Barb masteries grand charms - are they secretly amazing?

Hey y’all, this is something I’ve been thinking about for a while,

it’s crazy but on my ssf offline account I find barb skilled charms at the same rate as all other classes combined. So I’ve got more than I realistically need for all skill trees.

But after looking at the effects I get from masteries, I’m thinking it might actually be worth it to have at least 1 in your pack. Without one I have +6 to masteries from other gear, and have only 1 in all skills other than my sword(

Blade) mastery, which is maxed.

Looks liked a vanilla one gives me:
+8% to attack rating (weapon mastery)
+1% to walk/run (increase speed)
+10% def (

Iron Skin)
+2 all resist (

Natural Resistance)

My ar total is 8255, so that charm gives me an equivalent of 611 (with everything else on my lvl 89 barb) to attack rating... that’s

Um ... sorta amazing. So that’s probably worth a bunch (like 6) of spaces of ar charms.
Run/walk is always good, but I’m sure there’s some sort of breakpoints for these. Meh... that’s probably not worth any space.
The defence boost is equivalent to 171 hard points for me, which is also sorta amazing. So that would be worth like 3 spaces in your pack.
And the all res would be worth 1 space from a charm - I measure resistance space by how many singular points they give to resistances, so +2 gives 8 resistance points, not equal to a +11 single res or +5 all res, but still - not bad.

So to get the same effects as the 3 spaces a masteries grand charm takes up, you’d need 10 spaces from other charms.

Am i wrong or is the common assertion that masteries grand charm are useless is ... wrong?

Do the effects of +max damage, + ar make such a difference to negate these, or is the bonus to bo and

Find Item on warcries too good to pass up?

Looking forward to anyone else’s stats/ comparisons.

I am not barb so won't detail on that, but as for frw, there is no breakpoint, it's completely linear.

1% though is not great, the inertia suffix on a small charm gives 3% frw.

I would say you're at least partially wrong. Sadly.

For example, how did you get to 611 AR? If you base it off of the 8255 you currently have, that's 7.4%, not 8. But even if it were 8, sadly, you can't quite calculate it like that. It won't give you 8% more based on your current AR, it'll add to existing AR % bonus to give you 8% more of your base AR.

So say you currently have lvl 20

Blade Mastery or whichever. With your existing +6, that's 240% AR. Even if you had no other %AR bonus whatsoever (which likely isn't the case), that'd mean you have 2428 base AR. Adding 8% via a skiller then means you add 194 AR, not 611. If you instead used 3 3/20/x charms, you'd already be adding not only their combined 60 AR but their 60 times your existing bonus plus the 100% base so 60*3.4 = 204 AR. That's already more, not considering other %AR bonuses you likely have (such as from the attack you use).

The walk/run and resist is true. Though 1% run really isn't anything to write home about (in part thanks to diminishing returns) and 2 all res may well not matter, considering how easy it is to

Cap res on a barb without ever really going for it.

The def I can't really comment on without knowing more about your gear but I dare say you may be suffering from the same calculation error there as you did on the AR. Also, depending on what attack you use/while you're running, you're at 0 def whenever it matters anyways so it won't make any difference whatsoever.

It is true that mastery skill charms give you a much more varied set of bonuses as compared to say pure dmg/ar charms or the like. But typically, what you give up for that really isn't worth it except for VERY specific gear combinations (if any). That's why they're really not worth anything in terms of trading either.

There may be a possible exception though which would need someone else to comment on as I haven't bothered testing it:

Throwing Mastery. Since the changes, it may take a minimum level to reliably not run out of quantity on your throwing weapons. Since I haven't tested it myself, I have no idea what that level may be and it'd further depend on the rest of your gear (crit & hit chance specifically) but theoretically, that may be something worth using a mastery charm or two for to get to since avoiding repair trips (or generally enabling the use of

Eth non-replenishing weapons) would make that a very solid investment of space.

Excellent points! I was wondering if my math made sense.

I agree with you on the def point, when I equip my Enigma on any of my characters who already have 40% walk/run I just turn myself to walk mode, it totally changed how I run my necro.

I also have tried a throw barb, and if you get to 15 or higher with the mastery you’re never going to run out of even

Eth weapons (I ran an

Eth

Gimmershred, and it’s awesome...once I get another I’m making a pure throw barb because it’s so much fun).

Nate wrote: 2 years ago

Excellent points! I was wondering if my math made sense.

I agree with you on the def point, when I equip my Enigma on any of my characters who already have 40% walk/run I just turn myself to walk mode, it totally changed how I run my necro.

I also have tried a throw barb, and if you get to 15 or higher with the mastery you’re never going to run out of even

Eth weapons (I ran an

Eth

Gimmershred, and it’s awesome...once I get another I’m making a pure throw barb because it’s so much fun).

I got a non-

Eth if you want it.

Thx but I’m sff offline. Otherwise I’d take a look for sure

I've always intentionally skipped "

Increased Speed" skill on my

Whirlwind barbarians.

I believe that it lowers their damage output, you stay on target longer with a slower

Whirlwind distance traveled.