% weapon damage skills discourage dual wielding

[thebrightarmy]

I apologize in advance if this thread exists in another form somewhere, I searched and couldn't find anything.

Here are my two concerns -

So many skills base their damage off of "% weapon damage" - and not just skills that use weapons.

-Wizard's spectral blade
-Monk's lashing tail kick
-and even (this is the one that got me worried) WD's swarm of locusts.

1. These are all a little weird, like, why would my swarm of locusts care what type of weapon I'm carrying? Does this bother anyone else?

2. From what I've read, the % weapon damage stat just looks at your weapon's base damage - it doesn't factor in DPS, elemental affixes, dual wielding, or anything like that.

So any character using a % weapon damage skill is encouraged to use a big 2-handed weapon - even casters and classes that want to focus on attack speed (like a crit-based melee monk who wants to use dual weapons to get in more attacks).

Maybe that's ok, and casters and dual wielders can just forego the % weapon damage skills and use skills that scale damage based on level... but it does seem like there are LOT of these % weapon damage skills. Maybe too many to just forego them.

I wonder if there's anything in the works to address this. I hope so.

I will admit though, I kind of want to build a witch doctor that uses a huge 2-handed bow with plague of locusts now...

[Ohgodagain]

Blizzard has said many times that their goal was that if you took two one handed weapons and one big two handed weapon their overall dps output, assuming their of the same quality, will be similar.

It's a style preference.

[konfeta]

That doesn't mean they succeeded yet on making good on that goal. IIRC, Demon Hunters have a strong disparity between the two styles.

[Ohgodagain]

That doesn't mean they succeeded yet on making good on that goal. IIRC, Demon Hunters have a strong disparity between the two styles.

Mmmm, hard to say after the DH changes. With hatred generating skills it looks like there is enough hatred to go around to spam with duelies to keep up with the big two handed bow.

[vileguy]

This is how it works:
2handers are slower.
Dual wield gives 10% bonus attack speed.
1handers are faster.

Dual wield should be 10% more attacks than single target and will *hopefully* equal out to 2hand. 100% balance is not guaranteed, this is not an issue.

[Azzure]

This subject is very complicated because of the way Blizzard are choosing to handle dual wielding.

Basically, the stats on the "off-hand" item (whether its a shield or other non-weapon) need to be balanced against the 10% faster attack speed you gain. So in the case of the 1h + shield vs dual wield, the defense advantage and stats provided by the shield need to be balanced vs the 10% attack speed gain + the weapon stats.

But in the case of 2h vs dual wield, it's balanced on the difference in DPS from a 1h weapon to a 2h weapon. So that means the extra stats on the offhand item + 10% attack speed vs the increase in DPS from a 2h weapon as opposed to a 1h.

[Spens]

Faster weapons generate resources faster, which allows you to use your resources spenders more frequently.
For example two weapons

Weapon 1
50 damage
2 attacks per second
100 damage per second


Weapon 2
100 damage
1 attack per second
100 damage per second

Using Weapon 1, Barbarian's Bash will generate 12 Fury a second. This means he can generate 20 Fury for Hammer of the Ancients once every 1.67 seconds. Hammer of the Ancients does [50 Damage]*[180%] = 90 Damage. 90 Damage every 1.67 seconds is 53.9 DPS for Hammer of the Ancients.


Using Weapon 2, Barbarian's Bash will generate 6 Fury a second. This means he can generate 20 Fury for Hammer of the Ancients once every 3.33 seconds. Hammer of the Ancients does [100 Damage]*[180%] = 180 Damage. 180 Damage every 3.33 seconds is 53.9 DPS for Hammer of the Ancients.

[Moonfrost]

Faster weapons generate resources faster, which allows you to use your resources spenders more frequently.

That doesn't mean higher or even the same amount of damage, mind you. Fury is also generated from damage taken in addition to damage dealt, which works to the 2h barbarian's advantage even if you take the dual-wielding attack speed bonus into account. To expand upon your math with that in mind (assuming an extra 6 rage per second from damage influx):

Using Weapon 1, you generate 18 fury a second (12 + 6). It takes 1.11 sec to generate 20 fury, which does 90 damage. 90 damage every 1.11 seconds equals 81 DPS (93 DPS with 15% AS).

Using Weapon 2, you generate 12 fury a second (6 + 6). It takes 1.67 sec to generate 20 fury, which does 180 damage. 180 damage every 1.67 seconds equals 108 DPS.

