Do WW Barbs stand a chance?

[Vash]

Barbs have taken a significant hit since their heyday back in classic and the early expansion days. Maybe I'm just missing something but it seems like it's really hard to keep barbs alive these days...

I found a Hellslayer off of Pindle the other day and I figured oh why not...let's try making a barb. I also have a CCB socketed with 2 ED jewels and a shael from back in the day.

Anyone have any advice about how to make a Barb (I want to use WW as my main skill...I kinda miss using it :) ). Should I use the Hellslayer? Use the CCB two-handed? Try to get myself another good sword and dual wield the suckers? Sword/shield? Maul?

What about point distribution? I looked over the stats on Arreat Summit and it loooks like putting more than one point into WW is pretty much worthless. Though the masteries give less damage, they give more AR and also chance for critical hits (which isn't 100% anymore :( ). I'm thinking I'll need some high defense equip and invest in shout and BO for protection.

[whereagles]

I have a whirler. He can kill stuff, though quite slowly in general.

With a 2-shael Bonehew and charms, damage is 800-3100. He gets the job done, but in multiplayer games he's just there for the battle orders, lol.

[Vash]

Ah yes..I forgot, I have a Bonehew as well.

But come on guys...54 views and nobody has any ideas? Are Barbs truly a lost cause in 1.10?

[D2Player69]

Vash,

Just logged off with my old Whirly Barb, J-Vesuvius, now lvl 76. I'm tackling Act 2 Hell at this point. Since everyone on the Amazon Basin appears to have gone to the Ladder, I'm playing pretty much solo except during those rare times one of my Friends List buddies happens to be on.

I think this character's equipment is pretty good, as I've twinked over to him just about every good Barb item I've ever found in nearly four years of playing. Even so, while he's rarely in danger of dying with 3000 or so life, he kills things pretty slowly even in /players 1. His one big failing at this point appears to be mana steal, but a potion every few whirls takes care of that in most cases. However, even if I manage to correct his mana steal issues, it will still be a slow slog.

Frankly, though, that's what's making him appealing to play. I just retrieved the Viper Amulet while working my way though the Claw Viper Temple and it was quite fun: Separating packs, isolating bosses, and taking my time horking every body on the ground. As a contrast, my recently-built Skelliemancer tore through this part of the game and barely had to cast a curse to support the troops. Does that mean the Skelliemancer is better? Define better... They're both fun, but for different reasons.

Anyway, is the Whirl Barb still viable in Hell? Sure. As someone else already wrote, however, many other characters will have kill speed quantum levels above yours so in a multiplayer game tank when you can, give the BO and be free with the Taunt, but you'll mostly be along for the ride.

John H

[Vash]

Can you pinpoint exactly why the Barb's killing speed is not as good as other characters'?

[whereagles]

Well, that's simple.

WW damage with 2-shael bonehew: 700-3 000 (1 850 average)
Damage per second: 5 whirl hits * 1 650 = 9 520

Fireball synergized damage at high levels: 40 000
Damage per second: 3 castings * 40 000 = 120 000

It's like 13 times as much :D

[Samka]

That's not really a fair comparison. A 40k fireball at 3 casts per second would have to be the absolute height of a sorc's power. The equivalent barbarian would be a high-level 'titan' (strength-focused barb) - the build I saw had one whirling with 12k damage (range 5) without adding in the merc might aura.

My level 87 WW barb is, sadly, no titan. While he's fairly tough, and does ok damage, he certainly doesn't have the damage output of a sorc or hammerdin. Whirlwind never got a buff in power, aside from indirectly due to more powerful weapons available (which I admit is significant, if you can get hold of them).

On the plus side, he can run the hell council and pit moderately well due to the power of hork (Barb only needs to kill at 3/4 the rate).

I wouldn't go WW with a Hellslayer though - weapon speed (I think WW only takes into account on-weapon IAS for whirl rate), and range are probably not ideal. Warcry + Berserk, yes maybe.

