People are saying WW barb in hell is only effective with godly gear. While I can demonstrate all day showing that Whirlwind is the most powerful attack skill, it’s a logical fallacy to say it’s only good with godly gear, which is usually perpetuated by players that have never dove deep into building the character. Whirlwind is just as powerful as every other character with cheap gear. I’ve arrived in hell hundreds of times with just an upped Bonesnap or Steeldriver, Lore helm and Smoke armour and made my way to Baal with this set up. It’s easier to do with the barbarian than pretty much any other character. Think about it, arriving in hell with max resistances, max BO, max WW, and max Weapon Mastery, and 40% cb, the character in virtually unstoppable from act 1 to 4. Add in LoH, GFace and Gore Riders ans SoE all found in NM.
The narrative is usually derived from websites and build guides too often discussing builds from 2004/5 and or saying that Engima and Grief is the only way, when it’s just not true, whirlwind barb is powerful even with junk gear.
Me good me smart me right, people bad people stupid people wrong. Me have controversial opinion because me find secretz of d2 and not noob!!111.
Stop being so condescending and assuming you’re better than others. Cringe. Grow up, really. Don’t name and shame either.
That being said, back to topic in-hand.
Yet, he demonstrates nothing.
Show us video, do you understand what people say when they say WW barb is bad without highend gear (which is right)? They mean compared to hammerdin or sorc, the time it takes him to clear an area for instance (among others) shows him at great disadvantage.
In your very post here your suggested equipment, with less than that and less effort a Sorceress would be considerably more viable.
But, are you going to “demonstrate” to us? Let’s see him clear a mf run as fast as a Sorceress with same or even cheaper equipment.
You could make the same argument about the summoner necro.
summoners, like whirlwinds are weak!
Though, the necro toolkit; due to curses, is far more varied than the barb. Or more specifically the ww barb. clear speed is a bad comparison tool u know?
Clear speed was just an example, I clearly have written:
But do tell other things to consider.
Safety? Skill-based, I feel safe with my sorc.
Fun/variation? Subjective, all more reasons to balance things out.
Finally, who even mentioned Summoners? What is this weak whataboutism? How is it supposed to prove WW barbs are not weak? If anything, it further proves that balancing is needed.
Summoners are even more trash in Classic.
WW barbs even on budget seem to have one of the most complete kits in the game. The only thing that I can think of that it lacks is procs on hit (because ww doesn’t activate “chance to cast on strike”). I’ve only built a WW barb once, it’s not the type of character I like to play, and I didn’t have anything that isn’t reasonable to obtain, but it was comfortably blasting through hell, in fact, much better than a budget hammerdin. It’s one of those hard to master characters for sure, because I never got insane results with the class but I’ve played it enough to see that it has a lot of potential.
Also, a WW barb is one of those builds that you don’t have to worry about immunities at all (or very little). Which is AMAZING to have. As for safety, it’s incredibly tanky.
I can’t stress enough, I don’t even like this build, the playstyle doesn’t suit me. But it’s insane to me that anyone would think it’s not a strong build
Upon reaching hell, my self found whirlwind barbarian build can solo clear hell faster than any self found solo clearing hell sorceress. In fact, my barbarian build straight out of nightmare can solo hell in an 8 player game, including on ladder.
With Enigma and BotD Thunder Maul I can clear Chaos, Nihl and Throne Baal faster than any other character class, regardless of player count in game.
Sadly, hit blinds target and hit causes monster to fee both work with ww, though they are similar to Necro and Barb curses, they are not the actual curses. If they had hit amps target or hit decrepifies target or hit life taps target, it would be way over powered.
What some folks don’t seem to understand, because they’ve never done it nor seen it done, when it comes to endgame (96-99) Enigma/eBotD ww barbarian is king with well over 100k damage which makes boss kills bullet fast. At clvl 96 only boss kills give acceptable experience.
I am wondering why do you prefer BotD Thunder Maul over BotD Great Poleaxe. As far as i know, TM offers 106 average damage and 4 attacks per second in ww. On the other hand GP offers 86 average dmg and 6 attacks per second.
The smaller ranger of the TM better suits my WW techniques.
I capitalize on the 50% undead bonus. (potentially there is an additional hidden 100%)
I capitalize on the potential +80 damage per hit with the eth TM.
EBotD GP requires an additional 50 dexterity. I would rather buff my strength or vitality, with the required stat points. Yes, I can use gear that gives me all the dexterity I need, but I’d rather use gear such as rings and charms that add multiple ways to damage instead.
Vanity: though Giant Thresher is the sexiest of the 3, TM is much sexier than GP in my opinion.
Observation: If the GP is the better choice, then the Ogre Maul, too, is a better choice than the TM. The avg. damage of the eth OM is 137.25, x 5 hits gives 686.25 avg. damage per so called second. Yet I consistently clear Chaos faster with the eth TM that provides 158.25, x 4 hits giving 639.00 avg. damage per so called second.
Unrelated news, my current eBotD TM isn’t superior and has a lowly 358% ed.
