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.
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Always good for a little math to give the facts…
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.
Yeah, it doesn’t have a “compelling USP”, to dig out some vomit-worthy corporate speak…
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Could say the same for most Uniques too.,… 
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Although… this just dropped for me…
Looks good for your VK caster…
Yeah, got one. Though it seems to do very similar damage to a crafted staff.
Yeah, but for my void caster i literally get +1 to every single skill i am using(all 5, literally), which is insane.
Have not used it yet, but looking forward to use it
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.
Lol… the +1 to Void Spells works on converted Skills too… Sigils of Hope & Smite when you do the appropriate conversion in passive or node.
This is definitely worth a look in my opinion…
I didnt get a great implicit roll tho… 
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.
it does have cast speed, not as much and only for void spells, but it does 
Yeah, I missed that one. But my point still stands.
Since they added that new stat to increase skill levels, maybe 2H can give +2 instead of +1 or something.
The new “+X to skill Y” stat is only available on class-süecific gear (helmet, body armour and relic)
Some uniques have more generic “+X to Y type of skills” though.
So balancing around weapon types is not a thing here.
This is definitely something we’re keeping a close eye on. Dual wielding has only been in the game since December and the dust has only recently started to settle on the state of its balance compared to 2h weapons. It certainly looks like 2h weapons are underpowered at the moment and you can expect buffs for them in future patches.
One thing to keep in mind is that we’re still in the process of redoing our item base types, with shields, sceptres, and relics being overhauled this patch. With each of these base type reworks we plan to introduce multiple viable base types for end game and often these base type are more powerful than their equivalents pre-rework, especially for builds that can take advantage of their new secondary/niche stats. This sort of rework hasn’t happened yet for any two handed weapon types and when it does they will inevitably increase in power.
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While changes to the bases would help, I think the numbers on the prefixes needs a look into as well, a 2h prefix is less than 2x the number of the same tier prefix on a 1h, therefore dual wielding will always do more. And since 1h are faster than 2h, they’ll do more, faster.
IMO, if they were to keep their existing numerical values, 2h would need some new afixes (such as the “less damage from crits”, if that went higher than 50% in t6/7 affixes, that one affix would free up some other suffixes &/or a blessing slot) &/or new implicits that make them different to 1h. If you have an X axis with damage (DW) on one end and tankiness (1h + shield) on the other end, 2h need something on the Y axis to make them stand out, otherwise people will skip over them to get to the more effective ends of the axes.
This does sound sooo interesting.
Having multiple endgame viable base items in each category gives so much more choices and build diverstiry, while also probably gives you guys at EHG more levers for balancing and tuning.
Looking forward to it!
Thanks for the clarification