[whereagles]

12k max or average? That's a huge difference...

Still, even if it is average, it's still 1/2 of what the sorceress does.

[IKKE]

true but far few more enemies got psych res, or at least, lower as fire res, and 40K fireBALL is kinda too much, my sorc with lvl 28 fireball does about 6-7K fireball damage, and meteor around 17-18K

so that 40 is kinda...edited ? :P
btw baba can be very #$%&ing nice, give him IK set, and he does about 7K average damage, thats quite a punch, or just dual wield lightsabre/azurewrats, also sick weapons for baba, also in combination with Frenzy

[Raziel]

Um.. wut?

You want to make a ww barb in 1.10? Beg, borrow, and steal an IK armor. The rest of the set is cake.

IK ww baba > monsters. He is a destroyer. No, you don't need a shield. Yes, you max WW as well as Mace Mastery.

WW is not worthless - people are just used to the reckless, 1.09 "damage is king" methodology and think they can still use it against monsters who have double, triple and quadrouple the amount of hitpoints, speed and quanitities that they used to.

[Vash]

Someone in some other thread (I can't remember who and where) mentioned that while the bonuses from the IK set look very nice on paper, it doesn't work very well in practice.

Can anyone confirm or dispute that?

But still...I wanted to make either an axe (well, I guess that's not very plausible after reading the feedback) or a dual wield CCB whirlwind barb. Has anyone tried a dual-wielding WW barb? Should I get two two-handed swords or two one-handers?

[Samka]

I think the 12K was average damage. And yes, I have trouble conceiving of a 40k fireball. Would have to be 40/40 with +fire% (eschutas) or something if possible. Plus it doesn't hurt fire immunes - great in parties, but pretty one-dimensional.

I think if you go axe you want some awesome berserker axe or something, but not sure on that.

[adeyke]

By my calculations, the absolute highest possible fireball damage, excluding the benefit of skill shrines and battle command, is 25,397-27,326 (26,361.5 avg) damage with an 8 frame attack, for 79,365-85,393 (82,379 avg) per second.

There's no way to get 40K average damage from a single fireball, unless you include enemy resistances.

If you do factor in resistances and optimize gear for that, you can have 50,794-54,652 (52,723 avg) damage at 8 frames = 158,731-170,787 (164,759 avg) per second against a -100 base resist monster, 36,479-39,272 (37,875.5 avg) damage at 8 frames = 113,996-122,725 (118,360 avg) per second against a 0 base resist monster, or 15,023-16,280 (15,651.5 avg) at 9 frames = 41,730-45,222 (43,476 avg) per second against a 99 base resist monster. Note that this doesn't include a wand with LR charges.

These values are all optimized for damage over time, not damage per fireball.

[Amiron Samarion]

I do have a Ik Ww barb which i can solo in hell without any big troubles. (one exeption: chaos sanctuary)
Look for my first answer in this post:

http://www.lurkerlounge.com/forums/index.p...t=ST&f=7&t=2864

Im still trying to improve him so the setup has changed a little bit since i made that post, but most of the eq is the same. =)

Changes:
Made him a patriarch for a week ago.
got me another Ik maul on wich i put 2 shael runes (for the last ww breakpoint)
changed the rings into natures peace and that other new unique one
Changed the ammy into a unique one with good magic damage reduce (forgot its name)

And now im trying to improve the charms. :)

[shavenlunatic]

Well, that's simple.

WW damage with 2-shael bonehew: 700-3 000 (1 850 average)
Damage per second: 5 whirl hits * 1 650 = 9 520

Fireball synergized damage at high levels: 40 000
Damage per second: 3 castings * 40 000 = 120 000

It's like 13 times as much :D

howww??? Thats mental damage?? 40k?? Had a nose at slvl 30 Fireball + Max synergies + 30 FM and its only around 8.5k damage.

Is there something I'm missing here?

