need max CDR on your second ring. This will bring your sheet CDR to 54.04%.

Remember: CDR is the most important stat in this build! Here's a great little calculator to help figure out how your CDR is going to add up (for helmet, always enter 12 for the diamond): http://rerollcalculator.com/CDR

• Keep UP IB Stacks: Another reason to keep spamming Battle Rage is that it builds IB stacks. Having these is a key to surviving and dealing damage.
• Rolling Swords: Here are your stat priorities:

1. CDR
2. AD
3. Life Per Hit
4. Strength

Here are the basic requirements for your weapons:

1. They must be Ancient--this is not negotiable. If it's early Season or you haven't found Ancient swords yet, work with what drops.
2. They must have max (or close) CDR.
3. One sword should have Life per Hit.
4. At least one sword should have Area Damage
5. It's likely that they'll both have Strength, but in certain cases (especially for high-Paragon players) you can roll off the Strength for more important stats.

If you have questions about how to roll your swords, ask in this thread. Don't ruin a weapon because you rolled it before checking here!

• Other Secondary Rolls: As mentioned before, Physical resist and reduced melee damage help you stay in the fight. If you find that you rarely die during a rift, but get one-shotted by the RG, it means you're missing these crucial secondary rolls (or don't have enough Life).

Gear Gems

Use rubies until incoming damage starts to become a serious problem. After that, switch to diamonds. If you have lots of high Augments on gear, you may even be able to stick with rubies until 100+.

Gogok vs Esoteric: If your Paragon is low, you may not be able to withstand incoming damage while building Endless Walk stacks. If that's the case, consider switching Gogok for Esoteric. This will give you much more elemental mitigation. You can also do the same with a DPS passive like Brawler and switch it to Superstition. Generally, I recommend you stick with Esoteric until 2500+ Paragon.

Paragon Distribution

Max it all except Resource Cost Reduction--RCR bites into the healing from IP. Don't have enough paragon? Drop and give me fifty.

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Part 3: How To Play The Build
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Okay, so, you have the gear, the skills, and the gems.

But Free, you ask, how do I Diablo?

1. Do the pre-rift check. Are you wearing the right gear? Do you have the right items active in the Cube? Are your legendary gems at least five to ten levels higher than the tier you're about to attempt? If yes to all of the above, go up to the rift pylon and caress it.
2. Enter a Greater Rift. Charge forward until you find some elites. Are they worth fighting? If so, Charge off to see if there's more nearby. Along the way, you want to collect trash and aggro them into following you. If your first floor is empty or the elites are awful, skip it and head to floor two. R6-HOTA is much more lenient than other Barb builds in that you don't have to get a GG floor one to keep playing the rift. You will want a Conduit somewhere along the way with which you need to kill at least three elite packs. If you can tank affixes, a five-elite Conduit is even better, but considering that you need to thin out trash before you pop the Conduit, this can be ultra dangerous.
3. Find a good spot and group your density with Threatening Shout. Now it's time to talk about wall-charging.
To push this build to its limits, you must master wall-charging. To properly wall-charge, you must find a piece of architecture in the map--often a wall of some sort, but other surfaces work. Move your mouse beyond the actual physical limit of the wall in a straight(ish) line and leave the cursor there. In other words, the mouse cursor should be more or less straight in front of your toon and outside the boundary of the wall into which you're charging, and it should not move. I repeat, once you've found the sweet spot, don't move your mouse cursor. Now, if you have mobs around you, enough to reset Charge's cooldown from the Raekor set bonus, and you've positioned yourself properly, you can endlessly charge at the wall without moving or sliding off to the side. This will build Raekor stacks but it won't count as actual movement. Two things will happen.

First, you'll lose Endless Walk's damage reduction.

Then you'll gain 100% increased damage from Endless Walk's stationary affix. This additional damage multiplier is the key the build. You want that 100% increased damage when you unload on your Fire cycle. If you don't have this bonus, you'll be doing significantly less damage. Remember, the Endless Walk damage bonus is like 2x Wrath of the Berserker! This is also healing you via Life per Hit, so wall-charge in density whenever possible.

It bears repeating: Wall-charging is an essential part of this build. If you don't master it, you will limit your potential.

