Because the blade traps add in 75% of weapon damage, it makes me uncertain which is best:
dual claws with high damage
1 claw and a shield (like Spirit with +skills)
+skills weapon and shield (i.e. spirit in a decent sword)
I.e. is it worth more to just pump the skill level of the blade trap skills or is it more important to have a better weapon? does claw mastery do enough to where I should max it? Does dual wielding help any of these skills in any way? the skill window shows the damage for both weapons seperately, but it’s unclear how they’re actually used by the game when it comes to these skills.
from my experience; when gearing with end game gear (plague vs ebotdz, etc), +skills typically wins out. I think 2x claw is best, potential for lots of +skills, and you can use claw block, and dexterity to increase both raw damage per hit, and chance to hit at the same time.
There is some argument for things like:
Lacerator
ebotd
death
etc
IMO; 2x plague adds a lot of other benefits that often out way other options. It doesn’t have to deal with competing curses like Lacerator does with Amp Dmg, Flee, and Pride’s Blind, etc.
I’d recommend just sitting in d2planner and mess with different weapon types and see what you can come up with: https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/6tebu0xm
Here’s a Plague, Lacerator, and Death setup for some ideas
FWIW; grief does not work with Blade skills of any type
no; blades are not claws, they will not benefit from this skill at all. They don’t gain crit chance, or raw damage from it. The 75% bonus is based off of base weapon damage.
Certain stats on your offhand weapon will benefit blade skill damage, but for the most part, the primary weapon is the most important. It inherits a majority of its stats from the primary weapon.
I had this conversation about blade skills a while ago with someone:
If you don’t want to read it all, I think this is the most useful part of the other discussion I had:
I saw you asked, in another thread, about which affixes work with Blade Sentinel/Fury so here you go:
Blade Sentinel: https://www.theamazonbasin.com/wiki/index.php?title=Blade_Sentinel
Only the following bonuses are applied, in all their variations (Based on Character Level, % Enhanced Maximum Damage, Against Demons/Undead) and regardless of source:
+Minimum Damage
+Maximum Damage
% Damage
Critical Strike
Deadly Strike
Magic Damage, Fire Damage, Lightning Damage, Cold Damage and Poison Damage Cold and poison length
+Attack Rating
+% Attack Rating
-Monster Defense per hit
-% Target Defense
Ignore Target’s Defense
% Extra Gold From Monsters
% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Skill bonus
All bonuses which apply to Blade Sentinel apply and the following additions:
Crushing Blow
-% Enemy Resistance
Chance to Cast On Striking
Slows Target
Freezes Target
Hit Blinds Target
Hit Causes Monster to Flee
Knockback
Prevent Monster Heal
Open Wounds
Life Stolen per hit
Mana Stolen per hit
Life After Each (Demon) Kill
Mana After Each Kill
Nows the time to move onto something more complicated, bladesin, with furious blades.
Blade Sentinel (BS)
Pros:
works with all things claw mastery provides dmg,ar,crit
importantly it DOES work with crushing blow
Blade Fury (BF) aka machine gun
Pros:
ranged attack and a semi-strafe move for level 18
Cons:
Skill says gives 10% AR per level, but man that simply feels untrue. Compare it with equal AR with a zealer and see how often you hit. Lvl 2 zeal with 20% ar vs (2)blade fury’s 20% ar bonus and you’ll know quickly learn it doesn’t hit as much. Try it on a pvp character of equal level, or a high health target like cow king.
U can’t gain AR from claw mastery, so ur stuck with whatever teh character’s base AR is, basically anything that’s not a claw; that’s ur hit rate.
animation start slow (full second), animation end slow (.5 to .6 of a sec)