Are the speed bonuses from two weapon style a bug? Intended? Or just plain stupid?

[Teclis23]

I am no master at game speed mechanics. I want to make that clear. But with the limited understanding i have the fillowing seems to be quite evident:

Two weapon style gets:
- 15% recovery bonus if you pick the talent
- another inherit recovery bonus just for dual weilding is it 30%?
- one handed weapons acan be faster then two handed weapons with no dual weilding buffs anyway
- the benefit of using the magic abilities of two weapons
- you can apply afflictions and special attacks quicker due to less recovery
- full attacks are jus insane

Two handed style gets:
- extra base damage over the 1 handed equiv (about 40%)?
- extra 15% damage from the talent
- there can be a recovery speed penalty above a one handed weapon (without any two handed buffs included)
- you can only use the magic abilities of one weapon
- +1 pen above the two handed equiv


Im trying to figure out why anyone would want to use a two handed weapon vs dual wielding???.......................

Hmmmmmmm...........

Ummm

Hmmmmmm.............

Nup cant do it

Edited August 26, 2018 by Teclis23

[Teclis23]

If i got any of those stats wrong please let me no and i will update

[rjshae]

Better accuracy?

[Teclis23]

Better accuracy?

what do you mean?

[1TTFFSSE]

Yeah it's bad there are some nice "aoe" two handed weapons like wohai poraga and oathbreaker and lord darryn's voulge because of their unique effects but they fail compared to two handed style in terms of single target dps. Also Frostseeker and Watershaper's focus fall in this group of weapons because they have aoe effects.

 

The only exceptions that are good in terms of dps for twohanded for single target damage is The Red Hand Arquebus because it fires twice per shot compared to a normal arquebus and the unique Hunting Bows with fast modal active because then those fire twice as fast then and can keep up or surpass two-handed style when auto-attacking. 

[Teclis23]

The only reason I would use a two hander is because some of them can look kind of cool

 

But seriously this isnt cool, its quite frustrating when two handed weapons are vastly inferior to dual weilding

Edited August 25, 2018 by Teclis23

[rjshae]

The increased reach of some two-handed weapons would be useful in certain situations.

[baldurs_gate_2]

Buff two handed weapons and it will be fine. Don't come up with the idea, to nerf single hand weapons.

[Teclis23]

Buff two handed weapons and it will be fine. Don't come up with the idea, to nerf single hand weapons.

I would prefer this to but they won’t do it. Two weapon style needs to get nerfed. It’s just ridiculous having two weapon style so dominant over both using two handlers and single weapon style

 

Or the recovery penalty for two handlers should be reduced it is quite high

Edited August 25, 2018 by Teclis23

[grasida]

I am no master at game speed mechanics. I want to make that clear. But with the limited understanding i have the fillowing seems to be quite evident:

 

Two weapon style gets:

- 20% recovery bonus if you pick the talent

- another inherit recovery bonus just for dual weilding is it 30%?

- one handed weapons are about 80% faster then two handed weapons with no dual weilding buffs anyway

- the benefit of using the magic abilities of two weapons

 

Two handed style gets:

- extra base damage over the 1 handed equiv (about 40%)?

- extra 15% damage from the talent

- about an extra 80% recovery speed penalty above a one handed weapon (without any two handed buffs included)

- you can only use the magic abilities of one weapon

- +1 pen above the two handed equiv

 

 

Im trying to figure out why anyone would want to use a two handed weapon vs dual wielding???.......................

 

Hmmmmmmm...........

 

Ummm

 

Hmmmmmm.............

 

Nup cant do it

Dual wield is better than two-handers, but you're overstating the problem.

 

-The talent gives a 15% recovery speed bonus, not a 20% boost.

-Only some one handers are faster than two handers if you're not dual wielding, and not by 80%. Slow one handers like swords, battle axes and sabers are the same speed as two handers, at a base 4 second recovery. Fast one handers have a 3 second recovery.

 

Your other points are correct. And there's another one that you didn't mention, which is that all other things being equal, hitting really fast, but for low damage per hit is always better than hitting very slowly, but for very high damage per hit. First, attacking quickly lets you adjust more quickly to what's happening in combat. Say you're a paladin fighting on the front line -- if your time between attacks is short, you can use lay on hands on a badly injured ally quickly. If you're a fighter, fast recovery time makes interrupt powers like knockdown more useful as well since you can react to dangerous enemy moves faster. Second, hitting hard but slow is more likely to waste damage on overkill. For example, if you hit for 100 damage every 10 seconds and attack an enemy with 20 hp left, you waste 80 damage. A character that hits for 10 damage every second, though it has the same dps on paper, is actually going to do more damage typically over the course of a fight.

