Grief/Grief vs Grief/Beast vs Grief/Death etc

[zaphodbrx]

Grief/Grief vs Grief/Beast vs Grief/Death etc

Now that I got some gear going I'm wondering if anyone did the actual calculations for gg barb equipment. I'm speaking for the point of view of frenzy, but I guess it applies to whirlwind too.
I think it is well known that grief is the most damaging one hand weapon, but is it true to say that dual griefs is the most damaging combo?

I have a griefz and a beastz. The ias on grief is only 30%, but the fanaticism from beast speeds it up to reach the last frenzy bp. The LCS for grief is all messed up. However, the one hand base damage of grief is approximately double ( checking my numbers ) of the beast. So if I take my beastz LCS ( which is like 1500-4500 ) and grief is double of that?

This doesn't seem right to me. My death cleaver has the same damage as beast ( and thus half the damage of grief ) not counting deadly strikes. Yet if I replace grief with death cleaver then it seems to kill much much slower. So what am I missing here?

How about beastz/deathz or grief/death?
Beast and death both have crushing blow which is nice because grief doesn't have it. I got some from gores but still more is better..

On another note, I have no idea why one of the weapons wear out faster than the other. I thought it might be because grief hits more due to ITD and -target def, but then it is sometimes the beastz that wears out faster. And the other is at 18 durability or so. So anyone know what's up with that?

 

[TheWorkingBoor]

Re: Grief/Grief vs Grief/Beast vs Grief/Death etc

On another note, I have no idea why one of the weapons wear out faster than the other. I thought it might be because grief hits more due to ITD and -target def, but then it is sometimes the beastz that wears out faster. And the other is at 18 durability or so. So anyone know what's up with that?

IIRC it has (something) to do with which one is the "primary" weapon - that one always attacks first (and often last). You could probably try to confirm this by manually equipping one first and closely monitoring the results.

... or maybe it's just random results.


Can't help with the bulk of your questions, but I'd suspect of all the Grief+Grief proponents, at least one tested it.

 

[Axamas]

Re: Grief/Grief vs Grief/Beast vs Grief/Death etc

Hi

Here are some maths I did, considering the only IAS you get is from weapon and Highlord Wrath, and with the charasteristics of my current frenzy barb and his "might" mercenary.

(ZA : Berserker Axe // EA : Ettin Axe)

weapons // att/sec // average damw1 // average dam w2 // total dam/sec

EBOTDZA/GRIEFZA //4,54 // 5 620 // 7 466 // 59 410
GRIEFZA/EDEATHEA //4,16 // 7466 // 6322 // 57 358
GRIEFZA/EDEATHZA // 4,16 // 7466 // 6066 // 56 293
EBDTODZA/EDEATHEA // 4,54 // 5 620 // 6 322 // 54 217
EBDTODZA/EDEATHZA // 4,54 // 5 620 // 6 066 // 53 054
BEASTZA/GRIEFZA // 5 / 2 822 // 7 466 // 51 440
BEASTEA/EDEATHEA // 5 / 2 939 // 6 322 // 46 305
EBOTDZA/EBOTDZA // 4,54 // 5 620 // 5 620 // 51 030
EBOTDZA/BEASTZA // 5 // 5 620 // 2 822 // 42 210


You can do your own calculation using the tool that you can find there :
http://diablo2.ingame.de/tips/calcs/dmgcalc/dmgcalc.php
You can toggle an english version !

Hope this helps you.

 

[zaphodbrx]

Re: Grief/Grief vs Grief/Beast vs Grief/Death etc

I think there is something wrong there. You have noted grief damage as 7466 in all cases. But for beastz/griefz, the fanaticism from beast gives a lot of +damage boost to grief so it will be definitely be more. It gives speed, too.

 

[Axamas]

Re: Grief/Grief vs Grief/Beast vs Grief/Death etc

I think there is something wrong there. You have noted grief damage as 7466 in all cases. But for beastz/griefz, the fanaticism from beast gives a lot of +damage boost to grief so it will be definitely be more. It gives speed, too.

You are half right.
I took in account the speed modifier.
I didn't took in account the %dam modifier from fanatism.

I'll redo the maths then.

 

[zaphodbrx]

Re: Grief/Grief vs Grief/Beast vs Grief/Death etc

You can also take into account the fact that BoTD gives 30 to all stats. Disregarding energy, this means 90 additional points that could be put into strength to increase damage.
Also, crushing blow/deadly strike. It's hard to fit them in mathematically though. Same with ITD modifiers and suchlike.

Also, I think it's okay to assume that a few ias items are used. Such as LoH.

