I need help deciding which would be better to use. In one hand I have a socketed Lightsaber, and for the other hand I can’t decide if the Djinn Slayer or Horizon’s Tornado should be used. I have Carrion wind as one of my rings, so I like having all these tornados and twisters spamming out with my attacks, and slowing enemies by 20%. But I like the idea of the sockets on the Djinn slayer, along with combining 25% lightning absorb with +3 lightning absorb.
So Carrion Wind provides lvl 13 Twister, which is only 37-39 damage. Getting the skill as “on striking” means there’s no way to boost the level, or boost the damage via synergies, so that damage is pretty much negligible as you progress towards the end of and past normal difficulty, IMO.
The lvl 15 Tornado from Horizon’s Tornado is better at 194-213 damage, but that’s still pretty low damage for end game.
Yeah if you have a ton of them spawning at once they might add up, but I think you’d be better served by focusing on more damage.
The other thing to consider is that as a Frenzy Barb, you’ll want to put at least some points in a weapon mastery (with end game gear you can sacrifice maxing it to use points to get higher chance of “Find Item” but with progression gear you’ll likely want to max mastery.
If you run a Lightsaber which is a sword, then you’ll want your other weapon to be a sword most likely, so you don’t have to devote skill points to both sword and mace mastery, like you’d need to do if you use Horizon’s Tornado Scourge which is mace class.
So if your options are Lightsaber + Horizon’s or Djinn Slayer, I’d say Djinn Slayer.
Djinn is kinda neat, especially w/ the massive fire damage, sockets, mana leach, and AR/damage against demons, but I suspect it will run out of steam fairly quickly in Hell difficulty.
Lightsabre tends to still be pretty viable through Hell, although certainly not on the level of the GG RWs.
When I was building my Frenzy barb I had already had a little bit of items accrued from my other WW barb, so I was able to start using Oath in an ethereal Balrog Blade and Lawbringer in an Phase Blade right at their level reqs, which was pretty awesome.
So I’d definitely recommend that combo (Oath in any ethereal 4OS sword) as a progression weapon set, and eventually replace the Oath with a Grief phase blade if/when you have the funds. When I built my first Grief I kept the Oath as the off weapon for somethings, but have normalized on using Grief PB with Lawbringer PB in off hand. The decrep proc is a great damage boost and awesome against PIs, and the sanctuary aura makes undead go down crazy fast.
Not sure if you already have the Djinn Slayer and Lightsabre, but other nice progression swords would include headstriker (+max damage per level and +deadly strike per level bonuses), Hexfire (pretty fast, damage add, ignore target defense), Crescent Moon RW, Azurewrath Phase Blade. Some of these will last longer than others of course!
If you’re on ladder another inexpensive runeword to shoot for would be Unbending Will.
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Thank you for the detailed response!
Yes, I already had these items, which is why I asked about them. I ended up finding Razor’s Edge so am now using lightsaber and that. I did what you recommended though until I found it. My mastery was in sword so it made sense. I was glad to hear I made the right choice.
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Glad to hear it’s working out for you! Razer’s Edge being an axe is upsetting the balance again, however that speed and massive deadly strike bonus are tough to argue with! Depending on what you find it may even make sense to respec to axes, and use that along with an Oath made in an axe!
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Exactly!
I plan to respec 1 last time once I find some end game weapons and put all my mastery into that weapon type. Until then I have the points split between axe and sword, since those seem to be best suited for frenzy barb (as far as i can tell anyways).
Yeah something like Stormlash (the other Unique Scourge) is pretty awesome and there are a few other mace class weapons that are good, but Sword and Axe definitely seem to have the most options for Frenzy.
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