The TLDR 2H Barb

Can I just check what the above means about skills. If I'm following the thread correctly...

The conclusion seems to be that there's no point in maxing Glads Dominance or Neph Spirit. You believe (melee) iceburst will be best single target due to multihitting.

But my reading of the s.eagle skill tooltip is that the damage only comes from hitting with s.eagle, it's not a "buff" as such? Although there is a debuff that's applied to enemies.

So hitting with s.eagle then iceburst won't change the damage of iceburst at all as I read it - what am I missing?

I think the outcome re stances was bear - but maybe snake when we want slow (poison part is 'nice to have' if damage is enough anyway). Or maybe we just stay in bear?

I'm still not clear if anything was said about aoe/clear skill after the first few posts - so is it still stampede + snake?

I'm trying to work out the best use of skill points for the build - still need to understand the iceburst s.eagle thing though.

You debuff stuff with screaming eagle, then hit with whatever that uses wdm while having elemental dmg source. Then you watch bad guys melt.

Yeah I tested it and it works, playing right now. Applying screaming eagle to enemies gives them a debuff, that adds damage to every hit of your attacks, and that damage is constant, regardless of wdm of that attack, which means it scales super well with skills that hit incredibly often (and usually with really low %weapon damage which doesn't matter). Such as iceburst.

Started levelling with Stampede and Snake Stance in Hardcore - Andariel was a pain and I died at Comet Storm #20 or so, constantly having to stair-dodge it. (Now SC) Act 2 is near impossible, with my T1 balanced Axe and an El Throwing Axe in Offhand for some more Attack Rating I can't seem to hit or dmg anything for sh*t. :-/ A bit frustrating - can't seem to progress any further already because my killspeed is non existant.

Edit: Smaxed Snake Stance and now damage is not an issue anymore. Might even retry HC

aerial wrote:Yeah I tested it and it works, playing right now. Applying screaming eagle to enemies gives them a debuff, that adds damage to every hit of your attacks, and that damage is constant, regardless of wdm of that attack, which means it scales super well with skills that hit incredibly often (and usually with really low %weapon damage which doesn't matter). Such as iceburst.

Ok good to know, the tooltip doesn't suggest that the damage will be part of the debuff.

I struggled early with Andariel, it was hard to make the axe hit her when I was using s.eagle as a throw skill while keeping my distance. So versus Radament in the sewers I just got up to melee range and held down LMB for s.eagle and he went down in a second. But now I know the debuff includes the damage component it may be worth using other skills since you really need to be in melee range to hit with s.eagle anyway.

The question in my mind though is whether there might be enough damage anyway with s.eagle + a throw skill (overkill probably) for most enemies. The idea being to stay out of range of dangerous enemies. I guess we can mix and match the killing skill to the situation.

So now I'm wondering if there's any point in maxing snake stance - as you said earlier, we may as well ignore al other sources of damage (so go bear for defence).

I went melee, death gaze vs crowd, 1pt iceburst vs single target.
Act bosses die really fast with this, just as expected. Throwing skills except overkill don't synergize that well with this imo.

So far I am level 105 and single targets are just melting, everything dies basically instantly - including nightmare ball who was basically a 1 hit KO, 30 seconds at most. Also the nature of the skill and our source of damage seriously takes the strain off the gear and allows to boost survivability easily. However, I can see now that the farming is gonna be a pain. Not only deathgaze aoe is small and sometimes clunky, but also mobs that are not under the debuff are kinda immortal, as our only source of true damage is the screaming eagle. Any idea how to make farming on that build more viable?
So far I am at 15 points in bear stance, max Screaming Eagle, Daedalus, Runemaster and Mountain King (cant see anything better than that and the boost is quite handy)

Not gonna be good farming spec, too many skills to cast, too limited aoe. Single target however is going to be good.

How about using different skill vs packs? What do you think about Whirlpool/Gorefest vs Deathgaze?

less hits, whirpool has cooldown
It works quite well, but it isn't better.
Sword spiral would be better aoe, and also decent amount of hits, but youd need to have sword as offhand in order to unlock it.

I think in the end it might not be that bad, you will have really tanky character with insane damage, that needs to debuff screen and then chew it down with deathgaze. Should clear duncraig rooms relatively fast.

One thing that is little annoyig is sustain, physical version has leech and you rarely need to use potions. This doesn't leech at all.