Dual Wield Question

[old.Wildfire]

Just out of curiosity, as I've only just started my merc, is there any point with any dual wield character (read: merc, infil, zerker e.t.c.) going for any but the fastest of weapons? as long as the dps is as high as any larger weapon, it seems this is the best route to take as your left hand weapon speed is always going to be limited by the speed of the right hand. Personally I'm sticking to short swords so far, as they're the fastest. Any thoughts?

 

[Flimgoblin]

daggers are faster than short swords

it's all down to whether you want that bigger first hit or not...

weapon speed isn't just your right hand speed - I think it picks one at random and uses that...

I prefer same speed weapons though, as the staggered hits are harder to anticipate for reactive styles etc..

and I use hand axes because they look cool will upgrade to jambiya's at 50 as hand axes only go up to 15.3

 

[old.Wildfire]

I thought daggers were thrust... oh well

 

[speshneeds]

Dont think its random, its an average of the 2 in 1.50 afaik

 

[cjkace]

Zerkers = average of the 2.
Merc and BM = slowest weapon (supposedly)

I've not seen this myself. I've used just about every combination of blades ffrom 2.2spd LH with 4spd RH and noticed that my LH blade still swung out of turn. The problem with fast weapons is not just their speed but their weight also. A slower and heavier weapon will do more front load damage, but swing less whereas light fast blades swing fast, do smaller damage but make up for it in the long run.

This is where it all falls down however as who hits hardest in RvR will win quite often, and battles are just way too short, but its very much a hit and miss affair quite literally.

 

[belth]

Ok, let's go thru how LA & DW/CD work

DW/CD:

- Base chance to swing both weapons is 25% - this is a lvl0 character with 0 in DW/CD. You get +0.5% chance to swing them both for each point you put in DW/CD. Character levels add 0.25% each. So, at level 50 with 50 DW, you get 25+(50*0.5)+(50*0.25)=62.5% chance to swing both weapons at once.
- When you do styles, only your main-hand weapons speed matters and it's always forced to swing, unlike off-hand. Without styles, one of 3 happens - both swing, main-hand swings, off-hand swings. Regardless of which/both weapon(s) swung, the speed is taken from either one, so with 3.0 spd main and 2.5 spd off, you might swing your mainweapon at 2.5 spd and get the 3.0 spd damage.
- Offhand always does "100%" damage (eg. doesn't increase by speccing DW/CD), styles don't affect to-hit chances nor are style boni given to it.
- DW/CD styles are crap.

LA:

- Always swings both weapons. Base damage for both weapons is 60% at level5 apparently, with 1 in LA. Each point in LA adds 0.5% damage - not sure if it applies to both weapons or split between each, never seen it mentioned. Character level doesn't add anything for LAers.
- Swinging speed is the average of both main-hand and off-hand - with a 4.2 spd double-bladed axe and a 2.4 spd hand-axe, you swing at 3.3 spd, while your main-hand does the damage of a 4.2 spd weapon and off-hand 2.4 spd damage (insignificant )
- If you want to use LA, you must spec in it, otherwise your damage will suck, royally. 34 or 39 is a common stopping in a 5-spec or soulblade templates for shadowblades, it gives the most important styles and a good damage. Below that, forget LA.
- Off-hand weapon isn't affected by to-hit bonuses or style boni.
- LA styles rock.

Conclusion - If not speccing in 2 weapon skills, DW/CD is much better in the end-game. But if you do, LA wins the day.

Disclaimer: These are the commonly accepted formulae & conclusions thru the Mercenary/Blademaster/Berserker and Infiltrator/Nightshade/Shadowblade communities.

 

[Flimgoblin]

If you don't spec left axe, you'll do half damage with each weapon...

this means you hit for effectively one weapon's worth of damage..

if you don't spec in DW you'll never hit with the second weapon

(ok so it's actually a base 15% or 25% bonus/chance so not quite that )

However left axe halves the style bonus too... so using base axe styles whilst left axing is a bad idea...

Left Axe styles, however, are very nice doublefrost is the most commonly mentioned one - very much like amethyst slash, but better... (was much better... it's probably only a leetle bit better after nerfage)

Dual Wield/Celtic Dual styles ain't great as the man says:
the positionals/reactives are nice, but not much different from the baseline slash/crush/thrust reactive styles...

and there's no decent 'anytime' styles so you're forced to use the baseline ones... and if yer not using slash you might as well forget it
(I've no idea about the baseline hib ones)

 

[Killgorde]

I don't pretend to know the first thing about LA etc, but one thing puzzles me...LA peeps that train in sword rather than axe for rh weapon. I would have assumed that wielding say 2 +5 axe skill weapons (by training axe rather than sword as primary skill) would give you double the benefit to your axeskill (+10) with every stroke you hack, rather than dilute that by using say a +5 sword for RH. If I have this all wrong please excuse my ignorance.

 

[razorboy]

Best way to go is doing fast weapons as infil, as you are able to get an evade style multiple times off of 1 evade. As merc best way is an average spd weapon. You'll do good damage and you'll be able to get special styles off better than with slow weapons.

 

[belth]

Originally posted by Killgorde
I don't pretend to know the first thing about LA etc, but one thing puzzles me...LA peeps that train in sword rather than axe for rh weapon. I would have assumed that wielding say 2 +5 axe skill weapons (by training axe rather than sword as primary skill) would give you double the benefit to your axeskill (+10) with every stroke you hack, rather than dilute that by using say a +5 sword for RH. If I have this all wrong please excuse my ignorance.

I read on VNBoards that zerks weapskill is taken from their LA spec when they use LA, but for SBs it's from their right-hand weapon. Beats me if LA affects zerk weapskill, but for my SB, training LA didn't increase weapskill, whereas training Axe did.
Maybe someone with a zerk in training could check?

 

[speshneeds]

I trained my zerk initially in LA/parry and didnt raise hammer until i was over lvl20, when i did start raising it it made no diff at all to damage outputs on LA style. +hammer items make no diff either. I trained hammer to 39 in the end for the post parry long dur bleed that comes with Lambast. Final spec is 50LA, 39 Hammer and 42 Parry.

Just waiting for them to fix parry in rvr now


Will prolly respec to axe/LA in 1.52 as the hammer bonus is going to be alot lower i hear.

 

[belth]

Originally posted by speshneeds
I trained my zerk initially in LA/parry and didnt raise hammer until i was over lvl20, when i did start raising it it made no diff at all to damage outputs on LA style. +hammer items make no diff either. I trained hammer to 39 in the end for the post parry long dur bleed that comes with Lambast. Final spec is 50LA, 39 Hammer and 42 Parry.

Just waiting for them to fix parry in rvr now


Will prolly respec to axe/LA in 1.52 as the hammer bonus is going to be alot lower i hear.

Thanks for the clarification Weird that mainhand spec doesn't matter for zerks, you can apparently switch around axes/hammers/swords at will and still do same damage (resists aside).

HammerZerk will lose the bonus against hibbie tanks, tincans still have crush-vulnerability. Left-axe still does slashing damage which scale-users will be vulnerable against, so hammers are still a good choice