Two handed combat - questions

[Alorrana]

Agreed with Hektor. And ye all are welcome to come get a smack by my tessto first one handed wield, then two handed.. See how much the hurt difference is hehe

[Rhaegar]

So, would it be possible to buff the two handed combat a bit? There are many ways to do so:
1. make it increase your parry chance
2. make specials use not one but both weapons at the same time if possible (special PEN=(PEN_R+(PEN_L/2)) or something like that)
3. make dual-wielding produce AoE attacks perhaps, with the portion of damage dealt to main target also go to other enemies in the room, decreasing as the amount of enemies increases

Would any of this changes be acceptable?

[Hektor]

Rhaegar I think you are wrong to say two handed combat system is in need of an upgrade from a balance perspective.

Noone said dual wielding combat was bad - on the contrary - if anything it used to be far too good compared to the use of a two-handed weapon . In the old days, even if you only had sup journeyman two handed combat the weapon quality of one handed versus two handed weapon made that extra attack (dual wielding) far more preferable to the slight damage increase (of then) to your special attack.

Now (if this is the observation of others as well?) the big weapons doing more damage in particular with specials seem to make up for the major advantages of going dualwield weapon(very fast damage) or shield+weapon (decent damage and tanking) versus the loss of an speed/the loss of a shield in order to do some sudden extra damage.

Or how does everyone feel? I rather like the new combat system and think it makes far more sense than previously.

[Amberlee]

Speaking as someone who has had two handed combat at Sup Guru for a while.
What Hektor says is NOT the way it is.

He assumes that you hit just as well when dual wielding weapons as when you wield one weapon.
This is NOT the truth.
On big, armoured NPC's (which counts for pretty much most NPC's you fight after becomming veteran), the miss ratio when wielding two weapons(yes even at sup guru skill) makes the two handed combat skill more pretty much useless..
It is however a damage enhancer(though not by very much) when you have a tank to hide behind though.

The only time two handed combat really shines through is when you have MAD haste buffed, or you are fighting much smaller NPC's.


Yes two handed combat could use a small buff.. To fix the hit ratio on higher skill levels like sup guru should be a minimum.
To make it affect special so that they do a bit extra damage would also be desireable though :p

[Laurel]

in the previous combat system Laurel the smallfry BDA soldier without any guru sword skill but with noobish (compared to other participants) stats won the Arena wielding a runie/JBS/defender combo (in different setups) winning over such enemies as Ravenrage, Nikiel or Blizzard
before that Arena and after it same Laurel BDA soldier with same combo repeatedly bested other people in PvP (with only a few exceptions, like Morrigan with a gg+Kit's sabre+horse combo or Blake+Brujah combo)
that was when BDA had more or less what Amberlee described above as "affect special so that they do a bit extra damage" and Laurel's enemies saw as more or less ... double slash

after combat + exp recode it all changed drastically and everybody's exp-speed began to radically depend on their weapon+armour quality, because all grinders were forced to seek trolls for exp rather than infidels, Kabal and ogres ... which is also more or less what Amb describes above

[Targun]

Indeed I forgot about tesstos. Possibly dual wielding mino/merc could also do really nice dmg, albeit I didn't get a chance to see them in action yet (especially with boost from bloody skull club. Could be interesting btw + golden gauntlets... hmm). Though I would count it among these 'exceptions'. Actually I had on mind only few two-handers which are worth using. I know of two swords at least, perhaps foul-stygion would be the third one.

I believe they are preferable to runnie+smth, since you can drink booze and I'd say dmg is comparable, if not on the side of two-hander, it's definetely on the side of two-hander when going for heavy armoured and high-def mobs. Your regular attacks are dodged/protected/parried just too often in such case. Moreover, swords are really the only weapons when such divagations make sense. There are of course a few polearms which are great, but there is really hardly any discussion here whether to go dual or two-handed, as polearms by default are rarely one handers. There is only good ol' mbb among the axes, which clearly isn't a competition for one handers. Clubs- tessto- only when you are a mino though, as mentioned before.

Hektor
Yep, you're right. Though back in the old days two-handed weapons were completely neglected on genesis. Serrated halberd, golden trident, mergula, gigantic sword, glaive and a few others, are all rather recent additions ('recent' in Genesis standards). Plus what Laurel said.

I'd say, if the problem is anywhre, it lies within the fact, that with the haste cap and a few 'new' nice two-handers you will rarely go dual wield and when eqhunting pretty much always choose sword and board- even if you have high dual wield skill. I dont know however if boosting dual wield is possible. Certainly not in direction of increasing special attacks power. They got significantly stronger on genesis in last years and would most likely pose a problem what dmg would get for instance an ogre or a calian. I think that perhaps dual wielding should affect opponents def skills- higher chance to hit. The formula perhaps is also slightly flawed, so even with really high dual wield (like 90) you get around 60-65% more attacks. Basicly dual works ok, but on the smaller mobs, or in cases pointed before. I believe it should deal more dmg than two-handers in overall as it's like having skill that you pretty much don't use.

(Just read Amberlee post).She is right here. It does becomes much less effective at these 'big' mobs. 90% of dmg there comes from specials and still these top notch two handers have higher hit anyway. So all in all I would agree that dual could use a boost, but it's got to be well thought. Also I would agree on the hit matter. And again the formula for number of extra attacks seems weird.
Re down:
Yes, I understood you. Just added my thoughts .

[Amberlee]

What i said Targun, was that the hit ratio is WAY off when dual wielding..
When wielding two weapons my hit ratio goes down like 30%
But there is in fact a slight DPS increase.

Unless i tanking/soloing of cource.
Then the hit ratio drops by like 60%, and my DPS goes down and i actually do more damage then by using the good old sword and board.


And to another topic.
For a dual wielding merc nowdays for damage.. my current favorite combo is runie-bsc :p

[Rhaegar]

I think that the biggest problem with dual-wielding is the fact that after some point regular hits just don't cut it during combat as they do negligible damage.
The only way for d-w to be really worth it today in my opinion is when wielding 2 weapons that have some inherent damaging special attack themselves and increasing dps this way, rather than regular hits.

[Laurel]

I never mind to have a merc with 2 HSC/DMS on my back, when Laurel has a leech ...

[Zar]

Well, I do use both dual wield and two handed weapons,
sup. guru in two handed combat helps tu use it efficiently
But there are some awesome two handed weapons too.
The less used combo: weapon/shield - only in teams when tanking