yannnnn... if you could link to your build, I could look to see where the lack of damage is. CC and CD on my character are stacked too, which increases the sheet damage dramatically. Also, keep in mind all my gear is ancient (with primal bracers) and all of it is augmented with level 50 gems for added strength.
The "green" gem that was referred to is an Emerald. It's not legendary. Just a normal emerald. Craft the highest level emerald you can via the jeweler and put that into the socket. Other than the gem of ease, there are no other legendary gems that can socket into weapons.
Ive been testing my build on the PTR and jumped up from clearing GR 55 to GR62 without changing a single thing, WW got a big buff depending on exactly how you play it. My specific play style and my specific WW build are no where near optimum, but it's fun for me and with that, I gained 7 levels. I actually gained 10 levels after I swapped around a couple of passives with Obsidian ring in the cube and started using WotB more often.
Im not the type of guy to jump from build type to build type chasing the newest META build. I have had a WW barb since the vanilla days and have stuck with it. I can say this latest patch will be the strongest WW has ever been. It's funny now that I think about it. I saw another recent thread about a LoN WW build and more than half the gear that was on it, I was rocking 2 years ago, Fulminator and Odyn Son with Thundergods and Andys helm. I felt like I was looking back in time at my old build.
Ok, I have been away from the game for a while, but basic principles still apply. First off, I agree the above reply, ditch the primary bonuses as they do nothing to help you at all. Also, you really need a socket in both of your weapons and Royal Flawless Emeralds in each to really see a boost in your damage. Having 8 or 9% damage rolled into them will also help boost your damage number. Swap your swords around, skill damage is always based of your main hand weapon. Your Warrior Blood has better base damage than your Solemn Vow. Having CC and CD wherever applicable will also boost your sheet damage, but keep in mind, sheet damage doesnt take a bunch of things into factor and actually can lull you into a false sense of security. My brother-in-law had a crusader 2 years ago that he was running using a Darklight and Fist of the Heavens long before that was a popular build. He had quite low sheet damage, but when he buffed himself and everything started to compound, he was hitting for millions of damage.
Here is my WW Barb as an example of what I run (or used to run I should ay)...
The Reapers Wraps arent really needed, but I have had them forever and havent found a better Ancient bracer to replace them yet. I have 1.5mil sheet damage and I am clearing GR60, but barely (or at least I was a couple of months ago) so even with all that damage, Im not even close to being optimized or elite by any means. Part of that is a combo of play style, lack of skill (yes I can admit Im not the best player), and not running a perfect set of skills. It's what works for me and how I play and I have fun doing it, which is what matters most to me.
Now some tips for increasing overall playability that wont really reflect on your sheet damage number...
Ditch Hurricane for Blood Funnel, the added healing is well worth it. If you can find an Obsidian Ring, you wont need to run Boon of Bul Kathos to reduce your Zerker cooldown, thus opening up a slot for something else like Brawler. You have Physical damage on your bracers, but cold damage on Whirlwind, match your bracer bonus to your main damage. If you want to stick with cold, roll cold skills on the bracers. If you want to run Blood Funnel, leave your bracers alone, but right now that physical boost isnt helping you very much. Firewalkers in the cube is fun at low levels, but anything over T1 and it starts to become useless. Better to have hexing pants or Mantle of Channeling in there. Swap out the toxin gem for Taeguk and swap Pain Enhancer for Bane of the Trapped. You are already needing to get up close to the enemies, why not automatically give them bonus damage for being slowed once the gem is level 25 by using Trapped? Krelms belt isnt helping you at all, but I understand if its the best you have right now. Dont over look a belt with a usefull legendary affix just because it isnt ancient. Pride of Cassius (for your Ignore Pain), Lamentation, (if you equip Rend), Witching Hour for the extra crit damage, or String of Ears for extra damage mitigation will all help you more than an ancient belt that has no useful bonus.