 

But, in spite of that, dual wield would be close enough to two handers to be acceptable if it weren't for full attacks. The fact that there are so many ways for weapon damage builds to deal nearly double damage when dual wielding, but almost no benefits on any skill tree exist for any other weapon styles really makes dual wield the clearly superior choice.

 

Note that according to Josh Sawyer on the Something Awful forums, obsidian is aware of this and they're experimenting with a solution to making full attacks less insane with dual wielding.

[baldurs_gate_2]

 

I am no master at game speed mechanics. I want to make that clear. But with the limited understanding i have the fillowing seems to be quite evident:

 

Two weapon style gets:

- 20% recovery bonus if you pick the talent

- another inherit recovery bonus just for dual weilding is it 30%?

- one handed weapons are about 80% faster then two handed weapons with no dual weilding buffs anyway

- the benefit of using the magic abilities of two weapons

 

Two handed style gets:

- extra base damage over the 1 handed equiv (about 40%)?

- extra 15% damage from the talent

- about an extra 80% recovery speed penalty above a one handed weapon (without any two handed buffs included)

- you can only use the magic abilities of one weapon

- +1 pen above the two handed equiv

 

 

Im trying to figure out why anyone would want to use a two handed weapon vs dual wielding???.......................

 

Hmmmmmmm...........

 

Ummm

 

Hmmmmmm.............

 

Nup cant do it

Dual wield is better than two-handers, but you're overstating the problem.

 

-The talent gives a 15% recovery speed bonus, not a 20% boost.

-Only some one handers are faster than two handers if you're not dual wielding, and not by 80%. Slow one handers like swords, battle axes and sabers are the same speed as two handers, at a base 4 second recovery. Fast one handers have a 3 second recovery.

 

Your other points are correct. And there's another one that you didn't mention, which is that all other things being equal, hitting really fast, but for low damage per hit is always better than hitting very slowly, but for very high damage per hit. First, attacking quickly lets you adjust more quickly to what's happening in combat. Say you're a paladin fighting on the front line -- if your time between attacks is short, you can use lay on hands on a badly injured ally quickly. If you're a fighter, fast recovery time makes interrupt powers like knockdown more useful as well since you can react to dangerous enemy moves faster. Second, hitting hard but slow is more likely to waste damage on overkill. For example, if you hit for 100 damage every 10 seconds and attack an enemy with 20 hp left, you waste 80 damage. A character that hits for 10 damage every second, though it has the same dps on paper, is actually going to do more damage typically over the course of a fight.

 

But, in spite of that, dual wield would be close enough to two handers to be acceptable if it weren't for full attacks. The fact that there are so many ways for weapon damage builds to deal nearly double damage when dual wielding, but almost no benefits on any skill tree exist for any other weapon styles really makes dual wield the clearly superior choice.

 

Note that according to Josh Sawyer on the Something Awful forums, obsidian is aware of this and they're experimenting with a solution to making full attacks less insane with dual wielding.

 

The damage output from full attacks +dual wield is insane until to that point, where the enemy has 5500 HP and you run out of ressources (when you play solo ofc).

Edited August 25, 2018 by baldurs_gate_2

[Teclis23]

Updated some stats in OP

[Teclis23]

 

I am no master at game speed mechanics. I want to make that clear. But with the limited understanding i have the fillowing seems to be quite evident:

Two weapon style gets:

- 20% recovery bonus if you pick the talent

- another inherit recovery bonus just for dual weilding is it 30%?

- one handed weapons are about 80% faster then two handed weapons with no dual weilding buffs anyway

- the benefit of using the magic abilities of two weapons

Two handed style gets:

- extra base damage over the 1 handed equiv (about 40%)?

- extra 15% damage from the talent

- about an extra 80% recovery speed penalty above a one handed weapon (without any two handed buffs included)

- you can only use the magic abilities of one weapon

- +1 pen above the two handed equiv

Im trying to figure out why anyone would want to use a two handed weapon vs dual wielding???.......................

Hmmmmmmm...........

Ummm

Hmmmmmm.............

Nup cant do it

 

Dual wield is better than two-handers, but you're overstating the problem.

 

-The talent gives a 15% recovery speed bonus, not a 20% boost.

