[BUG] Unconstrained doesn't work right

Barbarian
1

It’s supposed to extend Berserking’s max duration by 5". But I can see it doesn’t do so for Battle Fervor. I should be getting those 5" added to the 3" Battle Fervor provides. But I can tell I’m getting something like 4", maybe 5" tops. Not the full 8".

I’m not sure if it’s working well with Wrath of the Berserker. It seems to make it last longer, but that’s much harder to keep track of.

It’s my first time trying that Key Passive. I was using Walking Arsenal before that, but I thought I’d try to boost damage by giving Berserking a bigger focus.

2

The bonus of walking arsenal is much bigger than the berserker one, you get x45% with all the arsenal bonus, while with wotb you get +50%

1 Like
3

Thanks. I use Lunging Strike, Upheaval and Death Blow as my main attacks. Leap and Ground Stomp to complement, and of course wotb. I use only my two-handed bludgeoning weapon, because it’s the most powerful I have and the best passives all seem to be meant for that kind of weapon (Wallop, and Concussion).

So, I never switch weapons really. I never get beyond the 10% damage bonus from Walking Arsenal, then. I was OK with it, as it’s a constant bonus. But it’d be nice to go up to 45%, but I don’t see how I can do quick weapon switching without breaking my build. Any ideas?

So, Berserker is naturally inferior to Walking Arsenal, even if I pile up on damage bonuses? 25% from berserking itself, 24% from gear, 25% increments from Supreme wotb, and ANOTHER 25% from Unconstrainted… All that, is still puny compared to Walking Arsenal’s full bonus? I swear, this game’s damage mechanics make so little sense. I have a huge bonus to Basic Skill damage from gear, like 300%, and it clearly scales very poorly compared to other types. I know the base amount is the smallest, but I should still get some solid reward from that…

I recently started trying Battle Fervor, precisely to have easier access to Berserking and all those bonuses. Since wotb’s cooldown takes so long.

Maybe I should abandon Berserking? Go for something that makes my weapons switch, like Iron Maelstrom, to take full advantage of Walking Arsenal? IM’s numbers don’t look impressive at all right now, honestly.

I hit the classic wall. I was breezing through all enemies, no matter how tough, lvl 64 in Tier 3. Before all these changes.

I changed to Tier 4, knowing this could happen… Now, ANY mob is a serious risk. I can manage, but it makes things slower as I have to run around a lot. I clearly need to improve my Barb significantly, but at this pace it might take me forever to find significantly better gear. I see I can level up quickly (for my style of play, at least). But that only improves my health bar and gives me Paragon points. And I don’t see any huge bonuses from the Paragon board for me anytime soon. Any recommendations on that?

I went from leaving most of the regular enemies either dead or nearly so with one Basic hit in Tier 3, to needing 4+ of those hits in Tier 4.
Honestly, even Death Blow seems kinda useless. A good deal of the times I hit a regular enemy with it, their health bar doesn’t seem to decrease much more than with a Basic attack. And I have DB at level 12, doing over 19k BEFORE any bonuses (Inner Calm’s 20-30%, and 94% after spending 100 Fury).

I really don’t wanna change the whole build, and go for the 1-2 favorites everyone seems to be using. I’m told combining critical strikes with vulnerable is the most potent, but I’d need to change most or all of my gear to get large bonuses for critical chance (right now it’s 11,7).

It doesn’t feel like my build is USELESS, really. So, I’m guessing some changes here and there might do the trick.

4

Seems like you are where i was with my build pre season. I ended up switching my build to hota with shouts pre season. Now in season 1 i finaly built a super strong walking arsenal build that puts my last build to shame.

im using:

  • bash, for stunning, fortify generation and overpower;
  • double swing, because its fast and you generate fury when you hit a stunned or down enemy, + i make the enemies vulnerable with every hit;
  • Death blow, with the bonus to its damage in a 2 hander so it gets to 200% with 100 fury spent;
  • iron maelstrom, allow me to stun and do lots of area damage plus it reduces the cooldown by 1 sec every weapon switch and im always switching;
  • steel grasp, this skill is essencial, with the weapon master aspect you get plus 1 charges to your weapon master skills, and with the weapon master glyph every time you use a weapon master skill you reduce the cooldown of another weapon master skill, so steel grasp will make your deathblow come up faster, plus with steel grasp you group lots of enemies in front of you (and make the vulnerable and you start beserking) wich allows you to hit them all at once, either with death blow or double swing and if you pull 6 enemies and 1 of them becomes stunned when you hit them with double swing you spend no fury so you never run out of fury;
  • Iron skin, with the aspect of the iron warrior allows you to become unstopable plus you get more damage reduction when its up, plus you can heal without potions and it has a small cooldown.
    This build is amazing, very fluid, almost no down time, no shouts, constant damage, plus its super fun to play.

in terms of berseking bonus vs walking arsenal, you need to understand how damage calculation works, 45x is multiplicative, 50+ is addictive.
There are several “damage buckets”, damage in the same bucket is added together, but diferents bucket multiply with exception from overpower that is addictive.
This are you buckets:
1 - Weapon damage
Your weapon’s Item Power.
2 - Skill damage
Weapon damage multiplied with skill damage coefficient, increased by upgrading skill ranks.
3- Class attribute
Your class’ primary attribute, multiplied with damage divided by ten.
4- Critical damage
The chance of giving critical damage, multiplies all your damage by your critical damage multiplier.
5- Addictive damage modifiers
damage with specific conditions. (damage vs close, damage with physical, damage while healthy, DAMAGE WHILE BESERKING)
6- Multiplicative damage modifiers
Modifiers with x%
7- Vulnerability damage
Damage which gives Vulnerable debuff that inflicts 20% more damage.
8- Overpower damage
Attacks have 3% chance of Overpowering, which adds your HP and Fortify pool multiplied by your overpower % damage to your hit.

Walking arsenal will get you another plus x45% multiplier, while the beserking one will only get you +25% to damage while berserking, since you can get the other 25% from normal beserking.

Example:
your weapons damage x skill damage x class atribute = 1000
Now we are going to multiply it by you additive multiplier +50% vs close, +50% physical damage +50% while healthy, +50% while beserking.
1000 + (1000x200%) = 3000

Now we drop +25% from losing the last beserking bonus and add the walking arsenal bonus
1000 + (1000x175%) = 2750
With 1 WA bonus 2750 + (2750x10%) = 3025
With 2 WA bonus 2750 + (2750x20%) = 3300
With 3 WA bonus 2750 + (2750x45%) = 3987.5

Now lets consider that it was a critical hit on a vulnerable enemy and you have +150% critical damage and +150% vulnerable damage

  • With Unconstrained:
    3000 x 2.5 x 2.5 =18750

  • With all walking arsenal bonus:
    3987.5 x 2.5 x 2.5 = 24921.9

1 Like
5

First of all, THANK YOU SO MUCH for the detailed and informative reply. It’s a lot to unpack, and I’m sure I’m not understanding it all. So, I’ll start with what I’ve already done, what I think I do understand, and what I think I shouldn’t change.

I’ve been using some parts of your advice, the ones that seem easier to implement and understand for me. And I already see a significant improvement. Yay :slight_smile:

A part of me is a bit suspicious, though. I’m doing Hawezar right now (mostly Backwater), for the side quest so I can get those extra 4 Paragon points. And the area already felt kinda easier BEFORE the changes. That wouldn’t be your fault, of course. I sometimes feel some areas are generally tougher than others, but maybe it’s just my imagination?

I doubt I’ll take all of your advice, as I don’t wanna change the whole build as I said. But the current changes are fun!

  1. Steel grasp (replacing Ground Stomp), with both Enhanced and Fighter’s. Making them all vulnerable AND going berserk at the same time, is great because a single Death Blow will kill most of them as they’re all standing together. And many enemies will go down with 2-3 basic attacks, unlike 4-5 like before, thanks to vulnerable+berserk.

I already got +3 to Weapon Masteries, and the aspect you mentioned. The glyph benefit will be coming soon, I was already close to it.

