Diablo® III

Latest update : new important information at the end of this post.

Whirlwind snapshots the Attack per Second at cast time, and keeps it for its whole duration.
This is true even if you switch weapons or apply any dynamic attack speed buff (WotB for example) during it.

Here's a video showcasing the snapshot issue : https://youtu.be/cRhdM7wKY-A

Note : this was found during further testing of this previous now irrelevant issue : http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/17767616603

Some results of my testing :
- casting WotB during WW will prevent you from getting its 25% attack speed bonus
- casting WotB and then starting WW will gives you its 25% attack speed bonus

Implications for WW Barbs :
- any barb relying on a near 100% Wrath of the Berserker uptime to get some breakpoints is severely nerfed if they don't always recast WW while the buff is still up.
- as soon as you break your "buffed" WW, you'll lost the snapshot
- same thing for barbs using the gogok
- on the contrary, you can "abuse" the mechanic by avoiding with your spec to have to break your WW (5W/3IK mainly), and keeping a well buffed WW. Obviously the Pain Enhancer comes to mind.

Important Information Update :
From some reddit comments, this whole snapshoting thing is known and used by well informed barbs theorycrafting. Seeing as a "bug" or a "feature" is your choice.
I personaly see it as a bug, the simple fact of having to recast WW if your gogok stacks/WotB/PE are up makes it a very clunky mechanic to say the least.

Can a blue light us about the fact that we always have to recast WW after any new Attack Speed buff, and that keeping a high PE stacks from trashes during 5-7mn on a rift guardian boss is an working as intended?

Latest Information Update :
I've been told multiple times to separate the 2 issues I'm treating here :
- WW snapshoting your APS
- the zodiac ring being bug with WotB
I agree with it, so I removed any information relative to the zodiac bug and properly opened a new topic here : coming soon
I'll still let this WW snapshot issue opened, hoping to at least have an official blue statement about it.

The snap shot thing *could* be intended as "clever use of game mechanics".. the behavior concerning dual wielding and Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac seems to be a bug, though.

Whirlwind and all other channeling skills like Strafe, Rapid Fire, Arcane Torrent, Tempest Rush have always kept their initial frequency for as long as you channel the skill.

That being said, I did run some tests myself just to understand better what you mean.

Something fishy is going on at the moment, might be a desync kind of thing, it´s not just Zodiac.

non-WotB = 15 frames per tick (1.284 aps)
WotB = 12 frames per tick (1.584)

1. non-WotB WW -> 45 frames per Taeguk
2. activate WotB during WW -> 30 frames per Taeguk
3. rechannel with WotB -> 36 frames per Taeguk

Funny thing is when you watch the slow motion recording of Whirlwind, there are actually 2 Barbs spinning at the moment. Especially clear to see once you activate WotB, one big and one small guy.

I don´t know whether this is a recent patch 2.2.1 issue or whether this was always the case, I never really looked at the spinning animation that closely, but it looks weird right now, to say the least.

EDIT: Same setup
> non-WotB Zodiac is triggered every 45 frames (15*3)
> WotB Zodiac is triggered every 48 frames (12*4)

EDIT 2: aand after using a potion it goes to 36 frames.

I´ll do more tests when a friend comes online so we can brawl, which is a better environment for testing Zodiac.

In the meantime, I think it would be best if you rephrased this thread to talk about the actual bug, which is WW per cycle behavior of certain item procs in conjunction with WotB.

WW snapshotting attack speed itself is not a bug (been like that since release).

The actual bug here is that Wrath of the Berserker´s attack speed bonus is taken into account but increases the number of WW ticks needed to proc Zodiac by 1, UNLESS you use a potion while Wrath of the Berserker is active.

That means:
(1) non-Oath, non-WotB -> Zodiac triggered every 3 WW ticks
(2) Oath, non-Wotb -> Zodiac triggered every 4 WW ticks
(3) non-Oath, WotB up -> Zodiac triggered every 4 WW ticks, goes to 3 after potion usage
(4) Oath, WotB up -> Zodiac triggered every 5 WW ticks, goes to 4 after potion usage

Tests that confirm the bug.

setup:
> baseline (1.859 aps) = 10 frames per WW tick
> WotB (2.184 aps) = 9 frames per WW tick
> Bul-Kathos´s Oath (2.4167 aps) = 8 frames per WW tick
> WotB+Oath (2.8392 aps) = 7 frames per WW tick

Zodiac procs
> 32 frames <--- 4 Oath ticks * 8 frames per tick, non-WotB
> 35 frames <--- 5 Oath ticks * 7 frames per tick, WotB up
> 28 frames <--- 4 Oath ticks * 7 frames per tick, WotB up, using potion of amplification

Is it better to completely rewrite the topic and change the title, or isn't it simpler to just create a new topic again with specific info on the zodiac bug ?

I just don't know the good pratice in this kind of situation on this forum, especially when I already created a topic on the zodiac bug that I marked as irrelevant because I didn't know exactly how the bug was behaving.