two handed vs. dual wield?

[OnkelMorra]

I'm about to start a new game and ran into trouble when i came to the melee fighter. His only purpose is to deal damage, and i wonder if the 2 handed path is more powerful than to dual wield?

thanks in advance!

[JessicaElytis]

Depends quite a bit on what items you come across, though from what I've experienced, the dual-wield deals more damage faster.

I personally prefer the sword/shield combo. While dealing less overall damage, you can stand longer and the shield properties add quite a bit at times. Here the build is designed more to stand and beat down an opponent, taking hits and dealing a moderate amount of damage in return. Items that return a % of damage taken to the opponent are desired, as is anything to boost Armor.

Keeping to only dual or 2-hand, however, I would go with 2-hand. My reasoning is the stun factor from the Smite skill for 2-handers. This is what makes 2-handers shine out. Stunning your opponent into a stupor and then beating him senseless, heehee, priceless. Combined with the Critical Strike and Overbear, the 2-hander is very well equipped to get all up in the big boy's faces. Any melee bonus item helps here, though I found % to critical strikes and Strength work best.

The dual build will deal lotsa damage to anything and everything, but her armor is fairly weak. If you think about this build be on the lookout for items that steal a % of health of the damage you deal. Your health bar will go up and down like a yoyo, but taking into consideration how much damage is dealt here, you should be fine. A little regen bonus % might be a good idea as well.

~Jessy

[OnkelMorra]

thanks alot for the reply!

I've almost decided to go for dual wield anyway and put some skillpoints into fortitude, reinforced armor and perhaps toughness aswell. though i must admit you gave me some things to think about the two handed style

thing is that i've always liked to carry one weapon in each hand and just charge into battle and see what happens

[Scorpion1210]

in my opinion i prefer the dual wield because the stun duration of the 2h weapon is to short. and the damage calculation beteenw the one handed and two handed is almost the same the two handed just got a litle more damage than the one handed because the minimiun damage of the two handed is too short compared to the max damage. i think the best combination would be a dual wield+shield fighter+nature mage+combat mage (lightening) because the shield fighter use provock to keep all the other weak defences menbers saves like the mages who got less/hp defence the nature mage to heal all the menbers and make skills like rage and they can be a good offensive if it is nessesary the combat mage because of their mod skills (the last of the lightening skills in the tree) and the dual becuase they can take out single enemyes petry fast specially with their last power (dont remenber the name but it take out some defence and make you hit like 700-1000 (in lvl 37) with each weapon that combinated with the nature mage skills who protect all the party for all attacks for 8 seconds is the perfect combination i take out the boss really fast with that skill) sorry for my english it isnt my main language. but well when i reach the veteran dificulty i would take a two handed.

[liquidlight]

With the smite (stun) skill for 2 handers well invested with points, i find every other hit stuns anything, hence you don't take mutch damage from even a huge tough boss ... it just takes a while to kill it. The only disadvantage is with large mobs cause you 'can't stun all of the people all of the time'

[JessicaElytis]

.... The only disadvantage is with large mobs cause you 'can't stun all of the people all of the time'

I believe this is partly why 2-handers have such a short span of skills. (Overbear and Smite). It allows them to take other skills to use different types of weapons for mobs.

Of course, if you don't want to solo, you can take NPCs/Pets to help take down the little mobs. Or build up Lothar as a 2-hander to pound on bosses while you mop up mobs with an archer or mage.

The "jack of all trades" they "warn" against in the beginning of the game (in the Trenches) is what works best, imo, but takes FOREVER to build. I'm on my 7th character and think I have it licked. Still hard to tell as I'm only level 72 atm, but using Sword and Shield with 3 Dire Wolves and now carry Deru in the party. Thinking to add Taar once I work into Elite mode. My hardest part is actually keeping Deru alive as she is doing like 800 points of damage a shot and things tend to focus on her for that. especially if she's shooting at a range to get Shockwave going :mischief:

Short version of that dissertation: There are a LOT of tactics out there. The trick is to find the one you like and makes the game fun for you.

