The TLDR 2H Barb

Find a handful of guides and walkthroughs here!
boxgap
Thunder Beetle
56 | 0
Great Supporter Badge
Donated 5 times
aerial wrote:Currently snake bite is vastly overtuned, so I can imagine it was really smooth sailing when it comes to bossing.
If you for instance do build from this guide, killing bosses that were trivial with snake bite, become major pain in the ass, you gonna feel like doing zero damage. Difference is huge. Taking for example 15-20min of chasing astrogha with melee skill, and levels of dps corresponding to entry level cheap gear, vs literally 4-5 shotting it with equally moderate gear and snake bite (getting pierce mostly from socketed runes).

I'd personally go different class, since there is just more to explore, if you haven't done already.



do you have a guide out for poison barb?
User avatar
schroedinger
Prowler
18 | 3
I started a poison throw barb and leveled him to 120 without respecting and with nearly zero issues (mana perhaps). Maybe not the fastest killer, but it was smooth. Once you get Raptor and full No runes, it becomes quite powerful
User avatar
Demonlord
Cog
201 | 2
Great Supporter Badge
Donated 5 times
aerial wrote:Currently snake bite is vastly overtuned, so I can imagine it was really smooth sailing when it comes to bossing.
If you for instance do build from this guide, killing bosses that were trivial with snake bite, become major pain in the ass, you gonna feel like doing zero damage. Difference is huge. Taking for example 15-20min of chasing astrogha with melee skill, and levels of dps corresponding to entry level cheap gear, vs literally 4-5 shotting it with equally moderate gear and snake bite (getting pierce mostly from socketed runes).

I'd personally go different class, since there is just more to explore, if you haven't done already.


Well ive done quite a number of respecs testing different things and ive come to the conclusion it actually not Snake Bite thats so vastly overtuned...

Its actually Gladiator Dominance.

Try it yourself.. Put all your points in Snake Bite and Stance then 28-32 Ancient Blood and remaining in Mountain King then respec and put remaining in Glad Dom instead of 1 point... You'll see what im talking about. You lose well over half of not only your damage but that huge duration which combines to make the difference in 5-7+ applications of Bite on say Astrogia and one shoting her... From 2 applications on Kabraxis to 8-10.. 15-20 on Xazax instead of 5-7.. This is with letting full duration run out. (Which is easy because its so much shorter without glad Dom) All done running Ophiophagus with Nef Duration runes 170% Pierce and all the same gear. Without Glad Dom Snake Bite is about right if not underwhelming compared to other builds in endgame gear. The duration is nice but how it multiplies the poison damage as well is what starts making Snake Bite completely bonkers to boss with.
User avatar
aerial
Cow Ninja
1282 | 236
Common Posting Badge
Posted over 1.000 messages
Legendary Popularity Badge
Has a thread with over 250.000 views
Great Love Badge
Earned over 100 cookies
Common Guide Badge
Created a complete character guide
Great Mind Badge
A Median XL guru... a true book of knowledge
Demonlord wrote:Its actually Gladiator Dominance.


Whatever you attribute that power, I treat glad dominance as synergy, so it is obvious max there = duration goes to crazy levels.
Sure if that bonus wasn't there it would be different story. So would if snake bite damage was divided by 5 for example (still would be good..).
Just overall this skill is amazingly strong if you build around it (which means max gladiators dominance in currect state of synergies). It is impotant to recognize how easy it is to scale, compared to other endgame single target skills/builds. You don't need spell damage, you dont need EF, you don't need crazy crafted jewels, umo projects, none of that does much or anything. Just +skill levels, cap pierce and maybe add some psn duration, but really no need. It is very basic gearing to reach crazy potential. That must be included in skill balance too.

For example if you build windform for single target (load yourself with spelldmg), you can reach DPS comparable to snake bite, just at higher opportunity cost, because it requires that spelldmg gear.
But while dps can get comparable, the duration of snake bite goes way beyond what you reach with widnform (even with tooltips being close, real snake bite duration seems vastly extended).
Imo balance should be that: if skill requires extra layer of spelldmg gear, it should be allowed to reach higher dps. There is also merit in giving it even more for fact it is melee a not a ranged like snake bite, which is another advantage. That is imo at least right direction.

I'm certain this issue is recognized by dev team and will be addressed next patch, to get it to little bit more balanced state (Not useless ofc, nobody wants that).
youtube.com/ae1337
nazh202
Bone Archer
75 | 0
schroedinger wrote:I started a poison throw barb and leveled him to 120 without respecting and with nearly zero issues (mana perhaps). Maybe not the fastest killer, but it was smooth. Once you get Raptor and full No runes, it becomes quite powerful

Would you mind sharing a quick look at your items choice, skills plan and stats distribution? Thanks :D
User avatar
Demonlord
Cog
201 | 2
Great Supporter Badge
Donated 5 times
aerial wrote:...


I have to be missing something here... why would you scale Spell Damage for Windform? Isn't Windform a 150%WDM Attack that scales some Flat poison and Life on Striking with hard points? Meaning its just like Snake Bite in that Spell Damage does nothing?

Ive not got around to using it yet thats actually one of the ideas i had for trying out a second Barb. Melee Sword Barb in general possibly scaling Lightning+Phys as much as possible or something to that effect.
Common Supporter Badge
Donated 1 time
WOuldnt you play WIndform with a proc based build?
Diaco
Void Archon
880 | 43
Common Love Badge
Earned over 20 cookies
windform's poison dmg scales with poison spell dmg, and since it has 150% WDM, it's pretty great for applying poison
User avatar
aerial
Cow Ninja
1282 | 236
Common Posting Badge
Posted over 1.000 messages
Legendary Popularity Badge
Has a thread with over 250.000 views
Great Love Badge
Earned over 100 cookies
Common Guide Badge
Created a complete character guide
Great Mind Badge
A Median XL guru... a true book of knowledge
Spell damage affects single target hits from windform (and snake stance). Windform has no aoe. So via individual hits spell damage works, via procs or AOE from crystal sword = doesn't work (but procs are enough to kill trash anyway you only need spelldmg bonus vs bosses).
youtube.com/ae1337
User avatar
Demonlord
Cog
201 | 2
Great Supporter Badge
Donated 5 times
Is that a bug like when Spell Damage was scaling Hammers on Hammerzon? Now im a bit confused because i though most all WDM skills were not suppose to scale from Spell Damage unless otherwise stated such as in synergy's and/or it was outright tagged as a Spell? Spell Damage is already a fairly complicated Mechanic that i already once thought it scaled everything because my first build it was scaling things when it shouldnt have. Is it just about the Snake Stance and Procs scaling in this case? You say it adds to Windforms actual Damage on single targets?

Again if this is a silly question forgive me i am still learning this game more and more everyday. Hell i played POE for 7-8 years and was still learning new things all the time. I also ask because ive been toying with the idea of trying to use Windform to try for the Brimmtown Trophy that just isn't happening with Poison Throw in 30 seconds. That was the one thing Magnetic Field on Hammerzon did better than anything else in the game and that was farming that place at the speed of light. Thanks for the help btw.