Hey everybody, just wanted to let you all know this is no longer an option. The last patch locked down my double skull grasp and made it so only one can be worn at a time. I went into a GR to F around a little bit in a lower level and was hitting like a wet noodle and I said WTF is wrong? Nothing really changed skill wise, what did they nerf? So I checked my gear and my legacy ring had a big lock over it. Replaced it with an Ancient Unity I had laying around and proceeded to melt everything in the same level GR I had just run. So yeah, they figured out the double SG was still possible and took it away.
I just wish we could see the "behind the scenes" math the game is applying to the double SG combo. I mean, if it's applying the legacy additive at the end of the equation, it's pretty much worthless. If it's adding prior to the new rings multiplication, then it's worth it's weight in gold. Simple math says if base = 100 and I have +296% from my new ring and +391% from my legacy, then if it adds at the end 100*296=29600+391, I have 29991% If it adds prior to the multiplication, 100+391=491*296 then I have 145336% The issue I could for see with something like D3planner is how do the guys who wrote the site know where in the formula the legacy is added into the mix?
I also saw a really cool placebo effect earlier. I put on Focus and Restraint it felt "ok", then I put on Endless Walk and for some reason it felt awesome... and I know it wasnt doing anything to help damage wise. I understand trying to eliminate all variables and what not and trying to narrow down exact numbers as to what works better, but Im just not that dedicated, lol! I do like the double SG setup, and will probably run it for a while, but Im also going to take a long hard look at F/R as well if I can find some better rolled ones. I think a good portion of what im seeing is losing all the CHD and CHC I have on both of my SG rings. I only have one other ring with those kind of rolls and thats my Ancient Unity.
Well, switching WW to fire would have negated my +physical skill from my Reapers Wraps, so that becomes a wash doesnt it? It would have been physical rune with Reapers skill bonus or fire rune with SoJ skill bonus. I didnt see the benefit of keeping the fire on it at that time and if fire was "useless" in my head, vitality actually did have some use, that was my rationalization.
As far as "proper" testing... I cant test things I dont have. Im not trying to invent a new build or anything, Im just trying to maximize what I have. It's obvious that a ring with STR/CHC/CHD should beat a ring with STR/VIT/CHC. The entire point of this thread was my "discovery" that I could wear both SG rings at the same time and was hoping someone would chime in that knew if they both worked well together or not.
I have two other SoJ in my stash... one has Cold Skills and the other has lightning skills I think. I do have a complete set of Endless Walk, but I thought the rolls on them were kind of garbage. I guess Hellfire isnt justified anymore if thats the top choice?
Ok, so after some testing and whatnot, I discovered something. I swapped out for an SOJ and saw my damage numbers on trash mobs go down while running to Ghom. Initially with both SG rings I saw damage numbers flashing by of 1700M with some high crits of 2100M. When I used the SoJ (which was a junk roll, but the best I had in stash) I was seeing trash mob damage in the 500M range. Ghom himself took approx. the same amount of time to kill with each setup. So yeah, I had 30% extra damage to elites, but the main damage went down to the point that it nullified the increase to elites. My junk SoJ also had STR, VIT, and Fire skills (which I dont use) with no socket, so I rolled the Fire Skills to get the socket. I know having a Physical SoJ with socket would benefit me greatly, but until I find one, this is all I can test with.
So, in theory, for pushing GRs, the dual SG will be slightly better as I can deal with the trash mobs easier.
I also have a great roll on an Ancient Unity to test out while I run CoE in the cube, but I still dont think it will beat out the crazy damage I am seeing from WW with the double rings.
