ww discussion

[Superhal]

ww doesn't work the way it used to. right now, it appears that a lot of people are either a) thinking it is the same as .09 and thus is bugged now, b) are not sure how it works, thus think it's bugged now, or c) just think it's bugged, period.

In .09, ww worked like this: for x amount of ias on your weapon, you would get y amount of hits on a single target, based on formula that included range. It appears that there was a hard cap on hits at 6 regardless of range for a single wep, and 7 for using two weapons.

Now, it is clearly different. From lurkerlounge, they state (and i feel that their assessment matches the game) that ww has changed to frame-type damage. the way i understand it is that over say 32 frames:
aaabaaacaaabaaacaaabaaacaaabaaac
each letter represents a frame. c's are chances to get hits. if you have enough ias, you get the b's. (very simplified, i know.)

So, it appears that the range of the wep, the size of the monster, and the travel velocity of the ww all affect how many hits you can get. there is no guaranteed # of hits anymore.

So, looking at it like this, it would reflect the results many people have been reporting about the "2 hit ww bug." i think it is very possible to consistently get only 2 hits on a mob if it is immoble, small, and with a short weapon. after some testing on my own, i have found that i can get 3 or more hits only if the monster is large, 4 or so on very large act bosses.

So, this leads me to believe that further testing or mpq examination needs to be done.

First, wep range needs to be tested. Perhaps it is possible to get 6 hits on a single mob with range 5 weps.

Second, there may be further "breakpoints" instead of what we think we know. I have a -60 ias ribcracker, and a -65 ias ik maul, and the maul outperforms the ribcracker. Because ww is frame based now, perhaps the bps have changed as well.

Third, I may have found a bug with ww travel velocity as well. it randomly speeds up, missing many mobs that are obviously in its range, with no change in my frw. this is a huge disadvantge for frame-based ww, and might be a true bug.

[sorcyone]

I can confirm speed 8 (range 5 with 3rd breakpoint Viperfork ) is buggy. Quite often I get WW lockups, such that I can do anything including normal attacks, but when I try to WW I get the sound, but no attack or spinning or movement. I have to rejoin the game to fix. This does not happen with speed 7 (Hone Sundan with 2 shaels).

When you say the Maul outforms the Ribcracker are you factoring in IK maul average damage 274 vs ribcracker 115 ?

[Superhal]

ribcracker vs maul: i'm only counting hits on similar sized groups of mobs. maul hits more often. range is equal (both 2.)

level could be a factor, but i'd rather rule out the ias first.

[Superhal]

some new info i just found out:
itd works with ww. (how i found out is that i use cmoon (itd) with a rare legend sword, both with 24 durability. rare loses it's durability slower than the cmoon.)

it is possible to get up to 6 hits on a single large mob dual wielding. so far, i can only get up to 4 on a skinny one.

it does appear true that on a stationary single skinny mob, max possible hits is 2, single wielding, 4 dual wielding.

all of this leads me to believe that they didn't nerf ww, they nerfed the old s/s barbs. when i first played an orb sorc, i couldn't believe they nerfed it as much as they did. they didn't. they doubled and tripled the damage by allowing a new set of spikes to be released every hit, up to 3. so, i figured they had to have improved ww in some way, even if it wasn't obvious (through synergies.)

so, i think what happened is that frame rate damage vs set hit damage is worse for single wielders, but better for dual wielders.

FEAR THE NEW BARBS!

[Superhal]

famine (axes/hammers, no 1h hammers with range 3) and hand of justice (any wep, only zerker axe, swords have 1h range 3) also have itd. gogo new builds!

[wisedoor]

Very cool post :)

[F1R3STR1D3R]

Can you put this information into a chart using different weapons single wielding and dual wielding, because I'm still confused on how many hits I will get with BotD zerker and Silence zerker or dual BotD zerkers vs. 1 target in PvP. Thank you :)

[Superhal]

vs a single target, all variations are the same.

i'm not sure if silence zerker gets the -35 ias bp. if it does, then it should be equal.

[wisedoor]

I found a very enlightening thread at Lurker Lounge

http://www.lurkerlounge.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=8&t=834&hl=whirlwind

I did some math using the formulas in the site, and the breakpoints are true... hehe just a simplified way of the formula...

