The TLDR 2H Barb

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).

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

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.

WOuldnt you play WIndform with a proc based build?

windform's poison dmg scales with poison spell dmg, and since it has 150% WDM, it's pretty great for applying poison

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).

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.

Not a bug, worked like that before. Hammer skill for zon is different case, special mechanics.

But for almost everything else, spell damage always affects direct melee hits, and amplifies whatever elemental damage you have (that includes poison, and all elemental passives, sin ways, nephalem spirit for barb, flat ele damage added to attack skills, basically all sources).
It isn't very useful however because it will only carry with direct melee hit to 1 target. So for instance if you use whatever skill you are using, that multihits like crazy, for example stormblast. You gonna hit that 1 monster that you originally aim with 100% WDM from normal weapon swing ONCE per animation (and that gets amplified by spelldmg) and then 30% wdm stormblast will also go through that monster (and through other targets if they are on its path), will multihit it bunch of times (due to its mechanics) and none of those hits gonna get multiplied by spelldmg. But usually its gonna do way more damage anyway, because of how many times it hits.
In case of poison and stacking duration via various mechanics, there actually is benefit of building spelldmg for it, because multihitting doesn't matter with poison. And windform happens to count as direct melee hit (with 150% wdm and extra poison). This is quite unusual case here, but it works, you can reach respectable amounts of damage. Just only vs single target, this has zero application for actual farming/clearing, your procs will deal just whatever listed tooltip of snake stance+windform (+whatever passives you have such as amatoxin oskill for example) and not include spell bonus.

I can give one more super ancient example when ppl used this.
Very long time ago, ppl used to kill bosses as sin, with normal attack skill (shadow refugee which hits 1 target with 1/1 wdm). Reason for that was to avoid aoe that for example killed statues in astrogha fight to heal it. Another reason was, it was worth to have multi-elemental attack, because of way how bosses were designed, they dropped their immunities randomly so with all elements carried by your hits, you increased the odds of damaging the boss. Vs situation if you had to get it to drop specific immunity, if all your damage was 1 element type, focused on one skill.
You maxed all ways, and then stacked spell damage, so your direct melee hits were dealing ways*spelldmg. It wasn't super good, but worked well enough to get nice clean kills.
It is no longer useful, with power creep, various new skills added to the game, buffed, but there was time when it was actually a thing to get special gear set for those "0 aoe" boss killer builds.

Wow interesting stuff man. Thanks for the clarification. Thats definitely something ill want to keep in mind though when working on other builds as an option then if i lack single target damage. This game does have a lot of mechanics going on that can be tough to figure out even with all the documentation. Ive already in a short time discovered a few things that seem to only be able to figured out through raw testing or sharing of information. Things like Snapshotting which have some huge implications in certain cases. (Like the Samael Kill with Holy+UH buffs by snapshotting the buffs with Belladonna for example) Thanks again aerial \m/

Has anyone tried Poison Barb on Labs? I mean levels 10+

I know this is about 2H Barb...but its the most active Barb thread around here, and i figure it would be the best place to ask.