Ideas to make 2handers and Dual Wielding viable?

[qOcOp]

In d2 2 hand weapons and dual wielding were inferior to 1 hand and shield. How are they going to make the others more viable this time around? perhaps have certain amount of block value on shields? nerf shields or buff others?:coffee:

[Nimbostratus]

Here's why "sword & board" was more viable than 2-handers in D2:
-Higher strength requirements on most 2-handers
-Shields give a large portion of resists
-Shields can block 75% of physical attacks


Thus, here are possible solutions. The extent to which each one is done is important; if you over-nerf shields, then you have the opposite problem of nobody using those.

-Well, requirements are gone anyway. But if they were in, the requirements on two-handed weapons should basically be cut in half- yeah the weapon is bigger and heavier, but you're using both hands to hold it...
-Make resistances less important or decrease the portion of your resists you'll generally get from a shield
-Make blocking less effective, and maybe allow melee attacks to be blocked with a weapon

[Grug]

Shields have already been nerfed. Instead of a percent chance to block all damage, they have a chance to block only a certain amount of damage. One shield description said "20% chance to block 32 damage".

As for balancing the three types, fortunately dual wield is only an issue for the barb. And I'll also assume you mean swords and axes, and not Staffs and Daggers. Just skew it so that Two handers do the most straight up damage while sword and board gives the defense and modifiers from the shield. For the Barb, two weapons would mean he gets offensive enchantments from both weapons.

[Arkardo]

Here's why "sword & board" was more viable than 2-handers in D2:
-Higher strength requirements on most 2-handers
-Shields give a large portion of resists
-Shields can block 75% of physical attacks


Thus, here are possible solutions. The extent to which each one is done is important; if you over-nerf shields, then you have the opposite problem of nobody using those.

-Well, requirements are gone anyway. But if they were in, the requirements on two-handed weapons should basically be cut in half- yeah the weapon is bigger and heavier, but you're using both hands to hold it...
-Make resistances less important or decrease the portion of your resists you'll generally get from a shield
-Make blocking less effective, and maybe allow melee attacks to be blocked with a weapon

Acutally, I'm not sure whether cutting the requirements in half is right; you're not wielding a weapon with just your arms, but your entire body. Then again, your arms would probably be the weakest link.

I think Diablo 3 may have already solved this imbalance by throwing out the to hit/defense (hit/miss) system and focus on damage reduction. That IS assuming the game works with DR, not DR%.
For example, a one-hander does an attack worth of 30 damage to a creature with 10 DR. The resulting damage is 20.
Now a two-hander does 60 damage attack to the same creature and does 50 damage.
You see where I'm going? The damage ratio is now 50/20 = 2.5, far in favor of the two-hander.

Also, I think one-handers in D2 were mostly dominant because of Grief for physical damage and the ultra-fast, indestructible Phase Blades for the Fire Claw/Enchant/Dream/Dragon builds.

[Krugar]

Also, I think one-handers in D2 were mostly dominant because of Grief for physical damage and the ultra-fast, indestructible Phase Blades for the Fire Claw/Enchant/Dream/Dragon builds.

Also frenzy barbs aren't very viable builds unless coupled with warcries. Which essentially reduces the number of available builds for dual-wield to... 1 :)

[Akse]

2handers were always better than 1h in classic(for PvM) where whirlwind didn't need ias. In LOD they screwed up the skill and some 2h weapons became impossible to attain the last breakpoints.

In PvP the way that shield worked was too much. It totally negates all damage for 75% of the time.. no surprise it was powerful.

But before LOD I recall that many skilled 2h barbs were able to beat shield barbs.

[stillman]

Well, get ready to flame the hell out of me but here it goes....

I thoguht d2 was fine in terms of how powerful 2 handed weapons were compared to alternatives. You get more damage for using a 2 handed weapon. And damage is EVERYTHING. More damage means you kill faster, get exp faster, get more drops per unit time, race up the ladder faster, and so on.

So what if you lost the ability to block 75% of attacks. Just spam potions. It rains potions in Sanctuary. And resists? Well, I think torch and anni take care of that little problem, not to mention natural resists skill.

That said, 2 handed staves were obsolete because Blizzard didn't make them special or powerful enough in compared to one handed orbs and such. The only thing I would change is giving 2 handed staves some different possible mods that one handed orbs don't have.

[stephan]

With the exception of Grief (which gave two-handed damage to one-handers and allowed to ignore base weapon type), w/s on Barbs and melee Druids has never been superior over two-handed options. There is not one Barb build I'd want to play with w/s.

Also frenzy barbs aren't very viable builds unless coupled with warcries. Which essentially reduces the number of available builds for dual-wield to... 1 :)
Frenzy and DS barbs are perfectly viable.

It's very simple to fix: don't make Grief-like items.

[Brother Laz]

1h + shield have ALWAYS been better, since D1 (lol you used a staff on your sorc?) and D2 (lol you used a staff on your sorc?) to LoD (lol there are no good polearm runewords).

