Playing WW, post Lamentation nerf

Barbarian
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EDIT: With the re-buffing of Lamentation to 150%, the OP, below, no longer holds true. Rend damage will again be large enough that it is best to ignore WW and simply try to maximize damage from Rend. This means dropping Skull Grasp, and running with Zodiac, CoE, and either BoM + Mantle or RoRG + CC.

So, now we know: Lamentation got nerfed.

And in the wake of that nerf, I got to thinking about the damage that could be dealt by Rend and WW. With a 200% buff on Lamentation, it seemed pretty clear that the most optimal setup was to load all your damage into Rend, abandoning Skull Grasp, a good deal of attack speed, and possibly area damage as well.

Now, however, with that bonus reduced to 0%, it seems to me that the new most optimal setup might be one that maximizes both WW and Rend damage.

In the Barb Buff Proposal, I roughly calculated out that, assuming some stacked attack speed, WW, in density, deals about 265 times the damage of Rend (not taking into account area damage). Even with Rend added to Wastes (6), WW still does more damage (22m dps for WW vs 8.4 m dps for Rend).

Later on I tried to calculate out how much of your WW damage might be coming from your direct hits, and how much from your Area Damage. (You can see that post here).

If we’re trying to get damage from both Rend and WW, it will be better to use Into the Fray rather than Bloodshed (since Rend can’t crit), and in this case, about 89% of your WW damage is coming from AD (this is assuming you have stacked Wroboss levels of AD, 178%). Taking this AD into account, and fighting in good density, you should deal about 9.19 times that “base” 22m amount via WW, so roughly 202m.

Rend, in comparison, was left dealing 8.4m, after the Wastes (6) bonus. Ambo’s makes the damage that would otherwise occur over 15 seconds, take place over 1 second instead, so this is a 15x multiplier (8.4m * 15 = 126m). Assuming you’re still using Lamentation, Rend can stack twice (126m * 2 = 252m). Ambo-Rend doesn’t proc AD, so that’s where the numbers stay:

In density, 202m for WW and 252m for Rend.
Against a single target, it would be more like 11m for WW , and 252m for Rend.

Considering the sizable amount of damage that WW can add in density, it might be advisable to keep Skull Grasp, run CoE and Mantle of Channeling in the cube, and wear Lamentation. This ought to produce good damage for both WW and Rend, whereas if you take the RoRG + CC setup, you are forced to equip Lamentation in the cube, and to choose between Skull Grasp and CoE.

For weapons, I think IB is probably going to be the best for high pushes, with the BK weapons being also good, and considerably easier to use. There might also be a case to be made, though, for doing something crazy like running Ambo’s in your main hand, Echoing Fury in your off hand, and Furnace in the cube. While killing mobs in density, this setup would give more attack speed than either IB or BK, plus considerable extra damage to elites.

Anyway, I’m not 100% on any of this, but I’m planning on doing some testing once the patch hits.

Thoughts? Comments?

13 Likes
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I agree.

The only problem is…Lag. Where it will shine is in large packs and that’s also where we are going to get serious lag.

If the Dev’s plan was for us to build into both WW (which has to include AD) and Rend damage…then it would be nice if they could keep the game from locking up.

I play HC it is terrifying :grinning:

2 Likes
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Yes, absolutely. That’s honestly the saddest part about the lost Lamentation buff: WW will go back to being laggy.

HOPEFULLY, that extra Rend damage will kill small enemies fast enough that the stress on the server is reduced, and the lag will be considerably less than in “straight WW”.

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I was thinking the same. With the AD lag, does Rend make it more laggy on large pulls since it ticks faster and will be applied to EVERYTHING.

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I can’t imagine that it helps…:grin:

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I wonder what would happen if a Barb crashed the servers.

Cynicism says WW nerfed and Rend buffs removed.

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Ambo-Rend doesn’t proc AD, so it shouldn’t put too much more stress on the server.

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@Rage

Would you still put Rend on the bar? I’m thinking maybe no.

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Well, the Bloodbath rune can cause extra Rend stacks beyond the Lamentation cap of 2, so that adds some considerable damage in density. For speed runs you might not need it on the bar, but for pushing I think you’d want to take it.

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Bloodbath really does that? Huh. I was wondering why lightning wasn’t the element of choice for rend. I guess there’s my answer.

Is lightning ever a better choice? Maybe for speed runs?

Edit: I just want to point out that everyone in this thread has the same avatar lol

1 Like
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Well I was thinking Falter might be better, but I’m not a numbers guys so wanted to get your opinion. The extra rend stacks are only on kill correct? So if you aren’t killing super fast, as in a push, would you be getting a big benefit?

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Hmm, well, the Lightning rune does 22.7% more damage than the others, which certainly isn’t bad. Might be worthwhile for speeds.

Yeah, they’re only on kill, though you’ll probably be using spear to assemble a giant pile of density, and once that happens some of the wimpier enemies will go down pretty fast. Like if you’ve got some scavengers or shadow vermin in there, the combo of WW + Rend will probably kill them pretty quick which means you’ll get a fair number of extra Bloodbath bleeds. Svr did some significant testing (when the buff was still 200%, of course) and said that the damage from Bloodbath was noticeably higher.

Falter is a dibs buff, so, assuming you’ve got 15% Rend on your chest and shoulders, plus Taeguk, you’d be getting something like 12 -15% extra damage on both your Rends and your WW. Could be worthwhile, certainly worth a try, though I think Bloodbath will probably come out ahead in a push.

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We can type and ask for lots of things from Bluzzard, but the only certain thing Barbs will receive is disappointment.

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I’m going to have to respectfully disagree. I think it’s pretty clear at this point that the optimal approach is do something else with my time.

14 Likes
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Any place for a 2-hander? Since Ambo only detonates once per second. Bigger weapon damage might be more beneficial? The biggest downside I see is the slower zodiac procs.

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The problem is that this build will be super squishy since it abandons PoC/perma IP and only has two dr bonuses (wastes and bracers). BoM could be an option instead of coe in that case. Or mortick instead of mantle in cube (and wear parthans).

Going full rend I wanted to test f&r and bom but that’s no longer an option if we want to fit in ww (technically, f&r and skull grasp but you’ll need zsupport)

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It’ll be optimized when you can get 2.0 as when WW-ing, 2-handed have about 40% more damage than 1 handed weapons, so with 2-handed you’ll need to reach an as of about 1.2, which is not easy, beside, using 2 weapons means one more Emerald and a lot more affixes, so in most cases I think dual weilding is better.

1 Like
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Sorry wrong thread lol :slight_smile:

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Wow this is a great post. So you’re saying that, just from the addition of auto-rend, the wastes set doubles its damage in density and does 22x damage against single target. I would certainly call that an insane buff.

1 Like
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It sounds a lot bigger than it actually works out to be. At least relative to other classes top clear potential.