Optimizing whirlwind - what’s the best PVE set-up?

Hey y’all, so I have a level 88 barb and want to get him up to at least 93, ideally higher, but the barb is slllloooooow to level up. I think

Whirlwind is the best general use PvE method to do this. The intent is not farming runes/uniques, but just exp. This leads me more questions (most of which i know are huge cans of worms). Any Insight is appreciated!:

1 - Is WW actually the fastest way to power level? Assuming best in slot gear.
2 - How does WW actually work? Looks like it IAS is averaged between 2 weapons if equipped, but I’ve read conflicting accounts. Some say IAS doesn’t play a role, and what about movement speed? Is faster run/walk good or bad?
3 - What is the best weapon/armour combo? Here’s my contenders:

Weapons:
-Grief

Phase Blade (got 2)
-Ebotd

Colossus Blade (got 2)
-Ebotd

Berserker Axe (haven’t found an

Eth

Berserker Axe yet)
-Death in

Colossus Sword (got 1)
-Death in

Berserker Axe (don’t got one)
-Beast in

Berserker Axe (got 1)
-Ebotd in a 2-hander (polearm/

Spear/

Thunder Maul/

Archon Staff - don’t have these yet either)
-others?

Eth Hone sudan?(got 1), Reaper’s toll? (Got 1),

Tomb Reaver? (Got an ok 1 with 3os)

Shields:
-Phoenix (got 1)
-Storm shield (got 1)
-others?

Armours:
-Fort (got 1)
-Enigma (got 1)
-Hustle (can make one ez)
-others?

Other gear:
-could

Metalgrid (got 1) be best in slot if you have a Pride might merc and make a Beast IG, and keep him with max BO and

Shout?

4 - how does Grief actually work? I know it’s usually better than others, but it’s still not super clear to me why it’s better than my ebotd

Colossus Blade, even though it’s 1-hand damage looks like it would output more damage than a Grief.

Sorry this is a super in-depth topic, there just seems like there’s so many options, just hoping someone’s already crunched the numbers and has an ideal solution. The maxroll WW guide doesn’t seem to have an optimized PVE focused build - especially considering how varied the gear can be.

Thanks for your recommendations!

Nate2.0 wrote: 5 months ago

Hey y’all, so I have a level 90 barb and want to get him up to at least 93, ideally higher, but the barb is slllloooooow to level up. I think

Whirlwind is the best general use PvE method to do this. The intent is not farming runes/uniques, but just exp. This leads me more questions (most of which i know are huge cans of worms). Any Insight is appreciated!:

1 - Is WW actually the fastest way to power level? Assuming best in slot gear.
2 - How does WW actually work? Looks like it IAS is averaged between 2 weapons if equipped, but I’ve read conflicting accounts. Some say IAS doesn’t play a role, and what about movement speed? Is faster run/walk good or bad?
3 - What is the best weapon/armour combo? Here’s my contenders:

Weapons:
-Grief

Phase Blade (got 2)
-Ebotd

Colossus Blade (got 2)
-Ebotd

Berserker Axe (haven’t found an

Eth

Berserker Axe yet)
-Death in

Colossus Sword (got 1)
-Death in

Berserker Axe (don’t got one)
-Beast in

Berserker Axe (got 1)
-Ebotd in a 2-hander (polearm/

Spear/

Thunder Maul/

Archon Staff - don’t have these yet either)
-others?

Eth Hone sudan?(got 1), Reaper’s toll? (Got 1),

Tomb Reaver? (Got an ok 1 with 3os)

Shields:
-Phoenix (got 1)
-Storm shield (got 1)
-others?

Armours:
-Fort (got 1)
-Enigma (got 1)
-Hustle (can make one ez)
-others?

Other gear:
-could

Metalgrid (got 1) be best in slot if you have a Pride might merc and make a Beast IG, and keep him with max BO and

Shout?

4 - how does Grief actually work? I know it’s usually better than others, but it’s still not super clear to me why it’s better than my ebotd

Colossus Blade, even though it’s 1-hand damage looks like it would output more damage than a Grief.