 

[Spankeh]

Re: Grief/Grief vs Grief/Beast vs Grief/Death etc

A number of things:

1. You havent calculated the fanata damage on either beast itself, or the weapon its equipped with.
2. 95% of Frenzy users will "max their breakpoint" to five frames per second, and will therefor boost damage output for the combos that do, but wont boost damage output to weapon combos that are already at 5ps. See my point here?
3. What level Frenzy are you basing these figures on? Frenzy level boosts IAS every 3 levels by 3% or thereabouts.

After playing with all these combos many many times, I can vouch for:

Max Safety with High Life, and Hi Life|Mana Leech, Hi Damage| Hi Cr Blow|Deadly Strike = eBotdz + eDeathz
Max Damage with Med Life, Low Life|Mana Leech, Med Safety| Low Cr Blow|Deadly Strike = Griefpb + Griefpb
Max Speed with Med Life, Medium Life|Mana Leech, Hi Damage| Med Cr Blow|Deadly Strike = Beastz + Griefz

 

[Axamas]

Re: Grief/Grief vs Grief/Beast vs Grief/Death etc

Deadly strikes and criticals are taken in account in the calculator
Extra strength could be.
But other various modifier such as -XX% to Target Defense or +YY to Attack Rating are not.

I feel all the math that can be done is only to give an approximate idea of the general average damage and of course to compare various combination of weapons.

 

[zaphodbrx]

Re: Grief/Grief vs Grief/Beast vs Grief/Death etc

A number of things:

1. You havent calculated the fanata damage on either beast itself, or the weapon its equipped with.
2. 95% of Frenzy users will "max their breakpoint" to five frames per second, and will therefor boost damage output for the combos that do, but wont boost damage output to weapon combos that are already at 5ps. See my point here?
3. What level Frenzy are you basing these figures on? Frenzy level boosts IAS every 3 levels by 3% or thereabouts.

After playing with all these combos many many times, I can vouch for:

Max Safety with High Life, and Hi Life|Mana Leech, Hi Damage| Hi Cr Blow|Deadly Strike = eBotdz + eDeathz
Max Damage with Med Life, Low Life|Mana Leech, Med Safety| Low Cr Blow|Deadly Strike = Griefpb + Griefpb
Max Speed with Med Life, Medium Life|Mana Leech, Hi Damage| Med Cr Blow|Deadly Strike = Beastz + Griefz

Hey Spankeh.
Thanks for the note. I read your frenzy guide to uber tristram and liked it very much.
I would like to say that it is 'the' guide for almost any type of barb, and it's really what got me into barbs and in particular frenzy. It's very well laid out and basically makes all other guides look like rubbish.
I am pleased to note that my griefz+beastz matches up very well with the top ubertrist builds and is as good as I expected it to be. I do use fortitude instead of enigma though.
When I completed my first single player patriarch a few months ago, I didn't dream that I would have a character capable of soloing p8 chaos sanctuary, and now I have one that can do it with my eyes closed.
If they ever put uber tristram in single player I am happy that I have a fully equipped character to do that, and every single item legit at that.

 

[Axamas]

Re: Grief/Grief vs Grief/Beast vs Grief/Death etc

Hi all and again

Yes i missed the added %dam from Fanaticism when wielding a BEAST RW.
So I've done all the math again.

Parameters are :
- %dam on rune words are medium roll
- Frenzy lvl is 29 and Axe Mastery is 27
- Merco (with Might aura) is lvl 91
- base Strength is 180 (i.e. without weapon RW modifier)
- Baba is equiped with Highlord//Gore
- IAS comes from Weapon and Highlord (+20%) and Frency ofc.

But note that the dam evaluation does not take in account the effect of Crushing Blow which is only significant when fighting bosses or über.

And this is what I've found

weapon1 // weapon2 // att/sec // dam w1 // dam w2 // dam/sec

GRIEF ZA // GRIEF ZA // 4,54 // 6 665 // 6 665 // 60 518
BEAST EA // GRIEF ZA // 5 // 3224 // 8293 // 57 585
E BOTD ZA // GRIEF ZA // 4,54 // 5 128 // 6 888 // 54 553
BEAST EA // E DEATH EA // 5 // 3 224 // 7 138 // 51 810
GRIEF ZA // E DEATH EA // 4,16 // 6665 // 5740 // 51 605
E BOTD ZA // // E DEATH EA // 4,54 // 5 128 // 5 931 // 50 208
BEAST EA // E BOTD ZA // 5 // 3 311 // 6 343 // 48 270
E BOTD ZA // E BOTD ZA // 4,54 // 5 296 // 5 296 // 48 088

grief//grief comes first for raw dam, and low CB
beast//grief for medium CB
beast//death for high CB

So using botd seems not a good choice in either case, for raw dam or max CB.
But using botd can have an interest...botd//death is the cheapest combination as you don't have any rep cost.

