TWF vs. THF, splash damage, range, and all that

[Beerina]

Ok, so I get that Two Weapon Fighting is teh winnah vs. Two Hand Fighting with a big honker for dps.

But...I was wondering about weapon range and glancing blows, and also about cleave and great cleave.

So neglecting things like expanded critical ranges, which make stuff like the khopesh very attractive, how does this all fit together?

If weapon range matters with respect to how many monsters around you get tagged by glancing blows and great cleave, i.e. how far they can be, then consider these scenarios (I'll assume a greataxe and greatsword have the same "range", as to bastard sword and dwarf axe).

All other feats being equal (assume all useful feats for these weapons are taken), compare fighters with:

- Greatsword

- Dual-wield bastard swords

- Dual wield longswords


They all have max proficiency and fighting for that style, i.e. all relevant TWF or THF offense-related, including "oversized offhanded weapon", whatever that's called, for the BSs.


Would the greatsword do better in a crowd for overall DPS, though not single-target?


Or is the "length" of such a thing not really an advantage, if it exists at all? I.e. BS and longsword will be able to reach almost as many monsters for glancing and great cleave?

[Beerina]

Any pages that have info on how weapon range, cleave, glancing damage, etc. is all supposed to work w.r.t. 2-handers, dual wield, and various weapons? E.g. a dagger is a lot smaller than a halberd (not that this game has halberds) so would a "swipe" get more glancing blow attacks with the longer one?

And for great cleave, would that be able to tag monsters that were further away from you than a dagger or short sword would (or whatever is the smallest, i.e. shortest thing you can cleave with)? I.e. if there were 6 monsters "around" you, but only 3 next to you, and the other 3 behind them, would the dagger, say, only be able to g-cleave through 3 at most, while the great sword or bastard sword, being longer, could g-cleave through up to 6, assuming the other 3 were within range of that weapon, whatever that means?

[Beerina]

Basically I'm trying to get at whether a great sword/axe would come into its own, dps-wise, vs. dual wield, in crowds, even though it be sub-optimal with respect to single-target damage.

And for dual wield, a similar question, such as if dual bastard swords might edge out shorter dual wield weapons because of similar "weapon reach" issues vs., say, a long sword and a short sword in the off hand, giving an advantage because of its "light" offhand weapon bonus/lack of penalty.

[Shroonith]

I dont even know where to start...

First off, the weapons for TWF DPS are the rapier, the scimitar, the kukri, the heavy pick, the light pick, the dwarven axe(and other axes if your dwarf), and the kopesh. The weapons for THF DPS are, the sword of shadows (named greatsword), the greataxe, the quarterstaff, the maul, and sometimes the falchion.

If you do a little research youll come across the fact that some two handers have very slow attack speeds. The greatsword for example, is approximately 15% slower than a greataxe.

So neglecting things like expanded critical ranges, which make stuff like the khopesh very attractive, how does this all fit together?

You cant just ignore this. This is the reason kopesh is the #1 dps weapon.

Honestly, even counting AOE from other abilities, TWF is the stronger choice if you care about being the best DPS.

However, THF is fun and I am currently lvling an enjoyable build that is a two handed fighter. He is going to be a WF 20FTR (pure) Kensai III - Maul user with a 50ish DC stunning blow.
starting stats:
18str
11dex (+2dex tome by lvl 12)
15con
10int (+2int tome @ start)
6wis
12cha(+1/2cha @ start)

feats:
GTHF(3)
Bludgeoning Spec/Focus/Crit (6)
PA
Toughness
SF:UMD
Force of Personality
Adamantine Body
Stunning Blow
---------------This leaves you with 3 feats left, go either ------------
spring attack, for glancing blows on your mobile attacks
or
improved damage reduction x3 (if you choose DR, lower DEX to 8, raise CON to 17, and forgo the dex tome)

skills:
23 intim
11 umd
10 points into jump
1 rank tumble
rest into balance

my last note would be that this build will work just fine with slashing weapons, like greataxe. If this is your preference, drop stunning blow and pick up another toughness or an improved DR

[Beerina]

Ok, that's good. Now what about my question?



Let's start with the most basic: "Most damage" -- is this single-target or overall on multiple targets?

This question is important because a guy swinging a big axe or sword in a big crowd would be greatly out-damaging (one would hope) a little single-target speed demon because of things like great cleave and glancing blows (and other stuff?)

Hence the "reach" thing comes into it. I continue to discuss bastard swords because they have quite a reach, so it's possible that that, like the long range of 2-handers, makes up some of the DPS difference in a crowd.