Sorry this is a super in-depth topic, there just seems like there’s so many options, just hoping someone’s already crunched the numbers and has an ideal solution. The maxroll WW guide doesn’t seem to have an optimized PVE focused build - especially considering how varied the gear can be.

Thanks for your recommendations!

1 - For Barbarian it is one of the fastest, although it's not a class that is known for being fast at levelling in general for obvious reasons. A singer is slightly better for

Baal runs (assuming you are doing the teleporting), but obviously will do way less damage. Level 90 is territory that requires 8 players in order to level efficiently. If you are online I would suggest doing public

Baal runs until 93/94 and then move onto

Terror zones. Single player is easier as it's possible to manually change the difficulty, although clear speed will be slower than many other builds.

2- As you know the Barbarian has the magnificent one point wonder

Increased Speed (Combat Masteries). Along with Enigma and

Boots with decent fast run / walk you end up being quite nippy ;0. There is no need it invest in any further run walk gear like charms etc. just what your gear provides is sufficient. Most people tend to use Gore Riders. IAS does matter, generally speaking the more the better, but you'd need to look at breakpoints for you gear - https://warren1001.github.io/IAS_Calculator/.

3- If you are farming multiple areas Enigma will be BIS for armour. Otherwise Fortitude or CoH (preferred) can be used when doing Ubers. Replace offhand with

Stormshield to increase survivability.

4- Grief is so good because the base damage up-to +400 is applied before a lot of important modifiers. If you have ten minutes spare watch this video from MrLlamaSC - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDUhj6Z4-g0

Grief will out damage EBOTD, although this weapon does have its uses mainly for offhand or in the 2 handed build. In some cases Death can be nice to use along with Grief for crushing blow if going against bosses etc. Almost all build guides online are somewhat predictable dual Grief, because it's so hard to beat that base damage. Personally I like the max-roll build (other than the ring that nobody will find) but each to their own.

There are many different combinations the best will depend on the scenario. The mercenary is also something to consider and opens another can of worms. My preference is Act 5

Frenzy Barbarian.

Don't overthink it, try different ones out and see what you like the best. You already have a super selection of Sword options

This is an interesting topic because I'm considering making a polearm barb for my next character due to the fact that I almost literally have every single polearm in the game. I'm sure WW is the best option for this, but I'm curious as to what else could be viable.

Might not be the best possible, but the strongest non-MF build I could come up with for my PvE WW barb was something along the lines of:

Guillaume's Face (chammed)

Highlord's Wrath

Blood Gloves (20/3/3/10) /

Laying of Hands
Enigma

Arachnid Mesh /

String of Ears /

Nosferatu's Coil (was always hard deciding on the

Belt and liked to rotate)

Gore Rider
2x Grief / Grief + Last Wish (lower dmg with Last Wish, but huge survivability increase thanks to

Fade +

Life Tap)
GG Rare rings (FCR/Dual Leech/Min/Max Dmg/AR)

Was up to ~85% Deadly Strike chance, which essentially doubles your damage each time it activates.

Inventory filled with MaxDmg/AR/Life grand charms and MaxDmg/AR/Life small charms. Never got the chance to try Sunders on this guy (respeced to

Berserk before Sunders came to NL), but I'm thinking Physical one would be worth using.


A2 Merc using Insight for infinite mana (nothing worse than being mana burned while WWing inside a giant pack of monsters).

Never messed with Pride on merc, but that could be interesting as well, if you aren't worried about mana issues. Or the good ol' A5

Frenzy Merc that M1ck mentioned (Grief + Last Wish or Dual Last Wish). But for me, the QoL of infinite mana was worth the slight DPS loss for WW build. Plus, with Insight on merc, you can throw out

Battle Cry /

War Cry on monsters and your merc won't replace them with other curses. The -XX% Defense from

Battle Cry can make a noticeable difference.

Great advice! Thanks!

Yea i forgot to mention im ssf offline, so i can set the players, but no trading…

Gotta watch that llama vid now!