One last note about wall-charging: Using Force Move still helps a little bit with stacking speed. If you're able to use Force Move while wall-charging, you may find that you acquire more Charge stacks in a shorter amount of time. Ping also effects your ability to stack, but that is largely out of your control.

Got your Endless Walk stacked up? Fire cycle ready to pop? Wrath off cooldown? Ready to deal damage?

Just as CoE is about to cycle off Cold, pop Threatening Shout, then pop Wrath. Then start hammering elites. If there's a nearby Oculus bubble, zoom over to it and start hammering--but only if this keeps you in range of an elite. Remember, you really, really need to hit elites with your hammer. You deal all your damage in 5 second windows. We call these Fire cycles. If you miss it or hit it late, wait, build more stacks, and catch the next one.

It's likely that most of the trash will die on your first Fire cycle, but as you go up in GR tiers, elites will take multiple Fire cycles to kill. An important skill to learn is estimating how many cycles it will take to kill an elite after the first. If you can kill the elite in one more, stay and finish the kill. But in most circumstances, you're better off hitting them with Demoralize and leading them to more density (and possible more elite packs!). Group them together, and hammer the ever loving shizzle out of them (when your Fire cycle is up). With luck, you'll have a few elite packs in the mix.

As a general rule of thumb, it's not worth it to stay in one place for more than three Fire cycles to kill elites. Even if it's a yellow, you're going to break even on the time invested versus the progress gained from purple orbs.

The type of mobs you engage will begin to determine your success almost as much as the map tile. For example, if you have lots of spiders, zombies, skeletons, Horrors, and Grotesques, you're in good shape. If you have summoners and Hellions, you're in great shape! If the rift is filled with Armaddons, Shamans, Succubi, and Morlus, quit and re-make. In other words, mobs that easily grouped and will follow you are good, and mobs that like to run away are bad. At 90+, mob types mean the difference between continuing in the rift and leaving to remake.

4. Rinse and repeat. Ideally, you don't want to stop and fight for anything less than 8-10% progression worth of density if there's no elite. And generally, you don't want to stop unless there's an elite pack or two you can nuke.
Something to bear in mind: Sometimes, you'll need to skip whole floors. Let's say you get a great floor 1 -- Festering Woods with fatties, skeletons, and a three-pack Conduit. Awesome! Then you hit floor 2 and it's an empty Westmarch with bad mobs. What do you do?

Skip it. Get to the exit as fast as you can. And pray for a good floor 3.

Sometimes, you'll get a great floor 1 only to have floors 2-7 ruin your push. It happens. A lot. R6-HOTA isn't as fishy as some other builds (Zodiac Whirlwind, for example), but fishing is still a required part of the game.

5. When the RG shows up, wall-charge and hammer to win. The best RGs to fight spawn additional monsters (referred to as adds). Trust me -- you want bosses that spawn adds, because adds proc Bloodshed and AD. Saxtris and Hamelin are the very best RGs to fight, but be very careful with the latter; Hammy's rat swarms can deal tons of damage, so killing him is about dodging the swarms and letting Stricken do the work. Stonesinger is great because you can easily lead him into a corner. Man Carver is a great RG; avoid his big-damage hammer strike and his charge. Other than that, there's not much he can do to kill you if you have 800k Life.
Voracity can kill a push attempt. At higher tiers, you may have a lot of trouble tanking his poison cloud. Deal some damage, then move away and force him to chase you. Bosses that don't spawn adds and like to run around such as Tethrys, Choker, and Agnibiddy-boody are not your friends. If you've got less than 2 minutes on your timer and no Power or Conduit pylon in sight, leave game and make a new rift. Speaking of Pylons, if possible, save a Power for the boss. Conduits should be used to clear elites from the rift, particularly in density. For more information on Pylons, see below.

Bosses that like to zoom around like Raziel, Ember, and Sand Shaper are nightmares to fight. Remember, you want RGs that let you wall-charge them.

Be careful with bosses who use hard-hitting Physical attacks. If you don't have lots of Physical resist stacked on gear, you may get one-shotted. When exactly this occurs depends on several factors including Paragon, main stat, and overall toughness. This is why pumping Paragon points into Vitality is a good idea, particularly if you're pushing the limits of what a given Paragon and main stat range can accomplish in terms of GR tiers.

