I don't generally post in forums and spread the gospel on how to build a perfect nado-barb.
Nonetheless, this is a topic that I've been asked by so many barbs that I've talked to/played with/know.
Repeated myself many times before I realized a thread like would be smart to reference people that ask me this in the future.
This is my opinion on what is currently the best setup for nado-barbs, taking into consideration the current low-mid-end game content + the gear that's currently available to us.
This thread is strictly about how to gear your weapons for maximum output as a nado-barbR1ckRolled has an excellent barb-advice thread for anything else you may have questions about,
http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=64990742&f=142with all that said, here's my little excerpt about wep gearing as a nado-barbThe ideal MH for a nado-barb in 1.05 is to use a Rare-1h Mace with the highest wep range possible, this is since tornadoes which is roughly 60% of a nado-barb's damage is based off main hand's wep damage.I know you guys see a lot of top barbs on dprogress that use EF in their MH and Swords in their OH, although this is true for stat sheet DPS and makes you look nice on rankings, it's a very flawed setup in the actual game.
The ideal OH for a nado-barb in 1.05 is to use an Echoing-Fury with 0.25+ attack speed (very important), and it's two random rolls for critical hit damage and socket.Your rare mace can provide you with lifesteal as one of it's rolls, on top of str/cd/socket, EFs only have two rolls and it's the highest DPS increase (Actual-gameplay dps), to utilize them both for critical hit damage (socket+crit damage roll).
Therefore a picture perfect nado-barb setup would look something like thisMH must have; Str, CD, Lifesteal, Socket (NO attack speed %)
OH Must have; Crit damage, Socket.
But MannerCookie, why do we use Echoing Fury as OH?This is already explained by other I'm sure but I'll give a simple breakdown of why.
- Echoing Fury's damage ranges are always going to be much lower than a rare 1h-mace because of the attacks per second buff, that's what inflates the weapon's total DPS display.
- Echoing Fury's fear chance is almost a nil factor if equipped in Off-hand as a nado barb because the only skills that will proc it are direct offhand attacks (bash,frenzy) or whirlwind.
- I don't know the exact co-efficient for whirlwind in 1.05 (I'm not a big theory guy, I base my findings on actual ingame play), anyhow it's most certainly not 1, and probably something the lines for 10-20% or somewhere around there from what I've seen.
- The most obvious reason of course, +attack per second affects both hands, allowing you to break nado breakpoints.
Is this gear setup an absolute must as a nado-barb?No, it's not, and you gear within your means obviously. The closer you can get to the ideal dream setup, the better.
I generally recommend to low-budget barbs or barbs starting out to go with a butcher's sickle in MH /w attack speed roll + Echoing fury /w str+vit roll or /w atk spd roll.
It's a very in-expensive way to get all the main stats you need while maintaining a very high APS from just weapons alone allowing you to break higher nado breakpoints without the use of end-game gear such as lacunis/witching.
Hope this helps for all you guys looking to start barbs or are looking to upgrades for your weapons, gl!This post was edited by mannercookie on Nov 22 2012 03:56pm