Crit Effects: 2 Handed vs Dual Wielding

[Karpalo]

Ah that explains it...I'm enjoying dual-wielding again with two 2-4 damage rings. Thanks bud

I recall reading from the notes that at least DH hand crossbows were buffed.

[Lucas S]

Third thing is that at least rings can roll flat damage affixes. I don't remember if other non weapon slots got flat damage modifiers, but flat damage tends to favor faster attack speeds and dualwielding.

Can you explain this please? Are the 2-4 damage vendor rings more useful for dual wield than 2H?

[HardRock]

Of course they are, since DPS is damage * APS. Let's assume two weapons:

a) 18-22 damage, 1 APS, 20 DPS
b) 8-12 damage, 2 APS, 20 DPS

If you increase your damage by 2-4 with weapon 'A', then you'll get 23 DPS, a 15% increase. With weapon 'B', that same bonus will mean 26 DPS, which is a 30% increase.

[Lucas S]

Ah thanks Hardrock. Its so simple when you put it like that lol

[beingmused]

A PPM mechanic might be in place for certain abilities, but I don't think it is for most. Take a look at the datamined DPSes of weapon types from patch 16. It has always been the case that slower weapons get a higher overall DPS, but that delta has GREATLY expanded. Either Blizzard wants every class to be using slow two-handers, or there are significant advantages to swinging faster that make up for the huge DPS disparity. Namely - procs.

[ElementEight]

I'm just hoping they'll balance it properly in the sense of "you like procs and crits? here take faster weapons or dual weild; here, you don't like them? take a big, slow weapon".

[Sooru]

Less overkill and faster reaction time are also benefits for faster weapons. Those can't be compared as easily as pure numbers but are important characteristics nevertheless.

[Youngtimer]

Less overkill and faster reaction time are also benefits for faster weapons. Those can't be compared as easily as pure numbers but are important characteristics nevertheless.

True! But i found that slow but hard-hitting 2handers work very well together with DOT skills like "Rend" which compensate some of this disadvantage.

In comparison to a mage, the Barbarian has no real penalty for overkill: Imagine a mage wasting 100 mana for a spell to killing a mob with only one hitpoint left.
The Barbarians resource system instead works on damage dealt, so placing a fat 1000-crit on a 1-hitpoint mob, will gain you fury (or lifeleech) worth the 1000 dmg.

Greetings,
Youngtimer

[ElementEight]

In comparison to a mage, the Barbarian has no real penalty for overkill: Imagine a mage wasting 100 mana for a spell to killing a mob with only one hitpoint left.

All classes now feature "free" or extremely cheap skills, such that a situation like that is never really an issue.

(or lifeleech) worth the 1000 dmg.

We'd need to test that, actually. If it's based on "true" damage dealt, such a situation won't be the case.

[galzohar]

Actually, you only generate fury when taking damage and from fury generators. Every cleave generates exactly 5 fury, regardless of damage dealt (be it 0~1 damage to an object or a lot of damage to a pack of monsters). Also, most fury generated seems to come from fury generators rather than damage taken, at least in the beta.

All classes have the same "overkill" issues, since all classes have to balance between generator/free ability usage and resource spending abilities, and all of those can overkill to some degree (some more than others).

I don't really like the overkill argument anyway, since if you're worrying about overkill you're usually winning anyway (and thus it only affects farm-mode areas, not ones you are having difficulties staying alive in). Sure you can make up a special scenario where overkill can be determinant to your survivability, but that would be a weird one (aka, one where you are swarmed by weak monsters from all directions in a very special way that makes you unable to properly AOE them all down, for example if they're all ranged). But in general overkill is probably one of the much smaller concerns.