Strength Based Dual Wield?

[GrandMajora]

What is the point to the Dual Wield feat allowing you to use full sized weaponry for two weapon fighting? Most of the weapon types that it unlocks are Strength based, and if you had actually been specializing in two weapon fighting up to that point, you were most likely using Dexterity based weaponry the whole time.

Unless you get the option to start with a feat at character creation, unlocking the ability to use strength based weapons with both hands seems like it comes into play too late to be a viable build strategy.

[GrandMajora]

Yojo0o の投稿を引用：

In 5e, Finesse weapons scale with either strength or dexterity, your choice. I assume that's how it's implemented in BG3 as well, but I'm not currently installed so I can't check.

The Light property doesn't change weapon scaling at all, it just governs which weapons can potentially be dual-wielded.

If that's the case, then it makes things much more bearable. But seeing as how there's no in game explanation that I've currently been able to find which clarifies it, it's been confusing and frustrating.

Like, for example, why does my character default to using Versatile weapons with two hands if I don't have a shield / secondary weapon equipped? I was trying to use the Dueling style with a long sword, which requires a free hand to use properly, but they keep using two hands to wield their weapon.

[Myunihausen]

I played a character a couple times that was Str dual wield and greatly enjoyed it! Many people online will say it's bad but if you take the right feats and say champion fighter (not in game yet), which is also considered bad, you have the potential for a chainsaw critical hit making machine.

As a battlemaster fighter, you have an extra attempt per round to use your tactical dice.

Needless to say due to optimally taking the two weapon fighter instead of your ASI at lvl, it is easier to make when rolling for stats vs buying... but the difference other than than what it looks like on paper is not that great. It can all come together by lvl 4, though those first three quick levels using 1d6 weapons do not seem that bad, as you get your modifier for the bonus attack.

[Myunihausen]

GrandMajora の投稿を引用：

Yojo0o の投稿を引用：

In 5e, Finesse weapons scale with either strength or dexterity, your choice. I assume that's how it's implemented in BG3 as well, but I'm not currently installed so I can't check.

The Light property doesn't change weapon scaling at all, it just governs which weapons can potentially be dual-wielded.

If that's the case, then it makes things much more bearable. But seeing as how there's no in game explanation that I've currently been able to find which clarifies it, it's been confusing and frustrating.

Like, for example, why does my character default to using Versatile weapons with two hands if I don't have a shield / secondary weapon equipped? I was trying to use the Dueling style with a long sword, which requires a free hand to use properly, but they keep using two hands to wield their weapon.

There is a button in game that determines how you are holding your weapon, it is very small next to the melee/ranged boxes. I'm not 100% certain this will help you at all but it did me, when I was testing the dual wield build in game (no champion subclass yet... boo!) and it was forcing all my attacks at once regardless if the creature died on the main attack.

[Kryldost]

I enjoy using 2 rapiers lol

[Dome]

Ronin Gamer の投稿を引用：

Dome の投稿を引用：

Two weapon fighting never even comes close to the damage of using a two handed weapon, and eats up your bonus action in a system that is desperate for your bonus actions. However there certainly are some tweaks to the rogue class in BG3

If you want to sit there and act like you know what you're talking about, likely without properly testing a strength based dual wield set up, then by all means. I have tested it however, and it hits pretty damn hard.
It is a different way to play that you have to keep in mind different things from other builds, but it's not bad. Too many people get obsessed with this idea of finding what does the hardest hitting damage and then disregard any other play style or what that could bring to the table. Stop it, terrible way to look at things.

The things that threaten you the most have either a lot of hit points, or you want to one shot and never give any sort of chance to threaten you back. Dual wielding is terrible. It uses your bonus action, The only use ive used personally in tabletop 5e is an extra chance to land a sneak attack on a rogue.

https://postlmg.cc/CZ7qwMwz
https://postimg.cc/mt1C7Gy5
https://postimg.cc/PPWnZSYQ

Every time classes get another weapon attack, the more two weapon fighting falls behind. Implying I dont know what im talking about is much different than saying it's just a different playing style, because I agree. Just because something isnt optimal, doesnt mean you shouldnt play it.

EDIT: Just want to say, in Baldurs gate 3, your bonus action will be very useful, and the rogue can get multiple bonus action swings, so it sounds pretty decent.

