Max DPS TWF Build

[Illuminati]

I have deathnip on a fighter, not barb though, and it sucks ass compared to a nice greater bane khopesh, even if you are fully specced. So I cant see it being better for barbs either, especially vs a +5-9 d10 +3d6 weapon. The non-crit damage is just pathetic on that thing..you would need stunning blow and a tenderizer throwing random stuns in off hand for it to be really effective, and then it would only work vs certain mobs. Theres no room for that on a 2wf barb you are squeezing 2wf in as it is. I think shades dwarf with axes is just more practical too. A new player could build it and be very happy with it...you dont even need the greater banes just get 1 or 2 really nice dps dwarvens or battleaxes and youre set for most mobs.

Dont get me wrong, a maxxed barb with 2 deathnips would be the cats ass and look really freakin cool, you could probably set a record high single crit (for 1h) with him.

STWF should like like this (MH=Main Hand, OH=Off Hand):
MH, MH, OH, OH, OH, MH, MH, OH, OH, OH, MH, MH

Dual Deathnips (1d6+5 x4, 3d6 on crit, 25% crit chance raged, seeker +8) *assume 46 Strength Raged, in a 12 attack sequence
Main Hand:
1d6+5 (~8.5) + 18 (Strength) +8 Power Attack = 35
Off Hand:
1d6+5 (~8.5) + 9 (Strength) +8 Power Attack = 26

So a dmg sequence would look like this (each hand crits 25%):

35, 35, 26, 26, 26, 35, 35, 26, 146, 146, 182, 182 = 900

Now DAxe's.... (I'll use 2x Burst of of Maiming since apples to apples) *highest I saw was +3 *bloodstone = +6 seeker
Main Hand:
1d10+3 (~8.5) +18 (Strength) + 8 Power Attack + d6 elemental (~3.5) = 40
Off Hand:
1d10+3 (~8.5) +9 (Strength) + 8 Power Attack + d6 elemental (~3.5) = 29

So a dmg sequence would look like this (each hand crits 20%):

40, 40, 29, 29, 29, 40, 40, 29, 29, 136, 169, 169 = 779


Basically it boils down to the crits. All things being equal the deathnips are about 15% better DPS. Even with the Dwarven Enh for Ax damage its not that close. Avg damage the DA's win though. Good luck farming 2x Deathnips though. Everytime I go to the auction house I see a 1000 DA's =p

But Khopesh's.... (I'll use 2x Burst of of Maiming since apples to apples) *highest I saw was +3 *bloodstone = +6 seeker, HUMAN*
Main Hand:
1d8+3 (~7.5) +18 (Strength) + 8 Power Attack + d6 elemental (~3.5) = 39
Off Hand:
1d8+3 (~7.5) +9 (Strength) + 8 Power Attack + d6 elemental (~3.5) = 28

So a dmg sequence would look like this (each hand crits 25%):

39, 39, 28, 28, 28, 39, 39, 28, 124, 124, 157, 157 = 830

Deathnips are 8% better.

Moral of the story. With dwarf go Axes till you get 2x Deathnips, for human 2x Khopesh until you get 2x Deathnips. I wonder how Rapier factor in with Elf....

Rapiers.... (I'll use 2x Burst of of Maiming since apples to apples) *highest I saw was +3 *bloodstone = +6 seeker, Elf*
Main Hand:
1d6+3 (~6.5) +18 (Strength) + 8 Power Attack + d6 elemental (~3.5) = 38
Off Hand:
1d8+3 (~6.5) +9 (Strength) + 8 Power Attack + d6 elemental (~3.5) = 27

So a dmg sequence would look like this (each hand crits roughly 38%):

38, 38, 27, 27, 27, 38, 104, 27, 82, 82, 104, 104 = 698

Deathnips are 22% better.