The skill is quite useful for dealing with groups in smaller pieces, like dragging the aura elite to dispatch it first.

DRAWBACK: Ground Stomp was pretty useful for crowd control by itself, stunning large groups that were mobbing all over me. Specially since I have 47,2% dam against stunned. But thanks to Concussion and Upheaval, I still stun enemies fairly often, if not AS often.

  1. Iron Maelstrom, with both enhancements. Its damage by itself is not much, but it definitely has benefits that make the overall fight easier. Large AOE, triggering Walking Arsenal’s full bonus (I went back to it, of course), much shorter cooldown than wotb…

DRAWBACK: I don’t have an “unstoppable at will” skill anymore, without wotb. I do handle the risk of being crowd controlled manually fairly well, anyway. With Lunging Strike, Leap, other Berserker triggers, movement speed at 125,5% and 4 Evade charges… I have fairly decent movement, I believe.

How can you tell modifiers that add damage, from modifiers that multiply it? To me, it all reads as adding. Clearly, I’m missing something.

I used to have the “dam to ultimate” bonus in two gear items. But after learning it did nothing for wotb, I enchanted it away on both. Now, I see it would benefit Iron Maelstrom. But I don’t know if it’d be worth trying to bring back those two.

In one item, I got 48% dam to slowed enemies. Which is great, because I cause slowed pretty much all the time. Between Leap, and Hamstring. Right now my dam to slowed bonus is around 80%. I’m pretty sure the bonus to ultimate I was getting from that item, wasn’t even up to 20%.

In the other item, I got +36 to all stats. Again, compared to a bonus to ultimate skill dam that wasn’t even up to 20% either… Aside from the obvious main benefits, that +36 is surely making at least 2-3 Board bonuses available to me right now.

It sounds like I’m better off with the rerolled bonuses in both cases. Can you confirm, please?

–

LUNGING STRIKE: I don’t think I should change it. It has several benefits.

  • It doubles as useful movement.
  • Its fury generation is decent enough for me. I only need fury for Upheaval, and I get to use that one often enough I believe. Even without Ground Stomp around anymore to grant me a chunk of fury.
  • Its Enhanced is useful for keeping my health bar full. I let go of all my “regen while not recently hurt” bonuses, mainly because I have that and the Crowded Sage Aspect helping me refill the bar by fighting.
  • Its Battle not only deals more damage, but its bleeding is extremely useful when combined with Hamstring. It means my enemies are bleeding AND slowed all the time (unless they’re immune to that, I guess some are), with all the dam bonuses applied to those. I don’t have any bonuses to damaging bleeding enemies, but I recently started the Blood Rage Paragon board, so I will have large bonuses for that soon enough.

I’ve been looking at Bash, and I don’t see it could be as useful. Not without a much more thorough overhaul, at least.

UPHEAVAL: It’s my main AOE attack, and at lvl 8 it’s not that strong in sheer damage but it’s still great in how many enemies it can cover. Specially after I round them up by just leading them on or Steel Grasping them. I have the Enhanced and Furious extras, and the Expectant Aspect. All those make it quite stronger on a regular basis. Also, it stuns sometimes AND somehow I see enemies going vulnerable from it quite often (I can’t remember where I’m getting that from).

I don’t see how Double Swing would be as potent.

You gotta remember that my best damage by far, comes from my 2H bludgeon. It’s assigned to all my skills.
My 1H weapons and 2H slashing are far behind on that stat, as they became mere stat sticks long ago. So, any skill that relies on weapons other than my 2H bludgeon is gonna be quite weaker on its sheer damage. SPECIALLY since my 2H bludgeon makes good use of the Wallop and Concussion passives, and I don’t see any other passives that do anything similar for other kinds of weapons.

And I’ve long been at a situation where it’s quite rare for me to find an item worth including in my gear. For example, my 2H slashing has been the same for quite a while, because aside from having nice stats all over… It has a +60% to basic skill speed imprinted on it from another item (originally 30, doubled because of the item type). Raid Aspect. We both know attack speed is essential.

