Shouldn’t Larzuk always give max sockets (4 for HB) as long as I got the item from a high enough lvl zone (hell cows)? As far as I understood this was how it worked. What am I missing? Did it being eth change things somehow? Does it matter that I used a normal difficulty socket quest?
Edit: It was normal quality, not repaired from low quality, and I’m 100% sure that it was hell cows rather than NM (I literally did Meph in the same game, and if it was NM he would have been one shot)
Any help from someone who understands this better than I do would be appreciated. I’m really not looking to spend 4 more hours finding another decent eth base from hell cows just to not get max sockets again.
I know HB ain’t great - I was honestly just sick of farming at that point. I’m rolling Oath for an item find WW barb, mainly to run hell Trav for high runes. From what I understood (I’m def not an expert), offhand + mainhand ias both add to WW, so I didn’t need a perfect base in order to hit the right BP and make a ‘good-enough’ WW barb for basic farming. Are there only certain 2HS that work for that?
The technicalities of melee are pretty deep. Not to mention when you change factors such as the base used and start using an outside the meta runeword. I’m not entirely sure which is optimal or passable. If my memory serves right the primary weapon’s base speed is the one calculated, the secondary only uses the +IAS modifier and that it doesn’t work in the same fashion as +IAS from other gear. Far too confusing I think I went for a generic cookie cutter build for my hork baba. But there are others on this forum who can answer your questions who live for the melee.
Highland Blade is generally considered decent for Oath. It’s faster than BB, has a lvl req of 49 which matches Oath (vs. 53 of BB). It also has 171 vs. 185 str req but 104 vs. 87 dex req, so there’s trade off there, and it has 42 average damage vs. BB 45, but min damage is 22 vs. 15 so the “spread” is smaller than BB.
It doesn’t even look like Highland blade can drop from NM cows, based on Silospen’s calculator, although of course if it was TZ that’s likely a different story.
Per the Sockets wiki page, an ilvl of 26 to 41+ gets 4 sockets in Highland blade, so you’d need a Highland blade with ilvl 25 or lower to only get 3 sockets from Larzuk, which seems really hard to do if it’s not a low quality one?
Highland blade is a perfectly reasonable Oath base, IMO, for the reasons above. However, offhand + mainhand IAS is NOT added to WW, unfortunately. Take a look at Warren’s calculator (https://warren1001.github.io/IAS_Calculator/) for WW. It will show separate speed calcs for both hands, and then you will see that in game they attack at the slowest, per the note above the IAS tables.
You may be thinking of how now in D2R off-weapon IAS is used in the calculation. This means IAS from places like gloves/belt/amulet and jewels can be used to benefit, but other weapons still fall into “bonuses that only work on that weapon”.
The good news is Oath gives 50% IAS and Highland blade only needs 52 IAS for fastest 4FPA WW, so you could get another 2 IAS pretty easily from gloves like LoH, Bloodfist, Arctic or Sigs/IK with one other set piece. Or Goldwrap belt, IAS jewel somewhere, etc. All that is moot ofc since your HB somehow rolled 3 OS.
Also FWIW all swords use the 1H break points, regardless of if they are being used 1h or 2h.
Oath isn’t exactly outside meta, it’s one of the best progression items on the road to Grief, IMO. Balrog Blade is super common b/c of the ease of 4 OS, good average damage and decent speed. Highland blade is also considered a good option (see above). On the 1H side for non-barbs, like a Zealot, Cryptic Sword is considered great due to the speed, but I personally don’t like the super low min damage. I think I once mathed it out that the higher average damage of Conquest Sword could overcome the 10 IAS difference in Oath under some situations.
On the Axe side, Small Crescent is also pretty common b/c of ease of getting 4 OS, but Ettin Axe is same speed and slightly higher damage, and Berserker axe is a bit lower average damage but 10 faster base speed than either.
Yeah there’s some oddness here for sure. Primary hand can’t use IAS from secondary hand, but as you said, it seems convoluted how it’s all tabulated. For instance on my WW hork barb I use eBotD CB and eDeath CS. The CB has 5 base speed and 60 IAS from BotD, but CS is 10 base speed (so 5 slower) and Death gives no IAS. So Main hand needs 75 IAS to hit 4 FPA, but off hand (Death CS) needs 89 IAS. The 60 IAS on BotD counts towards the main hand needs, so only 15 remain.
So in the CB situation, you needed 75, but in the CS situation, you needed 89, even though base weapon speed is only 5 different.
As soon as I read first post I knew the thread would immediately turn into ‘but why are you using Highland Blade!’
But to answer your question, yes it’s weird, you should expect max sockets from a hell drop as ilvl will matter. As a guess, maybe it’s a D2R (remaster) flukey thing?
Are you sure it’s a highland blade and not a legend sword? I don’t see any potential avenue here where you’d somehow get 3 sockets from Larzuk on an eth highland blade.
Yeah I’m not sure how you’re getting an eth Highland blade with ilvl<26. I don’t think eth can be low quality, so that seems out also. Even Dacian Falx is in the same boat in terms of ilvl for 4 sockets. Is it possible OP used a Claymore from normal somehow??