Dunno. I was excited to play 2h Messerschimidth’s Rend. I’d even write a guide of some sorts for it.
Now I might stick to Rumble Slam, Fjord on Cube, FotVP equipped. Probably 30 min per week, no more
I think BoM is still important now that we won’t have IP. My main dilemma is between CoE vs Skull. I’ll have to wait and see more data. It was going to be such a good build… :’(
To dig into it a little further…
Unless talking about slotting a RoRG and splashing another set, I think the competition is between 4 rings: BoM, CoE, Zodiac, Skull
Firstly, I think cubing CoE, or anything other than Zodiac would be a mistake, since Zodiac cannot give a Crit Damage bonus like all the other rings can. So the cube slot is probably best taken up by the Zodiac.
That leaves us with 3 rings. If you don’t need the extra tankiness, I guess BoM could be left out. Though it’s just such a big and easy to get DR bonus that it feels wrong not to have. Maybe if you choose Cuirass over Mantle it can make up for it.
If we decide to keep BoM, then that leaves us one more slot for either CoE or Skull. In the context of WW doing a small % of the damage in PTR, CoE seemed like the better choice. With the Lamentation nerf, Skull might be again worthwhile.
As far as the weapons go IB probably looks like the best set, though BK might not be as bad after all. I did some tests on live and the extra attack speed actually helped with my survivability since I was healing more often, even if it didn’t add any damage.
Lastly, instead of Bloodshed or Into the Frey, Swords to Ploughshares could be worth it as well. Losing some dps but adding a good amount of survivability now that we’re killing everything slower anyway.
Just my 5c 
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I sure hope you are right about the BK swords, I can’t seem to drop a decent set of IB’s no matter what I do. 
You’ll still be taking IP, probably with the Iron Hide rune for the extra duration, though there may be a few small gaps in uptime.
You still should! Don’t let Blizz’s poor decisions sway your own decision.
Yeah. The highest clears will almost certainly be without BoM, but for anybody who needs extra toughness, BoM will solve that issue pretty quick. For those folks, running a pure Rend setup will probably be ideal, since they can just wear CoE and BoM, cube Zodiac, and load all their damage into Rend without worrying about Skull Grasp and WW.
Yep, the BK swords will still be a perfectly acceptable option, especially considering they will allow you to take Blood Funnel, which is an enormous boost to survivability. With IB, it’s very difficult to get by without Wind Shear, which not only cuts down your healing, it also gives you a mismatch between your WW rune (lightning) and the most damaging Rend rune (Bloodbath - physical).
If you’re running BK and using Blood Funnel, StP is probably overkill on the healing, and you’ll get a lot more benefit from the damage of ItF. But for folks running IB, the healing of StP will indeed come in very handy.
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The big picture hear is Echoing fury or Furnace and mantle of channeling vs Ambo’s and lamentation in the cube. How much buff is this really now?
I think CC/BK2/FOT is mandatory. Without attack speed/cooldown from bulkathos/crimson set combo cooldowns will be suspect. Right now I don’t even need to run boon of bulkathos because echoing fury trivializes all cooldowns. We will need to take boon passive now and cause a loss of at least 20% damage. One might be able to get away with losing weapon master but my testing didn’t fair well in that set up. Also Crismon set makes channeling pylon a damage gain as well. I don’t think a 4th dmage pylon can be overlooked.
Well, FOT is definitely going to be the best amulet.
But, with Rend dealing more than 50% of your damage in density, and something like 95% of your damage vs single targets, the 30% boost from IB is going to be better for damage than anything the BK swords can dish out.
As for Captain C, like I said in the original post, to take that set you need to take RoRG, and if you do that, you have to choose between Skull Grasp (which, if you leave it behind, essentially reduces WW to irrelevance) or you have to drop CoE, which costs you around 50% damage, and also have to put Lamentation in the cube instead of Mantle, which costs another 25% damage.
If you want to run Captain C, the best option would be to abandon WW damage entirely. Wear Zodiac + CoE, cube RoRG. Use the IB swords, and Ambo’s in the cube. (i.e. the setup DP used in his 140 clear).
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The total loss of a multiplier on Lamentation is a major blow to the build in several ways, not the least of which is going to be toughness.
On the PTR, the easiest way into the build was Crimson’s + Wastes with the BK swords. Your rings were Band of Might, RoRG, and Zodiac. This let you drop IP completely.
Now, since we’ll need to still bank on WW damage, we need to take Skull Grasp, Zodiac, and RoRG for Crimson’s. We’ll have to keep IP on the bar, and it will be a toss up between Mortick’s and Parthans for bracer.
We now have far fewer options since we have to rely on 2 independent sources of damage.
On paper, a total reliance on Rend damage isn’t going to cut it without an additional multiplier.
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I’m estimating that a pure Rend build, at high paragon, can probably go up to 135-136, and a “composite” WW/Rend setup maybe 2 GRs higher.
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Yeah, because that dream rift for WW will bank on the AD and Bloodshed.
But since WW damage is important again, and thus Bloodshed is important again (on the PTR, Into the Fray was the better rune) that means a Wind Shear/Swords to Ploughs setup is automatically inferior. I suspect this will elevate the BK swords over the IB set. Then again, maybe all that extra CHC from ItF will help Rend damage level out.
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When I worked the numbers, it seemed that for old school, pure WW, Bloodshed is like 10% better than ITF. A significant difference, but not an enormous one. (The largest share of your damage, by far, comes from AD when using either Bloodshed or ITF, even taking into account the fact that Bloodshed doesn’t proc AD)
But with Rend thrown into the equation, ITF is much, much better, since Bloodshed and Rend don’t interact at all.
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Good points. I was indeed using Blood Funnel in my tests by the way.
If one dropped BoM and slotted Skull, do you think other items would be better off giving +15% to WW instead of Rend?
Well, Rend rolls come on shoulders and chest, and WW on helm and boots, so you could have +30% to each.
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I agree with OP.
Since lamentation now has no damage bonus, the best thing is just mix both sources of damage WW and Rend (ambo pride beats echoing fury or the furnace, so is a bit of more damage without sacrifice).
WW will be a couple of levels stronger than it was thanks to rend damage, so not everything is that bad, at least will be better for speeds.
I think your math is right, this build will still need a lot of density in order to work, mostly because of AD shenanigans, i think that the rend rune that makes explosions could be pretty good in this case (but could cause some lag)
We still don’t know exactly how Ambo-Rend and hard-cast-Rend stack, refresh, or override one another. Ambo-rend doesn’t proc AD, but self-cast Rend does.
There’s a “nightmare scenario” where the most optimal setup is actually to just continuously spam Rend, only pausing to tap WW every 3 seconds to keep up Wastes 4, or to regen fury when you’re running low. With hard-cast-Rends dealing AD, they can do 8-9 times as much damage as Ambo-Rend in high density. This would make WW damage completely irrelevant, and, far more importantly, it would be HORRIBLE TO PLAY.
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Would miss out on a 6% crit chance this way, but it’s probably worth it especially if we slot ItF.
One more question - would you go for full Rubies on chest and trousers? Or resistance?
Same, my IB set sucks 
Wrong stats rolled everywhere
Wait, why? You mean on helm? Stats would be STR, WW%, CHC. (And a socket, of course)
Definitely diamonds! Unless, perhaps, you are running BoM (or enjoy being dead).
Ah I thought those 3 couldn’t roll together. Thanks for the replies.
No problem!
I’m really curious to see how things shake out once the patch goes live.
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