I would also chip in with above poster and echo that it's much that people don't understand the mechanics (they could/should be more clear, eg tooltip showing damage estimation instead of % weapon damage for instance - or show both). BUT also yes the whole extra gem on an offhand weapon is a big deal too.
All those e.g. 200% of weapon damage type skills go off just 1 weapon in your hand. Same skill might do 170k with 1hander, and 260k with a 2hander. A lot of classes have passive energy regeneration too... and it lasts a lot longer (or unlimitedly) with a slow 2hander allowing you to use higher damage attacks more often. It definitely depends on the class though, and yes 1-handers have many more useful legendary procs.
PS: crusader is a perfect example. People get very obsessed with getting darklights (ultra spammy and annoying), and even with 6set akhan they do occasionally run out of wrath and often slot at least one wrath generator (like provoke). and often they'll need to slot paragon points into 10% resource reduction. In their favor, 1-hand weapons generate life on hit faster.
On the other hand a slow 2hander (esp 1.0 weapons) may give you unlimited resources, even if you have some akhan downtime, to the point of allowing you to drop provoke for a damage talent... and drop the 10% resource reduction for area damage or life on hit. All of the cooldown abilties will also tick for more with the 2hander, such as consecrate, rays of heavens, falling sword, and firestarter. The one-hander attempts to make up for this by spamming the main attack to stack weaker firestarter faster.
Of course it generally comes down to your best available item.
Ah yes, here's the post on mechanics. if you google there was also a barbarian who experimented with pretty much every weapon for lightning whirlwind barb. Though it wasn't perfect... it pretty much will give you the conclusions here
PS: if you want those conclusions spelled out IMO --> Shard of hate is best by far, then Odyn or Thunderfury as you wish. Odyn possibly better for single target, Thunderfury probably slightly better for general rifting type of play.
I've not heard of this thunderfury bug. At some point it was bugged to hit the initial target twice as far as I know. But if it were truly hitting all targets twice.... well it would do a ton more damage for one thing.... I have actually picked apart what my base 100% weapon damage is in the past and TF seemed to be in line.
If that thunderfury bug were really the case, I also don't understand why you would recommend Odyn over it? TF would effectively be doing ~700% weapon damage, has a higher proc rate than odyn's son, and has double the chaining range, and debuffs targets.
Anyhoo. That is not to say I necessarily disagree depending on the items rolls. But some additional mechanics for you.
1. Neither Odyn/TF scale with lightning damage (though shard of hate is supposed to).
2. Thunderfury's base proc rate is around 60%, modified by proc chance of ability used. So it has a higher base chance than even the best Odyn.
3. But, Odyn does not have the 1 second cooldown that TF does. meaning in some situations Odyn might be able to proc more often.
4. I have never set out to test it, but supposedly the Odyn proc scales with attack speed... I was not sure if they meant that's because it has no internal cooldown or the damage actually increases. But it also does less base damage than thunderfury (EG 200% weapon damageish). But if it's getting damage from attack speed it comes out to similar -- hey you should go test that ;).
5. to me the only real bonus to Odyn is what Flakvision said in that it will hit a single target enemy multiple times, whereas thunderfury would just hit it once.
6. You are probably wasting stats getting so much lightning damage bonus.... imagine your odyn has +15% lightning damage. Taking you from 74% to your 89% lightning. From 74 to 89 is only a ~17% increase, 17% of 15% lightning damage means it really only increase your damage by 2.5%. In that case you would get a heck of a lot more out of almost any other damage stat like strength, or 10% weapon damage.
Stuff like that is easy to test yourself, but for sake of public education: no on thorns. That is also probably the reason Hack does not proc it.
IDK if thunderfury and the like procs it, actually rather curious about that if anyone knows. I have poked at builds doing things that hit more frequently like consecrate (which is great for firestarter, and used by many players) and bombardment w mines glyph (since you get x10 mines, but alas they are a bit spread around, still seems useful - tho haven't really studied it to see if the mines are also proc-ing fire starter).
Nor did I extensively test BK ring to see if it ticks x2 a second for firestarter (I am told it procs x2 a second for the life drain), I mainly went and looked at the firestarter damage and then said "meh other options are better" (in a non perma-akharat situation).
I've tested out BK before, it was ok... just very small aura. To me the benefit of the pants is a larger radius of aoe, not that 20yds is particularly huge either.
But yes it's always about the opportunity cost of Cindercoat vs extra ring vs pants etc..
Anyhoo firestarter does not proc from absolutely everything.. for instance Charged Up did not proc it the several times I tested it :). And not all weapon effects either, eg Hack does not work with it from what I've read. So you would actually need to test the pants to see
No clue. But I just don't understand this bulkathos fad. When a ring of jordan can single handedly contribute another ~15% damage to all your damage over any other ring. You would rather have a melee ranged aura :?.
when I messed with it, rhen'ho didn't really increase single target damage, which explains what you saw on ghom. The toads just hit and "pierce" for x1 damage on single. but trash packs get hit multiple times by multiple explosions.