So i watched the vid… and im still not convinced on the ‘damage’ calculations… i suspect the +% damage to demons, ignore target’s defence, deadly strike and IAS play a larger role in Grief’s better usage.

To be clear: I’m not denying Grief’s utility, but im questioning if the ‘+damage’ is actually the source

Imma do some testing

Ok so did some preliminary testing and yea, sorry to say but i think the damage calculation descriptions got it wrong.

I think Grief is so much better is because of a number of things:

A standard

Phase Blade’s damage is 31-35, the +damage applies to both, so for my Grief (+382), the average damage comes out to 411- 417, or 415 average, while normal ‘on weapon’ ED applies to both but scales based on both (multiplicative vs additive): my botd’s damage ranges from 185-485 (335 avg), and my Death comes out to 187-506 (346 avg).

Then all the other additions take place… Grief in a

Phase Blade just has higher average damage by like 80+ points.

After that a

Phase Blade has the significant advantages of a way faster base speed and then being indestructible… ok for a single hander, for sure it wins, and i get it now.

The only other single handers that can best it for higher single strike damage would be Grief in a Bezerker

Axe,

Colossus Sword or colossus blades, but then they suffer from lower base speeds and you know… being destructible…

I remember making a Grief in a

Berserker Axe… and needing to repair it like every 5 mins. That became a weapon i left on the Ground somewhere.

So i would definitely never make a Grief in a 2-handed weapon, that’s when the +damage just can’t compete compared to the ed of high end rune words. With a big

Eth 2 hander going for about 150+ more avg damage than a 2 hander Grief. and then you start to get into them being ethereal and thus also indestructable…

Very ineteresting

I agree with Zero187's setup--I've come to the same conclusion after a lot of testing

You mention eBOTD 2 handers, but as you probably know, patch 2.4 capped your ww speed at 5 frames with 2h weapons (except swords). For dual wielding weapons with different speeds, it is averaged but rounded up (slower). IAS definitely plays a role, this is the best calculator: https://warren1001.github.io/IAS_Calculator/

Another fun setup (but not as strong overall as 2xGrief) is dual

Eth zerker axes--eBOTD main hand and eDeath offhand. You need 65 ias on your gear for the 4 frame breakpoint, which is a little tricky to get with CBF. Two IAS jewels in an IK

Helm or CoA is easiest. eBOTD should be main hand so you hit 125 ias for berserking immunes. This setup has extra crushing blow for dclone, bosses, and other bulky monsters, and the range of +2 is kind of nice sometimes too. Also just looks better than toy swords imo

Nate2.0 wrote: 5 months ago

Ok so did some preliminary testing and yea, sorry to say but i think the damage calculation descriptions got it wrong.

I think Grief is so much better is because of a number of things:

A standard

Phase Blade’s damage is 31-35, the +damage applies to both, so for my Grief (+382), the average damage comes out to 411- 417, or 415 average, while normal ‘on weapon’ ED applies to both but scales based on both (multiplicative vs additive): my botd’s damage ranges from 185-485 (335 avg), and my Death comes out to 187-506 (346 avg).

Then all the other additions take place… Grief in a

Phase Blade just has higher average damage by like 80+ points.

After that a

Phase Blade has the significant advantages of a way faster base speed and then being indestructible… ok for a single hander, for sure it wins, and i get it now.

The only other single handers that can best it for higher single strike damage would be Grief in a Bezerker

Axe,

Colossus Sword or colossus blades, but then they suffer from lower base speeds and you know… being destructible…

I remember making a Grief in a

Berserker Axe… and needing to repair it like every 5 mins. That became a weapon i left on the Ground somewhere.

