Will WHIRLWIND REND suck in season 24?

[Subrim 0]

Since ethereals will be so powerful that they will be mandatory to have good damage, WW rend wont be able to use set weapon anymore. No Legendary power can replace those 2 set. Maybe 1 with the furnace legendary power but i'm not sure about it.

What do you guys think?

[Fumigator 0]

I don't really play Barbarian much... so what's this about ethereals?  I guess I should go read up on season 24.

 

[Bubble181 14]

11 hours ago, Fumigator said:

I don't really play Barbarian much... so what's this about ethereals?  I guess I should go read up on season 24.

 

New items that will give a class passive and a class legendary power, along with really good stats. Won't transfer to non-seasonal, so they're only "temporary", like the Ethereals in D2 (well....Sort of. Cough)

 

Anyway, no, the WW Barb won't suddenly suck. It's not been nerfed, it's exactly as strong as it used to be. Some Ethereals will be really game changing (giving a 2H Legendary power to a 1H weapon or such), but for the most part, they're more or less like a Hellfire amulet...Whoop whoop one passive extra. Some builds/classes will be able to make better use of them, I can imagine some builds gaining a couple of  GRs with the perfect well-rolled weapon with the right passive...but that won't be easy to find. They're more rare than Ancients, and they can roll any class weapon legendary, and you still need good rolls. There are plenty of builds that use weapon sets or weapon-and-offhand sets (Necro's with Jesseth, WDs with Manajuma's,...) or non-class weapon powers (In-Geom, Messerschmidts, Echoing Fury,...). All of those won't necessarily be helped by this season theme. 
I can definitely imagine a select few builds relying on a perfect Ethereal to reach some GR leaderboards, but the only builds that'll really suck this season are the Necro's with masquerade who is once again being nerfed to the ground. Huzzah for top players squeezing out glass canon builds that can reach high, causing Blizz to nerf a build to where regular players won't be able to viably use it anymore (damage has been reduced to 1/5th of what it was, I think?)

[MeOnIV 23]

Quote

Some Ethereals will be really game changing (giving a 2H Legendary power to a 1H weapon or such), but for the most part, they're more or less like a Hellfire amulet...Whoop whoop one passive extra.

I don't think they are as weak as you think. Ethereals roll +100% bonus to skills affixes - it used to be something like +100% to (insert class) skills but I read in the latest PTR notes that's changing into one random "category" of a class's set of skills (e.g. Voodoo for WD). But regardless, I imagine all of them would be game changing. 

As an example, also to answer OP's question: WW will for sure increase in power, most class builds in fact, will. Set weapons like little rogue slanderer or bul-kathos would surely be outclassed by using one hand ambo one hand an ethereal with the right blue affix with perhaps furnace cubed.

[Bubble181 14]

14 hours ago, MeOnIV said:

I don't think they are as weak as you think. Ethereals roll +100% bonus to skills affixes - it used to be something like +100% to (insert class) skills but I read in the latest PTR notes that's changing into one random "category" of a class's set of skills (e.g. Voodoo for WD). But regardless, I imagine all of them would be game changing. 

As an example, also to answer OP's question: WW will for sure increase in power, most class builds in fact, will. Set weapons like little rogue slanderer or bul-kathos would surely be outclassed by using one hand ambo one hand an ethereal with the right blue affix with perhaps furnace cubed.

They've been updating and changing the Ethereal powers ,and the +100% to a skill category (which isn't random, btw) is one that's been added to a bunch of them to make them more powerful and useful.
Point still stands, yes, they'll be game changing in some situations and completely useless or ineffective in another. Some builds don't have the possibility of dropping one weapon. Obviously +100% or +800 base damage and so on will make a difference. Some builds won't be able to include them, and those will still work just as well as they did before.

I'm not saying the Ethereals will be weak, I'm just saying builds that can't use won't suddenly "suck". Unless your definition of "sucking" is "not being the absolute best according to the meta". And considering WW Barbs were one of the strongest builds in the game, they're quite likely to still outpace most other builds even if the others are using an ethereal.

[MeOnIV 23]

13 hours ago, Bubble181 said:

They've been updating and changing the Ethereal powers ,and the +100% to a skill category (which isn't random, btw) is one that's been added to a bunch of them to make them more powerful and useful.

I did say, these affixes were CHANGED, not added, to categories in the latest notes as they were  +100% damage to class skills for example. Now it is just one category instead of every skill of that class. Whether or not the category is random or not I cannot confirm so I will concede on this. However videos and screenshots dating back to the 18th had bonus class skills damage on the items. So fact is they were even more powerful before the latest PTR changes made them into categories. Unless you have insider information that they did not exist before the PTR went live, this claim is completely false, because they never got made more powerful, they got nerfed in fact.

edit: Also to add: What did you mean a bunch of them? Because every, single, Ethereal that exists either have +100%-200% damage to all class skills (based on 1h/2h) or a +200% boost to a skill category, according to a reddit post on June 18.

13 hours ago, Bubble181 said:

Point still stands, yes, they'll be game changing in some situations and completely useless or ineffective in another. Some builds don't have the possibility of dropping one weapon. Obviously +100% or +800 base damage and so on will make a difference. Some builds won't be able to include them, and those will still work just as well as they did before.

I randomly clicked 4 or 5 class builds from the "high" or "top tier" builds on this very site. So in give or take 30 builds I checked, I find 4 of them where an Ethereal will hardly have any effect. Technically yes, your point stands, but my point has been they are not "just a hellfire" "whoop whoop" in SOME situations. They are actually quite an upgrade in MOST situations. I haven't gone through most builds but having played a minimum of 400+ hours per class (shamed to admit I'm over 6000 hours total now :s) and participated in every single season until now so I am up to date with how most builds work. I am confident to say for every build you find where an Ethereal is useless, I can find 4 more where they are a considerable upgrade.

Lastly, again, refering OP's actual question. I answered it, even correctly I believe. WW is actually one of the builds that get even more powerful with Ethereal. They said no legendary power will replace sets like Little Rogue + The Slanderer or the Bul Kathos bonus. I said yes, they can be replaced, by things like using Doombringer or Grimmershred in one hand and Ambo's in the other, Because even without the right legendary affix or passive a selection among 100% increase to class skills, 99% weapon damage, various elemental weapon damage and up to 1125 primary stat (on a 1h), all of these easily outclass the weapon sets.

Edited June 30, 2021 by MeOnIV

[Bubble181 14]

You seem to reada far too much into my reply.

All I said was that the Rend WW won't usddenly suck, because the inclusion of Ethereals doesn't actively weaken anybody else. Some builds will benefit, some won't as much. Mostly it'll be damn hard to GET THEM with proper rolls. Yes, if you're Raxx and you have 20 Ancient Puzzle Rings to spare on the PTR it's easy. A regular player will get maybe 10 or 20 Ethereals throughout a season, which doesn't even guarantee getting one with a legendary power that's useful, let alone combined with a passive that's useful, AND good rolls. 

So what if there are more builds where they can be useful than where they can't? I'll gladly give you that point. All I meant to say or imply was that the answer to the OP's question was "no". And otherwise, I don't know why you fee lthe need to be so defensive, so cheers, I'm out ,enjoy your 6000+  hours of a game. I'm sure you're the biggest authority on any and every aspect of the game, and I yield to your supreme knowledge.