-Only some one handers are faster than two handers if you're not dual wielding, and not by 80%. Slow one handers like swords, battle axes and sabers are the same speed as two handers, at a base 4 second recovery. Fast one handers have a 3 second recovery.

 

Your other points are correct. And there's another one that you didn't mention, which is that all other things being equal, hitting really fast, but for low damage per hit is always better than hitting very slowly, but for very high damage per hit. First, attacking quickly lets you adjust more quickly to what's happening in combat. Say you're a paladin fighting on the front line -- if your time between attacks is short, you can use lay on hands on a badly injured ally quickly. If you're a fighter, fast recovery time makes interrupt powers like knockdown more useful as well since you can react to dangerous enemy moves faster. Second, hitting hard but slow is more likely to waste damage on overkill. For example, if you hit for 100 damage every 10 seconds and attack an enemy with 20 hp left, you waste 80 damage. A character that hits for 10 damage every second, though it has the same dps on paper, is actually going to do more damage typically over the course of a fight.

 

But, in spite of that, dual wield would be close enough to two handers to be acceptable if it weren't for full attacks. The fact that there are so many ways for weapon damage builds to deal nearly double damage when dual wielding, but almost no benefits on any skill tree exist for any other weapon styles really makes dual wield the clearly superior choice.

 

Note that according to Josh Sawyer on the Something Awful forums, obsidian is aware of this and they're experimenting with a solution to making full attacks less insane with dual wielding.

You think a one handed sword is the same speed as a great Sword? Na man your dreaming?

 

Anyone got the speed stats for these two weapons handy?

[ArnoldRimmer]

Role-Playing??? I pick weapons that I want my characters to use, not because some excel spread sheet tells me I can get the most mechanical advantage out of it. I was playing a party based on Robin Hood - Little John was my fighter (devoted) using a quarterstaff, probably not the best weapon for a fighter but it didn't cause me any problems. 

 

Another time a Paladin using the yenwood two handed sword.. had a nice effect for running people through if I remember correctly

Edited August 25, 2018 by ArnoldRimmer

[baldurs_gate_2]

 

 

I am no master at game speed mechanics. I want to make that clear. But with the limited understanding i have the fillowing seems to be quite evident:

Two weapon style gets:

- 20% recovery bonus if you pick the talent

- another inherit recovery bonus just for dual weilding is it 30%?

- one handed weapons are about 80% faster then two handed weapons with no dual weilding buffs anyway

- the benefit of using the magic abilities of two weapons

Two handed style gets:

- extra base damage over the 1 handed equiv (about 40%)?

- extra 15% damage from the talent

- about an extra 80% recovery speed penalty above a one handed weapon (without any two handed buffs included)

- you can only use the magic abilities of one weapon

- +1 pen above the two handed equiv

Im trying to figure out why anyone would want to use a two handed weapon vs dual wielding???.......................

Hmmmmmmm...........

Ummm

Hmmmmmm.............

Nup cant do it

Dual wield is better than two-handers, but you're overstating the problem.

 

-The talent gives a 15% recovery speed bonus, not a 20% boost.

-Only some one handers are faster than two handers if you're not dual wielding, and not by 80%. Slow one handers like swords, battle axes and sabers are the same speed as two handers, at a base 4 second recovery. Fast one handers have a 3 second recovery.

 

Your other points are correct. And there's another one that you didn't mention, which is that all other things being equal, hitting really fast, but for low damage per hit is always better than hitting very slowly, but for very high damage per hit. First, attacking quickly lets you adjust more quickly to what's happening in combat. Say you're a paladin fighting on the front line -- if your time between attacks is short, you can use lay on hands on a badly injured ally quickly. If you're a fighter, fast recovery time makes interrupt powers like knockdown more useful as well since you can react to dangerous enemy moves faster. Second, hitting hard but slow is more likely to waste damage on overkill. For example, if you hit for 100 damage every 10 seconds and attack an enemy with 20 hp left, you waste 80 damage. A character that hits for 10 damage every second, though it has the same dps on paper, is actually going to do more damage typically over the course of a fight.

 

But, in spite of that, dual wield would be close enough to two handers to be acceptable if it weren't for full attacks. The fact that there are so many ways for weapon damage builds to deal nearly double damage when dual wielding, but almost no benefits on any skill tree exist for any other weapon styles really makes dual wield the clearly superior choice.

