Developers: what about Two Weapon Fighting?

[Varinon]

Using your math and backtracking, adding 20 melee power to twf would put them at 306.0825, which is still a bit behind. You also don't take into account someone w/ +10% offhand strike enhancements, which would give you 284.33625. If you give twf 20 melee power AND 10% off hand, you get ~319.6775

What I'd actually recommend is knocking the 20 Melee power bonus from swf off, which brings swf down to 278.21065

THF would still rule over aoe, swf would be slightly higher than twf w/o enhancements, and twf would be slighlty better w/ investment

a couple other alternatives I'd consider:
adding 10% offhand strike chance to PTWF- would get everyone up to 90%, some up to 100%
make ptwf require twf-takes 5% doubletstrike away from SWF

+

Help me out and explain what it is used for. As I see it, any model that assume a single target, ignores weapon procs and AOE affects, and assumes attacking 100% of the time (no movement / healing / etc) has too many short comings to be useful for much. On the other hand, trying to capture everything quickly leads to an overly complex model loaded with assumptions making it very difficult to actually model what real play will show.

The point of the model I used was to objectively compare the effects of the combat-style feats and style itself. It is not to be used to determine which style is the 'best' in the subjective terms. Variables like proc chances, weapon base damage, critical hit profile, player skill, etc. were not taken into account, as it wasn't the point to compare how 'good' one of the styles was. Additionally, I chose not to include any enhancements or Perfect Single/Two-(Handed/Weapon) fighting, because I just wanted to compare the three basic feats for each style.

In short, I tried to eliminate all the variables to focus on one aspect--the non-epic feat lines to determine whether or not it is justified to leave TWF out of the melee power goodness.

From the math, it looks like TWF will be behind, but it is a subjective answer, and there are too many variables to be absolutely certain. However, it is a good starting place for discussion.

Hope that clears up the point of math.

[Qhualor]

Whats your point? Like I said having basic experience of when or not to smite etc etc has to do with someone sucking as a player and not much to do with if the fighting lines are balanced.

When having this discussion it's just common sense to discuss on the basis we have experience and know how to play. You're taking this discussion and then trying to apply individual twitch skills and other things which should not factor in when you are trying to prove you are right.

These things should not factor in when trying to balance the fighting lines it's very simple to understand.

I mean common if someone spends his time chucking tornadoes around, it affects balance in a sense, it shouldn't factor into this should it?

im not trying to balance the fighting lines. im trying to say that there is a lot more involved than looking at base damage comparing 1 weapon to another weapon. trying to say 1 is better than the other is just subjective or there is a huge gap between the fighting styles when people disregard all the other variables. the baseline math should only be taken as a starting point, not as fact.

[Wizza]

Point of information: Melee power from each combat style has the bonus type Combat Style.

With the current design, having all Shield, SWF, and THF feats gives +20 Melee Power total.

Okay, point taken.

Now how about replying to the thread itself? TWF is falling behind and behind. Melee Power not affecting SA dmg is WAI? TWF not getting Melee Power is WAI?

I have the feeling that my rogue will soon be a bard or monk.

that's sad

[Wipey]

Lama is up.
You don't need pages of Math™. Go and make a Swashbuckler and copy your main twf or even thf toon, smack some minibosses.

Swf wipes the floor with any twf toon. I don't have really that much experience with thf but I would trust Cetus or Zerkul's math and comments. A Bard is the best melee combatant. Because logic.
Instead of fixing Cleaves, off hand/doublestrike on many special attacks and horrendous moving animation and weapon reach, let's omit twf.

[SilkofDrasnia]

im not trying to balance the fighting lines. im trying to say that there is a lot more involved than looking at base damage comparing 1 weapon to another weapon. trying to say 1 is better than the other is just subjective or there is a huge gap between the fighting styles when people disregard all the other variables. the baseline math should only be taken as a starting point, not as fact.

We are not talking about weapons either but about the fighting lines like thf, swf and twf. If off the bat these lines are not balanced properly the difference will just be acerbated later on depending on your build etc.

Most of the people saying twf is ok is saying so on the basis of if having ranger levels and access to tempest. Like a previous poster has mention thf should be king of AOE dps, twf king of single target dps and swf somewhere in between.

[SilkofDrasnia]

Lama is up.
You don't need pages of Math™. Go and make a Swashbuckler and copy your main twf or even thf toon, smack some minibosses.

Swf wipes the floor with any twf toon. I don't have really that much experience with thf but I would trust Cetus or Zerkul's math and comments. A Bard is the best melee combatant. Because logic.
Instead of fixing Cleaves, off hand/doublestrike on many special attacks and horrendous moving animation and weapon reach, let's omit twf.

Indeed!

[Qhualor]

We are not talking about weapons either but about the fighting lines like thf, swf and twf. If off the bat these lines are not balanced properly the difference will just be acerbated later on depending on your build etc.