[Hadrian]

(I'll use 2x Burst of of Maiming since apples to apples) *highest I saw was +3 *bloodstone = +6 seeker
Main Hand:
1d10+3 (~7.5) +18 (Strength) + 8 Power Attack + d6 elemental (~3.5) = 39
Off Hand:
1d10+3 (~7.5) +9 (Strength) + 8 Power Attack + d6 elemental (~3.5) = 28

So a dmg sequence would look like this (each hand crits 20&#37:

39, 39, 28, 28, 28, 39, 39, 28, 28, 124, 157, 157 = 734

Well, you are counting +3 axes and ignoring the dwarf enhancements for some reason. Don't try to tell me +5 shocking burst DAs of maiming don't exist, because there is one up for trade on the Sarlona trade boards right now :P

I know it doesn't matter. Deathnip still does a lot more damage. It requires greater bane axes with high damage mod or medium mod and a good added damage effect (such as holy burst) to match or pass them.

It's just a +5 heavy pick when you don't crit. It's a sword of shadows when you do, basically. Hits a little harder than a SoS, theoretically. (ignoring any other items the player may have, such as a bloodstone)

[EinarMal]

I would say personally, go with whatever you have the best weapons of, piercing or slashing. Either way works fine and it is very close. One advantage to slashing that no one mentioned is the option of getting a SOS and going two handed with PA on against red named/high DR mobs.

The big advantage to piercing is puncturing. You are caught up in all these DPS calculations but are still not getting that on elite upper level quests dual wielding even +5 Puncturing rapiers will most likely kill faster in a lot of cases, let alone if you can get your hands on w-p weapons of some sort. At that point DPS doesn't matter anymore, at least traditional DPS calculations.

[LOUDRampart]

Dwarf (+2 con, more hp, more rage, axe enhacements, awesome race)
Barbarian Level 16
Alignment: Neutral Good or True Neutral. Minor advantages to each, with neutral good being slightly better for weapon selection, or true neutral for PvP and tanking some of the more deadly monsters which use unholy weapons.

(32 point build recommended, but playable with only 28 points)
Str 17 - +4 level ups, +6 item, +2 tome, for 29 Base, 40 Dual Raged, or 44 double madstone raged
Dex 17 - +2 tome at 1750 favor for 19 base, +5 item for 24 (Important because this because uses STWF which requies 19 base dex)
Con 16 - +2 enhance, +6 item, 24 base, +8 rage, +2 potion = 34) (endgame: +2 tome + dual madstone = 44)
Int 8 (Doesn't matter)
Wis 8 (Small negative, but this made up for by great enhancements - dwarven spell resistance)
Cha 6 (Not that important, tho 6 cha does mean you get helpless to cha damage from time to time)

Looks solid and similar to what I've been considering now that I've completed my THF Barbarian experiment.

Two things I'm interested in is:

First, listen instead of spot (I've collected some nice + listen non-hat items). I've been thinking of making a "throw away toon" just to experiment with listen and see what I think of it. I've never used listen and am curious.

Second, I've been playing with the idea of:
Str 17 (plus 1750 tome and 2 level ups)
Dex 16 (plus +1 tome at level 1 and 2 level ups to reach 19)
Con 17 (can always even this number up with a con tome for a few more xps, rage time, saves, etc)
Int 8
Wis 8
Cha 6


Seems for the mad xper, swiching up where the favor tome and level ups are used makes it so you won't have to be too concerned with the 1750 tome to help Dex before level 15 (my THF Barb just capped before the update with just over 1100 favor. I guess if I favor ground I could probably be much higher since I skipped a lot of low and mid-level quests. One advantage I see using the 1750 tome for dex is when a +3 or better str tome drops, you won't gimp two points of it because of the already used str favor tome. Of course I'm not lucky with tome drops, so I wouldn't count on finding one for my character )

[LOUDRampart]

Why Human? Be a Dwarf, pick the critable ones, axe the non-critable ones, hehe.

