Does Dual Wielding 1 Strength and 1 Dexterity Sword Equal better damage?

[Schot 407]

I'm probably waaaaay behind on dual wielding strategies but the thought just occurred to me now that when Dual Wielding it might be best to use weapons of differing attribute associations in order to get better damage. This way a Dual Wielder would benefit from the damage bonus of each attribute. Does anyone do this and is it really worth it?

[essjayehm 58]

I'm probably waaaaay behind on dual wielding strategies but the thought just occurred to me now that when Dual Wielding it might be best to use weapons of differing attribute associations in order to get better damage. This way a Dual Wielder would benefit from the damage bonus of each attribute. Does anyone do this and is it really worth it?

 

Interesting. I would've thought that it would be best damage using two weapons that have the higher damage bonus from attributes (ie if intelligence is higher, use 2 staffs; dex = ranged and daggers, etc).

 

But what if both attribute stats are comparable? Hrm. Would definitely take some dedicated testing. I think the point you are stabbing at is does the base damage stack if you are using one sword and one dagger?

 

My first characters had 2 weapon lores to take advantage of the modifiers that require the lores to unlock. That was my main reason for dual-weilding one club and one staff with my first Inquisitor. Wasn't paying too much attention to damage details back then, tho

 

I don't have any d-w's that are playable atm, so I can't test this

[Schot 407]

Ah, you got it exactly essjayehm. I should be asking if those bonuses will stack first. I was assuming when I made the topic now I'm hoping that there's even a chance, haha. I do have a Dual Wielding Shadow Warrior so I'll give this a try when next I'm in game.

 

I was reading a topic about different swords having different attribute assotiations and it got me thinking why in the world would Ascaron do that. Then this topic idea cam to mind.

[claudius 104]

You might get the bonus of strength on one sword and the bonus of dex on dagger hits? Or maybe with 2 str swords you get double the bonus of strength? I don't know.

[gogoblender 3,073]

This is good question. Remember though schot taht only one wep at a time is actually hitting...I forget which hand it is right or left... so, you'd get only the striking benefits of that one sword, but you'd get ALL the added up benefits of their mods on your toon all the time.

 

So... if you had half points in dex, half in str...and had your str sword in yer hitting hand, I am thinking your str sword in your hitting hand would tap into the str added into your attributes for the bonus damage... but I'm pretty sure that the dex damage hit value would not be added.

 

 

gogo

[chattius 2,537]

Hmmm, ask one with an old patch who plays a dryad with dual wield to equip a staff in left hand and sword in the right to report damage with and without acute mind. Then do staff in right and sword in left and repeat the test. If the bonus applies then acute mind should boost up sword damage noticable this way, or?

[essjayehm 58]

Hmmm, ask one with an old patch who plays a dryad with dual wield to equip a staff in left hand and sword in the right to report damage with and without acute mind. Then do staff in right and sword in left and repeat the test. If the bonus applies then acute mind should boost up sword damage noticable this way, or?

 

 

I will try this for the "console" answer! Was thinking what would be the best / easiest way to test this. Thank you for that, Chattius!

 

Ok... quickly loaded an old dual-weilder (shadow warrior) at low level. Started testing and realized I will need weapons with comparable base damages! OOPS. I don't really want to shop for that, so the test will have to wait for now.

 

Sorry ;(

Edited February 11, 2010 by essjayehm

[Phredius 0]

I'm probably waaaaay behind on dual wielding strategies but the thought just occurred to me now that when Dual Wielding it might be best to use weapons of differing attribute associations in order to get better damage. This way a Dual Wielder would benefit from the damage bonus of each attribute. Does anyone do this and is it really worth it?

 

According to the weapon damage reported from the stats panel, it seems dex is considerably less beneficial than str to boost your damage overall. If I equip a str weapon and a dex weapon on my dw chars the weapon damage is split so both are being boosted, but because dex also adds def the dmg boost from dex is a lot less. I noticed my seraphim was getting a larger boost to her dex as she leveled than her str so I tried a dex dw seraphim using short swords and daggers mainly but her damage was considerably less than my dw Shadow Warrior. At the same level with approximately 400 str vs 400 dex on the seraphim the Shadow Warrior would hit for around 3k while the seraphim would hit for closer to 2k.

