I see an important problem with the dual wielding passives, this is that you trade the ability to dual-wield with +15% Damage taken. This trade makes dual-wield builds much less viable at endgame.
Let me explain the problem:
On surface, dual-wielding is great to deal more damage, attack faster, etc, but compared to two-handed is not that huge of a difference, as the affix magnitudes and flat values on two-handed weapons are near double the one-handed ones already, but you have less flexibility as you only have 4 different affixes with two-handed weapons. Compared to one-handed + shield, is obvious: shield offers an additional layer of defense, and more affix flexibility (instead of all offensive/status ones).
On endgame, most of your focus goes into having more survivability, as the current endgame works, this is mostly a tanking game, damage is rarely an issue and most of your gearing efforts end up going to defenses and health, your greatest fear in high corruption and T4 bosses is usually being one-shotted, being overwhelmed with damage comes second. Having less global effective health no matter the damage is huge, and makes dual-wield builds not able to access comfortable corruption levels any other builds can, for a little offensive advantage,.
Possible solutions, Instead of +15% Damage taken (while dual wielding)
+15% Melee Damage taken while dual wielding: Takes out DoTs, ranged spells and projectiles out of the equation, my preferred solution. The melee damage will not one-shot you so often.
+15% Physical Damage taken while dual wielding: To me, also makes a lot of sense why you take more damage from spells or poison, just because you are holding two weapons?
-15% Physical resistance while dual wielding: Maybe this on is a bit cheesy as you can overcome the problem completely with just more resists.
Firs thing that comes to mmy mind is my Spin to win senti with so much leech just because of dw. If that toon isn’t oneshot nothing kills him. From my point of view DW is still to strong for the downside it comes with.
And… that’s my main issue, in my experience, what keeps you out of higher corruption is rarely is about being overwhelmed by damage, but the extreme damage from many mobs and bosses (and some spires) that can one-shot you from 100% health. With half-decent builds I usually encounter this problem at 200-250++ corruption, so is more of an endgame thing.
Don’t get me wrong, I think enemy damage as a whole is in a really good state, keeps you awake actively avoiding arrow barrages and big damage telegraphed skills while you travel through echoes.
15% more damage taken globally means about 25% less corruption you can climb and still progress comfortably, only because of that.
Haven’t pushed it further then 300+ corruption. Then again it’s a VK and the class is known for not beeing that greate with shields. From your logic every class with less and aless defesive potential in the skilltree can deal with less % corruption and everyone should play a paladin or something like that ?
The dmg gain of DW is insane so the downside should be insane from my point of view.
Then again, that also is part of my complaint: Dual-wield is just slightly better damage-wise than wielding a two-handed weapon, as these have much bigger affixes and base damage, slightly below double of one-handed ones (like 80% more). As a rough estimate you gain about 10 to 20% DPS with dual wield vs two-handed, as there are sources that add additively to damage outside weapons, usually from passives/skills.
Again, compared to shield, shields provide defensive value and the same affix flexibility that two weapons provide, with more defensive possibilities.
The game on high endgame is so much tilted towards defenses instead of offense, maybe is how the monos/corruption system is working now, more than anything.
While the part about defenses is right I haven’t seen a shield with flat dmg but I haven’t looked for one. Shields offer def that’s what they are there for but and additional worthwhile weapon for dw is far more dmg then S&B.
Ninakoru didn’t say that you could get shields with flat damage on them, he just said that they provide similar affix flexibility (ie, 4 affix slots in the offhand) that DW provides though obviously with a more defensive bent.
That said, since the devs are changing the Catapult’s affix to provide flat throwing damage, you will be able to get flat damage on a shield!
In my book similar affix flexibility is the option to use the same affixes in the slot. He said DW makes only a little more dmg then S&B and that’s simply wrong from my experience because, shields don’t offer flat damage for example not to speak from other affixes.
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