The furnace is best for enchantress if you have an extra, they are fairly rare. It can proc from her normal attack (lowish proc) or it almost always procs from her knockback skill (and procs it on all/most monsters hit). The downside is that the knockback can de-group monsters and be very annoying.
I know not the usual kind of thread(not sure if ok?).... but applies to a ton of us playing WD. I'm surprised they didn't fix this today --> here is the place to post to get it on their agenda. I'm surprised barbarian shout glyph stacking was fixed over this unless it's for a programming reason. Fixing this still isn't on their "known bugs"list.
Even an absolutely literally perfect Azurewrath would not be better than that shard of hate. The only time you might consider it is if you're using 6set jade harvester, in which case it's probably still a toss up esp with how much faster the shard of hate would help you clear overall.
17% cold is not a straight 17% buff to your haunt since you already have some bonus cold from other sources. example: if you had +40% cold and add 17% more, now you have 57% cold. From 40 to 57 would mean it's not a straight 17% buff to your overall damage.. it's more like an 11% increase.
Final reason: as far as I know shard of hate is one of the items that scales with your +cold on other gear... so its proc is better with more elemental. Not all items scale, but this one is supposed to.
When I tested it, it seemed that the big dog does a bit more than x3 as much as the others combined (scaling with # of dogs you would have had).
The auras are not affected afaik, just the bite is tripled. Though if you would have had 5 dogs before putting on the ring - his fire aura will be base 100% weapon damage (five dogs x 20% each), but it is not multiplied again by the additional ~320% the ring gives. Leeching beast still just give x1 life on hit though.
In other words, it's best to use whatever kind of dogs you have +elemental gear for. Fire dog's bite now is fire since this patch(tested and confirmed this), poison dog's bite should be poison, and the others physical.
example: with my crappy gear and what would be 5 dogs (with a tiny bit of +fire). Melee bite crit 40million, fire-aura crit 5 million. it's pretty obvious the aura is not getting the ring buff from that, otherwise it would be doing ~15-18M.
Probably worthwhile to use ring of royal grandeur if you have it just so you can swap in another piece or two that may overtake unity. How are you liking the frostburn? I'm jelly =3.
Yeah both T&T and frostburn are hard to get. Either would be useful. Frostburn has that 10-15% cold, and ~40% chance to freeze instead of chill.
With how blizzard has (temporarily?) increased elite power damage significantly, I'm poking around with 3pc ashera, 4pc blackthorne, 3pc aughilds. May be temporary because ashera 4set is just so great - if you haven't tried it.. most people who do become believers very quickly. Usually if I want mitigation I would just go with string of ears (or hwoj), but currently the elite power change is making me curious about blackthorne again. I'm not having much difficulty due to all the mitigation you already get with spirit walk and horrify, but I'm not used to dying at all whereas now in groups on T5 it can happen (esp with the scaling monsters get with more players). Anyway this experiment may not last long because it is hard to lose Lord Harrington's belt and warzecian(spelling?) bracers because both can add to rifting speed so darn much - but if it's a group thing where you're limited in speed anyway...
It is hard to get 3 good pieces of blackthorne because of all the fixed stat rolls on several pieces. But pants/chest are fairly easy to get a good version of, and I finally lucked into a belt that had all the stats I want... allowing me to reroll that fixed life per second on it.
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All those e.g. 200% of weapon damage type skills go off just 1 weapon in your hand. Same skill might do 170k with 1hander, and 260k with a 2hander. A lot of classes have passive energy regeneration too... and it lasts a lot longer (or unlimitedly) with a slow 2hander allowing you to use higher damage attacks more often. It definitely depends on the class though, and yes 1-handers have many more useful legendary procs.
PS: crusader is a perfect example. People get very obsessed with getting darklights (ultra spammy and annoying), and even with 6set akhan they do occasionally run out of wrath and often slot at least one wrath generator (like provoke). and often they'll need to slot paragon points into 10% resource reduction. In their favor, 1-hand weapons generate life on hit faster.
On the other hand a slow 2hander (esp 1.0 weapons) may give you unlimited resources, even if you have some akhan downtime, to the point of allowing you to drop provoke for a damage talent... and drop the 10% resource reduction for area damage or life on hit. All of the cooldown abilties will also tick for more with the 2hander, such as consecrate, rays of heavens, falling sword, and firestarter. The one-hander attempts to make up for this by spamming the main attack to stack weaker firestarter faster.
Of course it generally comes down to your best available item.