 

So, overall, I don't see what it would gain you to use 2 different weapons. According to the tooltips, using 2 strength based weapons doubles the weapon dmg bonus from str, and as I say, dex is less of a dmg bonus so it wouldn't work out.

 

I was also disappointed with how few weapons were dex based as well. The rule of thumb was 3 slot weapons were supposedly dex and 4 were str but there are so many exceptions (excalibran and blood dryad's to name a couple) that dex weapons really limits a character, imo.

[colif 36]

How few weapons or just swords?; try Polearms, half of them are dex based. Or most of the ranged weapons I expect.

 

Anyone ever notice dex based swords sound different to strength based ones when they hit? I have Zepetl's and Kuan's Pride as a pair and they sound like they slap rather than cut.

 

My seraphim only has 6 attribute points more in dext than strength so I figure it wouldn't hurt to mix them up. Its nice to be able to use my full selection of swords.

 

Depending on what Combat Art you used, the Shadow Warrior Combat Arts seem to offer more melee attacks than the seraphim, whereas she has more magic.

 

Its strange, I was sure one of Khandars or Ysandrifa's was dex based, I normally don't match them together but I like ll too much to ignore them.

Edited March 9, 2010 by colif

[Spunky 16]

Haha, I have noticed the slapping sound Zepetl & Kuan's make, does this go by every Dex based swords?

[essjayehm 58]

Ok, so I started a new toon to test this out. Forgot my numbers at home but I have concluded that for dual-weilding, regular attacks WILL ADD the attribute bonuses (to hit and damage) to each weapon individually. That is to say, you get 2 "attacks" for each left-click (pressing the button your weapon is slotted to on console). Each attack calculates seperately, using the appropriate attribute if different weaps are being used.

I remember reading somewhere that both hits are dependent on the main-hand, and that is true for Combat Art's (see below), but I've seen main hand miss/second hand connect with regular attacks.

Damage converters slotted in weapons - only right-hand weapon is used... but initial test is inconclusive. It's hard to tell because with limited testing as I'm not inflicting the DoT's very often (of the poison/fire that I was testing with). The overview only ever shows the main-hand damage conversion...

 

Combat arts use only the attrubute bonuses of the weapon in your right hand for determining CtH, damage.

 

At low levels, you get more damage using regular attacks when dual weilding, and I am still working on when the Combat Art damage surpasses the damage from the off-hand weapon. All mods on the off-hand weapon apply normally to Combat Art attacks (I was testing life leech, attribute increases, RpH)

 

Again, limited testing, on console.

[Phredius 0]

Damage converters slotted in weapons - only right-hand weapon is used... but initial test is inconclusive. It's hard to tell because with limited testing as I'm not inflicting the DoT's very often (of the poison/fire that I was testing with). The overview only ever shows the main-hand damage conversion...

 

I thought I'd read elsewhere on this site that the devs had said the effects do stack and that it was a graphics issue why only one displayed. I may have misunderstood though. One way to test would be to outfit one weapon with a very low level poison or fire dmg mod and the other with a high level of the opposite dot type. then the dmg numbers would give a clue whether both were working or not.

 

 

 

How few weapons or just swords?; try Polearms, half of them are dex based. Or most of the ranged weapons I expect.

 

Mostly swords as I haven't found any hafted weapons that seem to be dex based. A polearm isn't a lot of use to a dw seraphim is it? In general it seems the base damage is lower on the dex based swords as well for comparable levels.

Edited March 10, 2010 by Phredius

[colif 36]

Mostly swords as I haven't found any hafted weapons that seem to be dex based. A polearm isn't a lot of use to a dw seraphim is it? In general it seems the base damage is lower on the dex based swords as well for comparable levels.

 

I have noticed that also, main reason I don't have many. After levelling up 3 Shadow Warrior's over level 100, and saving all the unique swords I have found, I generally have enough Str swords to not need to use Dex swords. seraphim was my 1st chance to use both. Currently level 81, only need 7 more lvls before I can use a Serpents Tongue and I won't be looking at dex swords again for a while after that. It is a shame you can't dw poles but they never made 1 handed ones (and poles now are about as fast as dw anyway).

