Which fists to get

If you're going for the best, it'd either be TT100 or Lunar claws. I believe that the claws are better because of the health debuff proc, but that's just me.

It's hard to say otherwise. For fists to be as effective as they're supposed to be, you need to have -interval. Neither the TT90 or FC gold has this, so I honestly think they wouldn't be worth the investment.

Wouldn't down a barb fister, heck even an archer fister works fine too. That's why I kept my DQ60 bracers and AoS: to lvl up my archer and barbarian later on if I go back to them.

With demon spark, you'll be looking at a 2.5 attack rate with Gorenox. Adjusted the damage buff down to lvl 10, since it's 99 for demon skill. Also I think I've heard that poison fang buff still works when switching back to fists, which is another .3 multiple of wood damage.

287 over-all str makes for a damage multiple of

1 + 287/150 for 2.91 essentially. Add on .3 from buff, and it's 3.21 + .3 wood. Which comes close to making up for the lack of mastery inside instances (mobs usually resists phys damage less than mag damage)

With Gorenox, you'd have 3.71 +.3 wood during proc buff, at 2.5 APS; 3.21 +.3 wood at 2.22 APS with Buddha.

Treating the damage equal, would yield 4.01 * 2.5 = 10 for Gorenox, and 3.51 * 2.22 * 1.2 = 9.35 for Buddha. The 1.2 is there for the assumed proc rate of sac strike being 20%.

For PvP, the numbers on Gorenox will not be as high, due to needing it to proc for the buff to come into effect. Even still, for a barb, the 5% health loss will be high, and likely not worth it for even a small gain.

Without spark it is 1.82 attack rate, and 1.67 for buddha. The numbers will be closer; 7.29 Gor, and 7.03 for buddha.

For Relentless, it depends on what attack speed buff it gives. At 30 or 31%, Buddha and Gorenox will have same attack speed with your given gear. If you get 32%, then Gorenox drops down to .35 interval, giving you 2.86 attacks per second.

All in all, the proc rate on Buddha's is not good enough to make up for it's downfalls. The lack of -int harms it already, and the higher your -int gear climbs the further it falls behind. Only reason we BMs will use it, is for a high damage skill spike. For a barb, they'd be better off using Gorenox to work the charm down, swap to hammer/axe to stun and tick charm, Arma, then beat down with either demon barb skills or swap to axes to build chi to off them. For TT, Gorenox will definitely be superior. Add in the fact you can actually resell the Gorenox fists, and there simply isn't enough benefit to boost them up.

While demon sparked sac strike fisting might deal some high damage, it'd be easier to arma in pvp, than having to rely on being close up and them not running from a barb. And considering they usually run from barbs anyways, that only compounds the problem. In TT, the extra attacks from Gorenox = more chi gain = more spark coverage. Also, not losing health and having the cleric cuss at you.

Deitnia is better for going towards TT99 gold to get Nirvana, only reason I would use sac fists is for a specific combo:

Trip spark, HF, Tyrseus. That right there with a possible crit and sac would mean a crapload of damage. Only negative is the cost, and either using genie or pot for extra spark. But with a little refinement, should be able to deal roughly

9.5K X 2 X 2.6 (with crit and sac, add on an extra X4) to everyone in a 12 m range. Also adds some debuffs, but meh.

So just guaranteed damage would be 49.4K damage. Which can boost up to 98.8K with just a crit or sac, 197.6K damage with both crit and sac in just one hit. Also freezes them in place, allowing you to use a genie skill after if a pot was used for the chi. And since the fists are sac, the genie gets that too without needing to weapon swap.

EDIT: A way to help the combo, is to use Dragon Bane earlier on. As long as the combo goes off before the 30 second buff timer finishes, you get an extra 25% added on to your crit chance.