2 Handed weapons

seriouslynow · Post by **seriouslynow** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 2:47 am

If you use a 2-handed weapon you get a few more points of str dmg, you a slightly harder to disarm and that's about it. You lose valuable shield ac, you lose the dmg immunities on the shield, you spend more time healing because of it, and you spend more time dead because of it.
First, do the weapons here account for this by making 2handed weapons better in anyway? If so groovy, if not I liked jester's idea (wherever I read it) that shields could be less uber to close this gap. Not only that, but allow as a rule for 2handed weapons to carry an extra enchantment or dmg level not available to one handed weapons.

Spura · Post by **Spura** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 9:14 am

Heh I was thinking the same. Why would anyone use 2-hander when you lose 25% immunity 10/- resistance to a damage type. And immunities stack so with armor and shield you can get 50% immunity and 15/- vs one type, not to mention 6 AC. With 2 hander you just get a bit extra STR damage bonus.

Celorn · Post by **Celorn** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 9:21 am

you get a few other things with 2h weapons as well...if you look a bit wider

Most of my builds that use a 2h, have some monk levels involved... that helps with the AC, and as for the DR, well - A strong offense is a good defense! Chop down with enough crits fast enough and who needs AC and DR?

Spura · Post by **Spura** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 10:47 am

That's a load of crap celorn.

You can't finesse 2 hander, that means you have to have really high STR for AB and if you have low STR you really aren't getting any extra damage from it compared to one hander. So now we have high STR. But to use monk you have to lose the full plate and shield. That is 6 AC from shield and 8 from plate lost. Now try to get that much AC with dex and wis AND keep high str at the same time. You are gonna lose so much STR trying to get wis and dex up, that 50% STR damage bonus is just gonna make you break even with one hander damage-wise and you'll be inferior AB wise.

Also when going at zons who have 2 damage types at least. (like lancers=piercing dervishes=slashing), losing shield's damage immunity to one of these types is extremely nontrivial penalty. And you can only dream about cutting down zons fast enough to prevent them from doing any real damage to you.

That whole cut them down fast enough that they can't damage you is all load of bull. When fighting several mobs with several hundred HP you ain't gonna be able to do that. Also a 2 hander melee with 40 STR will get like +7 dmg on hit more than one hander and +28 dmg on x4 crits.

And for that meager damage bonus you lose lots of immunity, you have to choose between

- spreading your attributes like crazy to cover the AC loss and taking monk, thus losing STR, damage which was the only reason to go 2 hander anyway

- keeping str high and dealing with 6 AC loss from shield(better than the first option)

So what you suggested, like going monk 2 hander is actually even worse.

Celorn · Post by **Celorn** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 12:47 pm

well i have a paladin(15) monk(7) sd(2) that one does pretty well (but I stopped building her due to paladin holy sword being nerfed)

but my kickarse toon is monk(9) cleric(22) sd(1) - he wears robe, uses the ice pole mostly, and totally SWEEPS zons, including all the bosses the queen&champ, the ritualist and the priestess no problem... all without a shield and heavy armour... his AC is nearly 50 with buffs and ab is high too..

but you're out of luck with a TC toon with no monk ;P

JesterOI · Post by **JesterOI** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 1:09 pm

Technically it's 7ac that you are out now, without a shield. (Playing little person warriors sucks when all the decent shields are tower types

)
I did the math before. Dualwield and 2hander came out slightly ahead of 1handed, until the lack of a shield was taken into account. After the shield was taken into account, the 1hander was ahead.

Also most warrior builds don't have access to any meaningful improved invis or haste without cleric levels. I'm guessing that Celorn wasn't doing what he was doing without atleast those two spells.

Celorn · Post by **Celorn** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 3:18 pm

7ac lost? how so? -- If you buff wisdom to 30 you get 10 extra ac! then you have holy shield, magic vestments and cat's grace (if you have animal or war domain) to boost AC even more... and then we have tumble as well... ac is just flying up now isn't it?

