Ok so I don’t know if the expertise selections I’m making are doing anything at all? Plus the descriptions are very confusing.
For instance the One-Handed Axe Expertise says “5.0% Increased Critical Strike Chance against Injured enemies. Double this amount when using two Axes.” For dual wield I am using a sword and an axe and for two handed weapons I’m using a mace and a two handed sword. In other words I am NOT using two axes.
Yet when I select this, the icon on the left says I’ve got “10% increased Critical Strike Chance against Injured enemies.” It doesn’t mention anything about the increased attack speed bonus I’m supposed to get with this technique because it is at Rank 10 either, does this mean I don’t get this? And it goes on further to note that “The Technique Slot allows the player to choose a Weapon Expertise Effect that applies to all of their attacks, regardless of which weapon they are using.”
So then why the hell does the description under the One-Handed Axe Expertise say I get an extra bonus when I’m using two axes when this doesn’t even matter?
Also, when I choose this weapon expertise, I look at my critical strike chance against injured enemies before and after and it doesn’t change at all?
What the heck is going on?
Anyone can help I’d appreciate it.
Thanks!
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When you slot the weapon expertise you can use the scaling / not-10 bonus on any weapon type.
Thanks for help and sorry but I have no idea what your talking about. When I choose a weapon expertise what does it do exactly because when I select ANY of them it doesn’t appear to change ANYTHING.
Okay I will use an explain.
Two-hand Sword expertise says it makes my two hand sword attacks do 20% extra damage as bleeding and gives some other bonus (extra bleed damage after killing an enemy).
If I attach the two hand sword expertise to the expertise slot, it will say it makes my weapon attacks have this bonus. The end result is that when I use hammer of the ancients with two hand sword spec slotted, my Hammer attack will do 20% extra damage as bleed even though it is not a sword. I do not get an extra bleed bonus when I kill enemies with the hammer though.
How do you know if its actually doing this extra bleed damage though? It doesn’t change any of the stats in the character profile or any descriptions in any of the abilities? When I am playing my rogue and I choose combo points for my specialization it changes the description of the ability so I know how it will increase the damage of a core skill cast. The barb specialization changes nothing?
Barbs have a talent that causes bleeding enemies to be slowed. If you wack an enemy with the hammer and they’re slowed you know you applied a bleed.
Eliminate all other potential sources of bleed.
If the mob still bleeds when you hit it with any weapon that is NOT a 2H sword (since the 2H sword will always have this bonus through the expertise system), then you know that it is working.
You can see bleeds either as a darker shade part on their health bar or if your damage numbers are on, they tick twice a second as a white number.
No, Blizzard will not show these effects in the tooltips of your skills. They might in a few years.
Also, tooltips unfortunately are also very unreliable and sometimes flat out wrong.
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Expertise and Technique are different.
Expertise only activates when you actually use that weapon to attack. Technique on the other hand is always active no matter what weapon you use.
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Thanks HunterKiller that helps to make more sense, but it is still confusing. If expertise only increases my critical strike chance by 5% when I use a single one-handed axe but the technique slot increases it by 10% for all weapons what the heck increase in critical strike chance do I get for a one-handed axe, 10% or 5%, or 15%?
There is no double-dip AFAIK, you would just get 10%.
correct, no double dipping there
So then the bonus you get at Rank 10 only applies if your using the expertise in question? Like for the One-Handed Axe Expertise that increases attack speed this increase in attack speed is only triggered when I critically strike with a one handed axe? How the heck would anyone know when this is trigged if there are no abilities the barb has that uses a one handed axe? Sure you can apply duel wield to an ability but how often would one swing vs the other? I enjoy playing this game but the more you try and figure out how to optimize your char the more you realize how poorly this game is designed…
Yes.
???
You know you can just like… use two one-handed axes together, right?
Applying dual wield to a skill changes the base attack speed to 1.1 APS, as stated on the weapons.
If you have two 1h weapons with a dps of 1.5k each and a 2h weapon with 3k dps, both weapon options deal the same exact average effective damage per second if you use a spammable skill. If you use a cooldown skill though, a 0.9 APS weapon will always deal more damage.
Yeah I know I can use two one handed axes at once but I don’t want to. I have the Azurewrath and Butchers Cleaver which is good CC combo to help me manage getting bum rushed. Well I tried the One Handed Axe Expertise using a one handed axe slot and my critical strike chance is 30% and my attack speed never increases…
I take that back, it did increase!! Hard to look at it in time to see the increase, but it was working 
The character tooltip does not show the increased critical strike chance on injured with your regular critical strike chance.
It might show the increased attack speed if you keep the tab open during play (use window mode and widen the screen horizontally and/or flatten it vertically for testing if you want to try that).
Thanks everyone, appreciate the help!!
Figures, makes sense I suppose.