Bolty's Note: There's a reason why Barbarians crushed everything in their path.  Prior to patch 1.07, Barbarian masteries had quite an extra punch...

Have you ever played the Barbarian and thought that this guy really knows how to dish out some damage? Have you looked at the masteries and thought they are great, improving both damage and AR, and with no diminishing return? Thinking that this is a skill you should pump to level 20 as soon as possible if not faster?

Did you then hear about the hidden critical hit feature for the masteries which basically mean you get a chance equal to 2*slvl to do a critical hit that will double the final damage including all modifiers? Did you then think that those masteries rock and make the Barbarian a mean damage dealing machine?

Well, there is more to it than that. As you know, the game will typically take your weapon damage, then add up all the +%damage modifiers (strength, mastery, combat skill and so on), apply it to the weapon damage, then modify it for things like undead with clubs) and critical hit. This is further enforced by the character screen that indeed shows that this is how the damage is calculated. And indeed, for about any skill in the game this is true EXCEPT masteries!! Contrary to what the character screen tells you and what can be assumed from the use of other skills, the mastery bonus to the damage is applied ON TOP of other skills +% damage bonus INCLUDING the strength bonus!!! Yup, that is right, it in fact modifies the other skill bonuses and the strength damage bonus.

Lets make an example to grasp this better. Assume a weapon that does exactly 100 damage (both min and max damage is 100). We have a mastery that adds 125% damage (I just make up numbers, they do not necessarily apply to the real game). Your strength is 150 and you are attacking with this mean Leap Attack adding 250% damage. What will the final damage be? Well, glancing at the character screen you will see:

100 + 100*(125+150+250)/100 = 625 damage

Not bad. Lets see what the REAL damage is:

(100 + 100*(150+250)/100) * 2.25 = 1125

(I wrote *2.25 instead of multiplying by 125/100 and then adding the whole parenthesis.)

Now, don't tell me that is not a disgusting amount of damage, and we have not even factored in the possibility of a critical hit, which, with that damage modifier, should be a skill of level 20 or so for a total of 40% chance or so for double the above damage.

No wonder WW was working "too well."