So i would definitely never make a Grief in a 2-handed weapon, that’s when the +damage just can’t compete compared to the ed of high end rune words. With a big

Eth 2 hander going for about 150+ more avg damage than a 2 hander Grief. and then you start to get into them being ethereal and thus also indestructable…

Very ineteresting

The problem with your testing is that it's anecdotal. Also there is a known bug where Grief does not show the effect of the +damage in the character stats screen i.e. the lying character screen ;0. it's existed for a very long time. I'm not suggesting that some of the other Grief attributes aren't useful. The reason that it's the best is absolutely because of the flat damage, remove that and nobody would use it. It's a similar reason why the 3/20/20 charms are so valuable in PVP, because the stats get added before certain modifiers. Only you get upto +400 damage (this effectively increases your minimum damage also) for the price of

Lo rune, absurd!

The table below sums it up:

It's also super useful for a smiter because again it adds up-to +400 damage to the base damage of the Paladin skill

Smite.

Zero187 has provided a good build and point regarding the use of Last Wish for survivability.

My WW Trav horker uses double Grief and on Act 5 merc LW and Hustle. I haven't tried double LW but it's really expensive for SSF player anyway.

Damage output is really good for this set up but not sure about higher player counts since I play only P1 online.

PS: For your test, try Maxroll build and check the result. It could help calculating the damage as well.

i have a somewhat contrary setup for my barb:

gface>aface
fort>Enigma
dual botd > dual Grief

Grief has about 50 extra damage, but botd (etheral

Ber.

Axe) has:
dual leech, +200ed undead, range adder, style points, and most of all +60 to all attributes

60 strength = extra damage, 60 vit with BO = 400+ life

krathkor wrote: 5 months ago

i have a somewhat contrary setup for my barb:

gface>aface
fort>Enigma
dual botd > dual Grief

Grief has about 50 extra damage, but botd (etheral

Ber.

Axe) has:
dual leech, +200ed undead, range adder, style points, and most of all +60 to all attributes

60 strength = extra damage, 60 vit with BO = 400+ life

This is also a really nice setup from a quality of life point of view. Depends what you would like to prioritise.

An absolute perfect EBOTD in ethereal

Berserker Axe has a slightly higher maximum damage, but massively lower minimum damage in comparison with even a crappy rolled Grief made in the same non ethereal weapon. Due to the base + damage provided by Grief the overall average damage is extremely reliable. I really like EBOTD as well btw especially for all the bonuses to stats / leaching. It just won't ever consistently out-damage Grief (especially dual). 2H WW EBOTD all the way though, can be difficult finding a good base .

That's what's so good about this game though so many different setups, perfectly usable. Just pick what works best for you and enjoy

I have nothing to provide to this thread as I don't play barb much. But I am thoroughly enjoying reading this thread and learning from it. Keep up the discussion!

Hi Nate, I see lots of great answers which I mostly agree with but had some things to add.

Max experience is maxing mobility/dps while limiting deaths. Barbs are so tanky you are usually safe unless wandering into the realms of dolls, those

Frenzy beasts or large numbers of phys immunes and maybe the rare

Conviction lightning enchanted phys immune situation assuming your res isn’t over stacked.

Item recommendation:
X2 Grief phase
Gface :

Cham or Ed jewel.
Highlords
Enigma
Loh or specialty gloves depending on area youre leveling.

Steelrend perhaps
Rings: dual leech, fcr, res, strength;

Raven Frost if no

Cham in g face

Belt: soe, or 30strength/life/res

Belt

Gore Rider.

I think most of these aren’t disputed, so I’ll only discuss weapon and armor choice.

For weapons, in my experience, I’d say x2 Grief phase all the way. Its damage and speed is unmatched. The speed of Grief

Phase Blade permits gear flexibility and fast maneuvers to handle situations which slow barbs down, such as physical immunes,

Holy Freeze and decrep. And finally, ignore target defense can’t be overstated. With the other weapons mentioned I don’t think you can get away with having anything but a

Conviction mercenary if youre seriously looking to max performance. Granted I’ve never been rich enough to have 30 perfect fine small charms if vita but I don’t think the extra 600 ar would compensate for this.

With Grief itd, while you do still have to deal with low ar on bosses, but Ive experienced enhanced clear speed from the huge damage bonuses from a merc with decrep or

Concentration. Although you lose about 9 frames, I put a point in

Battle Cry to use in situations where you are slowed or struggling to hit something. It seems to save time.

