by Hotstreak - 9 years ago     show comments

Books have often been society’s only bastion of light for passing along knowledge that would otherwise be lost to time or convoluted by the oral tradition. In order to provide new and old adventurers with as much knowledge of what to expect on their journey in Sanctuary, we created this tome of knowledge – Ars Arcanum. We will regularly feature a Legendary weapon or armor piece, discussing its stand-alone powers and capabilities, as well as how it may synergize with new builds or other items.

It may be an understatement that these mighty weapons have been to hell and back over the course of Diablo 3’s development. These weapons have been completely useless through most of the game’s life span up until patch 2.2.0. It’s now a completely different story, as Barbarians everywhere are topping the leaderboards with these bad boys. Today, we’re going to dive into just why that’s case.

With the latest patch, these weapons have been redesigned to synergize with the new Whirlwind Barbarian builds. These go great with the brand new Wrath of the Wastes set and can get you pretty high up in Greater Rifts. Interestingly, the Diablo team has been trying to make these weapons useful for WW lovers ever since the very first legendary rework patch back in vanilla. But now, they have finally done it.

Why is it good?

This set of weapons comes with +10 Fury generation and when matched with the Weapons Master passive, it brings unparalleled Fury generation. This allows you to keep Whirlwinding to keep up your Taeguk stacks, the 40% damage reduction from Wrath of the Wastes, and synergizes well with Whirlwind’s Blood Funnel rune. Along with the Fury generation, they grant you 30% Movement Speed and Attack Speed when using Whirlwind to bring an unmatched speed element to this build that no other Barbarian build quite has. The extra Attack Speed allows you to get the most out of Blood Funnel to ensure your chance of survival when pushing Greater Rifts. With these weapons, you will be near max Fury a lot of the time, so Berserker Rage is a very good passive since you will be consistently getting that 25% extra damage.

Another reason why this build is so good is because you don’t need to rely on a Ring of Royal Granduer to get the set bonuses you want. This frees up an ever-so-competitive ring slot for something like Unity to boost your survivability when in those high level Greater Rifts. This build also synergizes very well with on of the new BiS rings, Convention of Elements, as it provides a very impressive damage boost to your build (and the aura it gives off looks great). Another option could be an Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac to try and achieve near 100% uptime for Wrath of the Berserker, but I still think CoE is a much better option. I have had much more success with these weapons than the Immortal Kings/Wrath of the Wastes setup simply because you get much more speed, Fury generation, and survivability.

All in all it’s just a very efficient setup as they bring a lot of essential tools to Barbarians. Just the high Fury generation alone allows you to have a lot of wiggle room with how you build. Since you don’t have to worry about Fury, you can add some other defensive options to your build, like Ignore Pain which works great with Pride of Cassius and can be the difference between completing a high level Greater Rift or failing one.

Who is it good for?

Only Barbarians can benefit from these as they are class capable of equipping Might Weapons. They are also a big part of the current Barbarian meta.

Where can I find it?

These weapons are not exclusive to Season 3, so anyone in any mode can find them with the right amount of luck and RNG mercy. The changes to this weapon set are retroactive so any non-seasonal players who had them stored in their bank prior to 2.2.0 can give them a shot.

The Fluff

       

Bul-Kathos strode as a giant among the ancients, and was the forefather to the barbarian tribes. This sword represents the sacred vow he made to protect Mount Arreat and the Worldstone.

All I have to say about this flavor text is, Bul-Kathos failed and did not fulfill his vow to protect either Mount Arreat or the Worldstone. But I guess it wasn’t completely his fault, because if it weren’t for that meddling demon and his angel friend he may have succeeded.