I guess I need a table of known values like range (arc and distance) of glancing blows for each weapon, and the knowledge of whether cleave and great cleave apply to which attack numbers besides the first, if any and if it applies to the offhand weapon, too.

Oh, and whether the bonus numbers (+x for magic, +y d6 for this or that elemental or good damage) apply in any way, shape, or form for attacks other than the first with the right hand. And glancing, too.


Yeah, that has to exist somewhere besides the design documents at Turbine, right?

[Beerina]

Pulling numbers out of my butt, something like this:


2-handers
Greatsword, glancing - range 8 feet, arc 40 degrees
Greatsword, 1st attack, cleave, great cleave - range 7 feet, arc 40 degrees, cleave/gcleave arc up to 60 degrees
Greatsword, 2nd+ attacks - no glancing, cleave and gcleave Ok

Greataxe, etc.

1-handers
Bastard sword, glancing, 1st attack right hand - range 6 feet, arc 30 degrees
Bastard sword, 1st attack, cleave, gcleave - Range 5 feet, arc 30 degrees, cleave arc up to 50 degrees
Bastard sword, 2nd+ attacks - no glancing, yes cleave + gcleave
Bastard sword, 1st offhand attacks, "" "" ""
Bastard sword, 2nd+ offhand attacks, "" "" ""

Khopesh - etc.



ad nauseum





So?





(And don't be rolling eyes at me because I don't know this -- That's the point of the question! And the acknowledgment of pulling the numbers out of my butt. )

[Tanka]

Bastard Swords have no splash damage, since you cannot wield them with two hands and must take EWP to use them.

Overall, TWF outdamages THF fairly significantly, even with GTHF/Kensai3/WF Weap Apt 3 (at least, from the testing I've read over from the Lamannia forums).

The Cleave/Great Cleave is a hotkey, it isn't instant, and while it does damage to things in an arc around you (~90 degrees for Cleave, ~270 degrees for Great Cleave -- if memory serves). Other than for on-the-run opening attacks, you end up doing less damage overall due to the buildup it requires, breaking your attack chain.

[Beerina]

Bastard Swords have no splash damage, since you cannot wield them with two hands and must take EWP to use them.

Overall, TWF outdamages THF fairly significantly, even with GTHF/Kensai3/WF Weap Apt 3 (at least, from the testing I've read over from the Lamannia forums).

The Cleave/Great Cleave is a hotkey, it isn't instant, and while it does damage to things in an arc around you (~90 degrees for Cleave, ~270 degrees for Great Cleave -- if memory serves). Other than for on-the-run opening attacks, you end up doing less damage overall due to the buildup it requires, breaking your attack chain.

So for two-weapon fighting, the little extra you get because they're bastard swords is more than offset by smaller weapons and their greater crit ranges and crit multiples? That's basically the idea?


I guess I'm looking at two separate ideas. You've answered one question, though, and that 1-handed weapons, even the bastard sword, don't have glancing damage. That's reserved for two-handed weapons.

Ok, but what about range? Would you have to get closer to a bow hobgoblin to hit it with a sickle than with a longsword?

Since you need to be stationary to get your extra swings per round, it is helpful if you can just spin and keep tagging the next monster, fighting someone 3 feet away, without having to step closer and basically lose a round's worth of extra swings, if you follow my drift.



Oh, and can someone point me to a thread, forum, or web site that discusses issues like this? I'd be interested in some analysis that, say, all other things being equal, a pure fighter with a greatsword would have to be able to glancing blow 1 or 3 or 47 extra monsters per swing, on average, to keep up with dual kopeshes, which, as I understand it are, like all dual wield weapons, purely single target, with no glancing blows.

[Shade]

This type of dicussion is just something far too complex to try to put into numbers, or any kind of flat out statement like one is better then the other.. Thats just incorrect.

They are both good weapon styles with their pro's and cons. I'll just highlight of a few of the pros and cons most commonly misunderstood or not known.
THF:
Pros:
- Incredible range, you can hit monsters beyond the range they can hit you back. TWF cannot do this.
- Concentration checks. Monsters do not use normal ones, but instead of can be interupted while spell casting by dealing a massive amount of damage. Generally at the end game this means hitting for 60+. THF can perma interupt a spell caster doing this damage, TWF cannot reach a high enough damage per hit. As it uses damage per hit, and not damage per second.
- Mass agro management. The very wide arc of the glancing blow makes the Two handed melee a far superior combatant for gathering and hold agro on allot of monsters.
- High damager per swings helps when facing monsters with a DR type you cannot bypass, as the great damage you deal will generally get thru it anyways. Example: Gargoyles in stoneform gain 100 DR/-, My THF barb can stunning blow and kill these very quickly. My TWF cannot kill them until they leave stoneform (less there very low lvl versions, TWF crits are around 120-150 with axes)
Cons:
- Poor swing rate if you use auto attack.
- Requires concentration to use stepping attack to increase DPS by up to 50%.
- Few swings per minuits means less chances for special weapon effects such as vorpals.

