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+).

[Zath]

I don't think the problem with Whirlwind in v1.10s was ever its damage. What really bothered me was the server/client desynch it created, the high mana cost with minimal leech, and relatively low AR. Having to dual wield for those 2 hits per 4 frame was also a very dangerous affair. Just a single boss pack can kill you in one Whirlwind if you don't have a shield. The skill was just a little too risky for my taste with the supercharged v1.10s monsters. Whirlwind also begs for at least two maxed skills (WW+Mastery), and scrapping up those skill points is no easy task early on when you also need to max Battle Orders and invest in other skills.

[Crystalion]

the high mana cost with minimal leech, and relatively low AR.

Well, ITD, Eths, Taunt, Warcry pretty much give different ways to solve that. My latest test was with a level 33 using dual weenie Shael Eth Cinquedeas (dagger class, so no mastery for me) at slvl 4 WW. One dagger had life steal and the other mana steal (no ITD or open wounds in this set up).

I tried players 8 using the Goblin Toes, Cleglaw's gloves, and both with and without Face of Horror and Iceblink.

Mana, as you say, is clearly touchy. I chose the daggers because I knew if I'd had more patience I could have shopped ITD daggers. With leech (instead) from a ring I suspect the mana problem would have gone away (as I was fairly close with just one dagger mana leeching). I found the knockback and flee generated more hits without using Iceblink. When I didn't have good monster line-up I had to drink mana every four or so WWs (I had 85 mana pool). But most of the time every thing worked smoothly.

Having to dual wield for those 2 hits per 4 frame was also a very dangerous affair.

The flee, knockback, chill and slow were more than enough to keep me safe (with some life leech) even with range 1 weapons. Champ packs immune to chill and flee of large enough size to mostly ignore knockback could be a problem so I'd need to toy with that a bit (only had one boss pack in my previous blood moor hell test).

Whirlwind also begs for at least two maxed skills (WW+Mastery),

Well, Mastery is nerfed pretty hard in v1.10 and my last test didn't need it (in fact, at slvl 4 I was running -26% damage on my weenie damage daggers from the WW penalty). Clearly a lot of my damage was coming from repeated crushing blows (only 25% chance, but a lot of attempts). If I really am hitting up to 12.5 times a second then elemental adders are very effective (wasn't using any, except for a little chill and 15 poison over 4 secs.)

Of course, at clvl 30, if you could have two sockets on a Knight's Cinquedeas of Piercing for Shael Eth you'd be set for some time (just by dumping into WW until you dug out of the -%damage penalty). You might not need any of my goodies (though Cleglaws or crafted gloves with knockback and leech would be very nice) other than a little chill. I rather imagine nm Faria (? act 2 heal ya shop) is shopable for at least the (no-prefix) Cinquedeas of Piercing. Even better, I suspect, would be a Glowing Tomb wand of Piercing (up to 1-180 lightning damage).

Of course both daggers and wands suffer from a need for frequent repair. Tomb wands are interesting in that(with their decent qlvl and magic level flag) imbuing them with a clvl 8 malus rushee could result in a very nice weapon for this (and other) purpose. Being able to socket it with a Shael puts it into the WW sweetspot. Of course those pesky +necro skills are just there to make the weapon more expensive to repair (needs the self-repairing affix, clearly).

I know this is largely theoretical, but long ago and far away I did use wands with my Zealot with reasonable success, so it's not totally far-fetched.

[dizzle]

Legend Swords can be found throughout A5 nm, and Um I believe is in The Countess' hell rune drop. So it's altogether not impossible.

I was wondering though: In the long term, would it be better to use double Legends or a Giant Thresher (1st bp).

[mattis]

Hi, first post here. Pleased to meet you. :D

Interesting idea to combine the fastest attack in the game with cool effects. You'll have to get a high physical damage weapon to keep the mana up, especially against skeleton archers, bosses, etc. Another good idea is to have low run/walk boots, heavy armor, and no points in increased speed. I have a titan whirlwinder in 1.09 using a cruel warpike of quickness (2xshael) who does over 10k damage with his might aura. After doing a little editing to eliminate his point in increased speed he was doing fairly well in the beta. A better weapon would be an upgraded ethereal hone sundan (2xshael) because of the 45% crushing blow (and no repairs of course). Dual wielding will of course get more hits in.

My biggest problems with WW have been 1) mana troubles 2) whirling too fast, not getting enough hits in (obviously related to #1), and 3) cooldown time. To a limited extent I've had AR troubles too. Maxing mastery and WW seems like a good idea for the AR.

So it appears that a good paradigm for WW success is:
run slowly (eliminate CBF too ;) )
utilize crushing blow, elemental damage, freezes target, and other special effects
have high physical damage and high mana leech
have a secondary attack (berserk comes to mind) to use when out of mana and vs. PI monsters
make use of warcries to handle tough/annoying monsters

Running around slowly can be annoying at times but it's better than instantly whirling through a pack of monsters without hitting enough times to leech a decent amount of mana back

[Olon97]

The way I'm reading this is that 2 frame Whirlwind may still be one of the best ways to apply crushing blow and enchant fire damage, especially if ITD lessens one's clevel/mlevel concerns. That's a little different than saying it is still a good skill to max.

A single point in double swing might be worthwhile for quick situational triggering of certain effects (static a tough monster to 50% health in hell for example).

For that matter, why not use a one-point wonder Whirlwind on a taunt / frenzy build? That allows you to use the barbarian's second fastest attack when you're low on mana (still applying CB and enchant reasonably fast), and a high damage frenzy gives you quick mana recovery. I could see frenzy's run speed messing up Whirlwind if you used it first, but on the other hand, if you use frenzy to mop up afterwards, you then get the benefit of pumped run/walk speed to reach the next pack of monsters more quickly.

Assuming no +skills items, I would be tempted to try 16 sword mastery (for the 20% critical), 16 frenzy (for the 6 frame breakpoint w/o external IAS), 1 whirlwind (keep mana cost down), and assorted warcries to taste (with quite a few on taunt for the synergy). Not forgetting various passive one-point wonders of course.

Frenzy with whatever swords you can find (cube recepie and runes/jewels perhaps?) might get you to the level required to use crescent moon Legend Swords faster than messing around with daggers/wands, if only due to fewer repair hassles.

[Pren]

How did you miss everyone saying to play in TCP/IP games to remove leap/ww desync?

Unless this is still present in the finalized 1.10 patch, on the realms.

[Raziel]

Combine with Frenzy if you want a fast way of triggering that Static Field on striking stuff :)