i’m currently loving this game. i like how “flat damage” is VERY RARE in this game, unlike for example poe where a slow ass 2handed weapon with high flat damage can be outdps’d by puny 1 hand weapons which have fast attacks but low flat damage. the problem was that you could slap in a support gem that gave the 1 handed weapon a huge flat damage increase and it would already be equal dps with the 2handed sword however if you slapped a support gem which multiplied the 2handed weapon’s speed, it still is a slow ass weapon that is slightly faster.
seeing how this desparity is not too apparent in LE, i would kindly suggest that 2 handed weapons get added damage multiplier. many ARPGs usually neglect 2 handed weapons to make calculations easy but whenever sources that add flat damage comes into play 2 handers will always miss out. to illustrate this just compare a level 1 broadsword and level 1 greatsword.
ignoring the attackspeed, rounding to 10s, the 1 hand broadsword has 10 flat damage while the great sword has 20 flat damage. 10 dps vs 20 dps respectively. if you slap in 10 flat damage from skills/items, the damage becomes 20 dps vs 30 dps. the 1hand weapon has a 100% boost while the 2 hander has only a 50% boost in damage. this isnt even factoring in attack speed where the 1 hand sword has a slightly faster attack speed. this is also without factoring in that a 1 hander could probably dual weild or gain bonuses from shields.
i myself love going off meta. i like the idea of swinging a huge ass sword while being a minion build. but the more i play the more i m inclined to go 1 handed/dual weilding.
In LE you have 3 options. !h+shield for most def -> 2 handed for a middleground -> dw for most dmg but worst def. So far 2handed weapons are in that middleground but there is no use for taking anymore if your class can DW because the downsides of DW are a joke and easiely counterable with gear and passives. Who cares taking 100 more dmg if you are able to leech 500 hp just as an example.
Yes & no. Flat damage as an affix for weapons is very common, but that affix on 2h weapons gives almost twice as much than it does for 1h weapons. Unfortunately that “almost” means that DW 2x 1h weapons will do both more hit damage as well as more DPS (due to higher attack speed, which most certainly can’t be ignored). However, this is balanced out a bit by DW making you take 12% more damage than not-DW.
As Macknum says, 2h weapons are the middle ground on the offensive/defensive scale. And as such they’re less likely to be used since you’ll either go 1h+shield or DW. IMO, more skills could use a buff to 2h weapons to make them more interesting, or something.
Here is an off the wall idea. ForgeGuard is in a pretty sad state at moment so how about having a node high (above 25 pts so only FG can get it) in FG passive tree which is “FG can equip a 2H weapon with Shield”
Yeah sure… while we at it we could give the void knight an 25 points + option to use a shield with a 2 handed weapon.
There is a balance for a reason but as long as using 2 weapons don’t hurt MUCH more 2 handed weapons are useless outside of caster needs. Taking 12% more dmg is a joke and if you think about the rogue who can cao 85% dodge the 12% more dmg taken is an even bigger joke while sentinels can get beefy enough to endure it and the primalist BM don’t cares about anything. Only every other class is a bit on the lower end.
DW is far to good for the little downside it has and that’s where all problems for 2 handed weapons come from because the dmg benefit for dw is in no relation to the little downside.
The trade-off for dual-wielding is not a “joke” IMO.
Sure you can counter that, but it does require some investment.
I don’t think that 2-Handers are in a bad spot right now. I really like bruiser type characters.
And the 2-Handed Melee Weapons (so everything except staves) have a decent gearing advantages: You can take the “less damage taken from critical strikes” suffix, which will open up 3 suffixes or 1 suffix and 1 blessing slot, because you don’t need CSA anymore.
This alone makes 2-Handed pretty tanky.
And it’s a really cool gameply theme, that a 2-H wielder can be beefier this way.
Yes the theme is cool and that’s it. Take a DW build for a class of your choice and use 2handed weapons instead of DW and look at the dmg. The dmg difference is joke compared to the 12% more dmg taken you can neglect with (almost) every class.
If you have a different oppinion on this topic okay but still the dmg difference is far greater then the downside.
I didn’t even argue that it does more dmg, it does not. That for certain.
But not having the downside of the increased damage taken plus the opportunitiy for more defensive affixes makes 2-H waaaaaaaay tankier, while the dmg is just a little bit weaker.
No idea what a little bit is in your world but for me its arround 33%-50% dmg difference ^^. If 2handed weapons did 10-20% less dmg okay but everything more then this makes 2handed weapons simply bad except for certain masteries.
@Heavy@Macknum Please don’t make me do the maths on this again.
Edit: A Deicide sword with a t5 addded damage (max roll) will do 81 damage, DW for 162 @ 1.2 attack speed. A Titan Sword with a t5 added damage (max roll) will do 141 damage @ 1.05 attack speed. So the DW is doing 14.9% more hit damage @ 14.3% more attacks per second (all other things being equal) & since those are multiplicative, it’s ~31.3% more damage for a DW compared to 2-h.
IMO, either DW damage needs to be nerfed a bit, or 2h needs the damage increased so that DW “only” do ~10-15% more dps.
Although, I think the issue here is the “value” of the trade-offs vs the damage… I agree with you, at the moment the DW option does so much more damage that the added benefits of 2h dont really stack up except for very niche instances or playstyles.
I would love to use 2h builds but right now its the middle road and just bleh… Especially with the builds that maintain tankiness but capitalise on the DW damage.
Same here, but a good rolled staff does comparable damage to a good rolled unique. I’m just saying, it’s not going to give you a massive boost compared to a good rare staff.
I know, but the adaptive spell damage is lower (80 v 100 for an Oracle Staff) which has a massive effect, compared to a slightly higher % increased (300% on the unique v 192% for a crafted) and it doesn’t have any cast speed (48% on a t5). I have tried both & the unique wasn’t a big increase.