Most of the people saying twf is ok is saying so on the basis of if having ranger levels and access to tempest. Like a previous poster has mention thf should be king of AOE dps, twf king of single target dps and swf somewhere in between.

in order to do the math, you need a weapon to go off from first.

I can agree with all that about the lines, but as you and I said, its going to depend on the build down the line as you add more to it.

[Synthetic]

+


The point of the model I used was to objectively compare the effects of the combat-style feats and style itself. It is not to be used to determine which style is the 'best' in the subjective terms. Variables like proc chances, weapon base damage, critical hit profile, player skill, etc. were not taken into account, as it wasn't the point to compare how 'good' one of the styles was. Additionally, I chose not to include any enhancements or Perfect Single/Two-(Handed/Weapon) fighting, because I just wanted to compare the three basic feats for each style.

In short, I tried to eliminate all the variables to focus on one aspect--the non-epic feat lines to determine whether or not it is justified to leave TWF out of the melee power goodness.

From the math, it looks like TWF will be behind, but it is a subjective answer, and there are too many variables to be absolutely certain. However, it is a good starting place for discussion.

Hope that clears up the point of math.

You state in your calculations that you don't include glancing blows. Doesn't that mean your THF numbers are skewed toward the low side by about 37% and THF is actually top DPS now for aoe single target and while moving? You also dont account for its double power attack bonus which is a fairly common feat choice.

[Thar]

Tell that to the hundreds of TWF out there. This is just another example of not knowing the game that well.

TWF user... it's fallen behind THF for a while now and now single weapon fighting. it needs the boost.

[Zerkul]

Point of information: Melee power from each combat style has the bonus type Combat Style.

With the current design, having all Shield, SWF, and THF feats gives +20 Melee Power total.

Hey Vargouille have two questions.

Melee Power stacks additively or multiplicatively with other % damage modifiers already in game (ex.: Damage Boost, Crusade, Song from Warchanter...) ?

Melee power works like Damage Boost with the addition of working on some enhancements (ex.: paladin light damage, rogue shadow dagger ?) ?

Z.

[mezzorco]

Given that THF gets glancing blows while moving, I say at least give TWF a more reliable animation while moving.
It's currently comical trying to hit things while moving for TWFighters.

[Eth]

Tell that to the hundreds of TWF out there. This is just another example of not knowing the game that well.

I play a TWFer on live. And I would like to continue to do so.
But after testing all 3 styles on lammania I simply can't justify going TWF any more. It just sucks in comparision.

[Varinon]

You state in your calculations that you don't include glancing blows. Doesn't that mean your THF numbers are skewed toward the low side by about 37% and THF is actually top DPS now for aoe single target and while moving? You also dont account for its double power attack bonus which is a fairly common feat choice.

I mentioned that THF is top DPS if there's even one other mob nearby for glancing blows (and it's pretty competitive without it). Power Attack is a very common THF feat that probably could have been used in the calculation, but then TWF looks even worse.

If you're curious:

+Glancing Blow & Power Attack on Two Handed Fighting:
Base Damage (((3.5(5)) + (20*1.5) + 9 + 10)1.85) = 123.025 Damage-Per-Swing
Glancing Blow Damage: (((3.5(5)) + (20*1.5) + 9 + 10)1.85)0.5 = 61.5125 Damage-Per-Proc

Total Damage = (Base Damage + (Glancing Blows proc on attack 1, 3 & 4, so 0.75)(Glancing Blow Damage))*Attack Speed

Table: Damage Comparisons + Power Attack & Glancing Blows on THF
Total THF Damage: (123.025 + 0.75(61.5125))2.53 = 427.97321875 Damage-Per-Second
Total SWF Damage: (((3.5(3.5)) + (20*1.5) + 9 + 5)1.85)3.29 = 342.365625 Damage-Per-Second
Total TWF Damage: ((((3.5(3.5)) + (20) + 9 + 5)1.65)2.67) + ((((3.5(3.5)) + (20*.5) + 9 + 5)1.65)1.77) = 309.6225 Damage-Per-Second

In an enhancementless world, a single-weapon fighter would get glancing blows too--for maximum damage. If you're interested, I'll add that to this post.

[Gremmlynn]

Help me out and explain what it is used for. As I see it, any model that assume a single target, ignores weapon procs and AOE affects, and assumes attacking 100% of the time (no movement / healing / etc) has too many short comings to be useful for much. On the other hand, trying to capture everything quickly leads to an overly complex model loaded with assumptions making it very difficult to actually model what real play will show.

It's used to compare different styles assuming the same player in the same situation and comparable weapons. While it does assume attacking 100% of the time, any time not spent attacking would be the same for each style so really don't matter.