For high-level gameplay that shows off wall-charging, RG fights, and proper grouping, check out these end-game clears:

Clear 1 (GR 124): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxi5XCR6A8E&feature=youtu.be

Video analysis located here: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/d3/topic/20763976285?page=17#post-334

Clear 2 (GR 123): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7iGnDhVro0&feature=youtu.be

Clear 3 (GR 122): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFOJry41khc&feature=youtu.be

Video analysis located here: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/d3/topic/20763976285?page=15#post-283

Clear 4 (GR 120): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXBgrib2i-4&t=449s

Clear 5 (GR 119 under 2k Paragon!): https://youtu.be/5pl8K5hDtpU

Clear 6 (GR 120 under 2k Paragon!): https://youtu.be/yv1J2SEgkuI

Lucio has cleared 125! No video, but clear screen here: https://imgur.com/a/wuH63IG

Pylons

Proper Pylon management is an essential part of pushing GRs. Below is S4's edited explanation of how Pylons spawn in GRs and what you can do to use them to your advantage. Credit and thanks to S4 for permission to include this info:

There is a whole science to how and where pylons spawn in a map.

1. Pylons are progression based with a chance for an early pylon right at the GR entrance with minimal progression.
2. In any given GR, you will not spawn all 5 possible pylons. No matter how carefully you play, 4 is all you will get, leaving an element of "randomness" ("Will I get the Shield or Power for RG?").
3. On average you can assume that you require 20% progression between pylon spawns. Each purple progress orb is worth 1%, so yellows will grant 4% while blues will grant 3%. This is in addition to the progress gained for killing trash. Note that progression granted by trash varies by mob type.
4. Progression needed is measured from the spawn time of your previous pylon, not from the time when you last used a pylon. This is why you can get a pylon immediately after a juicy Conduit.
5. The last possible opportunity to spawn a pylon is at 99% progression. Not 95%, not 92%, and not 90%. It's 99%. Of course, you can get one a little early if your previous pylon spawn was at 50-60%, but if you had 3 pylons already with 3rd at 70%, 4th spawns at 99%.
6. Pylons have fairly defined spawning points on each map so strategic play is required to best utilize them. At times, you may want to go to the next level of the GR to explore one tile (one area of the map floor) if you have a Conduit at the exit and you know you will get 3 yellows + some trash in order to prevent a new pylon from spawning at that next floor's entrance. You may also manipulate the odds in your favor by saving the Conduit and surrounding trash, going to the next floor and gaining your 99%, then returning to the previous floor with the Conduit and killing the trash to spawn the RG. This will leave the Conduit for the RG!
7. By default you can assume 20/40/60% GR progression as your pylon spawn points. If you get one at 80%, you will not get one at 99%. If you avoid the spawn locations of pylons around 80, you may get one further down the road, closer to the RG fight. It takes a bit of practice, but you can eyeball your progression, as well as recognize future progression based on elites and mob type in density.
8. The best way to learn all of the above is to grind GRs, particularly in groups with other knowledgeable players. This translates directly into the "skill" aspect of GR pushing.

The Hired Help

You can take either the Enchantress or the Templar. It's currently unclear which is better.

For both characters:

• Thunderfury
• Immortal Token
• 85% Occulus
• Wyrdward
• Any amulet aside from Dovu, Ess of Johan, or Overwhelming Desire. You don't want charms ruining your grouping.
• Stack Attack Speed and CDR on their gear

If you pick Enchantress, don't use any of her first two skills--both are detrimental to pushing. If you pick the Templar, make sure he has the healing ability and doesn't aggro mobs away from you.

Common Problems

Listed below are some common problems people have with the build. If you're experiencing one of these problems, read through the solution. If that fails to fix the problem, post with questions. Whenever possible, take screenshots and be as specific as possible.

• Dying During Rift

Cause: This is normally caused by trying to tank too much incoming damage or messing with too many nasty mob/elite types. Another cause is that you're not using Charge to its full capacity. You may have let IP drop. You're not spamming Battle Rage to heal. You may not have enough Life per Hit on gear.

