v1.10 WW Barb seems pretty good to me

[Crystalion]

I've seen a lot of posts suggesting the damage output of Barbs kinda sucks, relatively speaking. I understand that WW has been repeatedly nerfed and that it doesn't proc (skill casting) striking effects, but it still seems really good to me.

My tests were done v1.10s on a barb from clvl 56 to 69 (in jumps) in nm act 5 and hell act 1, at players 1 and players 8. I tested with dual Legend swords (clvl 44 req, iirc) because with 20% wias on each I thought (from weapon speed calc) that I'd be seeing the best speed (cap) of 2 frames per hit attempt.

That "attempt" concept bugs me, so I used ITD (in other words, even though no procs occur, I did the test with clvl 47 req Crescent Moon swords--man is the repair cost on those out of this world). This also means that I got a lot of open wounds (v1.10s bug nearly assured it, but I think the ITD would assure it even without the bug, in practice).

This was a v1.09 barb that had very decent (by nm standards) equipment, but I found his survivability was pretty low so I played around with the effects I used to know and love, long ago... knockback, slow, chill, flee, freeze.

A Face of Horror, Cleglaw's gloves, cold charm, and Iceblink (yes, my AC dropped through the floor) were swapped in for my "good" gear and I became a god.

A god in players 1 at least. So I swapped out my good boots for Goblin Toes (25% chance of crushing blow) and found myself doing well in players 8. I then had an Enchantress hit me with ~+1400 fire (and AR boost) and was a god in players 8.

These are all "normal" (not exceptional or elite) items apart from the swords. By time I added in the Goblin Toes and enchant the damage of the swords wasn't really important. The phenomenal speed and ITD were key.

Admittedly, Legend swords are range 3, which is very helpful.

However, given an Enchantress, any dual decent base speed dagger or wand type weapons (shopped for "of piercing" for ITD) socketed with a Shael look like they hit the speed cap. So you should be able to acquire, with limited effort, the WW suitable weapon to obliterate any fire susceptible normal (non-boss, non-champ) monster in the game in one or two WW passes (players 1 or 2).

Starting at clvl 30. Not bad, imho.

I picked Crescent Moon for testing because it is one of the "easy" recipes to get weapons to hit the speed limit with decent damage and good to-hit (i.e. ITD in this case). There are other rune words, should you be so lucky, that are much more attractive for WW use, as far as I can see. And I imagine there must be some qualifying uniques as well (especially since you can stick a Shael in them).

AFAIK, only a maxed Dragon Talon assassin, with decent +skill to it besides, can even approach this 2 frames per repeated hits on a target (the zeal/fury/and wereform attacks can get to ~4 frames with a lot of care for w/ias). Presumably "exploit" of extra strafe arrows can sorta get there. And Blade Fury, afaik, is 5 frames per attack. Additionally all these methods proc "on striking" effects. Still, apart from Dragon Talon, WW potentially looks twice as fast as the competition.

It also felt like the WW effect was simultaneously hitting all monsters in its range. If that is true, then "wow!" (and a big boost to using range 3 weapons).

Give a Barb some of the "crowd control" goodies I used above or alternatives (like CoS helm, Dim Vision or Confuse) or a War Cry then WW tactic and it seems to me (non-hardcore--I'm not qualified to discuss hardcore) that he is very competitive for damage output with WW while staying reasonably safe.

So, if all of this is correct, I'm wondering if the posts dissing or pitying the barb are just missing the import of high-speed WW, or if I'm missing something? (in my tests in Blood Moor hell I fought quite a few Lightning Enchanted bosses--as of v1.10s those weren't a big deal... the boss boosted quill rats shooting me at range were far more problematic because I would not Taunt them, being concerned with testing purely WW). Certainly, sans enchant, this build cries out for crushing blow, and that wasn't very effective in v1.09 hell with global +50% phys resist. But that's no reason to overlook WW in v1.10.

One test I should do (I'll edit back) is to assume a level 30 barb, with a (nm max 4 socket) dual wield of (each) ShaelEthShaelEth. That should would be fairly easy to acquire and ought to max the speed out for fast weapons while hitting most of the time. Just add enchant and the barb would be set until hell (fire immunes would be the problem). Naturally you could do better, but I'm sure you can get the Shaels within a week of ladder start (unless all the Chu-ko-nu druids soak them all up :) ), which is probably (chronologically) how long it would take you to make the enchantress from scratch, no twink (i.e. nothing fancy, just grind to clvl 50+).