 

Note that according to Josh Sawyer on the Something Awful forums, obsidian is aware of this and they're experimenting with a solution to making full attacks less insane with dual wielding.

You think a one handed sword is the same speed as a great Sword? Na man your dreaming?

 

Anyone got the speed stats for these two weapons handy?

 

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/98679-mechanics-attack-speed-recovery-time-reload-time/

 

OHS: 0,7 attack time | 4 sec recovery

THGS: 0,7 attack time | 4 sec recovery

[mammasaura]

Role-Playing??? I pick weapons that I want my characters to use, not because some excel spread sheet tells me I can get the most mechanical advantage out of it. I was playing a party based on Robin Hood - Little John was my fighter (devoted) using a quarterstaff, probably not the best weapon for a fighter but it didn't cause me any problems. 

 

Another time a Paladin using the yenwood two handed sword.. had a nice effect for running people through if I remember correctly

 

There's still hope!

[AndreaColombo]

Anything that makes recovery slower than it already is should be a no-go. We’re already playing Pillars of Eternal Recovery; let’s not drag it further.

 

As it is, DW is one of the few ways not to die from boredom while you stare at your characters’ combat stance.

 

IMO the best solution that was suggested on these boards was to make other styles roll maximum damage on Full Attacks (which are arguably DW’s biggest advantage.) IIRC MaxQuest did some math and this solution would bring DW very close to other styles in terms of DPS.

Edited August 25, 2018 by AndreaColombo

[MaxQuest]

@Teclis23, you might want to check this thread.

 

Auto-attack dps of mundane weapons is within +/- 10% for different styles; 2H actually being quite decent.

Full-attacks and specific uniques... is a different story though.

[jww]

Teclis, we discussed it here as well:

 

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/104238-dual-wielding-full-attacks-and-recovery/

 

... with the focus of that thread being that the main issue really is full attacks, rather than the speed differences between the weapon styles, which as MaxQuest noted above gives pretty similar results for auto-attacks.

[Boeroer]

 

 

I am no master at game speed mechanics. I want to make that clear. But with the limited understanding i have the fillowing seems to be quite evident:

Two weapon style gets:

- 20% recovery bonus if you pick the talent

- another inherit recovery bonus just for dual weilding is it 30%?

- one handed weapons are about 80% faster then two handed weapons with no dual weilding buffs anyway

- the benefit of using the magic abilities of two weapons

Two handed style gets:

- extra base damage over the 1 handed equiv (about 40%)?

- extra 15% damage from the talent

- about an extra 80% recovery speed penalty above a one handed weapon (without any two handed buffs included)

- you can only use the magic abilities of one weapon

- +1 pen above the two handed equiv

Im trying to figure out why anyone would want to use a two handed weapon vs dual wielding???.......................

Hmmmmmmm...........

Ummm

Hmmmmmm.............

Nup cant do it

 

Dual wield is better than two-handers, but you're overstating the problem.

 

-The talent gives a 15% recovery speed bonus, not a 20% boost.

-Only some one handers are faster than two handers if you're not dual wielding, and not by 80%. Slow one handers like swords, battle axes and sabers are the same speed as two handers, at a base 4 second recovery. Fast one handers have a 3 second recovery.

 

Your other points are correct. And there's another one that you didn't mention, which is that all other things being equal, hitting really fast, but for low damage per hit is always better than hitting very slowly, but for very high damage per hit. First, attacking quickly lets you adjust more quickly to what's happening in combat. Say you're a paladin fighting on the front line -- if your time between attacks is short, you can use lay on hands on a badly injured ally quickly. If you're a fighter, fast recovery time makes interrupt powers like knockdown more useful as well since you can react to dangerous enemy moves faster. Second, hitting hard but slow is more likely to waste damage on overkill. For example, if you hit for 100 damage every 10 seconds and attack an enemy with 20 hp left, you waste 80 damage. A character that hits for 10 damage every second, though it has the same dps on paper, is actually going to do more damage typically over the course of a fight.

 

But, in spite of that, dual wield would be close enough to two handers to be acceptable if it weren't for full attacks. The fact that there are so many ways for weapon damage builds to deal nearly double damage when dual wielding, but almost no benefits on any skill tree exist for any other weapon styles really makes dual wield the clearly superior choice.

 

Note that according to Josh Sawyer on the Something Awful forums, obsidian is aware of this and they're experimenting with a solution to making full attacks less insane with dual wielding.

You think a one handed sword is the same speed as a great Sword? Na man your dreaming?

