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#589667 27/09/16 05:02 AM
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Dual wield costs 2AP per attack, while 1h costs 1AP. In the end you will swing your weapon(s) an equal number of times. I'll break down the benefits of both as I understand them. Please let me know if I'm missing anything.

1h pros:
1. Every point in 1h offers +4% DMG and +2% accuracy. Dual wield offers +3% DMG and +1% crit chance. The damage increase is higher for 1h and accuracy is nice. Dual wield offers a lower DMG bonus and provides +1% crit chance. It may be my personal preference, but the additional +1%DMG and +2% accuracy seems better than +1% crit chance. This is especially true for rogues (backstab) and fighters (rage) because they can often get auto crits.

2. Having one weapon means you get to swing your primary weapon, which should be the strongest, four times. Dual wield will give you two swings for your primary weapon and two for your secondary, which is likely weaker. The benefit of 1h could be substantial if your secondary is far weaker than your primary.

3. If you are left with only 1AP in a turn you can still attack with a 1h weapon.

Dual wield:
1. Having a second weapon equipped gives you additional passive bonuses from magic items.

2. If you are trying to maximize crit chance it could give you a minor boost.

3. I may be mistaken with this pro, so correct me if I'm wrong. Martial abilities cost the same amount of AP regardless of 1h, 2h, or dual wield. The abilities damage is linked to the damage of your weapon. Does ability damage take in to account both weapons when dual wielding? If so this may be a huge benefit for dual wield over 1h.

4. Another one I haven't tested is opportunity attacks. Do you get both attacks with dual wield?


From my understanding, 1h weapons are better at standard attacks and dual wield is better at opportunity and martial abilities.

My goal is to find the best damage output for a rogue. I'm leaning to 1h because I won't need the crit chance as often, won't take opportunity attack, and have more utility abilities for positioning than damaging abilities.





Cdoze #589722 27/09/16 11:59 AM
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Keep in mind that on higher levels the amount of bonus stats from an equiped skillslot becomes significant. Even if they break even in damage, having whatever stats the off hand can provide makes a difference.

Cdoze #589727 27/09/16 12:50 PM
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Dual wield will also increase your burst from a guerilla sneak attack.

Cdoze #589728 27/09/16 01:01 PM
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I think dual wield is almost always better than 1h or 2h weapons.
- You get passive bonusses from 2 items instead of 1 (like +attributes)
- special attacks (spells that cause physical damage) are based on the damage of the equipment you have equipped.

suggestion to make it more balanced:
- dual wielding gives a penalty in hit chance. You need skill points to compensate this (like BG2 or KotoR 1+2)
- 2h weapon skill gives damage bonus (use bigger weapons to hit harder)
- 1h skill gives a bonus to crit chance, you get a higher chance to cause more damage for less AP.

Last edited by Madscientist; 27/09/16 01:02 PM.

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Cdoze #589782 27/09/16 07:35 PM
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I'd like to point out something I discovered while I was playing with my battle mage. If you equip a one handed melee weapon in your primary hand and a wand in your secondary hand you get the stat bonuses from both weapons but you will only use the melee weapon when attacking, which still only costs 1 AP (although the game bugs when you do this and tells you that it will cost 0AP to attack). I have no idea if this gives you the skill bonuses for single hand or dual wield.

I think I'd still prefer it if single handed was buffed somehow though. I really liked the look of my battle mage fighting with just a one-handed sword and I imagine it would look a bit silly for a stealthy rogue to have a dagger in one hand and a wand in the other. Making the AP cost of warfare skills dependent on the AP cost of a regular attack might be a good change. Another cool change could be some sort of "Duelist" talent which doubles the stat bonuses from your primary weapon if your off hand is empty.

Cdoze #589790 27/09/16 08:58 PM
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Dropping the AP cost of Warfare and Scoundrel abilities for 1h may work. However, it would give 1h potential to put down a lot of status effects and CC in one round; it also wont work with 1AP abilities. Weapon damage could be removed from ability damage, and instead have the damage calculated from a primary stat and level.

Cdoze #589813 27/09/16 11:32 PM
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Many people sometimes forget that while the burst damage of a dual wield rogue could be hire given skills and sneak attacks, the 1AP cost of 1h weapons allow for greater tactical flexibility. It's fairly easy to fit a 1AP skill/attack into any turn and still do a few other things, but it can be limiting to have to always require (plan for) 2AP of dual wielding.

While the bonuses from dual wielding can be a turning point in decisions, I find that the advantage mitigated by the fact that characters will still be limited in tactical flexibility. The bonuses will make their burst damage higher and their skill effects powerful, but they will still be limited in how they can make use of them.

The ability to, assuming 4 AP a turn, get to:
- [attack/use skill/move from sneak->attack/use skill/move->attack/use skill/move->go back into hiding] is fairly strong

vs

- [attack/use skill/move from sneak->attack/use skill/move or attack/use skillmove from sneak->use skill -> go into hiding or ...] where you must decide what to commit to

Cdoze #589828 28/09/16 01:13 AM
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Pfft, 4 AP turns, you pleb.