Good point. I'm thinking I'm retiring (deleting) my Dwarf Paladin who has all kinds of nice DA's and my twf Batmanish type build from a long time ago who has lots of piercing and wounding weapons. Seems this will make for a nice allotment of weapon combos for a twf.

[Illuminati]

I would say personally, go with whatever you have the best weapons of, piercing or slashing. Either way works fine and it is very close. One advantage to slashing that no one mentioned is the option of getting a SOS and going two handed with PA on against red named/high DR mobs.

The big advantage to piercing is puncturing. You are caught up in all these DPS calculations but are still not getting that on elite upper level quests dual wielding even +5 Puncturing rapiers will most likely kill faster in a lot of cases, let alone if you can get your hands on w-p weapons of some sort. At that point DPS doesn't matter anymore, at least traditional DPS calculations.

I am not ignoring Puncturing , but this is a DPS conversation. Remember, and not to sound conceited, but I posted the first puncture build in the Tempest Ranger when the game first came out. I know how good it works. If the whole party is using wounders then /nod , but often everyone is damaging a mob.

I have a set of W/P but since it's Shade's thread I figured I would stick to DPS. And to be honest, unless we can craft them most still will not have access to W/P sets as most won't ever see dual deathnips.

A group all using wounding is pretty fun to watch and super efficient, and the casters would just haste/cc and the healers would just heal.

Ah... those were the days =p

[Westerner]

And no the point of this build is not to gather feedback and adjust it based on that. It's for new players looking for an excellent TWF build, and thats exactly what it is and what it will remain.

I'm a new player, and I'm not prepared to rely on your "excellent" label for my first barb. Builds that are meaningfully vetted with the community are more likely to be "excellent", IMO.

[sigtrent]

I'm a new player, and I'm not prepared to rely on your "excellent" label for my first barb. Builds that are meaningfully vetted with the community are more likely to be "excellent", IMO.

For the record I do think it is an excellent build, quite solid. Just not exactly what it advertises to be. I wouldn't think duel deathnips would be the way to go anyhow. I'd rather wield a deathnip off hand and the best elemental burst greater bane off hand if you really want the best possible damage from piercing. Seeker is the big effect and you only need it one one weapon as the effect won't stack.

[Fallout]

I tried several TWF types, L2R/L12F, L14 Paladin, L14 Ranger, L14 Barb, and TWF barb takes a while to figure out to build and play. (Also I don't recommend trying a TWF Paladin, thats very hard to build and play : )

Ultimately depends on play style and preference. In a perfect world, its hard to beat the dwarf race bonuses with axes and constitution. But I made a human TWF barbarian because I like the extra feat flexibility, the human stat versatility, and human skill versatility for UMD, which means my human barbarian can boost to about UMD 22 to use race required weapons.

These types of TWF builds are weapon dependent. Couple of caveats with Shade's comment. While I agree on dwarven axe DPS, it is very expensive and difficult to get +5 greater bane weapons for each race, and you need two of them. He used a number 6.4 M PP. Thats a alot of money. Also its not too often to see a +4 greater bane weapon, much less +5, or getting two of them. For my TWF fighter, I used dual 3 holy burst dwarven axes most of time.

Barbarians are more buff dependent then other classes to take advantage of their DPS. When Shade is playing his barb, his group usually consist of all clerics, hasters/cc, and buffers. Unless people start their own groups, most barb groups are not like that. When I play my human TWF barb, sometimes long quests that has small number of shrines, have to watch rages. You can't rage for every combat. And if no bard to buff, makes it harder. Bards buffs really boost barbarian more then any class.

Also it depends on group play style if looking at kill counts. Some clerics, mages etc, you lure bunch of mobs together. Cast blade barrier/FW, and dozen mobs die at same time.

[EinarMal]

I am not ignoring Puncturing , but this is a DPS conversation. Remember, and not to sound conceited, but I posted the first puncture build in the Tempest Ranger when the game first came out. I know how good it works. If the whole party is using wounders then /nod , but often everyone is damaging a mob.

