Barbarian Pros and Cons Dual v 2hand

what are the Pros and Cons between going Dual wield or Two Hand ?

That depends which content you are doing in the game.

Dualwield is a safer bet to do good damage in PVE if youre new. But 2h specc provides very strong groupwide dps buffs, so if u learn how to get decent dmg with 2h, the group/raid willl benefit more from it.

1h
+good straight out of the box dmg
+easier to dish out good dmg, just pop dmg buffs and look at something = dmg
-less fun (imo)

2h
+better groupbuffs
+longer range on the attacks
+more fun to play (imo)
-requires a good 2h weapon to do high dmg
-hitting shielded sides with your combos on the mob is devastating for the dmg, makes you learn movement which in the end is good, so both plus and minus :stuck_out_tongue:

as u see im pretty biased towards 2h, but I would still recommend u using 1h specc untill u get a decent 2h weapon.

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thank you for the reply

pretty much what I needed to know

To add to that, as far as raiding and group dungeons goes;

  • Reaver is based on procs and you can get away with having low tier weapons and do good DPS with them. Zerker is based completely on amplifying your weapon to insane amounts and it’s terrible without a high base DPS weapon.

  • Reaver has AOE
    Zerker doesn’t

  • Zerker has strong CCs
    Reaver has the worst CCs in game (just 2 innate ones that require weapon swapping)

  • Reaver is consistent, good DPS
    Zerker is wildly inconsistent, it can do DPS that no other class can, or it can be a little lackluster, depends on procs/crits and if you are avoiding shields.

  • Reaver has as much negative hate and hate dumps as you want to feat
    Zerker doesn’t have the option to go into the general tree

The simplest way to put it is that reaver is the way to go for new players (because it’s way easier to pick up and play) or anyone playing in pug raids or in guilds without high aggro tanking (due to more consistent damage/access to aggro modifiers). If you get the chance and get geared up I’d recommend 2h, I concur with Mori that’s it far more fun to play once you do it right.

oh cool more information,

I was looking at the old forums, one of the guides, and from how they described this feat and it’s uses, I felt it was what I would use http://joharaoc.eu/feat?link=v20_1126952c6958c6939b696ba1ddc01de241e4c81e26c1e52a1e0161e1a41e3981e3341e6581e6bc1df4c1e7841e1441e7201e4641e8ac1e3fc1dfb01e58c1d4c41d524

then I noticed, this was set up more for 2h.

I don’t play much, but at the same time I don’t want to gimp the group if I do group.

was thinking of doing my Barbarian 1hb/1he, don’t really have any issues going 2h if that’s the better road for me.

I agree with what Moriala and Evito said.

Based on this I would recommend the following specs (or something based on them), the spec from the old forum is an old pvp 2H zerker spec.

For 2H zerker (and solo) I would spec like this:
https://goo.gl/PAAmqc
Lots of CCs, pushing pure weapon damage, getting all (group) buffs. Combowise concentrate on Staggering Blow/Boneshatter, Butcher (best 2 step combo)/Upheaval, use Haste+Decapitation, if neccesary swap weapons for Wreck Armor to aply the debuff
(2 points in Grisly Wounds, 1 in Scattered Foes, 1 in Too many to count are optional, but you get the idea, note that a Barb with T5 rune will spec a little different)

A solid group/raid spec for a reaver barb should look like this:
https://goo.gl/u9l8xV
General Tree getting lots of -hate (precious -hate for the group, too), I personally love Cheat the Reaper (and this feat is the reason why Reaver Barbs usually will never get a battle res), and with this General Tree setup you do not sacrifice too much. I take 3 points protection over armor, because we Barbs get enough armor with strength.
In the Reaver Tree we take everything that is a buff or gives dps to our bread and butter combos.
For combos I would focus on Jagged Cut (best 2 step combo), Upheaval, Wreck Armor 3 highest combos, Cyclone of Steel (best 2 step combo) as a filler. Swap weapons for Stunning Punch and Clobber if needed. Overpower on cd, throw all other buffs in whenever you feel like it, best befor combo finisher, play around with them and learn when to use them best.
(I am not happy with 3 points in Tempered Steel and sometimes ditch Spirit of the Panther - Trickery or more protection or armor in General, Physique in Berserker are some other options, but again, you get the general idea.)

You surely can spec a Reaver Barb without General Tree at all - but I actually did not see that it is a huge difference in damage, and you loose unique feats, and you will need pretty good tanks, because you do not have any ooooooohhhhhshit-buttons.

That is not a PvE spec and it’s terrible for it. Zerker PvE looks something like this https://goo.gl/P0La55

Reaver, I’d start with this, https://goo.gl/ZdazWy, if yo’ure pulling aggro from the tanks all the time lose the points in the zerker tree and spec more general but you shouldn’t need that.

2h is very good choise. It has useful group-wide buffs and also 2h has great dps. For me is more fun to play on 2h barb.

I am wondering: is Atrocity useful? I see that no spec got that feat and when I tested it I couldn’t really see a difference in the proc rate of any of the stances. It’s a shame that there are no numbers in the description at all, like is the chance increased by 5%? Or maybe 20%? With it’s description you can only guess, I always thought it was nice to have this feat if you don’t have the T5 Rune yet which increases the duration of your stack but since I can’t really see any difference in the proc rate with this feat I see little reason to use it.
Did anyone test this feat too and maybe has more specific numbers / data regarding it’s proc rate increase?

EDIT: Also, is Eyes of Madness really worth feating in PvE? I mean, 3k armor penetration is nice but it’s only 5 seconds and needs 3 feat points, I am not sure how much of a difference these 3k armor pen. really make (besides in T5 and T6 where enemies got the armor / protection buffs).

Atrocity is not the highest priority feat but it definitely works and I notice between having and not having it (it’s kind of necessary when you don’t run the without warning AA). I believe the base proc chance on stacks is 15 procs per minute and atrocity gives an additional 1 proc per minute per point (I can’t remember where that information came from but it always seemed about right to me).

Everything in the game as armor, you just can’t see the values pre-T5/T6. Eyes of Madness is kinda crappy because of its long cooldown but it’s some extra burst you can line up with all the other burst. It’s by no means necessary if you think there’s something else worth feating, but there isn’t much else that’s any good to move down the tree with.

Thanks for the answer!
I tested Atrocity a few more times but I find it so unreliable to test (maybe I just dont know how to test it properly) because sometimes my stack goes up to 5 with just one combo without having atrocity and in some very odd cases I lose my stack even with atrocity feated even though I constantly hit the strawman.

But since you brought up the Without Warning AA, is it even worth using Bone Shatter without the T5 rune? Would replacing Bone Shatter with Without Warning be even more useful? Or is this just something that depends on the situation (since in some encounters you might lose your stack faster than in some where you can be active all the time)?

I definitely like Without Warning better in many encounters. I don’t have the t5 rune though but I’m pretty sure WW is still a better option in some places. For a long static fight I guess bone shatter might be better even without the rune (it’s a strong combo after all), I’ve never really checked.

If you don’t need the general tree AA, you don’t do enough dmg :slight_smile:

IF reaver, go with full hatedecrease. It’s quite a nice buff to the other dds in your group too.

for “Zerker” you have to choose if you want to do Upheaval with DW or 2-Hand.

Without t5 rune without warning wins unless you want to do AOE damage, or it’s a weird boss that you can’t constantly attack (like Champion in T5). If you aren’t using without warning atrocity becomes necessary, as you alluded to if you’re really unlucky you can lose all your stacks regardless but it’s super rare with atrocity feated and happens too often for comfort without it.

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