Well... basically, what i understood, after the first 2 attacks (8 frames), using 2 weapons will theoretically double the number of attacks. In another post, based in the formula from that post, someone said that using 2 weapons halve real delay, opening possibilities for 2 attacks

with 1 CBlade with 40 ias, whirl would be like this (delay 6) in attacking

frames 4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32 36 40 44
attack X X X X X X X X

With 2 CBlades 40 ias, whirl would be like this (delay 3)

frames 4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32 36 40 44
attack X X X X XX X X XX X X XX

Is this true? Using 2 weapons, the delay would explode and hit 2 monsters every 12 frames after the first attacks....

edit: damn... format problems... i´ll repost this later with a vertical table

[Superhal]

i believe that it would actually be like this:

x xx xx xx xx xx xx xx

for every chance at a ww attack.

for every attack, if there is another monster in range, the 2nd wep gets a chance.

[wisedoor]

Note that delay count starts after frame 8

1 Weapon at last BP

Frame attacks
4 X
8 X
12
16 X
20 X
24
28 X
32 X
36
40 X
44 X

2 Weapons at last BP
Frame attacks
4 X
8 X
12 X
16 X
20 XX
24 X
28 X
32 XX
36 X
40 X
44 XX

This is based on what i understood from Lurker Lounge..... With my 1.09 WW barb, i confirmed the behavior of a 1 weapon setup.
Hal.. r u sure one get this many double attacks? 4 FPA is very fast...
HMmmm.... my 1.10 pvm setup will use 2 weapons, no FRW and goblin toe..

[Superhal]

here's what i read:

Every 4 ticks the game will check whirlwind to see if it has 'earned' another attack set. If you are dual wielding then it will check one weapon for an attack and IF there is a second target in range it will then check the other weapon for attacking that target. To get the 2 hits per check will require that there be 2 targets available to apply the hits against.


http://www.lurkerlounge.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=8&t=3152&

here is your single wep information:
4 X
8 X
12
16 X
20 X
24
28 X
32 X
36
40 X
44 X

what i mean is that it should look something like this:
4 X
8 XX
12
16 XX
20 XX
24
28 XX
32 XX
36
40 XX
44 XX

there is check every 4 frames, and an attack given after x delay (based on wep speed.) if there is an attack, both weps get a swing if there are 2 different monsters in range.

[wisedoor]

Yes, you´re right... and in my previous table i missed the second attack with 2 wpns in frame 8 (well the table is wrong anyway)

Hmmm
I had to put more str to lift 2 swords without storm... and it seems that against a single target with 2 weapons, i attack at 4 fpa (don´t lose any attack chance)... so i think that if there is no target for one weapon to attack, the attack goes into a buffer and is applied in the next tick. I think that when an attack is avaliable with a weapon, the game triggers a bolean "true" that only gets "false" when that weapon attacks. In this case, it works like blizzard said, against a single target.

[Saraph]

sometimes WW works pretty well.

Soemtimes its really really the death of me. Iv died sooooooooooo many times in baal runs because for some reason when i WW. after its "over" i cant move, and theres this little animation of 'wind' floating around my barb.

or instead of "cutting a path through legions of your enemies" (like the skill tree says) il only ww into a legion and get whomped on, instead of completing the path i had targeted....

but other times. il utterly just dice up multiple groups of badies. Like a flipping lawn mower. Just run em over :)

as long as whatever bugs are fixed and i can keep my damage. im happy.

[Superhal]

Soemtimes its really really the death of me. Iv died sooooooooooo many times in baal runs because for some reason when i WW. after its "over" i cant move, and theres this little animation of 'wind' floating around my barb.


there are two things happening here:
1. possibly you had iron maiden cast on you. this causes your own damage to rebound back to you. however, if you don't use physical damage, or use ranged damage, it doesn't work. if you see red firefly looking things over your head, switch to berzerk (you should have 1 pt), get a heal, or wait for your partymates to handle the mobs.

2. there is a known bug with ww when it is held down (i find that if i try to ww through a map item, like a stone or wall or pillar) you can get stuck in ww and have to drop the game. to get around this, if you are holding down ww, and hear "whup whup whup whup etc" and aren't moving, you are probably stuck on something and you should stop ww's and move.