TWF:
Pros:
- With the feats, a single attack is actually 2 attacks. As such abilites which make an attack, such as stunning blow, sunder and trip, get a double chance to land if time to occur on a double swing.
- Faster swing rate means more 20s are rolled and thus more vorpals or other special effects relying on criticals.
- Autoattack works fine and doesn't result in much lost dps vs stepping attacks.
Cons:
- Poor swing range means allot of missed attacks while moving are moving around, resulting in heavy loss of DPS.
- Dex requirements can cut into strenght or other stats, lowering DPS again, depending on build.
- Requires twice as many weapons as two handed fighting, making it a more difficult and more expensive character to play.
- Has difficulty interrupting spell casters due to the movement and low strength bonus, low power attack bonus, etc resulting in not enough damge to interupt them.
- Lower damage per swing vs targets with DR/- means your DPS is more heavily crippled them a two handed melee.

The "much more dps" nonses is a subject I don't agree with as It has never been shown to me ingame ever. I play both a Two handed and two wepaon barbarians, with nearly identical stats and feats and do not find the TWF version vastly higher dps, infact I often find him lower depending on the monster being faced.

[Aaxeyu]

Shade, TWF deal way higher DPS than THF whether you like it or not.
Your pros and cons for the two types are so biased towards THF that it's laughable.

TWF gets double bonus from damage buffs and better weapons.
2 weapons also means more extra damage from weapon effects.

I don't the exact attackspeed a THF can come up to with good twitch, it would be nice if anyone got the numbers.


The mobs need pretty high DR for a THF to exceed a TWF in dps, and i doubt that mobs will have dr 50+/-.

One more thing, why is TWF harder to play because they use 2 weapons? Finding 2 weapons are way easier than to twitch constantly.

[Shade]

Shade, TWF deal way higher DPS than THF whether you like it or not.
(cut)
I don't the exact attackspeed a THF can come up to with good twitch, it would be nice if anyone got the numbers.

This is the reason your on my ignore list.

You make a false broad statement about the DPS. Then go on to admit you have no clue on the subject anyways.

You shall remain on the list.

[Kawiki]

This type of dicussion is just something far too complex to try to put into numbers, or any kind of flat out statement like one is better then the other.. Thats just incorrect.

They are both good weapon styles with their pro's and cons. I'll just highlight of a few of the pros and cons most commonly misunderstood or not known.
THF:
Pros:
- Incredible range, you can hit monsters beyond the range they can hit you back. TWF cannot do this. Nice, but I assume you are reffering to normal size creatures or non bosses?
-Concentration checks. Monsters do not use normal ones, but instead of can be interupted while spell casting by dealing a massive amount of damage. Generally at the end game this means hitting for 60+. THF can perma interupt a spell caster doing this damage, TWF cannot reach a high enough damage per hit. As it uses damage per hit, and not damage per second. Interesting, casters usually die so quickly that I never even noticed you could interupt them...
- Mass agro management. The very wide arc of the glancing blow makes the Two handed melee a far superior combatant for gathering and hold agro on allot of monsters. Heh, this ones is silly. Leave the aggro/cc management to the caster or someone with the SKILL intimidate. They do it much better and in the case of the latter almost certainly have a much higher AC resulting in 1/10 the dmg taken.
- High damager per swings helps when facing monsters with a DR type you cannot bypass, as the great damage you deal will generally get thru it anyways. Example: Gargoyles in stoneform gain 100 DR/-, My THF barb can stunning blow and kill these very quickly. My TWF cannot kill them until they leave stoneform (less there very low lvl versions, TWF crits are around 120-150 with axes) Are you talking about the gargoylys in the level 10 quest in Threnal????
Cons:
- Poor swing rate if you use auto attack.
- Requires concentration to use stepping attack to increase DPS by up to 50%.
- Few swings per minuits means less chances for special weapon effects such as vorpals.

