Skill Gem Feedback - Whirling Blades - Forum

" Diviad wrote: This skill has potential, but it doesn't live up to what I want it to be. After hearing the name and reading the description I was really excited. I made a rash decision and with a couple of respecs and a small investment in gear I changed my ground slam marauder into an infinite whirler. Cool? Well I am level 34 and started testing it out. I have always hits/never crits and blood magic. Tons of life/strength, life on hit, and life steal. My strategy is to phase run through the map until I get a solid following of a ton of mobs, then smash back and forth through them almost dying and then healing quickly. I have a buffed up one handed sword/shield and for speed and agility I have armor/evasion gear. I am using life on hit and melee damage support gems. My problem is that it is very very difficult to get enough damage out of this skill. Encounters go on for what feels like too long, with each monster requiring 5-6 hits on average. Throw in the pauses, desyncs, and frequent misses and it can become painful. I think with some more damage this could be a great main skill and a lot of fun to use. My only question is why does a skill that requires you to use low damage weapons have such steep damage reduction to start out with? Maybe this isn't balanced enough. At least I can kind of feel that D2 passion again about making new and interesting builds. I will keep posting as I continue testing... I continued testing for 5 levels and tried higher dps swords/knives, I was at a point where I was killing with 1-2 hits on average and it was fun while it lasted. The cooldown after you use the skill felt long at times and as I progressed caused me to take considerable damage. Now I can no longer kill as quickly and it seems like this build heavily relies on a high dps weapon. If this skill gets buffed I would consider going back to it.	Posted by Diviad on Sep 23, 2012, 12:56:56 PM Quote this Post
I've noticed something weird with Whirling Blades. If you cast Whirling Blades, Block an attack during the cast time, and not enter block recovery state, the spell will cast twice in a row and make you travel pretty far, getting you out of danger immediately. However, if you cast WB, Block an attack, and DO enter block recovery, then the game often desyncs, making you travel once or twice its distance but soon rubberbanding you back to the proper position. I am rather certain this is the way it works; I'm running a caster with 50% block chance using WB as escape mechanism, and it's very obvious when my projectiles hit accurately, and when they're desynced.	Posted by 0nin on Sep 25, 2012, 6:35:20 PM Quote this Post
I'd like to see this skill get you over chasms, but not over raised barriers. shadows class version of lightning warp/ leapslam, navigation usage.	Posted by LollyScramble on Oct 9, 2012, 7:57:56 PM Quote this Post
Does this still have desync problems? I've been waiting for this to be fixed before I come back but haven't seen it in the patch notes. Will it be fixed before open beta?	Posted by ibdoomed on Oct 11, 2012, 8:47:09 AM Quote this Post
Went from 15% increased attack speed with 15% quality to 5% ias. :(	Posted by likwid on Oct 11, 2012, 6:33:18 PM Quote this Post
Id like this skill. but it have some problems in mechanic. I noticed, that it hits less often then your another attacks. I tried to test it on 1 enemy. From 5 jumps through enemy it deal damage only 1 time. I have 88% chance to hit. I think thats why this skill have low DPS. Cause it miss more then should. Last edited by DarkStranger on Oct 14, 2012, 8:22:58 AM	Posted by DarkStranger on Oct 14, 2012, 8:22:26 AM Quote this Post
I'm not really digging the way this skill interacts with dual weild. It alternates hands per enemy when it would probably be more enjoyable for it to apply a percentage of both hands per hit. "If they actually showed gameplay with it zoomed out and then zoomed it in for the real one I think there would be actual riots in the street. I think that people would burn the building down."	Posted by IlluminaBlade on Oct 14, 2012, 11:06:45 PM Quote this Post
" DarkStranger wrote: Id like this skill. but it have some problems in mechanic. I noticed, that it hits less often then your another attacks. I tried to test it on 1 enemy. From 5 jumps through enemy it deal damage only 1 time. I have 88% chance to hit. I've got 93% chance to hit and 13-20ms ping and I STILL will miss an entire group of monsters over and over and over again. If they fixed this one issue with the skill it would be absolutely fine, balance-wise. Visit the Path of Exile Wiki at http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/	Posted by Danny on Oct 18, 2012, 10:30:52 AM Alpha Member Quote this Post
" I target past the mobs. Not sure if that helps. Yeah, that's what I do. :/ Visit the Path of Exile Wiki at http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/	Posted by Danny on Oct 19, 2012, 7:33:59 AM Alpha Member Quote this Post
" Danny wrote: " DarkStranger wrote: Id like this skill. but it have some problems in mechanic. I noticed, that it hits less often then your another attacks. I tried to test it on 1 enemy. From 5 jumps through enemy it deal damage only 1 time. I have 88% chance to hit. I've got 93% chance to hit and 13-20ms ping and I STILL will miss an entire group of monsters over and over and over again. If they fixed this one issue with the skill it would be absolutely fine, balance-wise. Yeah, same problem. If it worked half the time it's supposed to, it might be useful. Also, the damage effectiveness is way too low considering the long total attack time. Think about leap slam, it's in the same ball park in terms of "cast rate", yet it's easier to target mob clusters with it and has 100% damage effectiveness. Whirling blades feels gimped compared to that!	Posted by Thalandor on Oct 26, 2012, 1:15:48 PM Quote this Post