Barbarian weapons?

General Discussion
1

TLDR: DW Vs 2H How do your abilities calculate damage? Do abilities take the second weapon into account or only the first?

200 damage 2H with a 200% multiplier will deal 400 damage.
100 damage 1H X 2 weapons with a 200% multiplier will still deal 400 damage.

Or does it only use the main hand weapon for damage, and the DW set up will only deal 200 damage with the same ability?

What about weapon speed and abilities? I heard Whirlwind deals more damage with faster weapons. Why is this? I heard it’s something to do with getting more tornadoes out. But isn’t the ability a static swing? You swing a certain amount when you hit the button once. Holding it down simply continues the animation. You’re still getting out the same number of hits, aren’t you?

How do I know which abilities are good with each weapon type?

Faster weapons means more basic/auto attacks, which means more life on hit, correct? What about 2H weapons, does life on hit scale up with slower weapons? (Ie. Do I heal for more if I have a 2H weapon, and heal for less while DW, but I would heal more often?)

Shields. Any good? Or should I just stick with life on hit, and deal massive damage for survivability?

Hey guys, I had a question about Barbarian weapon choices.

I haven’t put much time into this game (about 70 hours between 2 characters.) I have a L70 Wizard, and Witch Doctor, and only 21 paragon levels. So pretty “new” to the game.

I’m leveling my Barbarian, and I’m having a blast, but I was wondering what the main differences between Dual Wielding, and 2H weapons are.

Obviously 2H weapons hit for more damage per swing, but swing less often.

From my understanding, this would affect abilities greatly, as everything is based off of weapon damage. So a 200 damage weapon (just using a low round number because it’s easier) will contribute more than a 100 damage weapon.

If an ability has a 200% multiplier, and my 2H has 200 damage on it, that ability will essentially deal 400 damage, right?

How is Dual Wielding calculated? Is it only the main hand, or does it take both into account? For example, will that same ability on a 100 damage 1H weapon only deal 200 damage? Or does it take the second 1H into account and the ability will still deal 400 damage? (100 damage weapon X2, X200%)

If abilities take both weapons into account I can assume that it doesn’t make any difference if you have 2 weapons or 1 big one.

This also makes me question things like life per hit. If I have a 2H weapon I’m only hitting half the time that DW would hit, so for survivability and healing, DW would heal me twice as often. Right?

So in that case if abilities deal the same damage either way, and “auto attacks” (Basic attacks?) hit twice as often, I would simply be better off with 2 weapons at all times, right?

I read somewhere that certain abilities take your attack speed into consideration when dealing damage. I heard Whirlwind deals more damage more often while Dual Wielding rather than using a 2H. How and why does this work that way?

How do I know which abilities are better for which weapon type?

All the research I’ve done on this topic came up with information from 2013 - 2015. So nothing’s current.

Any information on this topic is greatly appreciated.

Edit: Shields. Any good? Or should I just stick with life on hit, and deal massive damage for survivability?

2

200 base damage with a 200% multiplier is 600 damage, not 400. The 200% additional damage ADDS to your original 100%.

As far as dual wielding is concerned, most skills that I can think of switch active hands each time an attack is calculated but multipliers are always in effect regardless of which hand is currently the active one. In your above example, 2 100 damage weapons with a 200% multiplier would be 300 damage each time but would attack faster due to dual wielding. The largest draw to dual wielding is that you get to have an additional legendary affix by having a 2nd equipped weapon.

1 Like
3

Shields also have legendary affixes.

4

So how does that affect abilities like Whirlwind, Seismic Slam or Earthquake? When you say they attack faster, do you mean the animation plays faster and therefore the damage happens quicker? Thus making it equal to the slower heavier hitting 2H?

Also, how does life per hit scale between the two? Does it scale up with a 2H, or do you just get less healing because you’re hitting less frequently?

But are they any good for defense in this game, or are they sub par? Should I bother using one, or should I just stick to self healing abilities for survivability?

5

I’m not sure of the exact mechanics but attack speed just causes you to deal more damage with individual attacks. Dual wielding will generally never have the same damage as a 2-hander but the added attack speed inherent in dual wielding comes close to balancing it out. As far as Life per Hit, if you are attacking faster due to dual wielding (plus one handers generally have a faster attack speed than 2 handers do) you will gain more life since you are hitting more frequently.

The only builds besides Crusaders that utilize shields is generally a support toon, like a ZMonk or ZBarb, and usually they are dual wielding for the extra affixes and attack speed.

1 Like
6

This depends heavily on the attack. WW, Frenzy and other fast attacks tend to prefer dual wielding since they do have higher dps. The damage alternate between each hand with a few exceptions. This means that WotW and H90 (also IK) prefer you to dual wield.

Other attacks, such as Rend and Earthquake, as well as other slow attacks, do not benefit from the higher dps due to attack speed. This means that they want a 2-hander to do their max damage. This is why the MotE set often has you using a two hander. I have to say “often” because the new SS build wants attack speed unless you are using the all rage rune on SS, then attack speed doesnt do much and back to 2-hander.

It all comes down to, “does the attack benefit more from higher attack speed or base damage”.

1 Like
7

And how do you know which is which? Is there a guide that lays out which abilities benefit more from each?

8

Generally DoT effects and other offensive skills with fixed attack speed benefit more from higher base damage. Otherwise attack speed is more preferred.

The big problem with 2H weapons is that they occupy both weapon and offhand slots. As a result you’ll lose either up to 130% CHD or 10% CHC, depending on whether it’s a weapon or an offhand item. You’ll also lose one potential legendary affix which can be a major loss too. That’s why most builds for any class are either dual wielding or 1H+Offhand. Crusaders can wield 2H+Shield but that still comes with a penalty. Only a handful of builds use 2H weapon alone.

1 Like
9

Great, thanks for the help guys. I really appreciate you taking the time to explain it to me.

10

Not true. Attack speed does not affect damage per attack. You get more total damage faster with higher attack speeds because you get more attacks per second. More attacks per second give you more life regen because of life per hit. More attacks per second means more hits per second.

11

Shields increase your defense and give you block chance. Whether they increase your survivability and/or offense depends on affixes.

12

The easiest way to get precise answers is to head over to the Barb forum here and check out the stickied build guides. In each one, weapons are discussed. Of our 7 major builds, only 2 use 2H weapons, and that boils down to two reasons:

  • The build’s main damage-dealing skill doesn’t benefit from attack speed
  • The build faces Cube restrictions that prevent dual-wielding

With regards to shields, Barbs don’t use them in any of our fully optimized builds.

If you have build-specific questions, ask in the relevant build guides in the Barb forum. Hope this helps!

2 Likes
13

Dead mobs can’t attack you so it almost always to your advantage to kill as fast as possible and use only as much damage mitigation as necessary. Shields will almost always reduce your damage output without adding more damage reduction than other means. Shields have terrible trade offs for Barbs as compared to something like the Band of Might.

1 Like