Well, thanks for the input. I will have to test it out vs Ghom as I do have a couple of SoJs to test it against. My thought on this whole things was what if the game applied the legacy additive damage before it applied the multiplicative damage? I've been running it in GRs and prior to the switch, I was not clearing anything higher than 52. I made a couple of changes as recommended in my other thread and I got to 54. Once I applied both SG rings, I have been steadily climbing and cleared 61 in under 10 minutes. I did however just jump right into using both rings and didnt run only the new ring, so I cant honestly say how much was from having both and how much was just the new ring. I will go back and change it up and see what happens. At this moment I have Unity on in the cube, so I can swap that to Maras and not change any of my damage output, so testing rings is easier.
Ok, so I had this legacy skull grasp that I was wearing for a long time on my WW barb and never really fully investigated the change on Skull Grasp. After starting a different thread asking how to get up past GR52, I finally found a newer Skull Grasp and actually paid attention to it. Now since the legacy ring and the new one are technically different rings in the game, it allows me to equip both at the same time. I am seeing a rather large boost in damage numbers from WW with them both on. Is there anything else I should be looking at instead of wearing both Skull Grasps? Prior to the dual Skull Grasps, I had Unity on and CoE in the cube. I understand this is a very rare situation as most people probably trashed the legacy ring once the new one hit and this combo wasnt completely tested.
Ok, so I finally got a new Skull Grasp to drop. I had Unity on slot 1 and when I was hovering over the new ring to check it against my old ring I noticed something strange... it was comparing it to Unity rather than the other Skull Grasp. Now I have been around long enough to know that Unique Equipped always compares to itself no matter what slot it's in, so Im like WTF? Then I realize, the legacy SG is not considered the same as the new one. So I said, why not? and equipped them both for maximum WW damage. I am seeing occasional crits of over 1B now and my average crit is 650M. I took points from both of your suggestions and went from never completing 53 to ripping through it in 6:53 which was only 3 seconds off my level 50 time for this leaderboard reset. Im also playing around with Stricken vs Powerful. I realize Powerful is probably better against trash mobs, but having that extra 10% against the RG from Stricken is a nice touch.
Well thanks for the advice, I am working on making some of the suggested changes and making a mix of both your advice. I went poking around my other characters and found an even older Skull Grasp!
Ok, so I took a long break and have just come back. Never really played hardcore in comparison to most players on these forums, but have been playing off and on since D3V launch. Anyhow, I've got this WW barb that I have been slowly building and replacing parts and pieces for his gear. I have this older Skull Grasp ring and Im wondering if I should be searching for something different, or is this one one of those legacy items that you would regret scrapping. It's not so old that it does +weapon damage, but it does have +391% damage to Whirlwind. Im seeing builds posted that show Skull Grasp in the cube and only adding 250% to WW. Any ideas?
Any other critiques to try to make my character better is welcome as well. Yes I know I need to get level 50 gems to enhance my gear, but it's a real grind and I dont really the drive to grind out level 50 gems when I can only complete GR51.
Again, always thankful for the advise. I did grab a STR based Unity and matched with RoRG and swapped to a Maras instead of the squirts. It has the worst rolls ever, but I threw it on anyway. First time out, ran through grift 42 with 11 minutes left over, much better than my previous high of 40 with a minute left. Survivability increased dramatically, especially since I didnt die once in that entire run until the RG, and even then only died once during that fight due to a lack of concentration and an encounter with an arcane turret. Previously, I would die often and tried to rely solely on the speed of killing mobs faster than they could kill me. My overall sheet damage went from 1.1mil to 850k, but I cleared two levels higher easily. I am also able to hit WotB quite often. It's not permazerk, but it's up more than it's down. Depending on mob density and how often I can spam Rend, I can keep it up for two or three cycles without any down time and still not run into wrath problems.
Thanks again guys, I know it's coming along slowly but surely. It's now right on par with my M6 DH, which makes me happy.
0
yannnnn... if you could link to your build, I could look to see where the lack of damage is. CC and CD on my character are stacked too, which increases the sheet damage dramatically. Also, keep in mind all my gear is ancient (with primal bracers) and all of it is augmented with level 50 gems for added strength.