Limz #589831 28/09/16 01:17 AM
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Originally Posted by Limz
Pfft, 4 AP turns, you pleb.


Lol hey, it was easier to write out sequential actions for 4 AP :P

Cdoze #589832 28/09/16 01:19 AM
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You bring up a good point about action economy.

Though usually my crap ends up being -> rage -> sacrifice of flesh -> adrenaline rush -> vault -> sneak -> ability -> Warlord -> do some random attacks.

Limz #589833 28/09/16 01:25 AM
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Originally Posted by Limz
You bring up a good point about action economy.

Though usually my crap ends up being -> rage -> sacrifice of flesh -> adrenaline rush -> vault -> sneak -> ability -> Warlord -> do some random attacks.


It was something I discovered as important in my solo rogue play through

I tried it with both dual daggers and one dagger and found that, when I only had the one character in battle, action economy became a very significant concern when I had one turn for every one of my 2-6 enemies.

With a larger party I imagine you could focus in more on burst damage but utility is a powerful thing

Cdoze #590168 29/09/16 11:12 AM
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Rage is overpowered, don't expect it to stay as is.

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Originally Posted by Hassat Hunter
Rage is overpowered, don't expect it to stay as is.


One thing they could probably do to tinker with Rage would be that you can't use skills while rage is active, only normal attacks. But that doesn't seem like enough, so it would need some other power reduction on top of that.

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Yea, rage + flesh sacrifice + warlord is kinda silly.

Cdoze #590234 29/09/16 03:19 PM
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I'm not sure where the answer to this is but I really want to be able to effectively use a one hand only with spells for thematic reasons. Honestly though, before reading the forums I hadn't even considered it. It was 1h/shield or two hand or dual wield. In Skyrim I did 1h and spell... So while it rankles me that 1h and open slot is an oddity that isn't viable, I'm curious how important it is to the game.

The talent idea was pretty solid, and a talent might be where we find this.
Take into account that the talent must also offer additional benefit over and above parity with other options because you're spending a talent point. So actually, double stat bonuses may be an elegant solution. Because you now have greater control over the stats you're boosting which may be slightly better than two items worth of stats.

You could also try stat boosting non weapons in the off hand - like talismans and severed limbs of monsters.

Cdoze #590282 29/09/16 08:15 PM
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1h getting less damage out of 2AP abilities seems like a worthwhile trade off to me when you consider in the tactical flexibility 1AP attacks provide and the fact that you will always attack with your strongest weapon. The real issue to me is the extra stat bonuses you get from equipping 2 weapons. For example, this is a wand I found in one of my playthroughs.

i.imgur.com/Z1RH8an.jpg?1

This is a 1h lvl 6 wand found in the first act. I imagine duel wield characters will have a significant attribute advantage over 1h characters in the later parts of the game. I'd prefer if there was either a talent that doubled the attribute gain from a weapon if your off hand was empty or if there was a passive buff doing the same thing that you got from reaching lvl X in the "Single-handed" combat ability.

Last edited by Ribes; 29/09/16 08:17 PM.
Cdoze #590290 29/09/16 09:07 PM
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Has anyone found any two one-handed weapons that will match the damage output of the Sundering Cleaver (97-119 Damage, +2 Strength, +1 Warfare, -0.2 Movement, unlocks Overpower)? I haven't seen any. With Enrage up, I'm doing over 300 damage Crippling Blows (which are AoE).

Having two melee weapons improves melee ability damage over just having one.

Having two wands has some benefits and drawbacks. You generally want to be able to wand out air damage so you can electrify water, blood, and steam, but if your air wand is a little lackluster on damage, you'll want to dual wield it with another wand that's better for damage. You also gain the stats of both wands (if they have any). The drawback is that with two wands you're paying 2 AP per attack, and you're getting less damage per turn than if you'd just had the higher-damage wand equipped. One workaround for the latter part there is, when you don't need both elements anymore, just unequip the weaker wand.

Having one 1h melee weapon and no shield would be good for a spellsword type build, since you wouldn't be losing ability damage.

Cdoze #590301 29/09/16 09:40 PM
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You know, the stat advantage dual wielding gives would be heavily offset with a change in the current stat system that everyone seems to agree is messed up

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This is a little off-topic, but I was debating whether or not dual-wield would be worth it as a mage. So, has anyone checked to see if the weapon damage skills applied to damage from your spells also (so if you're dual-wielding wands, does the 5% per level buff apply to spells you cast like fireball)? In the skill description it just says +% damage, it doesn't state that it's only to attacks. If it does apply to spells, then I'm wondering if there's any point in leveling any spell skills above 5 before maxing your weapon skill as most of the spell skills give you 5% damage to the element of that your using per level, while the weapon skill would give you a 5% bonus to all damage dealt per level. Just wanted to know if anyone tested this?

Last edited by Drearcerberus; 22/09/17 12:31 PM.
Cdoze #618984 22/09/17 12:31 PM
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I am 99% certain, that weapon skills influence only equipped weapon, not spells.

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