The best item with rapid aspect I’ve run into (and that I keep stashed, to extract if needed), is a natural 24. So, 48 if I applied it to another 2H slashing. From codex, the best is a natural 15 (30 tops, then). I don’t think I’ve yet run into a 2H slashing that is worth losing 12% basic attack speed (60-48).

LEAP: It’s just too useful.

  • General movement. It’s been my main way to engage aura elites and the like. Specially since I trigger a barrier when hitting elites, and I have the invulnerable bubble available, so I can take quite a few hits while in the middle of a crowd before I have to worry. Of course, Steel Grasp helps but it’s not the same.
  • Emergency exit even through barriers.
  • If you time it right, it’s great for dodging all attacks even if you only leap straight up. As far as I can tell, you’re untouchable for the entirety of the leap.
  • AOE knockback for clearing things up a bit.
  • AOE slowing down for so long is just great, specially with my dam bonus.
  • I also have this aspect that piles up a dam bonus to Leap, whenever I damage with Upheaval. Up to 240%. It’s not much in total, but since it’s AOE that’s always welcome.
  • Battle Fervor through Leap, makes me Berserk for a few quite often.

I’d have to let go of this one, to add Iron Skin. I’ve been tempted to do for Iron Skin for a while.

  • I already have the barrier from the aspect, that comes from damaging elites. And it’s proven to be quite useful.
    It’s bugged (it only gives me 1865, when it clearly states it should be 2763). But it’s better than nothing. I assume both barriers would add up together, if active at the same time.

  • Iron Warrior is sitting in my Codex, yeah. It’d be a nice boost, unstoppable at will once again.

  • I also have an aspect imprinted in my 1H bludgeon, giving me 23% to all dam while a barrier is active. Making my strategy of starting fights by engaging the elite, all the more effective.

  • I have Ghostwalker aspect imprinted, too. Even better, for boosting unstoppable.

Is there ANY practical way, to use more than 6 skills? I would go for Iron Skin as a 7th, but how can I switch quickly enough? I’m not exactly a pro, lol. I was thinking, maybe a clever macro?

Regarding the way you calculate damage: I think I get it, but I’ll have to keep coming back to your useful reply to double-check if I’m doing things right, from now on.

Some more info about my barb, in case you have more juicy input.

  • I have as many sockets as possible, and all in use. My bonuses from those: +x% max life in armor, +x% to basic skill dam in weapons, x% resist all elements in jewelry.
  • My gear is all fully upgraded with 4 extra bonuses each, so it’s all at maximum.

ASPECTS (, I repeat the ones I already mentioned to make it easier to check):

  1. Immune bubble.
  2. Using basic skill gives +20% dam reduction.
  3. Weapon mastery (extra charge + change to stun).
  4. Barrier after damaging elite.
  5. While unstoppable and 4" after, 25% speed, etc.
  6. 20% dam for standing still 1", 30% for 2". This one is tough to keep up, as the way I play makes me move around a lot. But it’s great for bosses and so, where you might stand a few moments chipping away at an enemy’s specially large health bar.
  7. Basic attacks pile up 5% for next Core, up to 30%.
  8. 23% dam while barrier.
  9. Heal 38 per second per close enemy, up to 189. It might not seem like much, but it’s proven to keep my health bar decently full many times.
  10. Dam with Upheavel piles up 16% bonus for Leap, up to 240%. Easy to reach full, as Upheaval often damages a lot of enemies at once.
  11. After spending 100 Fury, Death Blow deals 94% dam. Thanks to this, Inner Calm (aspect 6), Enhanced, and Paragon board… Even without any “+dam to elites” in my gear, bosses and so go down fast more often than not. I admit, it takes some work to spend that much fury sometimes. Maybe I have to use Upheaval even knowing it does little, just to reach this bonus.
  12. +60% attack speed for basic. I sometimes think I regret having imprinted it about as soon as I got it. Because I cannot change my 2H slashing for a better weapon. But it’s been such a significant benefit for so long, that I think I’m better off this way. I don’t think I’ve run into any 2H slashing that does base damage above my 2H bludgeon, anyway.