WW barb - fortitude vs enigma

i've been a fort barb guy since forever, but trying Enigma this weekend- i'm sold.

the LCS shows ~10% drop in damage, but i don't notice a slowdown clearing mobs. bosses still evaporate (i heart Death). double spirits on switch for 63fcr and a ton of mana. bit of charm adjustment to boost resists. i'm at 207% MF,

Teleport everywhere.

my barb now all areas except summoner/

Nihlathak/cows.

Enigma FTW.

(ps. only downside-

Archon Plate looks like trash compared to a

Kraken Shell)

I’ve never tried fort on my ww barb but always assumed the damage increase relative to Enigma would be substantial.

I think with ww in particular, you get more Ed per buck based on high rate at which it strikes. With a one handed weapon, it’s up to 6 times per second with an enemy in range, whereas I think

Berserk is less than half that rate (and takes a much faster weapon), and that’s when only using one weapon. I’d say in that vein, that 1 Ed using

Berserk is close to 2 Ed using ww with a one handed weapon. Granted, there is a lag time in between ww’s, but

Berserk can also get interrupted…

Fortitude is the bigger Ed bonus with the 300 ed. I’d put Enigma at roughly 75 (from strength bonus) + 20 (from skill bonus, mastery + ww)= 95 ed. Meaning the Fortitude has a 205 Ed Edge( I’m sure there’s more nuance such as ar bonus, but this is my quick calc). However, if you’re melting everything with Enigma already, the extra Ed is negligible, the increased mobility from Enigma should drastically decrease your level clear times and be the superior option in most situations.

What other pieces of equipment are you using? Are you getting cbf from

Raven or some other source? The challenge with Death is meeting the ias breakpoint for 6 hit per second breakpoint (63 ias for Death zerker) and is why I think Grief is more viable for the high mf build/ avoiding cold damage for horking. Also, in hardcore, it’s arguably able to be more defensive as it’s easier to negotiate damage reduction into the build when you don’t have to stretch to meet the ias requirement.

That said, I really want to make a 100 CB/DS max attack per frame ww barb. I’m pretty sure it’s going to break my trav run records and will be the ultimate shredder. I’d have it tested already but I’m too into hardcore now to do anything else and just don’t have the resources. From my rough calculation, Death, even when considering the limited equipment options trying to meet the 63 ias is the ultimate ww weapon but only after you solve the ww AR riddle.. The answer being Infinity if you’re rich

One great thing about Barbs is that they are tied with Sorceresses as the fastest casters in the game!

I'm currently using Enigma on my FoH/Zealot and like you, I didn't feel any difference to melee damage compared to Fortitude despite what the number say.

What I immediately noticed was a significant decrease in toughness/survivability though. I also found that long distance travel/farming wasn't viable unless I had FCR gear on switch, which meant giving up on CtA (not an issue for Barbs of course!)

I might try CoH or Duress next. Casting abilities such as

Teleport on melee characters is always a delicate balancing act.

Teleport also helps to position your merc, so you can use an

Eth reaper on him effectively.

Rik wrote: 1 year ago

What other pieces of equipment are you using? Are you getting cbf from

Raven or some other source? The challenge with Death is meeting the ias breakpoint for 6 hit per second breakpoint (63 ias for Death zerker) and is why I think Grief is more viable for the high mf build/ avoiding cold damage for horking. Also, in hardcore, it’s arguably able to be more defensive as it’s easier to negotiate damage reduction into the build when you don’t have to stretch to meet the ias requirement.

Death in a CB need 75 ias to reach 4 frame attack. i use hilords loh and andys w. a fervor jewel. aface is bis but andys is still excellent.

Grief has ~400 ave base damage, a nice roll on Death holding it two-handed- 600 ave. base damage. much higher. playing hardcore i'd say Grief +

Stormshield, but softcore imo 2handed Death in a CB is bis.

other gear- trang

Belt (cbf), war travs, wisp, bk ring.

Ah very nice. Is it confirmed that 2h sword used 2 handed does reach the 4 frame rate? Idk the nuance but think dual wielding can potentially double the hit rate but perhaps only when multiple targets are available. I want to test myself but would need to go back to softcore to do so.

My eventual plan is testing dual Death zerker and now, with you mentioning it, also trying the 2h cb, I’ll probably just time trial performance in multiple areas over tons of samples to try and establish what is dominant. Depending on how the dual ww works, I sense it is the max damage potential, especially the more you factor in crushing blow and additional Ed. I intend to go 100 crushing blow and ds with Death and I can’t wait. Scored my first

Ber today in hardcore with a big trade, but need two more before I make Infinity haha.

I was using storm for much of my barbs early lifespan but the past few weeks I’ve been going dual wield. There have been some close calls, but it was with a zero dr build. Admittedly, it’s rough trying to stack dr without storm. But I enjoy the murder and mayhem and it’s so much faster. Going ww with storm with just one Grief sometimes barely breaks Travs healing rate, instead I was running

Berserk. It was safe, but annoying. Lots of

Howl,

Taunt, potion chugging and repositioning, whereas going dual wield is quick and (usually clean) in other words, a major dps increase. I know the dps bonus for dual wield is substantial. Right now, With dual Grief, I’ve managed to stack 25 dr which thus far has been sufficient to the extent that I’m starting to think of sacrificing it for more dam. Then again, it only takes one terrible roll of boss characteristics to lose it all.

