We are pleased to announce that with Beta 0.8 we will be introducing dual wielding to Last Epoch!
One of our pillars of design is class identity - introducing different dual wielding options for each class is another opportunity for us to make each class stand out from one another. The Primalist will be able to brandish an axe or sword in his offhand, the Rogue can use either a sword or dagger in her offhand, and Sentinels and Spellblades will have access to swords in their offhand slots. Dual wielding will be enabled via a passive point investment. None of these restrict which one-handed weapons can be used in your main hand while dual wielding. This means that a Sentinel can use mace main hand + sword offhand, but not a sword main hand + mace offhand.
Vengeance
So, why are we limiting the offhand weapon type per class?
By limiting the base types different classes can dual wield, we feel we can open up a lot of options to design fun and interesting Uniques for sceptres, wands, and maces that would be otherwise impossible. These restrictions open up design opportunities catered to specific build fantasies without impacting balance on other classes. We are also able to expand what can be equipped in the future as we continue to to evolve the system.
Fury Leap
Let’s walk through how one-handed weapons and two-handed weapons are balanced to gain some context on how dual wielding fits into the picture. Most of the flat base damage for melee attacks come from your weapon(s). This makes your offensive power largely dependent on your weapons for melee hit builds. To avoid one-hander + shield being too defense oriented, more than 50% of the overall power is allocated to the weapon. This split isn’t always the same across all combinations, but let’s say that it’s roughly 60/40. Two-handed weapons require a power level roughly equivalent to one-hander + shield but more offense focused, and they are balanced as such. This would result in dual wielding being strictly better than two-handers in most situations.
Our approach to balancing this will be to offer a defensive trade-off when you invest in a dual wielding passive node. This makes it simple, clear, and enables us to design and balance this trade-off on a per-class basis. The primary intention of dual wielding is to deal more damage, and we feel limiting offensive power can often result in the choice to dual wield or not being a strictly numbers-based comparison. This is not what we want out of the system. We want you to choose between power and opening up build potentials without having to determine whether or not it is even worthwhile to equip two weapons.
Rebuke
We’re really focused on the fantasy of what dual wielding can provide in Last Epoch, and we think our approach and the choices we’re giving the player enable us to create those class fantasies.
Avalanche
As always we will be watching to see how you feel about the system and will continue to make adjustments in future patches.
does this mean no dual-wielding for acolyte? that’s a little disappointing if so, but considering that most acolyte builds are casters or summoners i guess it makes some sense. dual wielding wands or sceptres might be a little OP since a lot of spells have very high added damage effectiveness, and summoners don’t care about weapon damage at all typically.
however, my most recent character is a harvest lich and i’ve had a lot of fun with it, so it’d be a little sad if i won’t be able to explore dual wield routes with that build. oh well, reaper form uses dual scythes so i guess i can always pretend.
I’m liking what I’m reading. The balance decisions between what we have equipped (in terms of shield, offhand or 2 hander) makes a lot of sense, as I remember the heady days of Reaper of Souls release when 2handers were useless due to crit damage stacking gained from dual wielding, probably best to avoid those kinds of scenarios.
I can dig the philosophy surrounding the decision to limit weapon types for offhands and the potential interesting uniques or affixes that can come from it. I’m worried that the power gamers that spend life times on programs like Path of Building will cause a stink because of the limitation. Or maybe I’ve been reading too much reddit and being bombarded by complaints.
Maybe now my 0 dps Tempest Strike/Avalanche/Earthquake Shaman can do 1 dps with 2 axes instead of trying to make a use of Alluvion… Sigh a girl can dream.
I have a question, how the damage, ailment and status effect will calculate with dual wielding?
For example If I am using two one handed swords, each with 50 melee base damage, 100% ignite chance and 45% Armor shred chance. How these stat will apply?
I have to admit I’m kinda torn on what I read.