Heh, yes I am well aware of your original tempest build, the topic lately has been simply which weapon type is better piercing or slashing, so to ignore puncturing is not wise regardless of whether or not is strictly DPS.

[Illuminati]

Heh, yes I am well aware of your original tempest build, the topic lately has been simply which weapon type is better piercing or slashing, so to ignore puncturing is not wise regardless of whether or not is strictly DPS.

Agreed =)

Last night I had my Tempest Ranger in Titan Elite. The WF went down very fast, much faster than I could DPS. It took roughly 6-8 hits. Pretty soon though who knows, with gear etc. it may take the same amount of time with super high DPS.

Anyway, have to get the Tempest Enhancement on my fighter hybrid so bye bye forums for a few weeks =)

[MondoGrunday]

my twf barb can rez and use scrolls and wands to buff. and that is awesome and it will remain that way
neat build but really nothing there that strikes me as extraordinary. cookie cutter twf barb...

[LOUDRampart]

Max DPS is fine if that's what you're looking for and as I've found, making a Max DPS Barb isn't that hard.

What is hard is to build a character to complement a short handed party in order to cover all the bases. When I first started playing DDO that was my goal. I was playing (and still am) playing with three then; now four, other RL friends so trying to find a fun character that complemented them was my challenge. To add more complications, two of them love rangers and that is their prefered character so our parties are made up of 2 rangers, 1 fighter, 1 cleric, and whatever I bring. Hence my early experiments on the rogue/fighter, rogue/bard, and what became the batmanish type build (I was not concerned about intimidate back then since we had a tank to do that).

So my advise to the player looking at building a barbarian is to first determine what you want to do with it (the new cooldown clickie ability adds some nice multi-class possibilities) and then design what will be fun for you and test it out.

I will add my current barbarian ended up very similiar to Shades THF Barb (just some minor differences) and my thoughts on a twf barbarian are quite similiar too... hence my belief that this build is solid.

[Shade]

While I am with you on the axe DPS thing, I don't understand how you can claim a build that requires dual +4 dwarven axes for every major greater bane type to be what it claims to be an excellent build for new players.

As hard as it might be to get the nips, it's not as hard as getting the collection you're talking about. I'd gladly trade more than two tome page sets for all of that.

It's completely unreasonable to assume anyone, yet alone a new player will definetely get deathnips or +4 greater banes. And I said absolutely nothing about the build requiring them. This build doesn't require any rare weapons to do well, I made that pretty clear in the equipment section - main weapon set is a pair of +5 dwarven axes anyone can get.

And sorry but if you think getting dual deathnip is easier then greater banes your just out of your mind. No one has ever claimed to even have aquired dual deathnips ever legitimately due to the INSANE amount of platinum or farming required to do so. The only players who have them know they heavily exploited the black mausoleum bug to do that - which has been fixed for a while now.

While +4 greater banes are not so hard to acquire. Least not on my server. I don't claim to loot them ever, but I will say they are on the auction house in khyber fairly often. I purchased an entire set of +3/4 greataxes for my THF version, and recently a couple dwarven axes.. Spent probably well over 10 million platinum on them.. But I been playing forever so i could afford it. How many tome pieces do I have in the time it took me to farm for that 10million platinum? 3.. Yes 3. Thats from ransacking black mausoleum over 10 times.

So I already compared, rather then the unrealistic farming time needed to get them, I compared the AH prices. Tome pieces = usually 400Kpp, +4 greater banes about the same. So thats where the 6.4 million plat figure comes in for dual deathnips. Or if you didnt have such an insane amount of platinum - you could just save up 800k and get a single set of greater banes, say giant or devil for the current content.

Much more reasonable then getting the near-impossible to acquire deathnips.

So yea this is the MAX DPS TWF build.
Do you need insanely rare and expensive gear to get to Max? Absolutely.
Do you need that gear to make this build playable? Absolutely not.

