one question, why venom over claw mastery?

Maxing venom is better than maxing claw mastery.

cuz having like 1500 poison damage over .4 secs > like 3% more deadly strike and a little more ar

ok ty

i had a pretty great hybrid sin last ladder reset in 2008 and i built it a little different than most guides.

i had 12k trap damage ww sin, used all trap gcs instead of shadow gcs. i had no problem vs. most classes except bvc/hammerdin/smiters. my ww does good enough damage to severely disable casters, however, its not very effective vs. melee classes. i think i'd put myself in way too much danger if i tried to ww barb/smiter/hammerdins anyway.

my question is, what are the benefits of going shadow lifers vs. trap lifers which gives you a 4-5k damage difference. sure it helps with WW and such, but are you really going to ww a lot vs. a strong melee class? i rely on my traps for that. I also remember there was a guide with damage calculations on why 20 in venom is not very good, anyone else recall this?

shadow gcs are better mostly vs casters, trap gcs are better mostly vs melee.

Shadow gcs are better vs all. +1 to fade, weapon block, mindblast, venom, claw mastery, shadow etc>+1 to LS.

this.

i had 60% claw block, fade was enough to get max DR for pvp with just a few points in both.
20 claw mastery, 1 shadowmaster from claw. without having to use shadow gcs.

one ww with open wound+poison normally rape casters anyway, why sacrifice 5000+ trap damage for a small increase from shadow skills?

8k trap dmg is a tickle to most 75 res 4000 life pvpers, 12-13k actually hurts a bit for gm pvp and tpk. i just can't see why using shadow gcs is a good choice, its almost like passive gc for zons.

60% claw block is a stupid magic number, chosen because it "looks pretty". The more claw block you can get the better.

Also having to pump points in weapon block+fade in the first place=less points in traps (you shouldn't really be skilling these past 1 point at all usually).

Was your set-up with CoA? That would explain max DR with a low Fade. With this build having 9x Shadow gcs will give you exactly 50 dr with a BerBer Circlet, this lets you use a Highlords for a much stronger whirl.

One ww with a low venom, low phys and open wounds will never rape a well built caster, it makes for an awful whirl that many casters (especially necs and blizzers) will just abuse as an opening for free damage and an escape from a traplock. Whereas 8k traps are still rather solid and give a much stronger whirlwind, as well as more DR/block/claw mastery/venom/Mindblast (this is especially important).

you can't get 50%dr for pvp, 30 is cap i believe. i had a 65fcr setup with coa and 102fcr with griffon, ur right im not maxed DR during 102fcr, however, i don't use that setup vs. melee builds anyway.

all of my trap synergies were maxed with a 60% claw block and (to be honest i can't remember the fade lvl, but it was more than enough with +skills), yes more block is better, but getting 1% block per skill is just not.

my point goes back to what i stated earlier: why lose 5-6k dmg to gain a slight edge vs. casters, when you can already rape casters fairly easily. hybrid ww sins need more of an edge vs. bvc/hammerdin/smiters, not sorc/druid/necros. assuming its all gm.