Naturally, this is all just an example as we don't know the actual fury generation rates, but the gist of my post is that the higher the barbarian's passive fury generation (damage influx, passives, skills/runes), the more the dual-wielding barbarian will fall behind in terms of sheer DPS. Having more reliable access to utility skills might make up for it, though.

[Spens]

That doesn't mean higher or even the same amount of damage, mind you. Fury is also generated from damage taken in addition to damage dealt, which works to the 2h barbarian's advantage even if you take the dual-wielding attack speed bonus into account. To expand upon your math with that in mind (assuming an extra 6 rage per second from damage influx):

Using Weapon 1, you generate 18 fury a second (12 + 6). It takes 1.11 sec to generate 20 fury, which does 90 damage. 90 damage every 1.11 seconds equals 81 DPS (93 DPS with 15% AS).

Using Weapon 2, you generate 12 fury a second (6 + 6). It takes 1.67 sec to generate 20 fury, which does 180 damage. 180 damage every 1.67 seconds equals 108 DPS.

Naturally, this is all just an example as we don't know the actual fury generation rates, but the gist of my post is that the higher the barbarian's passive fury generation (damage influx, passives, skills/runes), the more the dual-wielding barbarian will fall behind in terms of sheer DPS. Having more reliable access to utility skills might make up for it, though.

Valid points. The comparison is not straight forward, as there are many skills, runes and other factors that may favor one style over another.

[Strill]

This subject is very complicated because of the way Blizzard are choosing to handle dual wielding.

Basically, the stats on the "off-hand" item (whether its a shield or other non-weapon) need to be balanced against the 10% faster attack speed you gain. So in the case of the 1h + shield vs dual wield, the defense advantage and stats provided by the shield need to be balanced vs the 10% attack speed gain + the weapon stats.

But in the case of 2h vs dual wield, it's balanced on the difference in DPS from a 1h weapon to a 2h weapon. So that means the extra stats on the offhand item + 10% attack speed vs the increase in DPS from a 2h weapon as opposed to a 1h.

It's +15% Attack Speed for dual wielding. And fyi, high-end quivers give +12~13% attack speed anyway so it doesn't make much difference. In order to keep both options balanced, +damage, which favors 1h weapons, needs to be as common as +APS, which favors 2h weapons. From the database we have at the moment, it doesn't look like that's the case. I looked over the Demon Hunter gear and compared the DPS difference between Dual Wielding and 2h weapons with the most +APS bonuses I could find and no +damage bonuses. 2h did about 55% more DPS than dual wielding. So if they really want them to be balanced, they'd better come out with plenty of flat +damage bonuses to compete with those +APS bonuses.

This is my summary:

1h Weapons:
PRO:

• Flat +damage favors 1h weapons.
• Less Overkill
• Dual Wielding gives +15% Attack Speed
• Higher attack speed means more utility skills, unlike higher damage.

CON:

• Attack speed improves Active resource regen, but not passive resource regen.
• Attack speed does not change skill cooldowns, which means high cooldown attacks will contribute less DPS.
• Flat +damage bonuses are rare
• Dual Wielding a bad weapon lowers your dps

2h Weapons:
PRO:

• +APS bonuses favor 2h weapons.
• +APS bonuses are common.
• Legendary Offhand Quivers give +12~13% Attack Speed
• High damage improves the damage you get from both active and passive resource regen, unlike high attack speed.
• Only need to get one weapon with perfect stats
• Higher Base DPS.

CON:

• More Overkill
• Less attack speed means fewer utility skills

*Passive resource regen is resources you get over time. Active resource regen is resources you get from using skills.


An interesting tidbit is that even if they were both balanced to have the same overall DPS, Dual Wielding would still deal less damage since high attack speed doesn't improve passive resource regen, while the extra damage on 2h weapons does improve the damage of attacks gained from passive regen. Similarly, Dual Wielding doesn't change skill cooldowns, so high cooldown attacks are still about twice as good with a 2h weapon than with dual wielding.

In Dual Wielding's favor, however, is the fact that the extra resources from high attack speed can get you additional utility skills, and other skills not based on weapon damage.

With their stance that things should just be "close enough", and accepting that theorycrafters will always find ways to min-max, I'm honestly worried that Blizzard really isn't thinking things through. They want dual wielding and 2h weapons to be an aesthetic choice, but I've already established here that even if they were both balanced with the same final DPS, dual wielding would still have a large advantage for utility, and 2h would have a large advantage for damage. That directly contradicts Blizzard's statements on the matter.