2handed fighting = extinct?

[KiwiJoe]

I think inflated mob hitpoints have savagely hurt 2handed fighting builds. Whilst a raging Barb. is still VERY useful for wacking Bosses, in general 2handed builds are massivly inferior to TWF's dual vorpalling/wounding/wp everything to death before you can DPS it with a great axe/sword.

Between tempest rangers and fingering sorcs. there is little point in swinging a dps 2hander least it be insta killed at 1/4 health

Time for a new 2handed fighting feat to even up the playing field I reckon.

[Illuminati]

I think inflated mob hitpoints have savagely hurt 2handed fighting builds. Whilst a raging Barb. is still VERY useful for wacking Bosses, in general 2handed builds are massivly inferior to TWF's dual vorpalling/wounding/wp everything to death before you can DPS it with a great axe/sword.

Between tempest rangers and fingering sorcs. there is little point in swinging a dps 2hander least it be insta killed at 1/4 health

Time for a new 2handed fighting feat to even up the playing field I reckon.

Agreed. Even when you learn the 2 step chop attack (a fast attack while THF strafing left/right) it is still sloooooow. Even looking at the numbers with glancing blow 2HF is just meh.

It needs some spice, not sure what though. I have all the new Pali enh on my level 16 with a sword of shadows. I feel like im fighting in jello, even with crits in the 500's, etc.

[Twerpp]

Slower, the sheer amount of weapon effects on greensteels make 2wf dps much better now. Now add the fact you can add stats and AC to it as well...yup, pretty gimp atm.

[MrWizard]

I think inflated mob hitpoints have savagely hurt 2handed fighting builds. Whilst a raging Barb. is still VERY useful for wacking Bosses, in general 2handed builds are massivly inferior to TWF's dual vorpalling/wounding/wp everything to death before you can DPS it with a great axe/sword.

Between tempest rangers and fingering sorcs. there is little point in swinging a dps 2hander least it be insta killed at 1/4 health

Time for a new 2handed fighting feat to even up the playing field I reckon.

I use 2hf for different reasons on my fighters. For one, I have a great sword paralyzer. In a large mob of non reds that can be para'd, this works exceptionally well. Helps with trip too a lot.

Got a vorpal great axe and it is just plain fun at times.

For red named with tons of HP, I do not have many two handers built to slow them down like cripple, destruct, and the like, so it goes to twf at that point til they are easy to hit and really slowed down....then I pull out a billy baroo 2hander and wallop em..

[llevenbaxx]

Im still ****ed the Devs let an animator decide Greatswords should be even slower than G-axes. Double slap!.. and thumbs down for thinking this would be no big deal.

[maddmatt70]

Well a big part of the reason two handers have become less worthwhile is touched upon by Twerpp weapons do a much higher % of the damage then in pnp. Feats and ability scores are both far less important in ddo in regards to damage then in pnp. My wf sorc who has 26 strength with rage spell, only the power attack feat, and has a mineral II maul does more damage then a sword and boarder and this has everything to do with the weapon to overall dps ratio.

On a side note the whole pursuit for +3 tomes I find kind of funny. I mean from a damage, to hit, hit point, save and dcs perspective a half a modifier is virtually meaningless in ddo. By the way I expected +3 tomes to be dropping in the new raids with much greater frequency then they do - I guess this falls into the sucka is born every minute scenario. Turbine needs a carrot after people loot everything from a quest even though at this point a half a modifier doesn't mean anything in the larger scheme of things...

[Kris_P._Letus]

bah...i wouldnt say useless. im a 2hf, and i handle myself pretty well. i have a tier II mineral II greataxe (long way away from tier 3) and i hold my own against even 2wf'ers with dual tier 3's. not all the time....but most times. i find it amusing that my glancing blows do as much as some sword and boarders normal attacks. and that i can hit a mob with my normal attack AND my glancing blow on the same swing. i may not be a huge damage dealer with my greataxe, but like i said, i hold my own. not to mention....the game ISNT about a single person doing as much damage as god. whats it matter if one person takes down 1 mob, or if 3 people combined take him down? the game ISNT about being a god type character.

who cares if you are the strongest, most dps'ing, highest ac, highest strenght character? its a game. a game is meant to be fun. not a job. i dont get paid to play ddo, so why should i try and be the bestest of the best?

bah.

funny thing...i was in a group the other night, and i was asked how many hp i had. when i told them, i was laughed at by a few of the other barbs. told to reroll my gimp toon. funny thing was....i ended up outkilling everyone (but that stupid monk!!! curses!! :P ). not to mention they died. a few times. when i didnt die the whole run. yeah. i need a reroll.

[Spartus]

funny thing...i was in a group the other night, and i was asked how many hp i had. when i told them, i was laughed at by a few of the other barbs. told to reroll my gimp toon. funny thing was....i ended up outkilling everyone (but that stupid monk!!! curses!! :P ). not to mention they died. a few times. when i didnt die the whole run. yeah. i need a reroll.

Sounds like those other barbs need to reroll their players.