~Jessy

[liquidlight]

Well i tend to play around with mods too mutch and keep starting over and over ... but to me thats fun.
I've just installed a 'ranger' mod which changes thrown weapons to one handed and lets you use a shield, ... along with a x2 skillpoints mod so i can build an interesting multiclass character here incorporating the shield/armour skills, throwing skills, and summoning with the summoning mod.

It's really cheating but i find the four single class characters a bit boring ..i want more things to do and the skill abuse possibilities are interesting.

[Cosmitz]

Freshly started a dual wielder after getting a bit sick of getting my ass kicked as a ranger, and to my surprise, it's doing around ~350-700 damage on ~level 35. The whole trick i saw, was to focus on damage and life steal, no other defenses. Enough said i got used to run around with only 4-5 health potions since i allmost never use them and so far the bossfights have been close to zero in difficulty. And that's with 6-8 points still not put into the skilltree. Maybe it'll get rougher down the road, but considering i might rack up a few points up in Survival eventually aswell on the ranger side, besides the normal toughness and health/armor boost, i have a feeling it'll get real easy.

[nevadasmile]

Dual Weapons

I found myself struggling with that decision, too. I like the power of a one handed weapon, but the speed of two weapons was considerably faster. In the end, I chose dual weapons, which has worked great. What part are you on now?

[Etherial]

Something I haven't seen yet that might make the decision easier:

Dual Wield - My personal favorite for melee. Emphasis is on attack damage, attack speed, and the fast-regenerating powers like Brutal Strike.
Especially useful when combined with the Fist of Stone set of magical spells and abilities like Rejuvenating Weapon, and before that Petrifying Weapon is very useful. It's like the Smite skill in some ways. Dual wielding with a Fist of Stone is extremely good because Fists of Stone tend not to have quite-as-powerful weapons as pure fighters, constantly having to deal with a minor catch-up in terms of what they can wield given their overall level; dual-wielding more than makes up for this possible deficiency in melee punch and skills in the Fist category can make up for some of the armor deficiencies.
On its own (pure fighter) the dual-wielder can be a bit fragile unless they have lots of rings and amulets with armor bonuses or physical resistances. Vampiric health stealing with that particular set is a must. Get it, love it, learn to live by it or you won't live long. Also, learn to love and use Brutal Strike and Waves of Force often. Waves of Force is quite possibly the most useful power you'll use because there are moments in the game in which you have to retreat, and when you retreat the monsters all have a delightful tendency to bunch up into an easy-to-catch line. Can you say "slaughter fest"? I knew you could. . .

Two-Handed: Useful on its own and pretty much only on its own. Do not go with this if you intend to be a Fist of Stone. So annoyingly ineffective is the Fist/Two-Hand combo in regular combat that it's worth your gold to reset Yoren's skills to get him to become a competent Dual-Wielder.
Two-Handed Fighters are pretty much a suped up version of the standard fighter, IE: basically you're trading in your Rusty Shortsword on Greilyn Beach for a big-arsed hammer that might stun someone if you're lucky. If, however, you want to take luck out of the equation Staggering Blow will be your power of choice, followed soon after by Brutal Strike.

Shield-Tank: Ahhh... that takes me back to the Beach, stealing Drevin's hammer and shield and plopping them on my guy for that sweet-sweet bonus to defense. I was an unstoppable juggernought that battle as many a broken Bracken Defender can attest. As you can imagine, you're not going to really be hitting as hard as the Two-Handed is, and definitely not as hard as the Dual Wielder. You're a tank, son, a mobile rock designed by the digital gods to take as many hits as you can while dishing out your own special brand of moderately effective pain.
The Tanker makes an extremely good Fist of Stone and your primary powers of choice depend on what sort of party you have formed. If you have Dual Wielders, Combat Mages with spread-effect spells, or even Bow-oriented Rangers/Blood Assassins with Thunderous Shot you're going to love Gravity Stone and its ability to bunch up the hapless and evil. Otherwise, you're going to be using Provoke to keep your casters and Rangers alive long enough to kill things for you, and you are going to use Brutal Strike a lot on bosses and elite monsters (this is also true for pure fighter-Tanks).