The only contender to Grief in my mind is Death zerker due to being able to reach max ds and crushing blow. But also comes with major sacrifices that I wouldn’t consider worthy except in specialty circumstances.

In your situation, you’d be even further disadvantaged with Death colossus blades being they are slightly slower than zerkers and require, I think, 75 ias from gear which pigeonholes your options and mostly nullify the crushing blow and deadly strike advantages from the equation unless you

Sacrifice other important gear.

Comparing the raw damage of each, Grief comes out on top. You’re talking 433 average damage in a perfect no ed base verses 357.5 in a 15 Ed base Death zerker. Granted, Grief is roughly maxed at around 90 ds when taking into account barbarian mastery whereas one can easily max ds with Death and give it a 10 percent raw damage bonus but that still leaves it beneath Grief.

The crushing blow is deaths advantage. You can reach 100 percent with the basic barb gear setup of gface and gorerider. Which also lets you exceed 100 percent ds if throwing in highlords, which you will need to do if you want to reach the 4 frame rate ww breakpoint without sacrificing Enigma/Fortitude. In order to meet this, you’ll need 63 ias from equipment which isn’t hard to do while using max damage gear but does limit some flexibility in gear which is easily afforded with Grief.

Even when optimizing Death ias, you are still highly susceptible to slowing effects.

Holy Freeze and decrep will neuter you. Even immune to phys will be painfully slow since

Berserk ias is harder to max. With Grief phase, these situations aren’t so bad. Just

Frenzy a couple of times and then ww through the

Holy Freeze or enjoy the max attack rate of

Berserk with the

Phase Blade.

As far as body armor, it’s Enigma. The mobility alone is so unmatched that it will optimize leveling time far beyond Fortitude. Fortitude does provide the defensive and offensive Edge, but you’ll clear nearly any substantial area much more quickly with Enigma. The strength and skill are nice bonuses as well.

Finally, while it sounds fun to try, I’d research the

Iron Golem from metal grid, I think I heard it disappears when you create a new game and using a Beast would make for an expensive experiment. I think it probably would give a major Edge to Death users though

Sorry for the long post. I just love barbs!

Rik wrote: 5 months ago

Finally, while it sounds fun to try, I’d research the

Iron Golem from metal grid, I think I heard it disappears when you create a new game and using a Beast would make for an expensive experiment. I think it probably would give a major Edge to Death users though

Iron Golem from

Metalgrid and Oath now persists between sessions as long amulet and/or Oath is not removed.
uniques/metalgrid-t859.html
See comment from Nate.

Knappogue wrote: 5 months ago

Rik wrote: 5 months ago

Finally, while it sounds fun to try, I’d research the

Iron Golem from metal grid, I think I heard it disappears when you create a new game and using a Beast would make for an expensive experiment. I think it probably would give a major Edge to Death users though

Iron Golem from

Metalgrid and Oath now persists between sessions as long amulet and/or Oath is not removed.
uniques/metalgrid-t859.html
See comment from Nate.

Problem is that without

Golem Mastery it will die as soon as a monster looks at it in the wrong way ;0.

M1ck wrote: 5 months ago

Knappogue wrote: 5 months ago

Rik wrote: 5 months ago

Finally, while it sounds fun to try, I’d research the

Iron Golem from metal grid, I think I heard it disappears when you create a new game and using a Beast would make for an expensive experiment. I think it probably would give a major Edge to Death users though

Iron Golem from

Metalgrid and Oath now persists between sessions as long amulet and/or Oath is not removed.
uniques/metalgrid-t859.html
See comment from Nate.

Problem is that without

Golem Mastery it will die as soon as a monster looks at it in the wrong way ;0.

Yes! I was just answering the persist/not persist question. Not the viability of the golem itself haahaa

Knappogue wrote: 5 months ago

M1ck wrote: 5 months ago

Knappogue wrote: 5 months ago

Iron Golem from

Metalgrid and Oath now persists between sessions as long amulet and/or Oath is not removed.
uniques/metalgrid-t859.html
See comment from Nate.