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http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/12187048616
PS: if you want those conclusions spelled out IMO --> Shard of hate is best by far, then Odyn or Thunderfury as you wish. Odyn possibly better for single target, Thunderfury probably slightly better for general rifting type of play.
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If that thunderfury bug were really the case, I also don't understand why you would recommend Odyn over it? TF would effectively be doing ~700% weapon damage, has a higher proc rate than odyn's son, and has double the chaining range, and debuffs targets.
Anyhoo. That is not to say I necessarily disagree depending on the items rolls. But some additional mechanics for you.
1. Neither Odyn/TF scale with lightning damage (though shard of hate is supposed to).
2. Thunderfury's base proc rate is around 60%, modified by proc chance of ability used. So it has a higher base chance than even the best Odyn.
3. But, Odyn does not have the 1 second cooldown that TF does. meaning in some situations Odyn might be able to proc more often.
4. I have never set out to test it, but supposedly the Odyn proc scales with attack speed... I was not sure if they meant that's because it has no internal cooldown or the damage actually increases. But it also does less base damage than thunderfury (EG 200% weapon damageish). But if it's getting damage from attack speed it comes out to similar -- hey you should go test that ;).
5. to me the only real bonus to Odyn is what Flakvision said in that it will hit a single target enemy multiple times, whereas thunderfury would just hit it once.
6. You are probably wasting stats getting so much lightning damage bonus.... imagine your odyn has +15% lightning damage. Taking you from 74% to your 89% lightning. From 74 to 89 is only a ~17% increase, 17% of 15% lightning damage means it really only increase your damage by 2.5%. In that case you would get a heck of a lot more out of almost any other damage stat like strength, or 10% weapon damage.
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IDK if thunderfury and the like procs it, actually rather curious about that if anyone knows. I have poked at builds doing things that hit more frequently like consecrate (which is great for firestarter, and used by many players) and bombardment w mines glyph (since you get x10 mines, but alas they are a bit spread around, still seems useful - tho haven't really studied it to see if the mines are also proc-ing fire starter).
Nor did I extensively test BK ring to see if it ticks x2 a second for firestarter (I am told it procs x2 a second for the life drain), I mainly went and looked at the firestarter damage and then said "meh other options are better" (in a non perma-akharat situation).
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But yes it's always about the opportunity cost of Cindercoat vs extra ring vs pants etc..
Anyhoo firestarter does not proc from absolutely everything.. for instance Charged Up did not proc it the several times I tested it :). And not all weapon effects either, eg Hack does not work with it from what I've read. So you would actually need to test the pants to see
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The pants might be great though
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http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/12878497893
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17% cold is not a straight 17% buff to your haunt since you already have some bonus cold from other sources. example: if you had +40% cold and add 17% more, now you have 57% cold. From 40 to 57 would mean it's not a straight 17% buff to your overall damage.. it's more like an 11% increase.
Final reason: as far as I know shard of hate is one of the items that scales with your +cold on other gear... so its proc is better with more elemental. Not all items scale, but this one is supposed to.
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The auras are not affected afaik, just the bite is tripled. Though if you would have had 5 dogs before putting on the ring - his fire aura will be base 100% weapon damage (five dogs x 20% each), but it is not multiplied again by the additional ~320% the ring gives. Leeching beast still just give x1 life on hit though.
In other words, it's best to use whatever kind of dogs you have +elemental gear for. Fire dog's bite now is fire since this patch(tested and confirmed this), poison dog's bite should be poison, and the others physical.
example: with my crappy gear and what would be 5 dogs (with a tiny bit of +fire). Melee bite crit 40million, fire-aura crit 5 million. it's pretty obvious the aura is not getting the ring buff from that, otherwise it would be doing ~15-18M.
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http://www.diablofans.com/forums/diablo-iii-class-forums/witch-doctor-the-mbwiru-eikura/86764-showcased-build-ultra-tanky-high-effective-damage
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With how blizzard has (temporarily?) increased elite power damage significantly, I'm poking around with 3pc ashera, 4pc blackthorne, 3pc aughilds. May be temporary because ashera 4set is just so great - if you haven't tried it.. most people who do become believers very quickly. Usually if I want mitigation I would just go with string of ears (or hwoj), but currently the elite power change is making me curious about blackthorne again. I'm not having much difficulty due to all the mitigation you already get with spirit walk and horrify, but I'm not used to dying at all whereas now in groups on T5 it can happen (esp with the scaling monsters get with more players). Anyway this experiment may not last long because it is hard to lose Lord Harrington's belt and warzecian(spelling?) bracers because both can add to rifting speed so darn much - but if it's a group thing where you're limited in speed anyway...
It is hard to get 3 good pieces of blackthorne because of all the fixed stat rolls on several pieces. But pants/chest are fairly easy to get a good version of, and I finally lucked into a belt that had all the stats I want... allowing me to reroll that fixed life per second on it.