Solution: You need to spend some time figuring out what's going to really hurt. Don't have a few Physical resist secondary rolls? Pain Mongers and Dark Berserkers might one-shot you. Use Charge to reposition when necessary. Yes, you need to wall-charge to build stacks and keep your Endless Walk bonus, but you can't deal any damage if you're dead. Don't stand in molten. Make sure you have diamonds in your armor pieces. Make sure you have 750-850k Life. Get Life per Hit on at least one piece of gear. Spam Battle Rage while you build Charge stacks! Also, never let IP drop!

• Dying Vs RG

Cause: See above.

Solution: Some RG's are a nightmare to fight. Voracity? You'll need to kite him away from his gas clouds or you're dead. Rime? Dont try to tank stacked ice circles. Hamelin? Don't let the rat swarms stack on you. Make sure you have 750-850k Life. See other solutions about healing above.

• Can't Keep Perma-IP

Cause: Not a big deal. Even with Gogok and max CDR rolls, you won't have 100% perma-IP.

Solution: Get more CDR (see the gearing guide above). If you have all the CDR you can get, remember to stop wall-charging while IP is down. Only wall-charge when IP is active or you know for certain it is safe.

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Part 4: Greater Rift Tiers, Paragon, and Augmentation
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At some point, you'll hit a wall and will fail to clear a particular Greater Rift tier over and over. Welcome to the Greater Rift Fishing game.

GR Fishing, also referred to as I Hate This Game, is inevitable. At some point, every build will encounter this painful part of the game. This is because of the infinitely scaling nature of Greater Rifts and the fact that the game hates you. To minimize frustrations, let's talk about how to prepare for success.

Paragon is one of the single-most important factors in successful Greater Rift clears. But remember that past 800 paragon, 1 Paragon point equals 5 points of Strength. This means that 300 Strength through Augmentation is equal to 60 paragon levels above Paragon 800. So, if you're Paragon 800 and you Augment all 13 pieces of gear with 300 Strength, you are, for all intents and purposes, paragon 1580. This is called Effective Paragon, a slightly wordy way of summing up the value of someone's main stat.

What does this mean?

In short, look at a player's Effective Paragon when trying to evaluate a clear. Yes, Paragon is important--it boosts your Life through Vitality, for example--but main stat contributes directly to damage and Armor. Assuming your gear is great and you have considerable skill with the build, here are some current conservative estimates:

GRs 70-100 - Paragon 300-1000 (no Augments)
GRs 100-105 - Effective Paragon 1001-1500
GRs 105-110 - Effective Paragon 1501-2000
GRs 115-120 - Effective Paragon 2001-3000
GRs 120-130+ - Effective Paragon 3001-4500+

No doubt you've heard about players beating GR 120 with less than 2k Paragon back in Season 15. It's true and I highlight the videos in this guide. But there are two things to keep in mind. First, those are exceptional players who fish a lot of keys and play a lot of Diablo. In short, they've put in a lot of time and practice. Second, their gems are very high (110-120+) and thus their effective Paragon is much, much higher than an un-Augmented Paragon 2k player.

If I were you, I would start Augmenting when your gear is pretty close to finely tuned--with any luck, about the time you're ready to push 90+. Before that, take the time and learn the build without Augments.

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Part 5: Step-by-Step Season Starter Guide
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If you're a Seasonal player and want to put this build together, use this step by step guide.

1. Get to Level 70. Do this as quickly as possible, preferably with groups who will carry you.
2. Get all 6 pieces of the Raekor set. They don't have to be pretty, but you need that 6-piece bonus.
3. Roll the set pieces as closely as you can to the parameters in Part 1: The Build. Get your gear as close as possible. You probably won't have a complete IB set so . . . .
4. Cube a Gavel ASAP. Then use either Furnace (for low GRs) or In-geom+Sankis (for speed-farming Neph Rifts). With this setup and 500 Paragon, you should be absolutely crushing T13 and GR 60-85. If you're squishy, use Trapped, Esoteric, and Boon+Gold Wrap. You probably won't have a complete Endless Walk set either so use what have (any Fire amulet + Avarice and SoJ works for speed-farming).
5. Farm an IB set. It might be easier to upgrade rares. While you're doing this, farm mats in Bounties and Neph Rifts. Farm an Endless Walk set--be prepared to upgrade LOTS of rares!
6. When you have a decent IB set, equip them, get a stack of 300-500 GR keys, and start speed-farming GRs (pick a tier you can clear 100% of the time in 3-5 min) to collect items, shards, and level gems for Augments.
7. Progress from there.

