WW/crit build: Weapon Mater vs. Ruthless

[thewoodshed]

Hello,

Been working WW since I was able to get it, and now am approaching level 60 build. I will be attempting a dual wield WW/crit build. With Nerves of Steel and Tough as nails Practically being prerequisites for survival, I am left with only one passive skill. I understand that a lot of folks are going with Ruthless as the 3rd passive for the 5% crit chance/50% crit damage bonus, but it seems the 10% crit chance for weapon master would be invaluable for proc on WW/Blood funnel and to proc better overall damage.

Thoughts?

Thanks,
'shed

[hubb]

If you've got (or can get) axes/maces then I'd say crit chance trumps extra crit damage without a doubt. You could calculate which is better DPS-wise but with Blood Funnel I don't see why you'd chose Ruthless.

[Doppel]

Firstly, it largely depends on the amount of critical hit damage you have on your equipment. I think in most cases Ruthless will still outdamage the Axes/Maces option of Weapon Master. In that case it's largely a subjective matter. Do you prefer the extra damage, or the extra crits. If the case is that you have so much critical hit damage that Weapon Master also outdamages Ruthless, then ofcourse there is little reason to take Ruthless instead.


Secondly, the little reason to still consider using Ruthless is ofcourse the requirement to take an Axe or Mace if going for the extra crits of Weapon Master.
So then the question is, would taking for example a very fast Dagger/Sword result in more crits with Ruthless then a relatively slow Axe/Mace with Weapon Master.
I don't know the answer to this, but i wouldn't be suprised if, with already high amounts of crit chance, a Dagger/Sword with Ruthless would outcrit a Axe/Mace with Weapon Master (in a given timeframe).


Thirdly, remember that when dual wielding what bonus you get from Weapon Master depends only on your main hand. Thus a combination like mainhand being Axe and offhand being Dagger is possible and would give you the extra crit chance from Weapon Master and increase your overall speed due to the Dagger.


Fourthly, remember that there is a Legendary Shield called Lidless Wall that gives you extra attack speed. I have one with 5% crit chance. This might be a good alternative for dual wielding if you desperately need some extra armor/resistances, yet still want to enjoy a fast attack speed.


Lastly, i think this is a build that benefits a lot from a (very) large health pool. If decadently geared i would consider using Ruthless plus weapon Master for some glorious carnage.

[Muggs]

Like you said you really need Crit % to make a WW build work because of health funnel proccing on crits. You also need a decent amount of LOH on your gear. I gave the WW SS build a whirl a few days back because I am sitting at 30% to crit 216% crit damage(with weapon master and ruthless) 800+ LOH with a Sword and Board and 1200 LOH with a 2h + LS and I honestly just didn't like it vs many packs. It was a lot of fun though I will give it that and I was able to run through A2 with it but no faster than my standard build with about the same survivability but I was worse against caster packs than my standard build. If I could get my crit% in the 40s without WOTB I could see it being amazing since you would be critting more than half the time but I just couldn't make it work right for me. I will admit I could probably try again and see if I could make it work especially since packs in act3 are so clumped it could work out nicely.


I will admit I did kill the seigebreaker the 1st time with the fart tornados and it was rather funny.

[zakaluka]

With Nerves of Steel and Tough as nails Practically being prerequisites for survival

Yes, this is about right.

Now, here's the thing: I did some math, and I found out that the amount of health you can get funneling is WAY< more impacted by your crit rate than your attack speed. I want badly to be able to carry both weapon master and ruthless. Maybe that just makes me ridiculous. By using a shield rather than dual wielding, I can actually theoretically get more health funnel from WW. And because I've got the shield that makes me think I can get away with ONE defense passive. I waffle between tough as nails, steel nerves, and superstition (superstition really helps against those "impossible" champ affixes like jail/mortar etc)

A shield with high block can give you 10% crit, as well as up to ~50% DR overall (if looked at as a separate source of DR) - in certain situations. Because of the way Block can completely negate small damage components, and because shields have an insanely high base armor value. 2nd weapon gets you faster attack and LOTS of crit dmg (these things are good) but I was trying to think through the way to get the most from funnel and still maintain good enough defense.

Here's how it works with 1H/shield ww crit:
Looking at a tier 3 geared max barb: http://diablonut.incgamers.com/planner/72338
With berserker rage and a killing spree rolling, with the 10% crit from axe mastery and the 5% from ruthless you now have: 82% crit (holy ****)
I chose all haste affixes assuming a 30% nerf is incoming to attack speed across the board. This could be off by a mile, we will see. But this barb has 2.31 attack speed with those assumptions.
If you can get 3 mobs in your whirlwind:
13.9 hits/sec with whirlwind
11.5% health/sec with funnel
100k health pool? 11.5k health/sec. 827 health per hit. ww has a 13.3% coefficient - equivalent to 6.2k life on hit (o.o)
^^^ Very little RNG even, with this. At high crit you won't get a "bad streak", almost never.