Problem is that without

Golem Mastery it will die as soon as a monster looks at it in the wrong way ;0.

Yes! I was just answering the persist/not persist question. Not the viability of the golem itself haahaa

Thanks for the info. I have to test this now. If I can keep that little guy alive it is going to change my barb build alot.

So i think I’ve found the ideal step-up, for me at least.

First the failures:

Metalgrid and Beast

Iron Golem - i did this with a spare Beast

Berserker Axe, to make it a bit more tanky I maxed

Shout and BO. Armour was Enigma so i could tele him away if he was threatened. I guess i could have used

Wisp Projector, or the other ring that gives you

Oak Sage, but i don’t have a

Wisp Projector yet and was too lazy for the other ring (got it somewhere on my jewlery mule). Anyways i tried first on P3 Chaos, he was doing ok, and my resists were comfortably over-stacked and my AR was up to 15k! Sadly the IG was slain too fast for me to react when I popped the second seal… that damn fanatisism aura.

Successes:
I rolled a new Grief and got a +39IAS, +396 damage!!! Whoot, whoot! So i copied that using the airplane mode glitch. Not gunna get a better Grief than that offline.

Findings, sorry anecdotal findings:
I tried mostly during Chaos runs, sometimes I’d go through the world Stone keep or a terrorized act 5 area, but Chaos P7 was the standard. The merc was act 2 might with a Pride, Eandy’s and efort.
Weapons baseline was dual griefs, yea it’s the standard to which all other are measures. Other gear is standard:

Cham’d gface, highlords, SoE, gores, LoH, dual leach rings, and charms were enough to max fire/lightning res then all +damage&ar, with anni and torch.
I tried swapping Enigma to fort: turns out to be very similar clear speeds, with fort you’re not zipping around as fast, but I’d only need to hit guys with average 2 whirlwinds compared to 3 with Enigma. So i settled with Enigma to make other

Terror zone farming just easier. Plus moving faster is just funner. I didn’t see a drop in the

Concentration aura with fort, the merc stayed close enough i didn’t drop the damage auras.

I tried swapping one of the griefs for Death, and then another run swapping one of the griefs for ebotd. Clear speed was still fast, but slightly slower than dual griefs, even when killing diablo.

So i think for pure leveling speed the tried and true dual Grief, Enigma, and other melee gear combo is most efficient, but any of the other top choices only result in negligible loss in speed. Let’s be honest you’re ’efficiency’ goes out the window when a superior grey item, high rune or tc 87 unique drops!

Thanks for everyone’s advice and feedback, i think there’s still other variables i could try, maybe that act 5 merc, and axes (once i find an

Eth

Berserker Axe), and whenever a

Wisp Projector drops for me!

Gained 2 levels just doing all this testing (edit to my first post, the barb was level 88 at the start)

Thanks for the update. I’d really like to make

Iron Golem work but I’m discouraged if he’s dying that quick to physical damage. I think Exile or Obsession would probably provide the best balance of durable/helpful items to use but both would only provide defensive perks to the barb which are nice but not nearly as spicy as a Faith, Pride or my Christmas wish, a Brand golem. Reapers and Lawbringer are potentially good cheap alternatives but I heard the

Iron Golem attacks painfully slow, meaning the decrep proc is unlikely to provide much. But the

Sanctuary Aura would have at least kept him alive against lord de sais

If you get a future Beast and do more testing, you might try a

Holy Freeze merc, granted you’re sacrificing 200 ed but the bonus from the

Iron Golem could offset that. Another thing, this may be outdated info, but I watched a vid in which a creature remained summoned while the item providing it was in the weapon swap. This could open up your ammy to use highlords if you put Oath on the swap. Highlords is a huge boost to damage and is the only way to max deadly strike.

I’ll do my own testing but, I’ll need some more practice, confidence in the survivability or Wealth before I make him out of any runewords using anything higher than

Lem..

This was a fun post, plz keep us posted, specifically on

Iron Golem testing