Whirlwind is DA BOMB!

[Keybreaker]

Don't listen to certain stone age barbarians. Cleave/Great Cleave/Whirlwind is AWESOME!

[sirgog]

It doesn't scale well with gear though.

Low level, Whirlwind is sick sick sick sick sick.

High level, it's just another Cleave.

[LeLoric]

It doesn't scale well with gear though.

Low level, Whirlwind is sick sick sick sick sick.

High level, it's just another Cleave.

Another cleave is a pretty good thing right now for dreadnaughts.

whirlwind+cleave+great cleave +lay waste all together is a really strong combo giving melee a big aoe dmg potential and you get to throw a momentum swing in between each one 50% of the time.

[HalfORCastrator]

Still, not enough feats to go around.

[Stillwaters]

Another cleave is a pretty good thing right now for dreadnaughts.

whirlwind+cleave+great cleave +lay waste all together is a really strong combo giving melee a big aoe dmg potential and you get to throw a momentum swing in between each one 50% of the time.

Have you tested that whirlwind works like cleaves do for the reset on momentum swing? My dervish hopes yes

EDIT: also considering the animation time of whirlwind it doesnt stack up well as "another cleave"

[Wraith_Sarevok]

"Stone age barbarians" huh?

Yeah... nice.

My problem with Whirlwind isn't the Whirlwind itself. It's with the 5 horrible and worthless prereq feats that no barbarian in their right mind is going to waste taking to gimp their DPS.

So in your mind we must all be stone age barbarians.

[Keybreaker]

Fighters have direct access to Legendary Dreadnaught. Why should the "fighter" destiny be tailored for barbarians? Barb interests are waaayyy over-represented on the forums because of a certain prodigious poster.

Ever since the SD prestige pass and eLoB, SD tanks and the occasional DoS (easier to screw up a pally build) tanks have far surpassed Barbs as ideal tanks. Barbs naturally fill a different niche and the game shouldn't be scewed and twisted to restore Barbs as the best of all melee roles.

Two years ago 80% of our guild roster was Barbarians and FvS. Barbs were clearly, unfairly, the best at everything as DPS and meatshields. All other melee classes were suboptimal, especially with the bugged barb PL giving super-long super-rages, hidden +10% melee alacrity from capstone, and twitching with full glancing blow damage. Now there's more variety, and other melee classes fill certain niches better. Is this so wrong?

I used to play two Barbs, an eSoS THF Barb and an TWF khopesh+evasion Barb. Both were top dogs when other melee classes/pres were craptacular compared to an FB3. I've evolved with the game and got to explore a lot more options. This is a good thing.

[maddmatt70]

"Stone age barbarians" huh?

Yeah... nice.

My problem with Whirlwind isn't the Whirlwind itself. It's with the 5 horrible and worthless prereq feats that no barbarian in their right mind is going to waste taking to gimp their DPS.

So in your mind we must all be stone age barbarians.

You can always roll a fighter why does it all have to be about your barbarian. You chose a class with less feats well try one with more feats and see if you like it better.

[Wraith_Sarevok]

I'm telling you I wouldn't even pick this feat on a Kensai and my barb originally was one.


Let's look at the prereqs in detail:

Combat Expertise - Requires 13 INT, which limits starting stats by forcing you to start with an 11 or 12 and to eat a +2 tome later. Reduces attack by -5 and raises AC by 15%. Okay it's an improvement over live. But since when has AC ever made a difference in this game? You'd have to invest in AC gear just to make this feat work, which usually means reduced DPS. And do I really want to be missing swings at a critical time? No.

Dodge - Grants a +3% Dodge bonus. By definition in a D20 system, anything below 5% is worthless. I guarantee that you will not notice the difference.

Mobility - Grants a +2% Dodge bonus. Ditto...

Spring Attack - Grants a +2% Dodge bonus. I've heard this all before...

Whirlwind Attack - Basically just your average Cleave, but with +4[W] damage and still a 5 second cooldown.


So what exactly did you gain by taking this route? +7% dodge and a mode that gives +15% AC in exchange for -5 attack. Neither of which amount to more than avoiding maybe 1/20 attacks. You could have just taken the basic Cleave and paid only 1 feat for it.

There's a bunch of other feats I would have taken... like 5 Toughness enhancements for +100 HP. Makes much more of a difference in practice.

[Stillwaters]

I'm telling you I wouldn't even pick this feat on a Kensai and my barb originally was one.

Agreed, as a dps increaser if you had ANY option of picking power attack and cleave it doesnt pan out...Some ppl (that already planned taking ALL the pre-reqs) didnt really have the spare feats to pick up cleave though so its a nice addition for them.

On a flavor build like a human monk2ftr18 its barely worth the feat, and this guy has 20 to use at lvl 20.

Whirlwind Attack - Basically just your average Cleave, but with +4[W] damage and still a 5 second cooldown.

Cleave alone will also end up being more attacks per min as the animation of whirlwind is so long...

[wax_on_wax_off]

I'm telling you I wouldn't even pick this feat on a Kensai and my barb originally was one.