[whereagles]

Ok, so it's not 40k fireball but 10k.

The babo makes 10k damage per second, and that's if all hits score and there's no block.

The sorcie makes 30k damage per second and all hits score and it's not blockable.

Still a big difference in effectiveness..

[mattis]

If you have very nice gear WW barbs can be extremely powerful. My most recent barbarian soloed the entire game on /players 8 and didn't have any real troubles. The main problem is finding good weapons to whirl with. I'm currently dual-wielding BoTD berserker axes and am doing well over 5k max damage with each weapon.

For some reason everybody thinks the IK set is the end-all barbarian setup. It is nice, yes, but is nowhere near as effective as a setup with uniques and a more powerful weapon. Having only 200% ED and range 2, the IK maul is far outstripped by high-end rares, cruels, and some of the uniques. An upgraded ethereal hone sundan is much much better, for instance.

To give some advice on weapons, whatever you do, make sure you get your weapon(s) at the last WW breakpoint. That means no hellslayer. If you unsocket your CCB and put in 2 shaels then that could work pretty well, either 2-handed or with another sword at the last breakpoint. It's a tossup whether going 2-handed or dual wielding is better. Dual wielding attacks twice as fast (as long as there are two or more monsters in range, i.e. most of the time) but does half the damage as going 2-handed.

[Stolb3rg]

With all the wwing im wondering if a berserk barb is more sucessful. My wwbarb only does 5 k dmg with hellslayer (kinda sad) but i have good life and mana leech ( about 30 each) and im doing fine, as long as i keeep spinning. Im starting a one handed sword berserk barband if anyone knows a real good setup for my barb in the future plz tell me. Wow im random

[Raziel]

Someone in some other thread (I can't remember who and where) mentioned that while the bonuses from the IK set look very nice on paper, it doesn't work very well in practice.

Can anyone confirm or dispute that?

I vehemently dispute that. The IK set bonuses in 1.10 own all.

10% dual leech. Yum!
20% dr from the belt. Yum!
Hit Freezes Target +2. Yum!
Sick, sick elemental damage on the maul. Yum!
40% Crushing Blow on the maul. Yum!
> 100% MF when you combine Helm mf + ptopaz + boots partial set bonus! Yum!

I could go on but why bother? Go look at the Arreat Summit. The 1.10 green partial bonuses MAKE the set.

And best of all.. NO DEX!!! You can pump Vit and Strength and create a 4k barb that whirls through packs without a care in the world! The build is insanely simple.. 20 Mace Mastery, 20 WW, 20 BO, 20 Shout in that order. Make sure you have 1 in all the useful warcries, 1 in all the passives, and 1 in all the useful combat skills. When level 76 comes around and you pull on the glow you will destroy everything.

Most monsters shatter on impact.

Oh, btw, IK probably sucks for PvP. But I don't PvP.

ps. My jewelry is: Carrion Wind, Ravenfrost, Highlords Wrath.

[Flymo]

With all the wwing im wondering if a berserk barb is more sucessful. My wwbarb only does 5 k dmg with hellslayer (kinda sad) but i have good life and mana leech ( about 30 each) and im doing fine, as long as i keeep spinning. Im starting a one handed sword berserk barband if anyone knows a real good setup for my barb in the future plz tell me. Wow im random

I'd suggest you try this build out in single player with a character editor first. In many ways it is the worst of all possible worlds. You don't do decent damage because you are 1-handed; you won't hit much because you'll spend a lot of the game in block lock; you have zero defense and can look forward to being in hit recovery for most of nightmare difficulty; you have no leech and will be chugging potions continually; and berzerk's synergies are useless.

If you're looking for a more successful build I'd recommend Concentrate with a 2-handed weapon. The high defense means you can tank without a shield so don't have to waste points in dexterity; one of the synergies is Battle Orders which you were going to max anyway; and the attack is uninterruptible. And if you get lucky and find the whole IK set, for which there really is no substitute, you can wear it.