Good afternoon Barbarians!!!
I want to make a barb for the first time but I’m super overwhelmed with the weapon system, I have read about assigning weapons to certain skills but it’s not clicking to me - is the system new player friendly or should I stick to a simpler class?? Do all 4x weapons get affixes ?
The damage of each weapon is only relevant if it’s used for the assigned skill. The affixes and aspects of each weapon however, effect your barb’s overall power.
- There’s only 2-H maces for your 2-H bludgeoning slot.
- For 1-H’s you either want to go with maces for their overpower implicit or swords for their crit damage implicit.
- For 2-H slicing weapon you want to go 2-H sword for the crit damage implicit or 2-H axe for damage against healthy enemies implicit.
For your technique slot you always want to go 2-H Axe.
It’s good to assign different weapons to different skills for certain aspects or passives to buff your damage. Examples include Walking Arsenal key passive and Earthstrikers aspect.
I mean, you don’t “always” want 2 handed axe. I use 2 handed sword to apply bleed at all times to trigger Beserk via paragon. This means I can trigger Beserk without needing a Shout up and when Beserk is already up it triggers again for Tuskhelm. The reason I do this is because then I can use 30%x damage boost to Whirlwind rather than the bleed one. It’s a higher damage buff than the 2 handed axe 15%x damage boost only when enemies are Vulnerable. Yes I use Beserk Ripping as well, but that only applies if I’m already Beserking. It feels more versatile to me this way. Plus then I can trigger Beserk or Enraged Beserk with my Basic skill as well if I’m low on Fury and generating some, which I use Frenzy for with an already very high base Attack Speed.
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Okay, I guess in some niche off-meta builds you might want to pick the 2-H sword for the technique slot. 
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Hey I just want to be clear I wasn’t trying to be difficult. I just want the guy to know that there isn’t one end all choice if he decides to delve deep enough to experiment.
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The 2H slash is for decoration
The 1 weapons are for smol maces when you need smol smash
The 2H bludgeon is for big smash
2HB is big fun