Dual wield Warpath??? LET’S GO!
1 Like
This game is so fun, wish I would have downloaded it sooner. Can’t wait to see what else is to come on full release.
I’m not entirely sure because that part is kind of garbled up, but I think it’s saying this:
- Currently, two-handed weapons are the baseline for weapon-based design decisions.
- Currently, one-handed weapons are designed to give about 60% as much damage output as two-handed weapons, and the defensive benefits of using a shield are expected to make up the remaining 40% to reach a similar overall power level for the character.
- “This would result in dual wielding being strictly better than two-handers in most situations” means that, without any other adjustments, the current item designs would make dual wielding give about 120% (i.e. 2x60%) of the offensive power of two-handed weapons.
Note: This implies that all implicits and affixes for dual wielding weapons combines in the same way as if the “offhand” item’s stats were on a shield in the current state of the game. Animations alternating between weapons or striking with both at once is just a cosmetic detail. - Thus, in order to avoid rendering two-handed weapons obsolete, taking the passive node that unlocks dual wielding also involves sacrificing some defensive numbers. That way, there’s more of a choice to be made than just going with whatever gives the biggest numbers when choosing between dual wielding vs. two-handed weapons.
So, assuming I have all of that right, putting it all together means:
- Dual wielding = strongest damage but has some defensive penalty
- Two-handed weapon = slightly less damage than dual wielding but no defensive penalty
- Weapon + shield = about 50-60% of the damage of other options but with the benefits of a shield
Hi omegaryuji,
your answer is most appreciated!! Many thx!
In what way 2h gives you better defense than dw ?
The moment you chose to not go with shield you are on the same level. Unless you pick in the few adapted skill tree block chance with 2h weapon.
The problem I see is that now, what is the real incentive for going 2h over dw ?
Considering that you can have one full stat stick and another weapon with full flat damage. Ok you will not have the same flat damage as 2h but still, better increased damage + better attack rate, not sure you’ll lose that much.
If you want to go ailments, then dw seems to be king, at least on paper.
So I’m not sure that the gap of damage between dw and 2h will be that significant. The only advantage than 2h still have is that some skill tree are adapted to it compare to dw.
If you add the fact that (if I understood correctly) hybrid attack will be a mechanic extended to more than the rogue, that will give you bow to compete against too.
So you will most likely recieve a defensive debuff/penalty with Dual Wielding. Call it what ever you like, but there is some negative tied to going DW.
So it’s not 2H is weaker defensively, but DW is.
Ok, maybe I don’t need overthink it, the end of the wait is near, we’ll see this friday 
Edit : Crap ! I erased my post
Another quote, following my first quote
So the trade-off will most likely be slightly different on a class by class basis.
Your assumption with armor could be very true for Sentinel maybe.
But we will have to see what this will be exactly.
@Heavy covered the blog quote, but I can see why you misunderstood my post and will edit to be clear that two-handed is “no defense penalty” instead of “better defense” 
I also share your concern about losing the offhand slot’s affixes, but we’ll just have to see the actual details of the penalties for dual wielding and how it (and bows) works with other classes’ skills before any firm judgments.
Don’t forget that two-handed weapons get bigger modifiers on the affixes, compared to DWing when you’d have more flexibility in the affixes you want. Maybe you want to pick up some frailty & chill on one weapon and slow & blind on the other (which you likely wouldn’t, but never mind). Or you want to stack poison, so you manage to find 2x weapons with a t7 poison chance suffix (50-60% chance on a one-hander compared to 90-108% on a two-hander).
True.
I just checked it, effectively for increased damage prefix the difference is notable at T5 (162 vs 90 max) but for chance to proc ailments or debuff the difference is less notable (76 vs 42) and can be therefore completly absorbed by dw double affixes.
Curious to see if dw will enable dual ailments builds.
Sounds to me like this: there is no “too defensive” in the current arena meta w/o pvp where time would matter.
DW offers more flat damage, versatility in stat allocation, higher affixes and a malus to defense compared to 2h to get DW. So we will still be playing 1h+shield in arena since the damage doesn’t matter.
Am I wrong so far for arena?
For PvP, bursty builds with less def will be interesting but not as of now.
So for current arena meta with no other endgame 2h “offensive value” should be way more than the current “1h+shield+a little bit” since def and especially block are so valueable. Will change with Multiplayer & PvP ofc.
The affix effect modifiers are based on item type so it’s the same ratio for each affix. You’ll notice that both of those examples are 1.8x bigger for 2h.
1 Like
So currently the only passive advantage of dual wielding is being able to dual wield, right?
I assume you’re still experimenting how you could add more flavour to DW by adding passive bonuses.
Yes, but the main advantage of dual wielding is higher (non-spell) damage.