The solution, as I've tried in Median: nerf blocking. 10% chance to block is good enough. There is NO WAY to improve 2h weapons to compete with 75% block. That's x4 hit points. It's just too much. Even 50% or 30% is too much.

Then make the modifiers on 2h weapons actually doubly powerful (instead of +30 to strength, up from +20 on both swords and shields, just make it +40 already) and give caster characters with staves a base cast rate bonus because the whole point of using staves in fantasy fiction is that they help spellcasters channel.

These actions were (only) half successful in Median, mostly due to the damnable block chance formula that gives a huge amount of blocking from high dex alone. People actually strive to acquire 2K dex for max block instead of 2K vita, which says something about the power of max block.

Still, caster characters in Median use almost exclusively 2h staves unless they have a better 1h weapon (amazon caster: sceptres); and 2h melee is competitive for certain characters but only if there is something special about the weapon, like the AoE cleave attack on assassin 'naginata' polearms.


TLDR version:
Nerf block chance to 15% AT MOST.
Buff magical bonuses on 2h weapons.
Provide something else as well, like a cleave attack.
Base cast rate bonus to staves for mage classes.

[Krugar]

I thoguht d2 was fine in terms of how powerful 2 handed weapons were compared to alternatives. You get more damage for using a 2 handed weapon. And damage is EVERYTHING. More damage means you kill faster, get exp faster, get more drops per unit time, race up the ladder faster, and so on.

Well, this was my first perception sometime around the earlier days. The initial though would be more damage, more killing. And so I tried those builds like Berserk, only to find the hard way (because in D2 if your build fails you have to start a new one) faster is better. A frenzy barb dishes a lot more damage in one second than any one-hander.

Frenzy and DS barbs are perfectly viable.
It's very simple to fix: don't make Grief-like items.

I mentioned the fact a frenzy barb without War Cry is a dead barb more often than a living one, unless one doesn't want to do WS K. A good distribution of elemental/physical damage isn't going to help either. And I never used Grief.

Frenzy means 3x 20 point skills (Mastery+DS+Frenzy). War Cry needs at least 4 second stun effect to be useful, that's 15 points, IIRC. To that add 7 points of pre-requisites and you have a grand total of 83 points. Not much room to try anything new.

I'd love to hear of other possible choices for a frenzy barb though.

[Smash]

Why frenzy barb was not viable in d2? Because he missed too much? I always thought that was some kind of bug.

[stephan]

I mentioned the fact a frenzy barb without War Cry is a dead barb more often than a living one, unless one doesn't want to do WS K. A good distribution of elemental/physical damage isn't going to help either.
Well WSK is not a good place for a melee characters anyway, but I have never relied on stun with a Frenzy Barb.

Saying that a char is not viable because of one area is nonsense. Are Hammerdins not viable because of Kurast Temples?

[phailstatus]

In d2 2 hand weapons and dual wielding were inferior to 1 hand and shield. How are they going to make the others more viable this time around? perhaps have certain amount of block value on shields? nerf shields or buff others?:coffee:

Plenty of builds were viable with two handers. Berserk Barb comes to mind. Howl kept monsters off you while you pummeled them. Also Druids made excellent use of two handers. Dual wielding was the same story.

[Funkopotamus]

I mentioned the fact a frenzy barb without War Cry is a dead barb more often than a living one, unless one doesn't want to do WS K. A good distribution of elemental/physical damage isn't going to help either. And I never used Grief.

Frenzy means 3x 20 point skills (Mastery+DS+Frenzy). War Cry needs at least 4 second stun effect to be useful, that's 15 points, IIRC. To that add 7 points of pre-requisites and you have a grand total of 83 points. Not much room to try anything new.

I'd love to hear of other possible choices for a frenzy barb though.
That's like 30 leftover skill points. Granted, levels have slowed down a bit by the time you finish but that seems like a lot of slack to me.

[teh_Thrasher]

max block overdoes a little more dmg anyday.
and if ur a barbarian, people still use 2h swords with shield. (more range)

im very interested in how the new blocking works in d3. only blocking some dmg. like im sure there will be monsters that can do more dmg than u can block, but how does the blocked dmg go up as the monster level increases? (i know the barbarian has shield mastery but what about the other classes)

[Synchrotron]

IMO just by changing how shield block works in D3 (part of the income damage is reduced instead of beeing fully blocked) is already enought to balance the 2H weapons problem.

If this new block system isnt enought to balance them Blizzard can easily raise 2H weapons damage to solve the problem. In D2 they cant just raise 2H damage because the shield will block it in the same way, beeing 1 damage or 1kk damage.


Altought this partial damage block is good for balancing issues I still think it can be more realistic, if someone hit your shield with a sword you wont get hurt but if your enemy hit your shield with a giant maul them your arm will get hurt.

Another good idea is to add a little block chance in weapons, the game could check if in the next hit your character will block with a weapon (assuming its a melee hit) or shield. If you block with your weapon (a dodge) them you take no damage, if you block with the shield you can either dodge or take reduced damage.

PS: i'm sorry if i said something wrong in english