Whirlwind

Whirlwind is a dynamic attack which makes hitchecks at your opponent at certain intervals while you are in range. These hitchecks are made either each 12th, 10th, 8th, 6th or 4th frame. A lower frame means potentionally more hits and thus more damage. Faster run and walk increases your ww-speed aswell. Not as in how many hitchecks are done, but in how fast you whirl from A to B. It does have a certain effect on the total amount of hitchecks though; since you are moving so fast, you are less long in range as when you would be moving slower and thus you will perform less hitchecks. This is a good thing though, imagine what will happen when you whirl slow as a turtle; palading will be able to smite you even though you are whirling away and bone spirits catch up with you when you do a drive-by-whirl versus a bone necro.

The frame at which whirlwind operates is determined by the speed of the claw in question. You calculate claw speed by substracting the IAS on the weapon from it's base speed. You can find base speeds at the Arreat Summit. Base speeds are listed between brackets; [x]

Whirlwind Frame	Claw Speed
12 10 8 6 4	33 or higher 32 to 25 24 to 10 9 to -12 -13 or lower

Example: We have a War Fist with 20% IAS on it. The base speed of a War Fist is 10. The speed of this claw is; 10-20 = -10. This claw has hitchecks every 6th frame.

As you might know, there are certain claws with base speeds of -20 and -30 (such as runic talons and feral claws). These claws do not need any additional IAS. This is important to know to determine whether a o-so-godly looking claw is really that useful; no 4 frame WW is crap.

This leads us to one of the most common screw ups: Ethereal Jade Talons. These eth claws need to be socketed with a Zod rune, which means that they stay at 6 frame hitchecks (base speed op -10 with no addition IAS) and will deal less damage than a non-eth one (with an IAS jewel) would. So whenever you go looking for a Jade talon, make sure you look for a nice non-eth one and place a IAS/x jewel in it.