0
The "green" gem that was referred to is an Emerald. It's not legendary. Just a normal emerald. Craft the highest level emerald you can via the jeweler and put that into the socket. Other than the gem of ease, there are no other legendary gems that can socket into weapons.
0
Ive been testing my build on the PTR and jumped up from clearing GR 55 to GR62 without changing a single thing, WW got a big buff depending on exactly how you play it. My specific play style and my specific WW build are no where near optimum, but it's fun for me and with that, I gained 7 levels. I actually gained 10 levels after I swapped around a couple of passives with Obsidian ring in the cube and started using WotB more often.
Im not the type of guy to jump from build type to build type chasing the newest META build. I have had a WW barb since the vanilla days and have stuck with it. I can say this latest patch will be the strongest WW has ever been. It's funny now that I think about it. I saw another recent thread about a LoN WW build and more than half the gear that was on it, I was rocking 2 years ago, Fulminator and Odyn Son with Thundergods and Andys helm. I felt like I was looking back in time at my old build.
1
Ok, I have been away from the game for a while, but basic principles still apply. First off, I agree the above reply, ditch the primary bonuses as they do nothing to help you at all. Also, you really need a socket in both of your weapons and Royal Flawless Emeralds in each to really see a boost in your damage. Having 8 or 9% damage rolled into them will also help boost your damage number. Swap your swords around, skill damage is always based of your main hand weapon. Your Warrior Blood has better base damage than your Solemn Vow. Having CC and CD wherever applicable will also boost your sheet damage, but keep in mind, sheet damage doesnt take a bunch of things into factor and actually can lull you into a false sense of security. My brother-in-law had a crusader 2 years ago that he was running using a Darklight and Fist of the Heavens long before that was a popular build. He had quite low sheet damage, but when he buffed himself and everything started to compound, he was hitting for millions of damage.
Here is my WW Barb as an example of what I run (or used to run I should ay)...
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Devestator-1333/hero/50143225
The Reapers Wraps arent really needed, but I have had them forever and havent found a better Ancient bracer to replace them yet. I have 1.5mil sheet damage and I am clearing GR60, but barely (or at least I was a couple of months ago) so even with all that damage, Im not even close to being optimized or elite by any means. Part of that is a combo of play style, lack of skill (yes I can admit Im not the best player), and not running a perfect set of skills. It's what works for me and how I play and I have fun doing it, which is what matters most to me.
Now some tips for increasing overall playability that wont really reflect on your sheet damage number...
Ditch Hurricane for Blood Funnel, the added healing is well worth it. If you can find an Obsidian Ring, you wont need to run Boon of Bul Kathos to reduce your Zerker cooldown, thus opening up a slot for something else like Brawler. You have Physical damage on your bracers, but cold damage on Whirlwind, match your bracer bonus to your main damage. If you want to stick with cold, roll cold skills on the bracers. If you want to run Blood Funnel, leave your bracers alone, but right now that physical boost isnt helping you very much. Firewalkers in the cube is fun at low levels, but anything over T1 and it starts to become useless. Better to have hexing pants or Mantle of Channeling in there. Swap out the toxin gem for Taeguk and swap Pain Enhancer for Bane of the Trapped. You are already needing to get up close to the enemies, why not automatically give them bonus damage for being slowed once the gem is level 25 by using Trapped? Krelms belt isnt helping you at all, but I understand if its the best you have right now. Dont over look a belt with a usefull legendary affix just because it isnt ancient. Pride of Cassius (for your Ignore Pain), Lamentation, (if you equip Rend), Witching Hour for the extra crit damage, or String of Ears for extra damage mitigation will all help you more than an ancient belt that has no useful bonus.
0
Hey everybody, just wanted to let you all know this is no longer an option. The last patch locked down my double skull grasp and made it so only one can be worn at a time. I went into a GR to F around a little bit in a lower level and was hitting like a wet noodle and I said WTF is wrong? Nothing really changed skill wise, what did they nerf? So I checked my gear and my legacy ring had a big lock over it. Replaced it with an Ancient Unity I had laying around and proceeded to melt everything in the same level GR I had just run. So yeah, they figured out the double SG was still possible and took it away.