[brendan_in_china]

Imo, the hardest fight in Act 1 is the duergar + Nere. They have about 30-40hps each. Sure, you want a heavy hitter, but there's definitely a place for the two-weapon fighter placing damage strategically to finish of crippled duergar coming up in the initiative order.

And focused attacks from 2WF come pretty close to the GWM, especially if you chug a Potion of Giant Str/apply poison - which you get double benefit from.

****

I've noticed that BG3 hands out magic items which grant extra bonus actions. I haven't looked at them closely, but in principle this benefits 2WF.

[GrandMajora]

Myunihausen の投稿を引用：

As a battlemaster fighter, you have an extra attempt per round to use your tactical dice.

I would suggest that Thief may also be a good choice for duel wielding. They get an extra bonus action, which lets you make 2 attacks with your off hand weapon. Alternatively, you can make two strikes, then use an item or whatever, which the secondary attack would normally disable.

[RealDealBreaker]

GrandMajora の投稿を引用：

Myunihausen の投稿を引用：

As a battlemaster fighter, you have an extra attempt per round to use your tactical dice.

I would suggest that Thief may also be a good choice for duel wielding. They get an extra bonus action, which lets you make 2 attacks with your off hand weapon. Alternatively, you can make two strikes, then use an item or whatever, which the secondary attack would normally disable.

While not optimal, a barbarian dual wielding hand axes (and later battle axes or similar weapons after taking two weapon fighting) gets less spike-y damage (crits don't hit as hard) but has a slightly round over round damage damage since they get to add the rage bonus damage an additional time (without having to be a polearm master or a frenzy barbarian). Ultimately, if dual wielding fits a character concept then I always recommend doing it.

[GrandMajora]

brendan_in_china の投稿を引用：

Imo, the hardest fight in Act 1 is the duergar + Nere. They have about 30-40hps each. Sure, you want a heavy hitter, but there's definitely a place for the two-weapon fighter placing damage strategically to finish of crippled duergar coming up in the initiative order.

And focused attacks from 2WF come pretty close to the GWM, especially if you chug a Potion of Giant Str/apply poison - which you get double benefit from.

****

I've noticed that BG3 hands out magic items which grant extra bonus actions. I haven't looked at them closely, but in principle this benefits 2WF.

Dude, the Duergar are easy, especially when you take into account that you can convince them to let you walk around freely, and thus get into proper positition to fight them before hand.

The hardest fight in Act 1 is without a doubt the Githyanki Patrol.

For one thing, Lae'zel's armor is probably the best in the game, with the exception of the Adamantine that you can craft at the very end. And everyone in the Gith patrol is wearing a set. Not only that, but they aggro almost immediately unless you pass an exceptionally difficult check. Lae'zel also turns on you if you dare to attack them first.

In other words, the Gith Patrol is designed to heavily stack the odds in the enemy's favor. To the point where even at level 4, you can get wiped out in seconds unless you know exactly what you're doing.

[GrandMajora]

Myunihausen の投稿を引用：

There is a button in game that determines how you are holding your weapon, it is very small next to the melee/ranged boxes.

Do you mean the button that switches between using a melee weapon, or a ranged weapon? Because otherwise, I don't see what you're talking about.

[RealDealBreaker]

GrandMajora の投稿を引用：

Myunihausen の投稿を引用：

There is a button in game that determines how you are holding your weapon, it is very small next to the melee/ranged boxes.

Do you mean the button that switches between using a melee weapon, or a ranged weapon? Because otherwise, I don't see what you're talking about.

There is a SMALL diamond shaped button between and slightly below the melee/ranged toggle buttons that allows you to switch from dual and single wielding (which also applies to versatile weapons as two or one handed).

[brendan_in_china]

GrandMajora の投稿を引用：

The hardest fight in Act 1 is without a doubt the Githyanki Patrol.

I used to think that, but then i figured out that may Cha14 noble fighter could interrupt Lae'zel and talk directly to Kith'rak Voss. The only difficulty there was the Detect thoughts he cast, but by then I've got 3-4 inspiration. I've passed the encounter without fighting the last two play-throughs.

I don't think I've ever lost that encounter. The approach has so many clues; the dragon, the spy, the Flaming Fist getting slaughtered.

First time, I did serious inventory management beforehand (didn't then realize you can use items in other backpacks) and re-selected spells. I'm sure someone went down several times.