Let's look at the prereqs in detail:

Combat Expertise - Requires 13 INT, which limits starting stats by forcing you to start with an 11 or 12 and to eat a +2 tome later. Reduces attack by -5 and raises AC by 15%. Okay it's an improvement over live. But since when has AC ever made a difference in this game? You'd have to invest in AC gear just to make this feat work, which usually means reduced DPS. And do I really want to be missing swings at a critical time? No.

Dodge - Grants a +3% Dodge bonus. By definition in a D20 system, anything below 5% is worthless. I guarantee that you will not notice the difference.

Mobility - Grants a +2% Dodge bonus. Ditto...

Spring Attack - Grants a +2% Dodge bonus. I've heard this all before...

Whirlwind Attack - Basically just your average Cleave, but with +4[W] damage and still a 5 second cooldown.


So what exactly did you gain by taking this route? +7% dodge and a mode that gives +15% AC in exchange for -5 attack. Neither of which amount to more than avoiding maybe 1/20 attacks. You could have just taken the basic Cleave and paid only 1 feat for it.

There's a bunch of other feats I would have taken... like 5 Toughness enhancements for +100 HP. Makes much more of a difference in practice.

I realise math is hard but I'll try to lay it out simply for you.

Just about all AC values will matter. The closer to average AC that you have (for the level range) the bigger impact an increase in your AC will give. Kensei's should be in a fine position (in heavy armour, UMD'ing a level 5 shield wand and not getting AC penalties like barbarian) to have an AC that is getting close to optimal amount of defense for the investment that is made (not sure but ~40-60% miss chance maybe with ideal DPS gear).

The 7% dodge matters too, fighters can expand their mithral full plate to 7 MDB (at least, I think?) which will give them an added layer of defense.

Sorry if any of this is wrong, I'm fairly sure I understand the new system but entirely possible that I have some of the details a bit off

[Stillwaters]

Just about all AC values will matter.
EXCEPT when approaching 70%-75%AC

Fixed that for ya Wax...

[Shade]

Just about all AC values will matter.

hah.

Every single quest I ran tonight, everyone got hit 95% of the time.

Even the monk.

What we're we running?
Epic elite.

Yea no one was built for AC. Why would we be.

AC might matter on lower difficulties for many players, but on high ones, it certainly wont unless you specificly build for it, same as now.

Though even on normal in everything ive tried, both my bbn and sorc continue to get hit 95% by everything. AC still does not matter for them.

[wax_on_wax_off]

Fixed that for ya Wax...

Isn't 70-75% AC a value that matters? I said matter, not that an increase will matter (which is what I think you thought I meant).

Don't confuse the poor barbarian, math is hard!

[Ape_Man]

Though even on normal in everything ive tried, both my bbn and sorc continue to get hit 95% by everything. AC still does not matter for them.

I don't buy that, at a pathetic AC of 44 I was seeing a decent amount of misses in Epic Normal. I think you can hit that with just a set of plate armor.

But I agree with you on building for it being foolish (and I'm a complete AC-***** on live) as the point of diminishing returns is too much for the payout to be worth the gear slots.

Dodge, incorporeal, perma-blur and PRR on the other hand . . .

[SableShadow]

You can always roll a fighter why does it all have to be about your barbarian.

If you're a Mouseketeer, yah gotta wear the ears.

[morticianjohn]

I don't buy that, at a pathetic AC of 44 I was seeing a decent amount of misses in Epic Normal. I think you can hit that with just a set of plate armor.

But I agree with you on building for it being foolish (and I'm a complete AC-***** on live) as the point of diminishing returns is too much for the payout to be worth the gear slots.

Dodge, incorporeal, perma-blur and PRR on the other hand . . .

I wonder how many sorcs or barbarians have more than 40 AC. That would require a heavy investment for those classes.

[Nospheratus]

I wonder how many sorcs or barbarians have more than 40 AC. That would require a heavy investment for those classes.

My wizard has 20 IF i cast the mage armor spell...

[Chai]

The spreadsheet gamers were posting their findings that fighters were top single target DPS since 2009. Most of the fighter multiclasses that had 12/6/2 splits were outperforming barbarians on single targets, which most endgamers feel is most important. Rogues were even better at both during the 50% fort days, and nowdays with higher fort, we can debuff that all the way to zero fort, so rogues are still better single target.

Where did barbarians shine? AOE DPS - which is mostly in quests, but can be trash mobs in raids as well. Now they are taking that down as well. This is a prime example of Turbine overnerfing, as they have done quite a few times in the past. Players complain on the forums in such an overexagerated fashion that one class doing 8% more DPS than another class means theres no reason to roll the other class ever again, and Turbine responds by taking something that needs a minor adjustment and nerfing it into the ground.

If it was overpowered why do we not see more 12 level split barbarians then? Most barbarian level splits are 6 barb levels, or 18 barb levels. 12 was the LEAST used split. If supreme cleave was so godly, why werent more people building for it then. Because the overexagerating forumites are wrong, thats why.

[Ape_Man]

My wizard has 20 IF i cast the mage armor spell...

My PM's AC last time I checked was a 6? But I think somebody had a breakdown of them hitting 70 on one that wasn't losing that much mojo.

You're right about a bard with that -19 penalty but a Kensai could get a 50 without trying.