THF vs TWF for a Dwarven Barbarian

[PurpleTimb]

Could someone help me understand the pros and cons of THF vs TWF on a dwarven barbarian? I'm new to the world of barbs and could use some advice. Beyond the fact that you need a higher starting dexterity for TWF, meaning less build points elsewhere, what is the difference? I do not have access to warforged or half-orc yet, so I'm focused on dwarves.

Thanks for any advice.

[Shade]

THF:
Pros:
-You attack in a wide arc so you can hit multiple targets and gather agro more quickly and more effeciently.
-Your glancing blows deal damage to all nearby targets, allowing for massive AOE DPS vs multiple targets.
-You can tank and and hold agro on multiple bosses at once, at least thru light DPS such as a wall of fire.
-You have a slightly longer attack reach, allowing you to move while attackign and hit certain enemies without them getting a chance to attack back.
- Glancing blows can proc special effects at a low chance, allowing cool combosl ike multiple stuns/trips/vorpals, on a rare occasion.
- You only need to buy/trade for/craft a single weapon of each type you need.
- 150% strength bonus means more damage
- Double power attack bonus for huge hits and crits
- Can twitch to increase overall auto crit DPS by a good amount
Cons:
- Slightly less overall hits per minute then TWF (similar base, +75% glancing blows, vs TWF at even unhasted speed, but very slightly faster hasted speed +80% off hand procs)
- Lower chance to stun/trip a single monster as you won't often get a double proc. (Tho it is possible when fully spec'd, at about 20% versus 80% on TWF)


TWF:
Pros:
- Sligtly more hit per minute, and unlike THF all hits get special effects. So when using special effect weapons like Vorpals, or Stunning weapons - you will get more overall procs then a THF
- Higher chance at landing combat feats like trip or stunning blow, due to offhand bonus. If offhand procs (80% chance with all feats), that means you have a 80% chance at getting 2 tries to stun or trip said monster. Can be quite useful against foes with high saves/str/dex.
- Access to x4 critical weapons (Heavy Picks) This means at the very highest levels of strength at endgame, TWF does have slightly superior auto crit DPS when using very strong heavy picks vs say a Greataxe.
- No need to twich on auto crit targets allows for easier/lazier play. And since positioning for glancing blows is irrelevant.. You pretty much just run up to a mob and just hold right click and wait tell the mobs dead.
Cons:
- Heavy dex requirement: 17 for Improved TWF, which is pretty much a must have. And only your base + tomes count for this, so it will generally cost you some build points, which can mean lower hp, or lower saves, depending on what stat you sacrifice to hit this.
- Twice as expensive to equip. You need twice the weapons to perform well, meaning it will take you twice as many Shroud runs to get your greensteel, twice as many lootruns to get money to buy nice weapons on the AH.. Twice as much raiding to get 2 of your say chaosblades.. Twice as much epic farming to build 2 epics instead of one.. A Very large con imo, because Barbarians are the masters of MANY weapons and should not just focus on a single one, having access to a large vaerity of weapons is ideal - and it's just so much harder for TWF.
- No access to AOE damage.. So your only tanking 1 boss at a time, and your going to take longer to gather up agro on multiple small foes. As well as take longer to kill multiple small foes.

The "which is better dps" I won't get into. But I will tell you I run identical TWF and THF builds, both dwarf, exactly the same except feats and weapons.. And THF just plain kills things faster for me. My DPS challenge videos prove this also, and ill be doing new ones soon.

[PurpleTimb]

Thanks for the quick and thorough explanation Shade. I have a 32 point TWF dwarven barbarian that is approaching higher levels. Before I started crafting I wanted to make sure I was on the right track. I have a 17 dex, obtained by dumping wisdom and sacrificing one point of con. I can't decide if I should just stick with TWF or swap the feats for THF. I can see the advantages to THF, but I do like the multiple weapon effects and it seems like a waste to have a 17 dex on a THF barb. At least his reflex save should be great.

[Feithlin]

Thanks for the quick and thorough explanation Shade. I have a 32 point TWF dwarven barbarian that is approaching higher levels. Before I started crafting I wanted to make sure I was on the right track. I have a 17 dex, obtained by dumping wisdom and sacrificing one point of con. I can't decide if I should just stick with TWF or swap the feats for THF. I can see the advantages to THF, but I do like the multiple weapon effects and it seems like a waste to have a 17 dex on a THF barb. At least his reflex save should be great.

Remember that being specialized for TWF doesn't prevent you from using 2-handed weapons. If you have the dex requirement for TWF, you should follow that path imo. Just switch to a 2-hander on some occasions. Since you won't have the THF feats line, this will be the occasion to learn twitching. This will allow you to adapt to each situation. You didn't give your level, but if you still don't have access to gTWF (or at least iTWF), it's better to use a 2-hander.

[Kinerd]

- Can twitch to increase overall auto crit DPS by a good amount

To put some numbers to this:

If we look at a 15% enhancement bonus to attack speed and a green steel greataxe, we see a 21.4% increase in swings per minute versus losing (effectively) 75% glancing blow chance at 50% base damage a piece (plus magical effects) with an overall rate of 113.3 swings per minute, or 85.0 glancing blows per minute. If we say 50 Strength, 15 miscellaneous damage bonus, that gives us 80.5 with a +5 3d6 weapon, or a pure damage contribution of 80.5 * .5 * 85 / 60 = 57.0 DPS. If we have Frenzy and Death Frenzy going, that's another 21 * 85 / 60 = 29.8. Without the capstone or racial enhancements, we have a 15% chance at magical effects, so 19.5 * .75 * .15 * 85 / 60 = 3.1. That gives us a total of 89.9. Our question, then is whether you can expect 89.9 / .214 = 420.1 DPS in auto crit situations for a barbarian using a green steel greataxe - the answer is yes, by a pretty wide margin.