****

Frankly, I don't really think it matters too much which fighting style you choose. My MC uses plain-Jane sword and shield just fine. Lae'zel two-handed. Astarion duel-wielding. Heck, even Shadowheart chugs a potion of giant strength to use a mace when required.

I remember doing Grym with my daughter hurrying me up, wanting me to show her, so I equipped the trash items I had at hand. Lae'zel had a magic greatclub while MC used a dinky mace. Still took Grym down by carefully managing initiative order.

Not showing off, just highlighting there's built-in overshoot in 5E where characters can often be stronger than required.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

On paper, the two-weapon fighting style will eventually fall behind, but I don't think this actually matters that much in BG3, at least not yet. While you may do slightly less damage per round, you'll be slightly more versatile in how you deal that damage (being able to cap two goblins in the same round instead of one has it's benefits, regardless of the actual damage output - overkill damage is always a waste). The higher level the character is, however, the less optimal it becomes compared to two-handers (for pure DPR) or sword n' board (for tanking while being able to deal some damage).

The differences between Dex or Str based two-weapon fighting largely boil down to how you've already built your character, meaning that if you put your points into Str for a Str build, then use the best Str based weapon you find, if you put them into Dex then use some Finesse weapons. Which you choose will likely come down to your character concept, and yes, Dex is the 'god stat', but there are reasons to have at least one Str based character in every group, so if you find yourself building a Str based character and want to go for dual wielding instead of two-hander or sword and board, then you'll end up using Str based weapons instead of Finesse.

If you're intentionally building around dual wielding, then you want to focus on proc effects and getting more bonus actions. Currently, the Thief is actually the best dual wielding due to the extra bonus action they get at level three. Every bonus action is an extra attack, and if you were building a dual wielding Fighter, for example, an extra bonus action on top of multiattack at level 5 would mean getting a total of four attacks per round instead of three. And if you get more bonus actions from items, then you can attack even more times (plus potions of speed). The other thing is proc'd effects, including poison and fire obviously, but also any effects triggered by magical items. For example, if you can Jump as a bonus action, and were wielding Hamarhraft as one of your Str based weapons, then you could deal it's Thunder damage more with extra Jumps or something, but mostly you just want those extra bonus actions to keep proc'ing more damage effects or CC effects if you have them (or I suppose healing effects if there are any weapons that do that).

The more effects you can stack on each swing, the more effective it becomes, regardless of whether the weapon is Str only or Finesse. Just remember that when you build your character to look out for the best weapons you can wield based on your build, whichever stat you main, and focus on those bonus actions + proc effects. Luckily, fire and poison also apply to both weapons when you're dual wielding, so you don't have to use an action to coat/apply each weapon individually. This is more cost effective in terms of actions than a single or two handed weapon as you will get an extra d4 from the action.

[brendan_in_china]

That's a pretty exhaustive summary, the only thing I can add are some DPR calcs I did.

Two builds, Fighter-2W uses two shortswords with fighting style, whereas Fighter-2H uses greatsword with fighting style. Both have starting Str16, improving to 18 then 20. They're attacking AC13 goblins. No feats, no magic items, no buffs.

Fighter-2W, DPR
Level 1 = 8.8
Level 5 = 17.4
Level 11 = 29.6

Fighter-2H, DPR
Level 1 = 7.8
Level 5 = 19.3
Level 11 = 35.3

No real surprises. Question is just how do you want to fight? Heavy hits or a bit more AC and carefully placing the hits?

[Edit] Forgot to mention, Action surge favours 2H weapons. No extra bonus action.

[dolby]

We need decent muticlassing and we are in business with all sorts of builds. IF not mods will fix it for sure.

Right now in EA it's kinda hard to even start talking about dual wielding. If nothing else it's better then in table top. We just gonna have to wait and see cos one item, feat - homebreaw whatever can change everything...

Not to mention some fools want attunement to be added. IF that happens that alone can ruin it. IF that happens even if unlikely, we will ALL be hugging those greats swords like idiots once again.

Right now it's not that bad as is, but it could get abit more love just to be sure it's not bad at release after all Frenzied Strike exist and so on... So it could do with some love and it would only get better with multiclassing. But we do have that badly designed sneak attack that's just ♥♥♥♥....

So who knows how things will be at full release. probably busted heh one way or the other IF EA is anything to go by.