01Overview
This is a different Barbarian identity from Whirlwind: instead of one maxed attack skill, War Cry itself deals real AoE physical damage and stuns on cast, and it is unusually synergy-hungry -- its own real synergy chart (Howl +17%, Battle Cry +17%, Taunt/Shout/Battle Command/Battle Orders +13% each per level) means a real War Cry build ends up leveling almost the entire Warcries tree rather than one or two skills. The result plays more like a Barbarian 'caster' than a weapon-swing build: cast War Cry into a pack, let the stun buy you room, repeat.
02Pros / Cons
What works
- Comes online much earlier than Whirlwind (War Cry itself usable from level 6)
- Real party utility (Battle Orders/Battle Command/Shout) on top of personal damage
- Taunt gives genuine crowd control most physical Barbarian builds don't have
- Promoted into Good tier this season per hiimpd2.com's real S14 tier-list notes
What to plan around
- Spreads points across far more skills than Whirlwind, so any single number (War Cry's own damage) grows slower
- War Cry's stun is useless against stun-immune targets, which is most uniques/bosses/Act bosses
- Still a melee-adjacent build with no dedicated escape tool
03Stat Priority
Same general shape as any melee Barbarian -- Strength to the real requirement of whatever weapon you're swinging between War Cry casts (War Cry itself doesn't care about your weapon, but you still need a weapon-and-shield combo for the time between casts), Dexterity left low unless you're running a shield for block, the rest into Vitality.
04Leveling
- Leveling
Howl is available from level 1 and War Cry from level 6, so this build actually comes online far earlier than Whirlwind -- level into Howl[1], Shout[6] and War Cry[6] together, then Taunt[18] as soon as it unlocks (it's both a synergy and a real crowd-control tool: enemies attack each other instead of you).
05Gear Tiers
Character
Helm
Amulet
Weapon
Armor
2nd Hand
Gloves
Belt
Ring
Ring
BootsAdditional slots
torso
Stealth, same budget-armor logic as every melee build in this pass.
weapon1
Any fast one-hand weapon with a shield; War Cry doesn't care which, so there is no specific named Low-tier weapon pick.
06Mercenary
Act 2 Desert Mercenary running Might for flat physical damage support, same logic as the Whirlwind guide above -- this build has no offensive aura of its own, so a merc aura is a real, meaningful damage contribution rather than a minor bonus.
07Charms
Same universal trio as most physical builds: Gheed's Fortune, Annihilus, and a Barbarian Hellfire Torch if available. Nothing War-Cry-specific changes the charm picks.
08Playstyle
War Cry is cast on-demand, not held like Whirlwind -- the real gameplay loop is cast-stun-mop up, then move to the next pack and recast. Because so many points go into Warcries-tree synergy skills that are each individually useful (Battle Orders for party life/mana, Battle Command for a party-wide +skill buff, Shout for defense), this build is unusually strong in a group even though it's listed on the solo tier list too.
Hardcore Notes
Computed the same way as every other guide in this pass, from this build's own real Endgame `build_plan` state via `scoreHcViability`: life 1548, resistances fire/cold/lightning/poison 80%/80%/80%/80%, score 81/100 (conditional), confidence 28% (2/12 dimensions). In plain terms: Taunt's crowd-control (forcing enemies to attack each other) is a real, if indirect, hardcore safety tool this build has that Whirlwind doesn't -- but War Cry's own stun has a real cast delay and does nothing against anything immune to stun (most bosses), so this is not a build that out-tanks a bad pull on its own merits any more than Whirlwind does.