Dual-Wield Whirlwind Barb (Video)

[edistotiger]

Since there has been a good bit of discussion about this, I wanted to show a little bit of my barb in action. Most of the credit for the build goes to Aerial, who posted something very similar a few weeks ago.

I use Frenzy to gain initial fury, and also to help kill ranged elites that spread out, run away, and generally just refuse to cooperate with WW. The goal of this build was to be able to kill everything in the game, and Frenzy is the best thing I have found to pair with WW to accomplish that.

The tactic for ranged mobs is to Frenzy until full fury, WW for a few seconds (without losing Frenzy stacks), and repeat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45tYjaxwstQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiPk12p4GnQ

Build

IzuulGear.jpgStats.jpg

[lanceuppercut]

holy hell those are lots of big 5 digit yellow numbers! how are you sustaining that fury all the time for such prolonged WW'ing??

[edistotiger]

The fury is primarily provided by critical hits from the tornadoes. The higher your critical hit chance, the easier it is to keep the WW going.

[Karth]

:( I wanted to watch it (for once; I usually dislike watching videos instead of reading nice easy text) but you've set it to private. I guess we can exchange notes once you get it working right.

[edistotiger]

:( I wanted to watch it (for once; I usually dislike watching videos instead of reading nice easy text) but you've set it to private. I guess we can exchange notes once you get it working right.

Should be fixed now.

[Karth]

Very interesting. You have significantly more dps than I do, but armor and res are ~ what I have were I to dual-wield. Crit is ~9% higher than what I have even with an 8.5% shield, and you seem to have significantly more than my 1.4 aps. I was using an axe about two builds ago but switched to a mighty weapon for extra fury generation. Do you ever have trouble sustaining fury generation against the last mob or two in a pack? Or does the extra crit chance make up for the loss of +3 fury/attack from a mighty weapon?

If you don't already, you should try whirling in a more circular pattern where arcane sentries, walls, etc. allow; enemies end up bunching up and chasing you into old tornados more often. It doesn't seem like you had a good opportunity for this during the video though.

Have you tried using overpower in place of frenzy?

[edistotiger]

Sometimes the last mob can be a problem. Less so with large mobs though as they also seem to have large hit boxes and stand in more tornadoes.

I tried Overpower once, but i found the initial fury generation to be a bit clunky and unreliable. I may give it another shot at some point, but it just didn't feel comfortable.

I've found that WW can effective either in a circular pattern or in a line back and forth, but with walls, lasers, and teleporting mobs it just ends up a bit chaotic.

[Karth]

Sometimes the last mob can be a problem. Less so with large mobs though as they also seem to have large hit boxes and stand in more tornadoes.

I agree about mobs with large hitboxes. I think they also might get hit more often by whirlwind; back when I was using a Blood Funnel build I was able to ww Hell Ghom the entire fight without even getting low on fury, and then I wasn't even using a mighty weapon or Sprint.

With the Overpower build I most often start off in this order: Wacry, Sprint (run around the group of mobs a few times), Battle Rage, then Overpower if I haven't generated enough fury for a second Sprint (I almost always have though). I guess this is going to almost require a mighty weapon; I can't see Warcry -> Battlerage -> Overpower -> Sprint generating enough fury to get you started without an unlikely number of mobs to hit every time.

[lanceuppercut]

The fury is primarily provided by critical hits from the tornadoes. The higher your critical hit chance, the easier it is to keep the WW going.

I see, kind of. Is it a skill or rune that is providing this extra fury or just normal behaviour? I play a barb that doesn't have much fury spend outside of wotb.

[Karth]

I see, kind of. Is it a skill or rune that is providing this extra fury or just normal behaviour? I play a barb that doesn't have much fury spend outside of wotb.

Battle Rage (Into the Fray) gives you a chance (= proc coefficient on the skill used) to gain 15 fury per critical hit. It's how these builds work.