I honestly thought that dw would be rogue specfic, part for the identity of the class, part for enabling to build the passive tree and skill tree around this feature.
Now that it is extended (with restrictions) to all classes, I suppose that no passive/skill tree are going to be revamped to take that feature into account ? Or is it going to be the case ?
I take an example. There is a whole branch of the warpath skill tree that is exclusive to 2h. Is this skill tree going to be modified to have a full branch exclusive of dual wielding ?
I didn’t understand the paragraph about flat damage wih dw too. How the flat damage with dw is going to be calculated ? 100% of main hand + X% of off-hand ?
I’m not an english native speaker so maybe that’s why I didn’t get what the paragraph was explaining.
Bit premature to really make an opinion on it for the moment.
@Grimtok Thank GOD Dual Wielding isn’t class specific. Been wanting to Dual Wield Taste of Blood’s on a Primalist for ages. Have you seen all the amazing unique 1h weapons with crazy effects this game has? If Dual Wield was Rogue only that’d be insanely stupid. Can’t wait to get my hands on DW on every class and mess with unique weapon combo’s.
you might be right, since we don’t know much about warlock yet. its description says it’s focused on curses and hexes though so i’m not sure it’ll also have a melee focus.
Dual wielding is such a nice style. I love to play this just because of the look
The restrictions are a bit harsh imho.
I get that. So you could design these kind of weapons in a way it would make dual wielding op, I guess. But wheres the difference to swords, axes and daggers? Will they be less interesting than makes because they are created with dw in mind?
I’m curious to see these item designs. Until then I’ll be not convinced that not allowing Sentinel to dual wield maces, sceptres, axes is a popular choice
But hey, it’s the first step of implementing dual wield and this is fcking welcome anyways!
Flat damage (and all other offhand item stats) are applied just like every other stat, they apply the same in main, offhand and all other slots. If you have a rogue with 2x daggers and you swap the hands they are in, nothing changes.
One question too is how is implemented dw for all classes when all classes does not incentive your type of wepaon configuration the same way ?
For instance sentinel strongly incentive you to go 1h + shield or 2h as some skill tree are revolving around it and passives nodes have different bonuses depending on your choices.
Other classes don’t gives a damn about it. So how do you tackle this issue ?
Edit : So what is the particular strenght of dw ? In terms of flat damage I understand it is going to be 2h > dw > 1h +whatever (and maybe not sure of that cause some dw combination can get you higher flat damage than 2h).
Is the strenght of dw goign to rely on ailments by applying double stacks compared to 1h ? Considering those builds are sometimes absurdly strong with 1 weapon how is that managed with 2 ?
The overall question is, as the game is now, I clearly see the difference of strenght and mechanics between 2h and 1h. With dw I have trouble seeing it beyond doing absurdly op combos of doubling your main weapon. Maybe I’m just lacking info right now so my interrogation will maybe not relevant anymore in 2 weeks.
You can allow classes to dual wield# but there will be skills and combos that favour a specific item build.
You mentioned Warpath. Dial wielding with warpath will already be a huge boost. But the tree only buffs 2h weapons.
Other skills or mechanics buff the use of a shield.
I don’t think there are plans to make dual wield a supported build option for every skill that is in the game.
So imho the rogue fantasy of being the absolute best class for utilizing dual wield still is untouched. Because I asume there might be a lot if class specific buffs in rogue skills an passives
That will be honestly a good choice, allowing all classes for dw but makes the rogue skill and passive tree really taking it to another level of specialization/power.
DW is cool, but I always found it tricky to work out what damage actually occurs. There’s tons of stuff like that in LE tho so I suppose it’s consistent lol.
No, there’s the Iron Reach (area)/Whirling Blades (hit damage)/Unchained (channel cost) line of skill nodes that buffs Warpath without having a requirement, as does Void Spiral through to Abyssal Tempest. The only bit that does require 2-handers is the line of nodes to the bottom left.