If you dual wield and get rid of ruthless, okay let's have a look at that:
2.66 attack speed (again assuming the 30% nerf across the board for haste)
character screen: 44.5% crit. Axe mastery/berserker rage/killing spree: 67.5% crit.
If you get 3 mobs in your whirlwind:
15.96 hits/sec with whirlwind
10.8% health/sec with funnel
100k health pool? 10.8k health/sec. 677 health per hit. equivalent to 5.1k life on hit.

So as you see, it's pretty equivalent on the health return front, although it can be easier to manage fury with slower attack speed.
Dual wielding is undoubtedly much higher DPS. 200% crit dmg + 15% AS vs 10% crit? The dual wielding wins by a mile.
But from the standpoint of having to give up something offensive to gain some defense, I like putting on a shield in off-hand over dropping ruthless for steel nerves. For me, steel nerves is about a 10% EH gain, whereas a shield is worth much more than that in most situations.

Sorry, this isn't really what you asked, but hopefully sharing my thought process and where I wound up will help you with yours. The LoH comparisons have no impact on your choice at all, it just shows exactly how OP a channeled %-based heal is, tied to a fury spender that does damage too.

As a side note I would be a lot more concerned with life per second than life on hit with this build, health funnel heals for a LOT and the only time you won't be funneling is when you're out of fury. If you go with a rapid fury generator (I use cleave/reaping) you can just save your active defense CD for the moment when you're out of fury. I stomp and cleave twice -> back to fully fury, time to ww again! The time you're REALLY worried about healing is when you can't group up your enemies and that doesn't work anymore. Now you have to resort to running, and life per second is more meaningful. Not that LPS and LoH are exclusive, at all - you can get both.

(ffs: my ww barb died at 57. HC. starting over again, not giving up on this idea!)

[Karth]

I'm currently using weapon mastery + rutherless on my A1 WW barb. His gear cost a total of ~2 million gold. 700k ehp without dodge, 47% chance to crit with the enchantress, 14k buffed dps. Steamrolled A1; the only two champ packs that bothered him were a reflect damage + lightning enchanted pack (had to frenzy them down because the lightning+reflect damage was too much for my healing) and a molten desecrator fire chains jailer pack of Khazra that *also* had two of those tree monsters dropping flowers into the mix (was doing fine before the flowers). He isn't ready for A2 yet but he will be soon.

[Doppel]

There's something else i've noticed, but i burn fury when WW dual wielding much faster then single wield/shield (didn't try 2-handed, and the shield is a 13% IAS Lidless Wall, so i should be attacking almost as fast as dual wield). Infact it feels i'm going through fury twice as fast. Anyone else noticing this?

[Karth]

There's something else i've noticed, but i burn fury when WW dual wielding much faster then single wield/shield (didn't try 2-handed, and the shield is a 13% IAS Lidless Wall, so i should be attacking almost as fast as dual wield). Infact it feels i'm going through fury twice as fast. Anyone else noticing this?

I'll test this and get back to you.

Edit: dual wielding seems to burn fury just a little faster, about equivalent to the attack speed increase from dual wielding.

I should add that when I say the total cost is ~2 million, I blew 2m on it; I was having so much fun in A3/4 hell with the spec that I decided I wanted him capable of doing Inferno, so I just went and made him so immediately. You could probably do it for half that if you took your time.

[Muggs]

With Nerves of Steel and Tough as nails Practically being prerequisites for survival

I missed this in the 1st post but this is untrue especially in act1/2 and I do use it in act3 but that is because my gear is a bit low for the 4mans I run with. I run tough as nails, juggernaut and superstition when grouped in act2 and Tough as nails, weapon master, superstition in when solo act2. In act1 I run ruthless, weapon master and beserker rage for full on dps. If I have more than 2 people in act1 I will drop beserker rage for tough as nails. Once you get your EHP up high enough running full defensive passives is not necessary and actually a waste.

[zakaluka]

for the record, whirlwind works exactly the same on resource as any other channeled spell (disintegrate etc) - you get two "ticks" per attack cycle, and resource gets consumed once per cycle. So raising attack speed means you consume resource faster, but you also generate resource faster as well. Kind of a moot tradeoff: same number of generators and spenders used in any identical time interval.

What it does though, having fast attack speed means you get less forgiveness for "traveling" with ww. If you get in a bad position you have to stop your channel and move. Otherwise you'll burn through a LOT of fury without getting any healing from it.

If you have a fast attack speed (dual wield or just in general) it's more twitchy. Positioning is more important, etc. You can wind up wasting a lot more fury on bad positioning. That's all, I think. Kind of another reason I like the 1h setup, its healing is a lot more stable, and I can depend on stomp a little better to give me the moment I need for generating fury.