And re: 100% new players. Per the top of the first post, I do really recommend the THF version for new players as the better build. It's just much easier to learn and ofcourse needs only half the weapons to buy and handle. That is a build that has been tried and tested and acclaimed by tons of people, I know over 10 people on my server alone who made it simply because they grouped with me and were impressed enough by my character to make there own, and it has worked out great for them.

[Hadrian]

It's completely unreasonable to assume anyone, yet alone a new player will definetely get deathnips or +4 greater banes. And I said absolutely nothing about the build requiring them. This build doesn't require any rare weapons to do well, I made that pretty clear in the equipment section - main weapon set is a pair of +5 dwarven axes anyone can get.

Your post seemed like you were making the +4 greater bane comparison as support for your statement about the fact that the build was for new players. I understand what you were trying to say now, though.

The lower end is superior with slashing, while the higher end can be superior with slashing if you manage to find the proper weapons for each type of encounter you face. The build is the max-dps possible, but in its presented in a way that is meant to scale and allow a newer player to increase in power slowly rather than hinge his build on one pair of hard-to-aquire weapons.

Really I think a lot of the arguing on this post comes from this confusion where you mix the ideas of scaling for a new player into a discussion of max possible DPS.

And sorry but if you think getting dual deathnip is easier then greater banes your just out of your mind. No one has ever claimed to even have aquired dual deathnips ever legitimately due to the INSANE amount of platinum or farming required to do so. The only players who have them know they heavily exploited the black mausoleum bug to do that - which has been fixed for a while now.

Sure it's easier to get greater bane weapons than it is to get deathnip, but I think the point others might be making is that this covers you for most creature types. If you consider 800K per pair, you'd be getting into about the same price range in order to cover all of the important types, while the deathnip would do this by themselves as well as covering all of the less often encountered creature types. It's a fair point, I think.

On the other hand, as you have said, for a given single creature type it's far easier to get the +4 greater banes.

[Westerner]

I think a meaningful comparison for new players might be +5 dwarven axe vs +5 heavy pick, as a starting point.

[Hadrian]

I think a meaningful comparison for new players might be +5 dwarven axe vs +5 heavy pick, as a starting point.

The dwarven axe wins by a fair margin with the dwarven axe enhancements.

[sigtrent]

Much more reasonable then getting the near-impossible to acquire deathnips.

So yea this is the MAX DPS TWF build. .

Sorry but the calculations I did showing picks were statisticly superior were with picks vs axes using identical weapon traits. you don't need deathnips to do more damage than axes, they only make it easier and I do believe a deathnip off hand and a greater bane main hand is better damage than two deathnips due to the way seeker works. So it isn't the Max DPS TWF build any way you slice it.

Do you need that gear to make this build playable? Absolutely not.

I compleately agree, its very solid.

[sigtrent]

The dwarven axe wins by a fair margin with the dwarven axe enhancements.

No it doesn't actualy. Get the weapon damage calculator and plug them in. You need to make sure to set up the stats for a barbarian build. The Pick comes out ahead becausee its crit profile and so the more damage bonus you have going the better the picks come out. Seeker is especialy nasty with the picks.

The dwarven axe enhancemetns do not give it a significant advantage for a barbarian. For a fighter, yes, a ranger, yep, a barbarian with crit rage... nope.

[Shade]

Sorry but the calculations ... blah blah my math this, blah blah. I love heavy picks so much yaya for me!!!11

At this point your basically spamming dude. It's like your a broken record.

All your doing is constantly posting the same thing over and over.. While I appreciate the bump, we already know your opinion on this and don't need to read it 10 more times.
The widely accepted DPS tool by thott shows some logical numbers that don't agree with your made up ones. Your made up math in your head might says otherwise, good for you. but I don't care.

See in the real world, the one i live in, most players are gonna agree more with the widely accepted complex DPS tool by Thott rather then what some random guy thinks up in his head.