Hope this helps...

 

[Spankeh]

Re: Grief/Grief vs Grief/Beast vs Grief/Death etc

Now do yr tests again with Laying Of Hands gloves and a 15%IAS jewel in arreats.
This will now boost most of those weapon combos that are below 5fps, up to 5fps.

 

[Axamas]

Re: Grief/Grief vs Grief/Beast vs Grief/Death etc

Sure, for most of them, but you cannot reach 5fps with grief/death even with LOH and a 15IAS jool.
Furthermore, the choice of LOH instead of Dracul's Grip opens a new issue in terms of goal in the game : ubering or mob killing or maybe mfing. And we should ask ourselves the fundamental question before constructing any build, what is it made for !

Back to the question from saphodbrx, the best combination between grief/beast, death/beast, grief/death is : grief/beast. Imho, I think CB is irrelevant when you only crash mobs because you kill them too quickly to see a difference with a CB combo.
Considering Death Cleaver, Grief have an advantage which is "ignore defense" ; all the stats we produced assumed the fact that all weapons hit targets with the same probability, which is not true in the game.


So long !

 

[hubb]

Re: Grief/Grief vs Grief/Beast vs Grief/Death etc

What did you use to calculate attack rate? Titanseal's current calc is pretty far off right now, though it's largely thanks to him that we actually do know what's going on. Read more here.

My 2c: For anything other than Ubers it's hard to make a case against Grief PBs. 30 IAS Grief PBs with 35 more IAS off-weapon swing at 6 FPA with the very first Frenzy hit, and out-damages all the other options (you can't make up the deficit with ED from +str and Fanat in any case). CB is nice to have but doesn't compete with straight damage for general area clearing, and you should already have at least 75% crit so the extra on Death doesn't make that big a difference either. In uberland you can definitely make a case for Beast and especially Death as it allows you some freedom with your other gear and choosing bases for you weaps. I fail to see the point to BotD unless you're making a titan barb or refuse to use war cries or something.

 

[Axamas]

Re: Grief/Grief vs Grief/Beast vs Grief/Death etc

I used this for attack rate
http://diablo2.ingame.de/tips/calcs/speedcalc_titanseal/speedcalc_english.php
Titanseal version 3

 

[zaphodbrx]

Re: Grief/Grief vs Grief/Beast vs Grief/Death etc

Okay I need some help.
I respeced my second barb to use swords with frenzy. Since I'm still waiting on the runes for 'Death', I decided to go with Grief/Oath. The problem is, it didn't seem to work. I kept getting pwned in the chaos sanctuary even on p1.

I then swapped out the oath for a lawbringer phase blade. Wow. It was amazing. I could do chaos sanctuary on p5 with no problem at all.
I know LB is great due to the sanctuary aura and ctc decrepify, but it isn't that good. I mean, it like doesn't do any damage.

Is it because of range differences? My Oath is in a balrog blade with range 3. I remember reading something about range differences causing problems. I had 'Grief' in the mainhand weapon. Was it not hitting anything? Or was the Oath not hitting anything? What the f is going on here?

 

[stephan]

Re: Grief/Grief vs Grief/Beast vs Grief/Death etc

No. it's because of the sanct aura and decrep. It makes you a lot less vulnarable and ~doubles the effectiveness of your Grief.

 

[zaphodbrx]

Re: Grief/Grief vs Grief/Beast vs Grief/Death etc

naw, it can't be just that.
My merc had a reaper anyway, so decrepify isn't much of a difference.
Sanctuary only works against undead. Grief/LB was much better than grief/oath even against demons.

 

[stephan]

Re: Grief/Grief vs Grief/Beast vs Grief/Death etc

Ok, then not.

 

[hubb]

Re: Grief/Grief vs Grief/Beast vs Grief/Death etc

naw, it can't be just that.
My merc had a reaper anyway, so decrepify isn't much of a difference.
Sanctuary only works against undead. Grief/LB was much better than grief/oath even against demons.

You don't think that having the ctc decrip on LB as well maybe means it procs more often and where you need it?

It could also be that the BB slows you down. Since Frenzy doesn't just average WSMs (right minus left WSM is also used) having a slower base in the right* slot really slows you down: Just swapping the BB and PB around takes you from 15 to 12 frames at the first swing (before Frenzy starts charging up).

Onderduiker did tests that showed that weapon range for both is determined by the primary weapon only, so it's not that.

 

[zaphodbrx]

Re: Grief/Grief vs Grief/Beast vs Grief/Death etc

So there's no downside to using weapons with different range? It works fine?