Yeah.. i guess what i was trying to say is there IS a way to do it, but pretty much only 1 way to do it well, and it requires monk and cleric with trickery&travel or travel&war/animal (higher ac but no improved invis - but you could go for 18 monk and use empty body for that effect) -- none of which you can do in The Circle - but in TC you could get an almost as good build with bard/barb or druid/ranger/bard that could use a 2h and still have half decent AC. I designed a couple of ns4 bard/barb builds that turn out ok, not great, but could definately solo 'zons by the late 20's without too much problem.

The build I quoted uses cleric spells to boost strength and wisdom, plus has a base wisdom of 19 and the other points go into strength... this way it's a competitive build for PvP or PvM. I just logged it in and at level32 I get 47 AC and 45 AB ... hasted and 50% concealed, and the HiPS really helps vs. mobs, made it REALLY easy to levelup.

^-You can kinda see i'm wearing a robe here, can't see the ice pole but that's what I'm using...

Possibly taking some WM levels could let it dish out a whole lot more damage, but i went the easy route with that one.

JesterOI · Post by **JesterOI** » Thu Mar 16, 2006 3:26 pm

JesterOI wrote:... most warrior builds don't have access to any meaningful improved invis or haste without cleric levels. I'm guessing that Celorn wasn't doing what he was doing without atleast those two spells.

The Slave shield is a +4 towershield, don't equip it and you have 7ac less than if you had it equipped.

Try zons without improved invis, haste, hips, and a shield. Then try it same way but with a Slave shield. I'll bet you don't have nearly as easy a time without the shield, most likely to the point that it isn't feasible to fight because it becomes too expensive on the healing front.

CrazyJ · Post by **CrazyJ** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 11:42 pm

I agree, it makes sense.

Bioware even took this approach in Throne of Bhaal--the only +6 weapons are two-handed. Everything else was capped at +5.

MasterYoda · Post by **MasterYoda** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 1:03 pm

Really celoron is right but at the same time unless your going cleric monk whatever ..... your pretty much out of luck...

I had a level 32 7WM/24cleric/1monk and he did rediculess damage ..... and on top of that he was able to fend off most mages with quickened dismisals

seriouslynow · Post by **seriouslynow** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 8:12 pm

I guess this topic should have included monk gloves as well, altho I'm sure it's been brought up before. It seems when you have to give up the bonuses of bracers for monk gloves the gloves never seem to make up for the difference.

JesterOI · Post by **JesterOI** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 8:15 pm

The damage or ab bonus on gloves doens't stack when using a wepaon as far as I know.
Would it be so hard to add +4ab and +2d10 sonic dmg to the MA tailored gloves?

Most monks get their ab from dex anyway so the +6 str on the glvoes would only add to the dmg and not the ab...

JesterOI · Post by **JesterOI** » Sun Mar 19, 2006 10:35 pm

Just had a thought that makes sense to me:
Take into account weapon sizes.
However many sizes smaller your weapon is compared to the target's you get an ab penalty.
However many sizes larger your weapon is compared to the target's you get an ab bonus.

Large vs Medium, the large gets +1ab and the medium get -1ab
Medium vs Tiny, the medium gets +2ab and the tiny gets -2ab
Large vs Small, large gets +2ab and the small gets -2ab
etc.

The easiest way to make 2 handed weapons justifiable would be to take the current system of bonus damage on weapons and increase it by 50%.
Only for the physical bonus damage, not the elemental.

1handed:
1 - 1d4
5 - 1d6
9 - 1d8
13 - 1d10
16 - 2d6
20 - 2d8
25 - 2d10

2handed:
1 - 1d6
5 - 1d10
9 - 2d6
13 - 2d8
16 - 3d6
20 - 3d8
25 - 3d10

Death Dealer1 · Post by **Death Dealer1** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 2:06 am

toolset damages don't go into 3's....you would have to likely get into d12's or set damage amount like +15-20

JesterOI · Post by **JesterOI** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 2:16 am

2d6slash + 1d6 pierce = 3d6 damage

Death Dealer1 = P W N D !!! (i gots ta put da spaces in cuz dey gots a scrip dat changez it!)

Another thing to add, do the 50% thing for massive crits as well, or as can be best done. It'll probably max out real quick.