[Beherit_Baphomar]

funny thing...i was in a group the other night, and i was asked how many hp i had. when i told them, i was laughed at by a few of the other barbs. told to reroll my gimp toon. funny thing was....i ended up outkilling everyone (but that stupid monk!!! curses!! :P ). not to mention they died. a few times. when i didnt die the whole run. yeah. i need a reroll.

My barb loves to hear the other barbs say they have 800+ HP's...means he doesnt have any DPS competition from em.

[Zenako]

My barb loves to hear the other barbs say they have 800+ HP's...means he doesnt have any DPS competition from em.

Exactly, extremes mean they had to hurt themselves somewhere else....When Built to excel at one thing, often only so so on other aspects.

[tihocan]

I personally think 2HF is fine. The main issue I see is that the current trend is to make TWF characters, so if you're the single 2HF in a party while all other melees are TWF using vorpals / wounding / puncturing, it probably won't work too well for you. But in the end, it's all about group dynamics, if you were playing with other DPS 2HF then the mob would probably die just as fast (except for some specific non red-named monsters whose HPs are too high for DPS to be viable, but they're still a minority).

[Angelus_dead]

But in the end, it's all about group dynamics, if you were playing with other DPS 2HF then the mob would probably die just as fast (except for some specific non red-named monsters whose HPs are too high for DPS to be viable, but they're still a minority).

There are some characters who mainly only go to Shroud, Hound, VOD, and Reaver. THF is quite worse than TWF in those places.

[Reisz]

Don't discount THF again DR. The type that you see on portals, powerful elementals, and mob barbarian. Mod 6 introduce a lot of DR that can not be bypassed, even with Transmutting.

Remember that the DR is subtracted from every hit and is therefore applied more times to a TWF.

[Aerilyn]

I have a Level 15 Barbarian that has a Tier 3, pure Pos Greensteel GA and for what it's worth I am having a blast, crits over 200 every 2 or 3 swings and can even crit the portals in the shroud for over 90HP/swing. I ran Invaiders on Hard and Elite the other day and was neck and neck with the Monk for both runs. He outkilled me by 3 on the first run and and I outkilled him by 5 on the elite run. The group was very smooth and balanced. I do understand what the OP means though as there are several in my Guild that run either Tempest Rangers or Pierce Speced Barbarians (dual weilding W/P) and other than drawing aggro off of them they usually are way out from on the kill counts but that means nothing to me as long as I get loot and save on resources during the campaign

Just my 2 cents

Aerilyn

[Angelus_dead]

Remember that the DR is subtracted from every hit and is therefore applied more times to a TWF.

Inaccurate. Non-bypassable DR is also a big problem for THF fighters, as it reduces or negates their Glancing Blow bonus damage.

[tihocan]

There are some characters who mainly only go to Shroud, Hound, VOD, and Reaver. THF is quite worse than TWF in those places.

Agreed for Shroud / Hound, but in VoD I don't see THF being worse (it will kill the trash mob slower, but from my limited experience, the main threats are the named orthons - DPS, the bats - magic, and the boss - DPS), and in the Reaver both THF and TWF are useless anyway.

[Averroes]

Agreed for Shroud / Hound, but in VoD I don't see THF being worse (it will kill the trash mob slower, but from my limited experience, the main threats are the named orthons - DPS, the bats - magic, and the boss - DPS), and in the Reaver both THF and TWF are useless anyway.

I don't even agree for Shroud necessarily. TWF is better for killing trash in part 2, equivalent to THF for killing trash in part 1 and red named in part 2, and worse than THF in part 4 (where the reach of a two-handed weapon allows you to avoid most of Harry's melee damage). They're probably equivalent again in part 5.

THF is a significant advantage in VOD though -- same reason. Sulo's melee attack range is 2/3 that of a greataxe. And glancing blows are nice for bats...


My barb continues to use his vorpal only in part 2 of shroud, against green devils in VoD, and against Protectors in Hound. DPS still works for everything else...

[Rameses]

whats all this talk of DPS?

Wounding of Puncturing, Vorpals, Banishing and the likes does not equate to DPS.

True DPS is a thing of the past and a forgotten art used exclusively by a few that understand it's mastery of all quests excluding Raids.

I am, Rameses!

[Pyromaniac]

Unfortunately 2HF needs a boost to keep up with TWF.

[Dark-Star]

I was probably the biggest twf proponent up to about two weeks ago, when I ran an elite ritual with another barb that had a mineral2 maul. I had two Deathnips and expected to wipe the floor with him in the kill count. I beat him by two kills. Granted normally on trash I'd use two wops, and this was really just a comparison I wanted to see in dps vs. dps, but the results were surprising to me.

There are other reasons that twf is superior, tactics, para off hand, general versatility and wops/banishers mainly, but as far as pure dps goes, the gap is much closer than I personally believed.

I think for thf, the existing feats are fine. What they need to do is add two handed piercers like a scythe or spear, one with x4 crit range and one with a larger threat range - both with low base damage, and allow for wounding of puncturing and banishing on them. Another idea might be a toggle that allows you to set the amount of attacks you want in your swing animation, so that you are not taking the -4 to hit as you strafe.