0
I just wish we could see the "behind the scenes" math the game is applying to the double SG combo. I mean, if it's applying the legacy additive at the end of the equation, it's pretty much worthless. If it's adding prior to the new rings multiplication, then it's worth it's weight in gold. Simple math says if base = 100 and I have +296% from my new ring and +391% from my legacy, then if it adds at the end 100*296=29600+391, I have 29991% If it adds prior to the multiplication, 100+391=491*296 then I have 145336% The issue I could for see with something like D3planner is how do the guys who wrote the site know where in the formula the legacy is added into the mix?
I also saw a really cool placebo effect earlier. I put on Focus and Restraint it felt "ok", then I put on Endless Walk and for some reason it felt awesome... and I know it wasnt doing anything to help damage wise. I understand trying to eliminate all variables and what not and trying to narrow down exact numbers as to what works better, but Im just not that dedicated, lol! I do like the double SG setup, and will probably run it for a while, but Im also going to take a long hard look at F/R as well if I can find some better rolled ones. I think a good portion of what im seeing is losing all the CHD and CHC I have on both of my SG rings. I only have one other ring with those kind of rolls and thats my Ancient Unity.
Anyhow, I appreciate all the input.
0
Well, switching WW to fire would have negated my +physical skill from my Reapers Wraps, so that becomes a wash doesnt it? It would have been physical rune with Reapers skill bonus or fire rune with SoJ skill bonus. I didnt see the benefit of keeping the fire on it at that time and if fire was "useless" in my head, vitality actually did have some use, that was my rationalization.
As far as "proper" testing... I cant test things I dont have. Im not trying to invent a new build or anything, Im just trying to maximize what I have. It's obvious that a ring with STR/CHC/CHD should beat a ring with STR/VIT/CHC. The entire point of this thread was my "discovery" that I could wear both SG rings at the same time and was hoping someone would chime in that knew if they both worked well together or not.
I have two other SoJ in my stash... one has Cold Skills and the other has lightning skills I think. I do have a complete set of Endless Walk, but I thought the rolls on them were kind of garbage. I guess Hellfire isnt justified anymore if thats the top choice?
0
Ok, so after some testing and whatnot, I discovered something. I swapped out for an SOJ and saw my damage numbers on trash mobs go down while running to Ghom. Initially with both SG rings I saw damage numbers flashing by of 1700M with some high crits of 2100M. When I used the SoJ (which was a junk roll, but the best I had in stash) I was seeing trash mob damage in the 500M range. Ghom himself took approx. the same amount of time to kill with each setup. So yeah, I had 30% extra damage to elites, but the main damage went down to the point that it nullified the increase to elites. My junk SoJ also had STR, VIT, and Fire skills (which I dont use) with no socket, so I rolled the Fire Skills to get the socket. I know having a Physical SoJ with socket would benefit me greatly, but until I find one, this is all I can test with.
So, in theory, for pushing GRs, the dual SG will be slightly better as I can deal with the trash mobs easier.
I also have a great roll on an Ancient Unity to test out while I run CoE in the cube, but I still dont think it will beat out the crazy damage I am seeing from WW with the double rings.
0
Well, thanks for the input. I will have to test it out vs Ghom as I do have a couple of SoJs to test it against. My thought on this whole things was what if the game applied the legacy additive damage before it applied the multiplicative damage? I've been running it in GRs and prior to the switch, I was not clearing anything higher than 52. I made a couple of changes as recommended in my other thread and I got to 54. Once I applied both SG rings, I have been steadily climbing and cleared 61 in under 10 minutes. I did however just jump right into using both rings and didnt run only the new ring, so I cant honestly say how much was from having both and how much was just the new ring. I will go back and change it up and see what happens. At this moment I have Unity on in the cube, so I can swap that to Maras and not change any of my damage output, so testing rings is easier.