[essjayehm 58]

So, the dual-wield test I did with my lowlevel Shadow Warrior:

 

Attributes: STR: +41 damage bonus DEX: +31 damage INT: +31 damage

 

I thought about socketing in INT or DEX ring to change them, but that was moot point for this test.

 

Weapons:

Sword: 41-51 dmg (STR bonus)

Saber: 39-48 dmg (STR bonus)

Mage Staff: 41-48 dmg (INT bonus)

Shortsword: 41-49 dmg (DEX bonus)

 

Combinations and results (main-hand listed first):

__________________Reg. Dmg_________Demonic Blow______Spectral Hand

Saber and Sword:____280-348__________no test______________150-185

Sword and Saber:____280-348__________231-289_____________157-197

Mage Staff and Sword:267-317__________216-253_____________147-172

Shortsword and Sword:270-329_________215-257______________146-175

 

Bonus section: I quickly checked my level 35 Shadow Warrior:

 

Khandar's Slicer (52-72 dmg)

Orc Shock (47-64 dmg)

 

Regular damage is now 433-596,

with DB = 331-451 and SH = 201-274 with the Orc Shock and

with DB = 348-487 and SH = 213-298 with the Slicer.

 

Of note is that I haven't been trying to keep Combat Art's at penalty level, just paying attention to regen time with this guy.

But I can see it's going to take some attention now that the Combat Art damage is starting to catch the regular attack damage.

[colif 36]

unlike a seraphim, Shadow Warriors can't last long just using left click. seraphim can use battle stance and go all through game left clicking as battle stance adds so much damage.

If you plan on using spectral hand, use hafted, since it gets its damage off the melee weapons. The better Combat Art to test on swords would have been FR since not many people use DB with DW swords. DB is 1 swing and if it misses, you wait.. fr is 3 swings and less chance of all of them missing.

[essjayehm 58]

unlike a seraphim, Shadow Warriors can't last long just using left click. seraphim can use battle stance and go all through game left clicking as battle stance adds so much damage.

If you plan on using spectral hand, use hafted, since it gets its damage off the melee weapons. The better Combat Art to test on swords would have been FR since not many people use DB with DW swords. DB is 1 swing and if it misses, you wait.. fr is 3 swings and less chance of all of them missing.

 

Actually, the practical side has shown me that my thoughts about the Combat Art damage being less that left-click is wrong. Theory and testing can be so confusing with this game!

Although the Overview showed damage was higher with a regular attack, compared to Combat Art damage from Combat Art screen, when a Combat Art such as DB or FR is used, both weapons get a chance to hit, it is just the main-hand weapon stats (and attribute modifier) that determines the damage done by BOTH weapons! Prime example is using a dagger in the off-hand. When I use DB, if both attacks "hit" the damage will be exactly the same for each hit!

[gogoblender 3,073]

unlike a seraphim, Shadow Warriors can't last long just using left click.

 

There's a good number of HC Pony builds out actually... for a while a bunch of us were riding with them... left click builds only... actually hugely powerful fun to build... Pony got his to Niobium I think.

 

 

gogo

 

According to the weapon damage reported from the stats panel, it seems dex is considerably less beneficial than str to boost your damage overall. If I equip a str weapon and a dex weapon on my dw chars the weapon damage is split so both are being boosted, but because dex also adds def the dmg boost from dex is a lot less. I noticed my seraphim was getting a larger boost to her dex as she leveled than her str so I tried a dex dw seraphim using short swords and daggers mainly but her damage was considerably less than my dw Shadow Warrior. At the same level with approximately 400 str vs 400 dex on the seraphim the Shadow Warrior would hit for around 3k while the seraphim would hit for closer to 2k.

 

 

This is very good tested info. And if it's tested it can be considered reference. Thanks will add it to wiki. I had "heard" from good sources that overall, dex as attribute won't have as much punch for damage as strength...but had never really gotten around to reference testing it. I had run a dex seraphim for lh ... and it was obvious the dex staves aren't as damaging as the str ones...but now getting confirmation on the attribute adds more info as to how they perform when comparing.

 

Thank you

 

 

gogo

[colif 36]

I forgot about the mounted builds. I played almost every other type of Shadow Warrior so I won't be in a rush to make another, can only do it so many times.