 

Anyone got the speed stats for these two weapons handy?

Why don't you just look them up in the game? It's in there and visible if you check the tooltip of your equipped weapons.

 

Heavy one handers like swords, battle axes and maces have the same attack speed and recovery as all two handers. By the way this hasn't changed since the release of PoE 1.

[house2fly]

It's more important for all things to be viable than to be equally good. Can you play the whole game start to finish with 2-handed weapons? You can! So there's no problem. Using an inferior weapon style might even add a bit of challenge!

[Teclis23]

@Teclis23, you might want to check this thread.

 

Auto-attack dps of mundane weapons is within +/- 10% for different styles; 2H actually being quite decent.

Full-attacks and specific uniques... is a different story though.

MAxquest this is awesome thanks. That spreadsheet broke it down very well.

 

One thing though can melee attacks be interrupted? If so the extra benefit from  the 1.5 sec speed bonus for dual weilding  vs Two handed style maybe alot more powerful then everyone thinks . Over the course of a whole fight that could possible lead to alot more interuptions on your melee attacks

Edited August 26, 2018 by Teclis23

[PizzaSHARK]

The increased reach of some two-handed weapons would be useful in certain situations.

 

Maybe if they had bothered to make terrain interactivity relevant.  As it is, the bonus reach is such an edge case it's not worth worrying about and you can always just put a pike in your secondary weapon slots in case it is.  Being able to reach over your shield using front line is kind of pointless when there are only five people in your party to begin with and they didn't bother adding concepts like formation bonuses like shield walls to the game (they probably wouldn't suit this kind of game, anyhow... they're more at home in grittier, more realistic RPGs.)

 

I like the changes to how DR works in Deadfire but they really didn't put in enough effort.  2H having a larger base damage was important and relevant in Pillars since DR was a very simple "damage minus DR" equation, but Deadfire has the separate Penetration stat... so having a large base damage is pretty much irrelevant.  +1 Penetration isn't enough, and many classes already get a damage bonus.  2H talent should probably grant an additional +1 Penetration rather than +15% Damage.

 

I would also impose an Accuracy penalty on TWF, especially since it has the inherent -30% Recovery bonus just for TWF in the first place.  Alternatively, reduce the damage and penetration of the off-hand weapon.  Lastly, I would probably reduce or maybe even outright remove the penetration bonus on crits to make bringing the right tool for the job important.

 

I think SWS is fine - the Accuracy bonus is enormously useful due to how crits work (more accuracy = more crits) and its talent is arguably the best of any style's.  In practice it's usually less raw DPS than TWF even for a Devoted build, but it's more consistent - so it balances out.  You don't care about DPS if you're using a shield and applying the shield's Deflection bonus to your Reflex saves makes the talent worth taking, so it's okay.

 

So it's really only 2H that has a problem justifying its existence.  Nerfing TWF baseline and changing 2H style talent to +1 Penetration should probably fix the problem; +2 penetration to all attacks is no joke, especially if nerfing crit bonus to penetration means it's much harder to just casually ignore enemy DR with TWF/SWS.

Edited August 26, 2018 by PizzaSHARK

[Purudaya]

They need to either give one-handed style and two-handed style bonuses for full attacks or get rid of full attacks altogether. The speed bonuses and double active weapon enchantments are already a significant bonus for TWS - having an entire attack feature with double chances to deal damage/inflict status effects (with no equivalent feature for any other style) both disincentivizes certain class builds and creates a barrier between optimization and role playing. 

 

I know that the game is winnable with any weapon/class, but that's beside the point. Players who know the mechanics should be able to explore builds utilizing various weapon styles without having to incur an intentional self-nerf for choosing OHS or THS.

[Teclis23]

They need to either give one-handed style and two-handed style bonuses for full attacks or get rid of full attacks altogether. The speed bonuses and double active weapon enchantments are already a significant bonus for TWS - having an entire attack feature with double chances to deal damage/inflict status effects (with no equivalent feature for any other style) both disincentivizes certain class builds and creates a barrier between optimization and role playing. 

 

I know that the game is winnable with any weapon/class, but that's beside the point. Players who know the mechanics should be able to explore builds utilizing various weapon styles without having to incur an intentional self-nerf for choosing OHS or THS.

They should get rid of full attacks alltogether. The last thing the game needs is a significant dps buff. 

 

The balancing on the last half of POTD is not in a good state at the moment because it is far to easy.