I dream of a perfect 15/3 eBotD TM, but in almost 20 years I’ve never seen an eth superior TM drop.
See The Arreat Summit: http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/skills/barbarian-combatskills.shtml#whirlwind Barbarians wielding weapons with slow Whirlwind speeds should try and keep their whirls very short, so as to take full advantage of the 4th and 8th frame "free" hits. Hold down the Whirlwind button and hover the cursor just right after the place where the Whirlwind starts. The free hits are taken and almost immediately after it, the Whirlwind stops. Then, since the Whirlwind button is still being pressed, a new Whirlwind starts and we get back the free hits of frames 4 and 8. Keep doing this in a triangular pattern. By using this technique you minimize the time under which your weapon slows down whirlwinds. This tactic is used by many Barbarians online and is nicknamed "The Dance of Death". This is because you keep spinning close to the target, not zig-zagging in long lines back-and-forth.
That’s another very interesting numbers game. When I dump all my stat points in strength totalling 638 strength, I get 27K max damage on Whirlwind with a Pride/Might merc. That’s 162K per whirlwind and doesn’t include my Deadly/Critical Strikes. In an 8 player game I instat kill almost everything. Imagine if I was proccing Amplify Damage and my eBotD TM was a perfect and perfect Superior!
I always thought it is not a real thing. I mean, doing three whirls in one second? It could be done when fighting boss or, in general, for a very short time. But doing that for, lets say, one hour constantly? Thats looks exhausting … But if you somehow manage to do that, you got my respect!
I never heard of that hidden bonus. Could you explain?
Both of them looks in hands of barbarian very good. Unfortunately the grey color that comes to eth. items or runewords does not. Imagine having them with angelic blue-green color of Atlantean
I believe you are in mistake here. OM has the exact attack speed like TM : so no 5 hits, just 4.
With my mouse adjusted for optimum whirling, and what little effort it takes to move the mouse to whirl, it really isn’t that bad. I feel it in the wrist for sure, but some stretching before and after works great.
I made this very short video for you demonstrating my 156K barbarian clearing a small section of the River of Flame, including Hephasto. He runs slow because I’ve not put any points on Increase Stamina and Run/Walk Speed. But you can see how awesome his killing power is with the way I whirl.
Here is another video of my clvl 37 whirlwind barbarian on bnet. He’s in a 6 player game soloing Chaos with 100% self found gear. You can see that even an 8 player game would be easy for this character. Despite a character in the game called MyEnchantress, he isn’t enchanted and I show that at the end. As choppy as the game was you can see that whirlwinding the way I do is of great easy and relaxed.
It’s just something that shows up on GoMule. Any weapon with the 50% undead damage bonus appears as 150%. Here is a demonstration.
OM is faster, but I don’t understand breakpoints in relation to FPS, so you could very well be correct.
Nice videos. For majority players is eBotD GP best solution, but with dedication and enough training eBotD DM is better. It is interesting, how deep this game is.
It would be interesting if devs could say how it really is.
Well, average player is not going to exploit the first two free hitchecks ww offers like AtomicPunk is doing, thats for sure. For whirlwind purpose, you will get more average dmg per hit with WP, true ( WP 106 vs GP 86 ), but less attacks per second ( WP 4 vs GP 6 ). So overall you would do less dmg over time ( WP 106x4 = 424 , GP 86x6=516 ). WP has propably some uses, maybe for amazon with jab//fend? But for ww GP looks way better. But maybe you are right - sometimes the best way is not the popular way, how to do things …
Also is worth noting, that with more attacks per second you get more from crushing blow on your other items ( if you get any, of course )
That’s gonna be a matter of playstyle then. If one keeps their WWs short for example, the damage on the WP will win.
Now that I think about it, I see very little situations where thunder maul wouldn’t be the best overall. Especially because of the str multiplier and lack of dex requirement. It just looks like a better tradeoff.
And it’s the most stylish one by far.
I think the biggest trap is to rely too much in the damage calculation and theorycrafting and disregard your actual execution and playstyle, the time it takes you to kill things (which if it is too fast, it can completely invalidate the advantage of longer term dps gain), etc.
At 4:33 you can see the dynamics of CB at work. The first hit on Diablo is a merc CB, my first hit is a CB and my second hit without CB kills him. This particular kit provides 16K max damage per hit, 50% CB, 66% Critical strike, and 32% Deadly Strike.
I think WP is used instead of TM in PvP for the extra range and no need for the undead damage.
Can you explain what you mean by strength “multiplier”? I honestly don’t know how it works. I know strength buffs damage, but I don’t understand the multiplier part. Or are you saying because the eBotD TM requires 196 strength to wield, where the eBotD WP only needs 135, the difference between the two will favour the maul in damage?
As the name implies, it’s a factor by which your damage is multiplied by your STR stat. With the thunder maul, AFAIK that multiplier is 1.1 and with the other alternatives it’s 1.0. That is, you get 10% more damage for each point you have in STR with the thunder maul than you would get with the other gear.
You could make the same argument about the summoner necro.