Thanks for the post. Long live barb

Played Barb for about 20 years, first character and still favorite.
I have Enigma, Fortitude, and Chains of Honor (CoH)

Chains of Honor: best used for Ubers, the damage reduction and resistances are valuable here. Mobility from Enigma is not as necessary.
You also have 200% damage to demons (all Bosses are Demons), so that eats into much of Fortitude's 300% damage benefit.
Lastly, the 8% life stolen improves your survivability.

Fortitude: can add about 1k damage over Enigma, so depending on your gear it will be about 15% more damage.
Its best use is in melee duels (Barb v Barb) and anywhere in solo play where mobility is not as valuable, examples:
- Cows, since you can run from pack to pack quickly
-

Terror Zones, again, since you can run from pack to pack
-

Chaos Sanctuary, if you have

Leap you can quickly get through the

River of Flame

A skill investment in

Increased Speed is worth considering.
The above examples do not hold in multi-player games; everyone will be using Enigma so you will always be running behind the pack.
Final thought, the damage boost is most notable with slower attacks (i.e.

Concentrate); for

Whirlwind less so, as most mobs seem to go down in the same number of passes.

Enigma: better for pretty much every situation not listed above
Best for multi-player experience runs (Chaos,

Terror Zones)
Best for magic find
Best for

Key hunting
Best for rushing friends
Etc.
Overall this will be your daily wear, with other armors reserved for special occasions.

Rik wrote: 1 year ago

Long live barb

+1

a nice ias calculator:

https://warren1001.github.io/IAS_Calculator/

Was there any actual mention of HOW you get 100cb and 100 ds I come close but not 100 on both. Closest I've got was 100 CB and 96 ds and can't remember how I did it.

BattleDroid wrote: 1 year ago

HOW you get 100cb and 100 ds

You can get there with Death plus the usual highlord's, gface, and gore riders

When it comes to adding an additional 300% enhanced damage to any melee or ranged attack(zon) Fort is hands down the way to go. Plus, did I mention anything about turtles yet? Just did!

marl71 wrote: 1 year ago

BattleDroid wrote: 1 year ago

HOW you get 100cb and 100 ds

You can get there with Death plus the usual highlord's, gface, and gore riders

Yes but it must be balanced with adequate ias to meet 4 hit frame rate with ww if you plan on maximizing barbs physical damage. With zerker

Axe, it requires 63 additional ias unless you

Sacrifice act2 merc for a act1 Faith merc, in which case ias isn’t an issue.

With an act 2 merc you’ll need to be more creative. You will likely be using highlords with a 15 ias gface if trying to meet 100cb + ds. So you’ll need an additional 30 on top of that. If using fort or Enigma, that’ll need to come from gloves and/or

Belt. You need to balance this with cbf.

Assuming you’re willing to

Sacrifice 20 percent of horking,

Raven Frost is the go to. In which case you can use loh and noferatsu’s or

Goldwrap to get to 65 ias.

If you want to maximize horking, you’ll need to

Sacrifice your

Belt slot for cbf and the only option to meet both metrics to my knowledge is deaths hand and

Belt which will get you 30 ias and cbf, along with a few other useful stats. The problem is, you lose 350 Ed against demons from loh.


If going with act 1 merc, I think you’re easily at 4 Frame rate ww with loh and highlords and that will open up your

Belt slot or your

Helm socket for whatever you please. But then you’ll need to solve Death’s dilemma, aka, AR, without Infinity. An inventory full of ar charms could do the trick, but you’ll need to farm a long, long time to get an inventory full of decent quality fine charms…

Honestly, if you’re mainly going horking and mf, use Grief phase blades. It’s so much easier to hit the breakpoints and it allows a lot more gear flexibility. If you’re interested in max kill speed in high player games, i postulate a well equipped Death barb is king. Take this with a grain of salt, this is theoretical as I’ve never run extensive testing but I think the numbers suggest that both of these arguments are valid. The only caveat being, facing freezing aura,

Decrepify and immune to physical enemies you’ll need to

Berserk is much more manageable with Grief phase blades due to their incredibly high attack speed.

If anyone has high sample testing of the kill speed clear times in areas comparing different equipment options between Grief and Death based builds please post. I’d be really curious to see the results.

Rik wrote: 1 year ago

If anyone has high sample testing of the kill speed clear times in areas comparing different equipment options between Grief and Death based builds please post. I’d be really curious to see the results.

I have physically taken the entire theoretical journey you just posted

I prefer ebotd+Death zerker axes over dual Grief, but I don’t have data on which is “better”. For trav, Grief is probably better. For tz with bulky monsters and bosses, Death is probably better

I linked my build on that recent “post your builds” thread if you are interested

I use Death pb gface highlords and gores I get 100cb and 107 ds. Probably gonna run act 1 merc with Faith.

Berserk helps great or been thinking act 5 merc. But still have no idea how you guys get just 100 CB 100 DS with gor high Death gface

100 CB 107 DS