[Flexible Fingers]

this might lead to a new sort of barb, i created a barbarian that had two pieces of heavy armor (shield and armor) and 1 handed 60 ias weapon, and no r/w from any source. it could get 9-10 hits on a single target. however, dual wielding with 1 piece of heavy armor is only 7 hits maximum. no r/w no heavy armor 1 weapon is 6 hits like before.

slowed chilled decreped to the min speed 1/yard sec, i got 26 hits on a single target.

against a singel monster with 100% effective inc speed (after dimish forumla) i get 2 hits with single wepaon, 3 hits with 2 weapons.

i suppose if you got a teleport amulet and no r/w at all, your tele whirls would hurt very very bad :P

[Superhal]

this might lead to a new sort of barb, i created a barbarian that had two pieces of heavy armor (shield and armor) and 1 handed 60 ias weapon, and no r/w from any source. it could get 9-10 hits on a single target. however, dual wielding with 1 piece of heavy armor is only 7 hits maximum. no r/w no heavy armor 1 weapon is 6 hits like before.

slowed chilled decreped to the min speed 1/yard sec, i got 26 hits on a single target.

against a singel monster with 100% effective inc speed (after dimish forumla) i get 2 hits with single wepaon, 3 hits with 2 weapons.

i suppose if you got a teleport amulet and no r/w at all, your tele whirls would hurt very very bad :P

very interesting info. could you please post your salient info (skills, eq, etc.) and who was taking the blows? (most importantly, lvl difference, blocking, sprite size, movement (if any) and def.)

[Flexible Fingers]

i was lvl 99 whirling a hell zombie that i had stunned for 50 seconds, with billions of attack rating and -95% target defense to make sure that i always had 95% chance to hit, and that the zombie stood still.

gear... i did this on a single player modding program so it would be simpler to control variables and stuff

war ax with 60 ias and 1 fire damage

war ax with 60 ias and 1 poison damage over 1 second

a tower shield

full plate

the monster stood still, and i whirled in real-screen distance about :

z = zombie
- = path
e = ends

e--------------z--------------e

so that i was testing the hitting in the middle of whirls without the strangeness of the first 8 frames.

about 9-10 hits with -20% speed (2 heavy pieces) and 7 hits with -10 speed (armor only) + 2 weapons.

another thing i tested is how the weapons take turns hitting. i used the same setup as above, except with realistic run speed (40 skill 75 item), so that i'd only stay in range for the first 2 hits. it turns out that the primary hand hits first, then the secondary hand, every single time, at least for the first 8 frames. after that, the off hand seems to turn "primary", since when i slowed the ww down to see mid-whirl hits, it triggered fire animations many many times while the poison "flump" noise only hit once in a while (when the fire-ax was put on second). and also, it got EXACTLY THE SAME number of hits as single-weapon whirl. i tested that this morning, and its between 2-3 hits each time, for both single wepaon and dual wielding.

i was interested in pvp application for this... a standard vs. all tele-whirl barb would have 75% run from engima + gores and 40% from inc speed, leading to about 96% total after diminishing returns is applied to the item r/w. since most of the barb's hits come from the first 8 frames of ww if they namelock alot, then a huge slow *** thunder maul + good short whirls would be best, since it would have the same speed as dual wielding but way more damage. but then, i tried that and got owned by people that are usually cake with dual wielding, just because i never landed hits.

for those who wonder how i counted hits, i used a metronome. haha

weird stuff... maybe it has to do with two-handed ness. but that that mean using a etheral rune master with zod and four ohms would be the best tele-whirl pvp barb weapon?

[Superhal]

thanks for the testing. :)

imho, while theoretically the first 8 frames can open up a lot of wep possibilities, i think in practice it's nearly impossible to utilize because of how short it is, how much ww costs, and range.

one question about dual wield testing: did you try switching weps, eg: wield fd axe first? could be either display bug (pd is going off, but you don't see it because of fd overwrite, like how you only see 1 leech glow even if you have both) or wep switch bug. (use the "w" key, as sometimes when you wield the left hand wep is considered primary until you hit "w".)

a suggestion: you can put itd on the weps, that might make it easier. also, a norm a1 monster has little or no blocking, maybe you were seeing some blocking effects.

[Flexible Fingers]

about the practical-ness of the first 8 frames, yes, its not at all hard to use short ww every single time, but the problem is theres a slight delay between starting (dunno maybe 4 or 6 frames) wws, so its like whirl - hiccup -whirl- hiccup, and with 2 hande slow weapons the hiccups make it hit so few times that you might as well use concentrate or something.

when i tested, yes i made sure the off hand really WAS the off hand, and i didnt use leech caus i hear stuffa bout fake leech circles an stuff. fire / poison is a better indicator i think, easy to see, short animation, and easy to hear. pd and fire cant cover each other since if the pd hit, the monster would turn green even if there wasnt the puff of green smoke displayed.

monsters might get blocking but onyl if they spawn shields like skeleton so i dont think the zombie had any blocking

accordint to this testing as well as everyone else's and the lurker lounge's, its time now to switch from botd/beast zerker to botd/beast ettin. more damage, same speed.