0
Ok, so I had this legacy skull grasp that I was wearing for a long time on my WW barb and never really fully investigated the change on Skull Grasp. After starting a different thread asking how to get up past GR52, I finally found a newer Skull Grasp and actually paid attention to it. Now since the legacy ring and the new one are technically different rings in the game, it allows me to equip both at the same time. I am seeing a rather large boost in damage numbers from WW with them both on. Is there anything else I should be looking at instead of wearing both Skull Grasps? Prior to the dual Skull Grasps, I had Unity on and CoE in the cube. I understand this is a very rare situation as most people probably trashed the legacy ring once the new one hit and this combo wasnt completely tested.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Devestator-1333/hero/50143225
0
Ok, so I finally got a new Skull Grasp to drop. I had Unity on slot 1 and when I was hovering over the new ring to check it against my old ring I noticed something strange... it was comparing it to Unity rather than the other Skull Grasp. Now I have been around long enough to know that Unique Equipped always compares to itself no matter what slot it's in, so Im like WTF? Then I realize, the legacy SG is not considered the same as the new one. So I said, why not? and equipped them both for maximum WW damage. I am seeing occasional crits of over 1B now and my average crit is 650M. I took points from both of your suggestions and went from never completing 53 to ripping through it in 6:53 which was only 3 seconds off my level 50 time for this leaderboard reset. Im also playing around with Stricken vs Powerful. I realize Powerful is probably better against trash mobs, but having that extra 10% against the RG from Stricken is a nice touch.
1
Well thanks for the advice, I am working on making some of the suggested changes and making a mix of both your advice. I went poking around my other characters and found an even older Skull Grasp!
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Devestator-1333/hero/69824295
It literally does nothing for WW. This guy is just a mule to collect crap (and to experiment with leap quake a bit)
I also built a HotA barb at one point...
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Devestator-1333/hero/9684974 ... but it really doesnt fit my play style.
0
Ok, so I took a long break and have just come back. Never really played hardcore in comparison to most players on these forums, but have been playing off and on since D3V launch. Anyhow, I've got this WW barb that I have been slowly building and replacing parts and pieces for his gear. I have this older Skull Grasp ring and Im wondering if I should be searching for something different, or is this one one of those legacy items that you would regret scrapping. It's not so old that it does +weapon damage, but it does have +391% damage to Whirlwind. Im seeing builds posted that show Skull Grasp in the cube and only adding 250% to WW. Any ideas?
Any other critiques to try to make my character better is welcome as well. Yes I know I need to get level 50 gems to enhance my gear, but it's a real grind and I dont really the drive to grind out level 50 gems when I can only complete GR51.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Devestator-1333/hero/50143225
0
Has anyone seen one in the goblin realm? I have 4 or 5 puzzle rings, just havent had the time to log in to cube them and check for myself.
0
Again, always thankful for the advise. I did grab a STR based Unity and matched with RoRG and swapped to a Maras instead of the squirts. It has the worst rolls ever, but I threw it on anyway. First time out, ran through grift 42 with 11 minutes left over, much better than my previous high of 40 with a minute left. Survivability increased dramatically, especially since I didnt die once in that entire run until the RG, and even then only died once during that fight due to a lack of concentration and an encounter with an arcane turret. Previously, I would die often and tried to rely solely on the speed of killing mobs faster than they could kill me. My overall sheet damage went from 1.1mil to 850k, but I cleared two levels higher easily. I am also able to hit WotB quite often. It's not permazerk, but it's up more than it's down. Depending on mob density and how often I can spam Rend, I can keep it up for two or three cycles without any down time and still not run into wrath problems.
Thanks again guys, I know it's coming along slowly but surely. It's now right on par with my M6 DH, which makes me happy.