Val-An Deming

I've long been aware of that. What I'm not sure about is why you're declaring such as though it equates to "DOUBLE" the power. Essentially, the "doubled" upgrades just mean that your off-hand weapon can be somewhat up to standards with the main-hand one, when not otherwise cripled by the penalty. You're still looking at: Blaster Rifle: 1 attack. 1 more with Rapid Shot. 2 more when using Master Speed. A total of 4 on average. Dual Pistols: 2 attacks (1 from main and 1 offhand). 1 more attack per round from Rapid Shot. And 2 more under Master Speed. A total of 5 on average. How did you factor 6 there? I'm guessing because you counted Rapid Shot as an additional attack with both guns? Powers and feats that grant additional attacks don't apply to both hands/weapons, and a weapon in the offhand is treated just like one extra attack. I've never seen the damage counter go higher than five when dual-wielding. I don't know how you're getting the other numbers either. The first two Force Speed levels only offer +1 attack, not 1 per each. By Master Speed, you get a total of two. Meanwhile, Rapid Shot only offers you a total of one extra attack, the additional stages just lessen the penalty to your defense for using it. It is not an additional attack per stage, it just retains your initial one. So, at the end of the day, Dual Pistols simply offer one extra good attack in comparison to a Blaster Rifle at 5-4. "Double" the upgrades with Dual Pistols don't change that. And I'm not sure that one extra attack is really worth all the trouble: - It'd be quite some time in the game before you can find enough upgrades to make both pistols as powerful - Until you get all of those upgrades, the two-weapon tree is pretty meaningless, because an easily upgraded Blaster Rifle would be stronger in the mean time, especially with your feats otherwise going towards the Precise Shot and Rapid Shot trees. - And since the two-weapon tree is meaningless until the pistols are strong, it might be so late in the game that the extra attack hardly seems all that worth it by then. - There's still the penalty to factor in to the offhand, even with all three feats invested in two-weapong. - The feats used for two-weapon can be put into other beneficial feats. In fact, I think I've just came up with my own answer. Dual Wielding pistols don't seem a strong enough advantage over a Blaster Rifle to make me sacrifice my roleplay-appeal for.

I'm really glad you asked this question, as I just came across this same dilemma, as of yesterday, with Atton (one of my main team members). Dual Blaster Pistols would certainly be the stronger choice in the end, but the single Blaster is more aesthetically appealing and seems more sensible in a roleplay. I think of dual pistols as more of a Bounty Hunter type of thing, which certainly doesn't resonate with my one-time-Scoundrel-now-Jedi Atton. I ran a small test between the two on Nar-Shaddaa, in having him test out both options with Master Speed and Master Rapid Shot, while also equipped with Level 4 Precise Shot. The Pistols, on average, did 10-12 more damage than the rifle did. But there are a couple of problems involved: Neither of the two weapons were particularly upgraded well - the pistols maybe even to a lesser degree. Meanwhile, Atton is automatically equipped with Wep Specialization Pistol but did not have Wep Specialization Rifle, so I don't know how much of a difference that made either. Ultimately, I think I'll base my own decision on how much stronger dual-wielding is in comparison. If the difference is minimal, I'll go with aesthetics. If it's huge, I feel more inclined to buck up and go with the dual-wielding. So if anyone can post up, say, max/average damage with a strong Rifle vs max/average damage with equally upgraded/strong pistols, I would very much appreciate that.