WW Barb - 1 or 2 weapons? What weapon?

[MaximusBarb]

Dear all,

My first post, and my first time playing a WW Barb. Need advice on the followings:

1) For a WW Barb, should concentrate on using 2 weapons on 1 weapon for maximum effect? If 1 weapon, should use a 2-handed weapon or 1-handed weapon + a shield?

2) What weapon should I concentrate on (ie for my mastery)?

Thanks in advance :grin:

[Painman]

Welcome to the Forums.

*steals pants and wallet* (I don't think Evrae visits this sub-forum much)

Basically, you can reach an attack speed of 2 frames per attack with a pair of sufficiently fast 1H weapons (that's 12.5 attacks per second) or up to 4 frames per attack (6.25 attacks per second) with a sufficiently fast 2H weapon.

The advantage may seem to be with a pair of 1H weapons, but they have less max range (up to 3) than the longest range 2H weapons (up to 5) and choice 2H weapons like eBotD Great Poleaxes can do more than twice the amount of damage per attack than even the best 1 handers. A close exception might be a Barb wielding a pair of range 3 Grief weapons with enough On Weapon IAS to ensure the 2 frame attack rate.

For your mastery - whatever you plan on using end-game. The majority of Barbs tend to use swords and axes due to the sheer amount of weapon choices, while the best 2H weapons tend to be Polearms.

As for a shield: this has its specific uses for certain types of dueling Barbs and certain types of PvM Barbs that specially serve as tanks for a party, but for the most part, Barbs don't need shields and kill far more effectively without them.

[SPAWNLORDS]

What a wonderful reply Painman, your awesome, I've just started roaming the Barb Forum and so far seems like good people.
Two Handed Damg.
I use an eth botd-war pike as primary weapon and eth botd-gost spear for secondary, depending on what the combination of equipment is you can do 15-11k ww/dmg. Lvl 10 weapons mastery, any point after 8 seems to drop dmg total. This takes out almost all monster and bosses in 8 player games, the Beserker/dmg takes out the rest. FCR 45% / AR 6-10K with or without Angelics. FRW 106%.

Can anybody tell me if a BVC build can use these weapons or better yet can a Polearm /BVC Barbarian be built?

I hope this all fits the context here

Thannk you.

[Painman]

Thanks for the props Spawnlords, I don't duel much myself though I believe the point of dual wielding on a BvC has much to do with flexibility.

Most use Beast. A nice chunk of AR from Fanaticism, and Open Wounds - make sure Sorcy (or whoever) bleeds if they tele out of range. Put on a Doom zerker if you have to contend with a pesky Zon who has tons of FRW. BotD is nice in PvM, but in the end it just offers a crapload of damage and leech. PvP has more dynamics than this.