[Taz]

about the practical-ness of the first 8 frames, yes, its not at all hard to use short ww every single time, but the problem is theres a slight delay between starting (dunno maybe 4 or 6 frames) wws, so its like whirl - hiccup -whirl- hiccup, and with 2 hande slow weapons the hiccups make it hit so few times that you might as well use concentrate or something.

when i tested, yes i made sure the off hand really WAS the off hand, and i didnt use leech caus i hear stuffa bout fake leech circles an stuff. fire / poison is a better indicator i think, easy to see, short animation, and easy to hear. pd and fire cant cover each other since if the pd hit, the monster would turn green even if there wasnt the puff of green smoke displayed.

monsters might get blocking but onyl if they spawn shields like skeleton so i dont think the zombie had any blocking

accordint to this testing as well as everyone else's and the lurker lounge's, its time now to switch from botd/beast zerker to botd/beast ettin. more damage, same speed.
Hell zombie has 13-22% chance to block.
Blood hawk nests have 0% chance to block and they stand still.

[mestre]

There is this page: http://diablo2.ingame.de/tips/calcs/weaponspeed.php?lang=english

I have been testing WW for some time and it seems true. Only the weapon ias is important, the maximum WW attack per frame rate is 2 for Expansion pack and can only be achieved by using two 1 hand weapons. For the classic Diablo II any weapon you may use has the same rate and they seem to hit at each frame (1 attack each frame). It (classic WW compared to xpack dual wield ias WW) seems twice as much faster according to my testing, but it's hard to tell for sure, as it's somewhat troublesome to count hits at that rate.

I am not sure, but it seems using the decreptify curse will decreate the WW rate too, but I am not sure, as when it happens it gets laggy: I WW, and after I "stop" I still got the swing-like rings around me and I can't WW for some time. Also, monsters get hit after that*. As game loses sync one has trouble to verify the effects of the curse.

*It's very commom that I WW monsters, get cursed with decreptify, and many seconds after I finish WW the monsters all die, clearly due to WW.

[TheCerberus]

For the classic Diablo II any weapon you may use has the same rate and they seem to hit at each frame (1 attack each frame). It (classic WW compared to xpack dual wield ias WW) seems twice as much faster according to my testing, but it's hard to tell for sure, as it's somewhat troublesome to count hits at that rate.

Wow... so in Classic, WW will hit 25 times in a second? If you guys could help me do some calculations, I'd appreciate it, because I'm not sure how many times WW would hit a shift+smiting paladin.

Let's say the barb has a 140 dmg battle hammer, and with the 100 strength and %110 dmg it becomes a 294 battle hammer, right? If the barb has 3+skills, there's 126 and 138 percent dmg coming from WW and Mastery. That would make a 1070 dmg WW per attack, 182 PvP dmg. The paladin will have max block and 8k defense. Let's say the barb uses angelics, he'll have 11k AR? Thats what some have in Classic BvB. How many times would the barb hit the paladin for in a pass, or how long will he be on the pally's body?

[Rius666]

after reading this post ive gotten very nervous about making my cookie cutter pvp s/s barb. Are ww s/s barbs still viable in pvp in 1.10? i was planning on using the usual botd cb and ss but it sounds like ww is completely different now in 1.10. Ive not yet tried ww in 1.10 so i have no idea. guess my question is is it worth it to make a s/s ww pvp barb and can they still be as dominant as they were in 1.09?

[mestre]

Fist, as I said I can't be sure that WW hits that any times in classic. I just compared my pre-patch lance barbarian with my current dual death cleaver barb in expansion. The old barb seems to hit much more, but it is very fast and I can't be sure it is 25 times per second. But it looks like.

About the question about a bh barbarian hitting a paladin, it depends on the block speed also. I am not sure if holy shield increased block speed in classic too. Anyway, you could test that with any barb using a range one weapon (like a dagger or club). Just pick a frield you trust and check. Some 10 WWs and you can have an idea of the number of times you could hit him.

I wouldn't use a shield against a paladin, tough. As they don't have much life I would suggest you get a 2 handed hammer and finish him off in one WW, if possible, so that yu are sure he can't survive and make use of rejuvenation potions.

About the time you will be on him, it depends, as you may get slowed while using WW, either for cold damage on his weapon or holy freeze aura. If you get slowed, better for you! :)