[Seikojin]

So with twf, you have with 3 feats, 1.8 times the damage as someone with one weapon (not using swf or thf).
With swf you have 3 feats, 1.3*1.2+(2*stat) more damage than someone with 1 weapon and no feats.
With thf you have 3 feats, 1.5*stat+1.3 damage to all in area compared to someone with no feats.

I think if any needs a boost, it is thf. Move and glancing blows is nice, however it will just make melee kiting possible again. Not really improve the top end of thf; damaging a boss.

I really think thf should deal 1.5/2/2.5 times stat based on the feats you have.

TWF; meh, you get double procs. Give its offhand half stat or full stat with gtwf.

[Scrabbler]

I mentioned that THF is top DPS if there's even one other mob nearby for glancing blows (and it's pretty competitive without it).

When you put it that way, it seems like you think Glancing Blows won't work with only one monster to fight.

[Arlathen]

I play a TWFer on live. And I would like to continue to do so.
But after testing all 3 styles on lammania I simply can't justify going TWF any more. It just sucks in comparision.

This is exactly my thinking right now.

With the current Feat changes, it's become inadvertantly another nail in the coffin for a pure class Ranger as well as a proxy nerf to TWF.

[Severlin]

Great feedback in this thread.

We are watching two weapon fighting closely for balance.

Some thoughts:

~ We buffed Tempest to significantly reduce the cooldowns on two key abilities. The Growing Storm's damage buff should have just under a 50% up time, and Dance of Death should have a bit more than 1/3 up time. With Dance of Death doing 5[W] and changing all base attacks to a 4 enemy AoE we want to see how that compares to glancing blows.

~ As we move more and more towards a system that scales with Melee Power, abilities which use on hit effects will grow in usefulness. The Paladin's light damage is an example. We also buffed Venomed Blades from Assassin to scale with 200% Melee Power. Two Weapon Fighting can generate the most on hit effects of any style.

Sev~

[Grailhawk]

Great feedback in this thread.

We are watching two weapon fighting closely for balance.

Some thoughts:

~ We buffed Tempest to significantly reduce the cooldowns on two key abilities. The Growing Storm's damage buff should have just under a 50% up time, and Dance of Death should have a bit more than 1/3 up time. With Dance of Death doing 5[W] and changing all base attacks to a 4 enemy AoE we want to see how that compares to glancing blows.

~ As we move more and more towards a system that scales with Melee Power, abilities which use on hit effects will grow in usefulness. The Paladin's light damage is an example. We also buffed Venomed Blades from Assassin to scale with 200% Melee Power. Two Weapon Fighting can generate the most on hit effects of any style.

Sev~

You need to look in to ways for TWF to remove the Offhand damage and double strike penalty, also should look into/study how it works while moving is the current behaviors acceptable to you?

[Varinon]

When you put it that way, it seems like you think Glancing Blows won't work with only one monster to fight.

This is actually true. I've not played a THF'er in about a year (staffs don't count--no glancing blows). When I looked into it and realized it works on one monster only, it seems that THF's DPS is back at the top.

Great feedback in this thread.

We are watching two weapon fighting closely for balance.

Some thoughts:

~ We buffed Tempest to significantly reduce the cooldowns on two key abilities. The Growing Storm's damage buff should have just under a 50% up time, and Dance of Death should have a bit more than 1/3 up time. With Dance of Death doing 5[W] and changing all base attacks to a 4 enemy AoE we want to see how that compares to glancing blows.

~ As we move more and more towards a system that scales with Melee Power, abilities which use on hit effects will grow in usefulness. The Paladin's light damage is an example. We also buffed Venomed Blades from Assassin to scale with 200% Melee Power. Two Weapon Fighting can generate the most on hit effects of any style.

Sev~

Good to hear that there's some interest in the issue. I personally believe that the TWF-Not-Getting-Melee-Power could be alleviated considerably if generic procs scaled with Melee Power. TWF is still the king of procs, but proc value has been decreasing steadily because proc damage is only multiplied by Attack Speed, not critical hits, not +[W], not melee power (in most cases).

As for the tempest buffs: I do like the two tempest cooldown buffs. They're both a good step in the right direction, but TWF was already behind before the feat changes somewhat--Tempest buffs mostly help it catch up to the MP on the other style's feats instead of being a flat buff.

Edit: Stolen from the other TWF thread

See my post in the other (this) TWF thread.

~ We are definitely looking for feedback on TWF.
~ Tempests got a little bit of love with the cooldown reduction (and removal of the AC penalty) on two key abilities.
~ TWF will be able to take good advantage of on hit effects as we move them to scale with Melee Power.

Sev~

So more on-hits ARE planned to scale with melee power. OooOOoo. Good information. I'm excited. Hopefully these other on-hits will include legacy effects like "Holy" and "Flaming".