Frenzy questions

[Samka]

Just working on a mace frenzy barb at the moment, and I had few questions for the more experienced players here regarding Frenzy :

- How exactly does the berserk synergy work with Frenzy - does it work like vengeance, or does it convert a portion of final Frenzy damage into magic damage? Or something else.

- Does frenzy have any advantages over zeal other than movement speed and the ability to hold down the right mouse button? Otherwise, it seems zeal is always better - attacks faster, blocking and bonuses from shield etc. With fanatacism, it even does more damage...

thanks for any info

[adeyke]

- How exactly does the berserk synergy work with Frenzy - does it work like vengeance, or does it convert a portion of final Frenzy damage into magic damage? Or something else.

It converts a percentage of your physical damage to magic, in the same way that the amazon arrow skills convert damage. So if you have a maxed synergy, you get a 20% conversion, meaning that 20% of the damage that would normally be physical will instead be magic.

- Does frenzy have any advantages over zeal other than movement speed and the ability to hold down the right mouse button? Otherwise, it seems zeal is always better - attacks faster, blocking and bonuses from shield etc. With fanatacism, it even does more damage...

Apples and oranges.

[Samka]

Thanks Adeyke, however I don't think a comparison with Zeal is unfair. Both skills revolve around fast attacking one-handed melee strikes - they have a similar role. In this regard it's hard to see how frenzy stacks up.

[arrunique]

This is an interesting discussion because I was deciding what was a good melee guy to start and narrowed it down to zealot or frenzybarb.

According to the skill planner at d2items at ~60 spent skill points it comes out to this
paladin 20 zeal, fanat, sacrifice
attack: 350%
dam: ~700%
attack speed: 35%

barb 20 frenzy, taunt, mastery (I like axe)
attack: 400%
dam: ~450% 21% deadly strike
attack speed ~40%

In raw damage numbers it looks like the zealot is the winner but there are other factors to take into account. If you have access to the beast runeword the barb's numbers go up by a lot.

PIs: Both have skills to deal with physical immunes (zerk and vengeance) so that isn't a problem.
Mobility: Barb is clear winner in mobility since frenzy gives the massive boost to run speed, also he has leap attack which is a poor man's teleport and whirlwind to get out of crowds.
Defense: A paladin will most likely use a shield which is unavailable to a frenzybarb. However since the paladin will be spending most of his time attacking the high block numbers from holy shield don't mean much. The barb doesn't have a shield but has natural resists and iron skin to make up for it some.
Crowd control: The zealot has no means of crowd control, all he can do is run in and hope his leeching/massive damage/defense is enough to keep him alive. The barb has many options. Howl, war cry and even grim ward are all good ways to prevent mobbing. In addition his extra mobility means he will never be stuck.

Finally there is dual wielding. I've never tried it and I've never seen it, but imagine a frenzy barb dual wielding beast in one hand and doom in the other!

So the verditct:
If you are on a budget the zealot is the way to go as his skills are by themselves superior. If you have the resources to properly equip your frenzybarb then he is probably a lot of fun and you have a lot of options choose from in how to spend your extra skills.

[Schuey]

All that being true... if you make a frenzy barb (mine is a double throw/frenzy barb) you can use 1 or 2 lacerators on one side to proc level 3 amplify damage to take care of PI's and then weapon switch back your high power weapons till the amp wears off..... this is How my DublThrow_Joe handles PI's in hell (along with glimmers with their high elemental dammage).

Dave

[Samka]

This is an interesting discussion because I was deciding what was a good melee guy to start and narrowed it down to zealot or frenzybarb.

Yup, that's what it came down to for me too.

It's true that Beast narrows the gap, but getting a Ber is extremely difficult if you're playing totally legit.

Zealot does have a few notable advantages that haven't been listed :
- Ability to use any 1H weapon, without wasting any skill points - vs Barb mastery.
- Max frenzy is 5-frame attack, while max zeal is 4-frame (I think).
- Requires only 1 awesome weapon vs 2 for frenzy.
- Exile runeword (effectively cancels out Beast for frenzy barb).
- No chargeup time required (this is a huge advantage).

Frenzy sword barb has a nice range advantage when using 2H swords though.

But in summary, I think if you can be bothered using the left mouse-button then the Zealot is pretty much the better option. Frenzy barb definitely more fun though :)

[Wyrm]

Mobility: Barb is clear winner in mobility since frenzy gives the massive boost to run speed, also he has leap attack which is a poor man's teleport and whirlwind to get out of crowds.

In defense of Paladins, you can always switch over to Vigor for that added speed to get away. Even at level 1, if you've got boots with 30% frw you'll have enough of a bonus to get away from extra fast monsters (although you never really know if you've gotten away or not). And if you need another boost of speed, you can always switch to Charge and send yourself off in a direction.

Crowd control: The zealot has no means of crowd control, all he can do is run in and hope his leeching/massive damage/defense is enough to keep him alive. The barb has many options. Howl, war cry and even grim ward are all good ways to prevent mobbing. In addition his extra mobility means he will never be stuck.

Holy Freeze works. Sanctuary does too if you're in the land of the undead.

If you have the resources to properly equip your frenzybarb then he is probably a lot of fun

Even if you don't have the equipment to really make one, frenzians are a lot of fun. Normally I don't enjoy playing barbs, but I made Axe/Dagger frenzy man and had a ball.

[loked]

actualy if you thing about it, there is always the ''who ever have the best gear wins'' part wich makes a huge diference on the battle field

on defence of the paladine aswell, as far as i know, fana work on a diferente way that ias, so that it does increase the speed, but decreas the speed lvl of the weapon as display on areat summit( whic means that a weapon whit -30 o atacking speed, becomes a weapon with like -50 ataking speed; and if you increase that by a 30%[you find this mod on gloves] it will be a -65 speed weapon] so it increase more the speed that any other skills...
of course i can be wrong

[gekko]

My eyes! They hurt!

Please take some time to preview your posts and try just a little bit of grammar in the future, ok?

Fanat affects weapon speed differently than IAS, however, not quite in the way you stated. I'm sure someone more knowledgable than I will post the actual formula, as I just don't have it available.

gekko

[gekko]

double posted and duly deleted.

[Freepaperclips]

A good calc is here.

The full formula is here.

[IKKE]

about Exile runeword...
for paladin is fooked right ? because of the 13-16 defiance aura ?, that keeps switching with your own right ?

[Samka]

No. Different auras stack, so the defiance aura is in effect all the time, along with any other aura. The aura graphic rotates through the different auras in effect, to show players what auras are active.

EDIT : Unless you mean a paladin that was using a higher level defiance aura - then it would alternate with Exile's defiance aura (I believe). I can't immediately think of any Paladins which use defiance as a primary aura (Cleric?), but I don't think it's a significant issue for paladins in general.