###**Preface**
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I've been running the boulder spec for awhile now, and a few people were interested in knowing the details of the build, so I'll do my best to write up what works with it, and how to gear/spec your character to be the most effective in higher torments.

In essence the boulder build revolves around 1 ability, *Ancient Spear - Boulder Toss*. You build up as much fury as you can, and drop boulders for massive amounts of damage. Its not a very popular build, as I have yet to run into another boulder barb, but after trying this build with the launch of 2.0 I'm now a boulder barb for life.


###**My Barb**
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My barb is highly geared toward this spec, you can check out my [profile here](http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/aoa-1930/hero/3530098). I can solo rifts in torment 5 rather easily and they take about 15 minutes on average. It took awhile to find all of that gear, but I'll explain what stats you are looking for and what skills work well with the gear you do have. I currently rank in the [top 300](http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/aoa-1930/Babar/3530098) for barbs in EEDPS, and thats against players stacking +fire, which has a additional 2 slots it can roll on, and I run with 4set IK bonus.

So do not expect to try this build out and be capable of running torment 4/5 instantly. Good gear will not only increase your stats with this build, but also free up passive slots and spells. But don't be discouraged, you can still have plenty of fun with this spec without the gear.

[I recorded a video of clearing a T5 rift so you can get a feel as to how it works.]() I Would recommend watching it as you read through skills/passives to get a idea of how that skill is used. Also, I have terrible aim with the boulders and generally play like a scrub. With effective fury management and Avalanche timing my effective dps could be much better.


###**The Build**
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This skills are mostly guidelines, depending on your gear. My goal with this post is to outline abilities that synergize well with the build, and let you choose whats best for you. The goal is large amounts of fury gen to dump into boulders, which do crazy DPS and will also drop massive heals with the correct gear/passives. Also, a ton of good barb skills are +Physical, which means you have lots of options for abilities that synergize with Boulder Toss.

##DPS Skills:

*Ancient Spear: Boulder Toss* (Physical)
#This skill is a given for the build. It costs 25 fury, and expends all remaining fury for +20% physical damage for each point. So with 160 fury, you are doing 2700% weapon damage with each boulder with a 9 yard radius.

*Battle Rage: Bloodshed*
#This skill is definitely a requirement. It not only adds 10% damage and 3% crit chance, but makes your crits do 20% area damage as well. This means that if you drop a 50m boulder on a group of 5 mobs, each mob takes 50m damage + 4*10m damage, for a total of 90m each (Plus your area damage!). So your DPS scales exponentially with the number of mobs you stack up. The Sword to Plowshares rune is also great to use when you are against a single target, since the area damage becomes useless but 8% chance to drop health globes on crit increases fury gen if you have Reaper wraps.

*Avalanche: Tectonic Rift* (Physical)
#This spell is great for fury gen (with the correct passive) and has some decent synergy with Ancient Spear - Boulder Toss. It also does some awesome AOE Physical damage which is great for clearing large groups of trash, or adding more DPS to elite packs. It stacks up to 3 charges, so you can save them up for more burst DPS + fury gen when needed. This spell is not essential, but I find it works really well with the build.

##Fury Generators

You can never have enough fury with boulder spec, these skills will help with that:

*Primary Skill - any*
# There is no specific primary attack that is good to use with this build. I prefer frenzy since I think it has better fury gen, but just pick whatever skill you enjoy or works best for you. This skill will hardly do any dps compared to Avalanche and Ancient Spear, so pick a rune that helps out those abilities or meshes with your +physical damage.

*Call of The Ancients: Ancients' Fury* (Physical)
# This is only a viable skill if you have 4 Piece Immortal kings set, which means your Ancients will stick around until they get killed. It will generate 3 fury every time your ancients do damage, which will dwarf any of the other fury generators listed here and allow you to free up skill slots for other abilities.

*War Cry: Charge!*
# Until you can get a satisfactory amount of fury gen, this is one of the best abilities to generate fury. 20 second cooldown, 50 fury and 20% armor is nice if you don't have the gear. If your toughness is too low, you can use another rune to trade some fury gen for toughness. Note: I don't run with this, since I have more than enough toughness and fury gen.

*Ground Stomp: Wreaking Smash*
# This is another ability I used to use for a bit of fury gen and bonus DPS. The spell will stun all enemies and pull them closer to you, while generating 15 fury. The more tightly packed the mobs, the more damage you can squeeze out of Battle Rage: Bloodshed. The downside is that the mobs will be stunned, which means you won't be generating fury from their attacks, but it will increase your survivability.