TWF:
Pros:
- With the feats, a single attack is actually 2 attacks. As such abilites which make an attack, such as stunning blow, sunder and trip, get a double chance to land if time to occur on a double swing. Indeed, any stat damanger is much better TWF
- Faster swing rate means more 20s are rolled and thus more vorpals or other special effects relying on criticals.
- Autoattack works fine and doesn't result in much lost dps vs stepping attacks.
-Higher DPS almost 100% of the time. And I say almost because there may be a very specific example of a THF surrounded by 50 mobs and if you add in the splash damage it may add up to more. Really, just do a search - multiple people have done the math. Cons:
- Poor swing range means allot of missed attacks while moving are moving around, resulting in heavy loss of DPS. A heavy loss really?
- Dex requirements can cut into strenght or other stats, lowering DPS again, depending on build. The DPS loss is neglegable, you do realize you are talking about MAYBE ONE STR mod??? Not to mention the side benefits of higher AC, better reflex...
- Requires twice as many weapons as two handed fighting, making it a more difficult and more expensive character to play. Agreed its more expensive. However any player that plays more then once a week would not have a problem outfitting.
- Has difficulty interrupting spell casters due to the movement and low strength bonus, low power attack bonus, etc resulting in not enough damge to interupt them. Low STR bonus? Low Power attck bonus? What are you talking about? TWFs kill them faster. Period.
- Lower damage per swing vs targets with DR/- means your DPS is more heavily crippled them a two handed melee. Sigh... The 10lvl gargoyels again??

The "much more dps" nonses is a subject I don't agree with as It has never been shown to me ingame ever. I play both a Two handed and two wepaon barbarians, with nearly identical stats and feats and do not find the TWF version vastly higher dps, infact I often find him lower depending on the monster being faced.

Answers in red.
You can disagree all you want its been well proven both in game and mathmatically that TWF beats THF hands down. This nonesense you are spewing only serves you. You can "side step" the fact all you want but anyone with half a brain knows the FACTS.

[Aaxeyu]

This is the reason your on my ignore list.

You make a false broad statement about the DPS. Then go on to admit you have no clue on the subject anyways.

You shall remain on the list.

Just because I don't know the EXACT attacks per minute you can achive with good twitching does that mean that I have no clue?
You are funny..

ANd FYI, my statement wasn't false..

[FluffyCalico]

TWF:


- Has difficulty interrupting spell casters due to the movement and low strength bonus, low power attack bonus, etc resulting in not enough damge to interupt them.

The "much more dps" nonses is a subject I don't agree with as It has never been shown to me ingame ever. I play both a Two handed and two wepaon barbarians, with nearly identical stats and feats and do not find the TWF version vastly higher dps, infact I often find him lower depending on the monster being faced.

1> What twf fighter do you play that has issues interrupting spellcasters.
2> Oh I see it was a twb

Note what shade forgot to mention is class matters. If you are a barb I reccomend THB (two hand barb) If you are a Fighter I reccomend TWF (two weapon fighter)

When I see someone write THF I think (two hand fighter) especially when its posted in the fighter forum.

[noscarrell]

i have a 8barb 8fighter who has had the two weapon fighting feats(all of them)and have traded them in for the two handed fighting feats,now, i payed very close attention to my damage numbers that "magically"float over my enemies heads BEFORE making the switch,i am not guessing at numbers,i have seen them with kopeshes and great axes and using every possible weapon in the game(minus the sword of shadows)i must say to you all who are guessing or just pulling numbers out of thin air that,the dps of my min 2 greataxe just absolutly steals the aggro from harry,sully,sorjek and my great commander greataxe (trip posi)will steal aggro from a 50 intimidate tank on xyzzy and keep it if they try to get it back!
yes i admit that when i use two handed vorpals or WOP picks my kill count soars on trash mobs so,i do what works best for my playstyle,i switch between my two vorpals and wop piks on mobs and greataxes on orange or red names.since my str and power attack are maxxed i do mass damage either way,,
also since i am a semi balanced character i am capable of having a 52ac with my leviks defender(plus five mithral tower shield that gives me a plus three insight to ac and has a chance to cast heal on me)along with my white dragonscale docent,and lets not forget that with barkskin,stone skin,ac song,haste and uncanny dodge,i have seen my ac as high as 62 for 20 seconds!that might not be much to you uber monks or pallies but then i can switch my weapons(hotkeyed)and smash for a minimum 150 crit on my greataxe.i havent seen MANY who can match that.(i didnt say any frank i said many hehehe)
so i guess what im saying in my post to yall is,,
from what i have learned,your damage depends upon a great amount variables. you must find what works best for your character and your playstyle and run with it.and if you arent versatile and able to adapt to the enemies you face,you will be the one the barbarian is carrying to the shrine(again)/laugh!!

