Whirlwind Question: Two-handed vs. Dual-wielding

[Manny]

I’ve been doing some research on the Barbarian’s Whirlwind skill (patch 1.09b is what I play) and I’m a little unclear on damage output.

I have two identical (duped) weapons: Cruel Colossal Blades of the Vampire (for curious minds, I’ve been rerolling a blue Colossus Blade for months trying to land a CCBoQ and landed on this beautiful sword). Anyways back to my question :

What will yield me more raw damage output, using just one of them as a two-hander, or dual wielding both? They are both socketed with an \"ETH\" rune, which in theory should give me max hit percentage on this patch due to the bug.

When I look at my character stat screen, equipping just one sword does show me more damage, but when I dual-wield them, I hit more times, right? Do the extra hits make up for and equal the damage of using just one sword?

Posting some screenies below in case it helps answer my question. Thanks guys.

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[fearedbliss]

[mention]Manny[/mention] I don’t have the answers you seek Nephalem, but your barb looks sexy! I’m also loving the inventory full of SCs ;D.

 

[Manny]

[mention]fearedbliss[/mention] Haha, thanks bro! 1.08 Valor is a thing of beauty. He’s up to 7K life with shouts (thanks to +6 Warcries on swap). The SC’s are all \"Of Vita\".

 

[Erayz]

I know I’m a few months late, but I have a bit of experience with WW barbs in 1.09, I feel I can try to help with the question. Though I have no way of verifying what I’m about to say, it’s mostly by experience.

I think the most important thing is to have the max WW Attack Speed, and a Eth rune (or really good AR and chance to hit%). A Colossus blade needs 40% ias to reach the max WW attack speed. Once you have this, you can use any combination of the following:

• Sword + shield (very tanky with Stormshield, but much lower damage, good for HC I guess)
• Dual-wield (average damage, potentially some extra useful affixes)
• Two-Handed (Very high damage, less potential for useful affixes)

Note that if you plan on using Grandfather (hoping for you to find it soon!), it cannot reach the max IAS WW breakpoint. That’s why you should still socket it with a Shael, or dmg%/ias jewel to reach the first breakpoint.

I read somewhere that the best DPS for a 1.09 whirlwind barb was to dual-wield Cruel Colossus Blades with 40% IAS (either from Quickness, or 2xShael), and a Eth rune. But in my experience, I found I killed stuff much quicker with a Cruel Colossus Blade in one hand, and Grandfather in the other. I may be wrong, but it really felt like all my hits were affected by the Eth bug, and had max attack speed, even though one of my swords had neither of those things (GF it is). All of this while benefiting from the higher damage of GF, plus all the other cool stats on it.

Plus 2x Cruel Colossus Blades cost a lot of gold just to repair, so it gets annoying, to a point where you have to pick up stuff just to sell it, which I personally hate.

 

[Manny]

[mention]Erayz[/mention]

This is great info man, thanks for sharing!

After reading your post (which does correlate with some other sources I have found online), I am pretty sure I want to go with a Dual-Wield setup -- GF in the main hand, and a CCBoQ in the other. Unless I am dueling, in which case, you already know. :lol:

Hoping to land the \"Big Daddy\" Collossus Blade soon! /fingers crossed

 

[fearedbliss]

If you are dueling, make sure to Eth both weapons :twisted: :shock:

 

[Manny]

[mention]fearedbliss[/mention]

Lol. I don’t believe the Eth bug works in PvP. My sword is Eth’d and there were still times I would miss [mention]Erayz[/mention]’s big ugly head (lmaooo). My PvP setup is throwing on my Ber’d Stormshield & Vampire Gaze for max DR%.

 

[fearedbliss]

Haha, from what I remember reading online it seemed it did work but it was frowned upon. Although I haven’t tested it for myself, and IIRC, I think they were talking about guided arrow, pierce and maybe eth? Not sure.

 

[Manny]

Hmm, wow! According to RobbyD’s Time Traveler’s Guide to 1.09 v1.3, the Eth bug does work in PvP. Maybe it just works slightly differently? Will need to research that. Guided arrows & pierce definitely works, as does stacked poison charms, right Erayz? :lol: :mrgreen:

 

[fearedbliss]

That’s correct. Stacked ranged poison dmg works in 1.09b. In 1.07, stacked poison damage applied to both ranged and melee attacks, but that was fixed.