*Overpower: Momentum* (Physical)
# Not only does this skill generate 5 fury for every mob you hit with it, but its physical damage and every crit reduces its cooldown by 8%!. One of the best fury generators for high density areas.


##Utility

Got free skill slots? Great, these spells are good fillers for them.


*Whirlwind: Hurricane* (Physical)
#This skill might seem out of place and it kind of is, unless you have IK and Reapers wraps to make up for the fury costs. Since the majority of your DPS is from boulder and Avalanche, killing single/low density mobs with those abilities seems like a waste damage, and using your primary will feel like a waste of time. This skill will give you some decent AOE damage and can group up loose trash mobs for more effective Boulders/Avalanches. Bonus: you can now travel through mobs to pick up health globes!. Other runes will work too, like the fury gen one, but I have not really tested it, and it doesn't stack +elemental with Boulder and Avalanche.

*WotB: Any* (Physical)
#The essential skill for any super saiyan.

*Sprint: Any*
#A great spell for getting places, I usually switch to this when I'm running bounties.

##Passives

*BloodThirst*

#This passive is essential for anyone who wants to run higher torments. It gives 578 life for every point of fury you spend (you'll be spending a lot), and 1% of your healthglobe healing bonus. This means that every boulder you drop will also instantly heal you for a massive amount of life.

*Animosity*

# Since the majority of your DPS is coming from boulder, increasing your fury gen by 10% equates to both a DPS and healing boost. The +20 to maximum fury is also nice.


*Earthen Might*
#Every avalanche will give you 30 fury. This is great for killing packs, as you run in drop a boulder, then use avalanche for more DPS and more fury. I still run with this even with some of the best fury gen gear I can get, its a great passive to use.

*Weapons Master*
# If you are having problems with fury gen, I find using a 1h mighty weapon and this passive to be a great way to increase it. Otherwise, its mostly a DPS boost, I would use it with a sword or Axe, since IAS is almost useless unless you have 4 piece IK.

*Unforgiving*
# I would recommend this passive until you get 4 piece IK. Its great for fury gen. Note: 3 Piece IK will not be as good as this passive, since with IK you still degenerate fury.

*Rampage*
# 1% strength for each mob killed up to 25%, renews all stacks if you kill a mob within 8 seconds. If your strength is high, this skill is a massive DPS boost as long as you can keep it up. Its terrible against single targets but I find its up most of the time in a rift.

###**Gear**
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##Essential gear:

Reapers Wraps. The 25-30% fury per health globe is essential for this build.

##Stats to look for:

*Element Damage*
#You want as much +physical as you can get. Ignore other types as they are mostly useless, there are more than enough +physical skills on a barb to focus solely on that.

*Elite Damage*
#Yes please!

*Crit Chance / Crit Damage*
#You want as much as you can get. Since Battlerage adds area damage to all crits, stacking crit chance adds more DPS with a barb than any other class.

*Attack Speed*
#Attack speed is useless unless you have the 4 piece IK bonus. Boulder + Avalanche don't do any more damage, and frenzy gives enough IAS for primary fury gen. However, its my understanding that with the 4 piece IK bonus, each point of IAS essentially increases the fury gen from your CotA by that amount, since they generate whenever they do damage. So once you get IK, stacking a bit of IAS will increase your fury gen even more. Otherwise, the only thing it will really change is your sheet dps.

*Pickup Radius*
#This increases the effectiveness of your Reaper Wraps, making health globes easier to pick up.

*Healthglobe healing bonus*
#This is BIS secondary stat for barbs. In combination with bloodthirst this stat offers massive amounts of healing. My barb has +78k, which brings my Life per fury spent to 1648. With my 160 fury, each boulder I drop heals for 263k life!

*+maximum fury*
#More fury is always nice with this build.

##Awesome Legendaries:

*4 piece IK set*
# Not only does this increase your DPS and survivability, but it also provides a massive boost to fury gen! This is the one set of gear to watch for if you plan on trying this spec, even if its a sheet dps downgrade, it offers massive advantages for this spec.

*Stone of Jordan*
#BIS for so many builds, I don't even think I need to mention it.

*Doombringer*
#+20% physical and +20% life? this is one of three BIS 1h for the boulder spec.

*The Three Hundredth Spear*
#This spear adds up to 50% damage to Ancient Spear. Also has a slow attack speed so your boulders are bound to hit for more damage.

*Sun keeper*
#30% bonus to elites, enough said.