[Riorik]

- Lower damage per swing vs targets with DR/- means your DPS is more heavily crippled them a two handed melee.

This was your answer to Shade:

Sigh... The 10lvl gargoyels again??

I think this was an attempt to dismiss a valid point by dissembling.

Even today this is valid - I've read numerous threads discussing the merits of Deathnip versus Min 2 Khopeshes - given equivalent builds, which was the best always seemed to hinge on the question of DR....and NOT merely for level 10 content.

Who knows what mod9 & beyond will bring. I have no clues that you don't have...but the possibility of EPIC or DR/- enemies seems quite likely and more often. Who know's, perhaps we'll encounter something with 45 non-bypassable DR that ignore sneak attack's with excessively high Fortification.

[Aaxeyu]

This was your answer to Shade:


I think this was an attempt to dismiss a valid point by dissembling.

Even today this is valid - I've read numerous threads discussing the merits of Deathnip versus Min 2 Khopeshes - given equivalent builds, which was the best always seemed to hinge on the question of DR....and NOT merely for level 10 content.

It's only a valid point for level 10 content, as that's the only place where you meet mobs with 100 DR/-.
I dunno what Min 2 vs Deathnip has got to do with this, as you can cut through dr/- with min 2 or deathnip.

Even including that in the pros for THF shows how extremely biased Shade is.

Who knows what mod9 & beyond will bring. I have no clues that you don't have...but the possibility of EPIC or DR/- enemies seems quite likely and more often. Who know's, perhaps we'll encounter something with 45 non-bypassable DR that ignore sneak attack's with excessively high Fortification.

Yes, I see that you don't have a clue if you think we are going to face "something with 45 non-bypassable DR that ignore sneak attack's with excessively high Fortification."

It's MUCH more likely that we won't, and thus TWF is still better.

A good sign that shows how superior TWF is how far you have to stretch your imagination from the actual game to find situations were THF exceeds TWF.

[eonfreon]

Just to kind of get back to the OP's topic somewhat:

As far as reach go, I've noticed that pretty much ALL two handed weapons seem to have the same range and ALL single-handed weapons also seem to have the same range.
In other words I have not noticed a range difference between a Maul and a Greataxe or between a Bastard Sword and a Dagger.
There may be some difference but I haven't noticed it.

[Monkey_Archer]

For a current 16 fighter, before weapon effects, greataxe is almost identical dps to dual khopesh.
The reason TWF is much better then THF is because weapon effects, and any buffs (bard songs especially) count double for TWF.

While i agree with most of shade's list of advantages and disadvantages, I think he was too busy defending 2-handed barbs to realize this is posted in the fighter forum

Dual Khopesh Fighter, 34 strength, unbuffed
5.5 khopesh
5 enhancement
12 strength mod
6 weapon spec feats/enhancements
5 powerattack
---
33.5 mainhand
27.5 offhand
----
61 damage per hit
183 damage per crit

61 * 15 hits = 915
183 * 4 crits = 732

(915 + 732) / 20 swings = 82.35 average damage

82.35 * 83 swings per minute / 60 seconds = 114 dps

Greataxe fighter, 34 strength, unbuffed
10.5 greataxe
5 enhancement
18 strength mod
6 weapon spec feats/enhancements
10 powerattack
---
49.5 damage per hit
~ 25 per glancing blow
148.5 damage per crit

49.5 * 17 hits = 841.5
148.5 * 2 crits = 297
25 * 9.5 glancing blows = 237.5

(841.5 + 297 + 237.5) / 20 swings = 68.8 average damage

68.8 * 102 swings per minute / 60 seconds = 117 dps

[LargeMarge]

You guys took the OP's thread and turned it into another debate over TWF vs. THF. Stop this debate and go make your own thread. I'm sure it will fit in well with all of the other "TWF vs. THF" threads.

Now...back to our scheduled program

I have to agree with Beerina...I would like to see some data on the range of two-handed weapons.

I think what Beerina is trying to do is figure out the DPS that THF does to other targets besides a single target. I guess if we took the sum of the dmg that was done from glancing blows durring an attack chain...would it come close to the total dmg that a TWF does? To answer that we would need data for the max ammount of creatures in a crowd that could be hit by glancing blows (which is why we need the range).