This build is incredibly powerful, so here are some things to keep in mind as you gear up in Season 17:

• CDR is greater than everything. It's the most important stat on your gear.
• CHC is the second most important stat (except on helmet).
• Don't be afraid to pump Paragon points into Vitality! This build feels squishy when you're learning the ropes and it has more than enough DPS to lose some Strength.
• Getting a good Endless Walk set is the hardest part in terms of gearing. Be prepared to spend some serious time on this. But hey, at least you don't need a Hellfire for this build.
• Try to farm in groups, preferably with people who won't slow you down. Remember, efficiency is key: you want to clear your Neph Rifts in 2-4 minutes (for keys and DBs only), 3-5 minutes for all legs, DBs, mats, and keys. When speed-farming, play the build as an elite hunter. Don't bother fighting packs of trash unless they're huge.
• What's the right difficulty? Easy. Can you one-shot elites in a Neph Rift? Maybe two-shots? That's the right difficulty.

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Part 6: Modifications for Speed Farming
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In addition to being a top-tier push build, R6-HOTA makes for one of the fastest, strongest T16 speed-farm builds in the game! Here's what you do:

• Swap the IB set for In-geom and Sankis (for the Fire damage)
• Swap CoE and Compass Rose for Focus and Restraint
• Swap Traveller's Pledge for any Fire/CHC/CHD amulet (Star is great here)
• Swap Stricken for Bane of Powerful
• In the Cube, use Band of Might (if you feel squishy) or Avarice (faster clears)
• Swap Berserker Rage for Boon of Bul-Kathos (make sure you still have lots of CDR stacked)

Then go elite hunting. Even without CoE, you should obliterate them in one or two hammers.

Some folk suggest using Envious Blade instead of Sankis, but I'm not a fan of that for two reasons. First, you should be one-shotting most everything because this build has tons of burst damage. Second, it's much harder to get a good Envious Blade (it's a bounty cache item) than it is a good Sankis.

If all you use this build for is speed-farming, you can ignore most of the CDR and AD requirements listed above. If you can't maintain perma-IP, do the following:

• Swap Esoteric or Gogok for Boon of the Hoarder
• Swap PoC for Goldwrap

Kaboom! You're ready to crush most any Torment!

If you still feel squishy, wear a Fire immunity amulet and boost Vitality through Paragon.

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Part 7: FAQ
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Q. Is this build stronger than IK6+R4 (Vile Charge)?
A. Yes.

Q. I can't max CDR on one or more pieces of gear. What should I do?
A. Don't panic. You'll have to make do with what you have until you find or craft upgrades. If you're a few points off the required amounts (2-5%), don't sweat it. Your Wrath cycles won't synch up and you might have one or two seconds of downtime on IP, but it's not the end of the world. If the gap is much bigger, you may need to stop pushing, farm mats and gear, and get that CDR bumped up. You can also try using Gogok to make up for the problem, but if you have low Paragon, you're going to have a tough time mitigating damage. In that case, swap a DPS passive to Superstition.

Q. Can I forget about wall-charging?
A. Not if you want to push this build to its (and your) limits. Wall-charging is essential. It's easily worth a few GRs on top of your current potential.

Q. If I use the build for speed-farming, does it still need all the CDR?
A. No. If you're using the build for speed-farming, you can forgo some or most of the CDR. You won't need perma-IP, though it helps, and there's not much point to worrying about Wrath when you're crushing T13 in under 2 minutes. See above for more info.

Q. Is this the strongest Barb build?
A. Yes.

Q. The other Charge build, Vile Charge, requires lots of fishing. Is this build similar?
A. Nope! Of all our builds, this requires the least amount of fishing for maps, mobs, and RGs. It's incredibly good at killing elites and RGs. Some elites are going to give you trouble--you definitely don't want to fight Shielding on their own, and you definitely don't want multiple Arcane packs melting you with their lasers--but this build is so dang powerful that not much else matters. When it comes to RGs, you don't want ones that move around a lot, but you can fight them if you have enough time.

Q. What do you think of red-pillers and MRAs?
A. They're human trash whose philosophies are so misinformed and bigoted that I don't even know where to begin.

Q. Living on a razor's edge?
A. Balancing on a ledge.