Right, as you said, the issue with Hel’ing the armor is the Maul still needs 225, and you do really want 2x shael / 15 IAS jewels there. There are tons of options that are more valuable than 7 strength. You can also easily get 7 strength with charms too if you just want to go up to 225 str.
The other thing you can do with the helm, is try to get 86 FHR through charms (optimally 3x Combat skillers with 12% FHR or something like that), and then you are free to socket it for magic find or anything else. For super wasteful top end you can go 3x BER rune in helm + armor, for 44% total damage reduction with the set bonus lol. Totally not worth but it’s funny in concept. I tried it in single player once using ATMA to import items. Pretty beast.
I play only really play hardcore these days so I’m just used to the mentality of always maximizing vitality. But yeah strength for a 2h WW barb is very beneficial as well. Especially for hammer users, like the IK barb.
i.e. Enhanced Damage % per point = 1% for all weapons except hammers (a sublcass of the mace weapon class) warhammer, maul and great maul and of course their exceptional and elite versions, which all get 1.1%.
But even then… 1 point of vitality is 4 hp, multiplied by BO, so in reality a WW barb with a maxed out BO is going to get like 8hp minimum for each point of vita, which is crazy. Closer to 9 or maybe 10 if you have a lot of +skills / warcry skills
The IK armor/weapon already have such high strength requirements that you’re already getting a huge strength damage boost from that. Going further than 232 strength seems like a bit overkill in most cases.
Back in the day, there were some deviant builds that did quite well, like max str barbs and max dex zons. They relied on +hp items and life leech working with their humongous damage for combat sustainability. Not recommended for HC obviously. It was quite common to see your hp fluctuating between 25% and 100% while fighting frenzytaurs with such a build, but boy do you kill really fast with 400+ str.
I used to run a MF WW barb and he could clear hell with his 300%~ MF gear and charms. The trick is getting resist capped and having enough leech to overcome the natural 50% damage resist on monsters in hell, then it’s pretty easy with any decent amount of HP. Gotta love popping Meph for a double drop with Item Find.
Edit: I ran an eth eternity cryptic axe and upped stealskull with all the other standard set of high level gear and it was still slow going in hell. Melee are supposed to have a hard time in hell until they get high defense/damage resist gear and/or stack all stats for damage.
If you go WW Barb - here’s a tip, get your hands on The Gavel of Pain as weapon switch. It has level 8 Amplify damage charges which will break Physical Immunities. If your merc has Reaper’s toll with decrep CTC that works as well but it doesn’t last as long. The amp damage will also help a lot with bosses like baal in hell.
Yeah I know. In the case of WoW Classic people whined about “no changes” so the gameplay stays absolutely the same. They where so aggressive about it… if you tried to open a discussion about “wouldn’t it be cool if the Player Models where the new ones” everyone would block right away.
But imagine some people would like it in Diablo 2 Ressurected that if they die, the potions are also in your dead body and when you claim your body all the potions are also at their spot in the belt. While this would be a good change in my opinion you can be sure that others would dislike it for some reasons.
Any changes will be good for some people… and disliked by others. So you have to take all those with more then a grain of salt.
Yeah D2R is like watching WoW Classic. Everone gets to the start line… and then the race begins when the servers open up. Since everyone did their homework ahead of time… now is just time to run.
I would have liked it, if stuff that is “not viable” would be made viable again… so one can play those niche setups and still have fun with it.
Look at your character screen, and hover over your attack rating, it will give you a percentage chance to hit the last monster you attacked. If it’s 95% it’s capped. But anything over 85% seems to be workable. WW breakpoints can also contribute to seemingly missed attacks, if your weapon is too slow WW is pretty egregious.
Yes bonesnap is going to be one of those weapons that will do a really slow WW. Remember, WW IAS is only what is on the weapon, and you really want to at least have the -10 IAS BP.
If you need to figure out a specific speed, look up the weapon type for its base attack speed then figure in any IAS mods on the weapon itself for the final BP. I believe 2handed weapons are on a separate table as well.
Nope, the IAS has to come from mods on the weapon itself. So gloves or anything else will not do anything for WW. Your other attacks will benefit, but not WW.
That’s why the IK mauls speed is better than Bonesnap for WW because of the 40% IAS on the base weapon, even though the two weapons are the same 10 base speed.
Essentially, if you want to have a faster breakpoint on your Bonesnap (assuming you want to upgrade it and keep using) socket it with the Larzuk quest and put a Shael rune in it for another 20% IAS. That would bring it from 10 - 20 = -10, so you’d be running a whole BP faster which would help alot.
I will try a 2 weapon too then, i’ll see what i can find for 2 handed fast weapon, if i cannot find any for my level i will use 2 weapon till IK maul then
EDIT : i just need to find 2 perfect skull and i’ll have my socket
When I said a seperate table I meant, a 2 hander is different BP than 1 handers. I guess this refers to the inherent slowness of 2hand weapons so you need more to hit the same lvl WW BP.
Ik maul is a good and cheap weapon. But until then, there is a cube recipe that can upgrade the base item of your Bonesnap from a Maul (normal) to a War Club (exceptional) which will boost its damage many fold. Its Ral + Sol + P.Emerald which is a relatively cheap way to extend the weapons usage until you can get an IK maul. Don’t upgrade until you know you can use the War Club version so you aren’t out a weapon though. And if the servers ever come up IK maul is often given away because it drops so much.
