Any way to make dual wield as good as, basically any other choice?

[VoiD]

I was trying to follow a theme with a gloomstalker with 3 levels on assassin Minthara, I know doing it with a bow is really broken, but I kinda wanted to see a dual version of it, but this character seem like it's hitting like a wet noodle compared to my MC paladin, and laezel as a pure fighter, both using 2h weapons and hitting like trucks.

Is there anything I can do to make it work? It really doesn't feel like the bonus action for an offhand attack/turn is worth the build specialization, fighting style and feat invested.

[VoiD]

Airatome a écrit :

Just going to leave this here for posterity.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1086940/discussions/0/3812913197987825860/#c3812913197988035965

It works. Particularly when you know how to get consistent high damage out of both (all) attacks.

But your list is counting both hunter's mark AND dual wielding as 2 damage sources for your build, it's the opposite, hunter's mark work for 2handers, and it cripples dual wieldiers.

I mean, sure, you'll be able to hit one more attack on the next turn dealing an extra 1d6 damage on turn 2, but how many enemies are reallistically alive by turn 2 when a melee class gets near them? On tactician Laezel kills 1~3 enemies per turn with a pure fighter build and a halberd, and she can also use her bonus action to cast hunter's mark just fine.

A dual wielder's main issue is the bonus action cost, if you're marking targets, you're not ever using your offhand for anything at all, and even if you decide to forget about marking enemies, you're just doing one extra attack when the 2hander was hitting with higher base damage, +10 from their feat (if you can stack enough attack to ignore the -5 accuracy) twice plus the same hunter's mark you're using.

I don't know, it "works" in the sense that it can clear content, but it still feels like it's just chosing to deal half as much damage every turn. Even if you don't take an item capable of casting hunter's mark, you'd still be doing 2 hits of 2d6 (or 1d10) every turn, plus all the same modifiers, +10 on every hit, and you'd still be able to do another extra attack with your bonus action after a kill and/or crit thanks to the same feat, and if that sounds unreliable you could just take the polearm mastery instead to hit with the other end of your weapon, for 1d4, which sounds low, sure, but it still applies all your crazy modifiers anyway.

Of course, if you count haste among your buffs, then there's another issue with the fact that it will double your actions, not bonus actions, so you can hit twice with your main hand, or 2hander, and then twice more, while your offhand would theoretically still hit only once, receiving no benefit from the buff, and making it's use even less attractive considering that single attack is getting in the way of hexing your target and getting that hex to potentially trigger 4 times in a single turn.

Speaking of assassins, I haven't tested, but wouldn't they also benefit a lot more for having twice the base hit damage on their ensured crits instead? I mean, there are also dex based longswords (phalar aluve from act 1, found another on a vendor) you could trigger the +10 base damage skill too, wouldn't that also deal twice the alpha strike damage regularly?

Of course, you can take thief to get another bonus action instead, and that one might make it work as you can mark, hit, hit, off-hit in a single turn but, then again, you might still prefer to hide for a guaranteed sneak attack next turn instead.

Edit: Another issue might be that the game's too easy, nothing that works after a single turn seems worth using, DoTs like bleeding, burning, poison, stacking modifiers, everything seems rather useless when every target dies in a single turn, this is specially true for dual wielding, even on a character without any 2h masteries and no extra attacks using their bonus actions, as they use their mark on turn 1, meaning they can't even hit with their offhand anymore, by turn 2 the initial target's already dead, and now you'll have to use it again to mark the next target, and the next, and the next, etc...

[VoiD]

today i learnt BG3 messed up the D&D system, apparently a bunch of actions aren't supposed to cost bonus actions, like they do in the game, according to random forum posts, dual wield is bad, like, really bad even in D&D5e, but in BG3 there are even more bonus actions that take priority over an extra attack that it made matters even worse.

Hell, even if you don't actually want to DO anything in your turn, you'll still want to use your bonus action to move further (leap) anyway just so you can reach the next enemy to deal any damage at all, and that happens very, very often.

Do you think a balance patch is on it's way to remove such actions from the bonus action pool?

[Zackerie]

duelling in insane with the end game named duellist sword, you get an extra reaction and an extra attack

[VoiD]

zackerie a écrit :

duelling in insane with the end game named duellist sword, you get an extra reaction and an extra attack

That sounds great tbh

[id795078477]

The math says no. You won't ever get anything better damage-wise than 2H or 2-xbows (and some people demand to nerf 2-xbows; I guess they want 2H to dominate through and through)

The thing is - even without considering OP 2H weapons, 2H is just superior in terms of damage:

-- 2H is basically double damage roll (2d6) at the cost of only 1 attack roll. 1H you get attack roll for every dice so you're much more likely to miss some of the damage
-- Without a feat and a combat style the off-hand attack is practically a joke. And even with that it costs a bonus action but a 2H gets (at least) the same damage AND a bonus action
-- GWM penalty is eliminated easily mid to late game and so +10 damage cannot be compensated in DW
-- 2H also is much better for stuff like smites because you go with the all-in damage at the same action cost.

To be fair, DW is pretty bad in 5e in general - but it's also so in BG3. It just can't compete. The only solution I can think of is https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/1028 (highly configurable). I don't know why they even added the DW when it's so far behind. It's a classic "edgelord" "noob-trap".

[moysha]

you can make an absolutely devastating dual wield character

ranger 5 hunter, rogue 3 thief
feat - sharpshooter
2 hand crossbows

melee dual wielders are late bloomers because they require a certain armor from act 3 or a certain pair of gloves also from act 3 to compete with the ranged ones.

[Scearcely]

Buckle up - this ended up way longer than it seemed in my head

I will not argue dual-wielding is better than a 2hand weapon since in the overwhelming majority of builds and playstyles it isn't.
I will say its better than duelist at endgame where its trivial to find a weapon that offers you more than +2 damage and 2 AC (even more so if you're playing to the spirit of duelist and not using a shield)

But, if you're leaning ALL the way in to a duel-wield focused build, it will perform competitively with the meta builds. And unlike the meta alpha-strike paladin and fighter melee builds, dual-wield maintains its damage for extended periods (generally ~10 turn chunks)
The thing is, the best setup i've found is counter-intuitive to what most people assume, though the game gives you a tiny hint. Of all the companions we can recruit, only one comes with 2 weapons equipped - Jaheira
Considering how good Larian has been about subtle nudges towards good build ideas(things like finding out Wyll's parentage giving you the, arguably, best warlock weapon). Jaheira arriving as a dual-wielding druid, while being a nod towards her history as a fighter/druid, is also a tip to look beyond the standard fighter/rogue/ranger traditional melee classes to find the best dual-wielder

10 druid / 2 ranger in my experience will get you the best overall dual-wield performance - using the subclass no one talks about, circle of spores

The strength of dual-wielding is the fact that, all else being equal, it has at least 1 more attack per turn than any other setup other than barbarian/fighter and monk/fighter which it ties,

2hand fighter/rogue - 4 main: dual-wield fighter/rogue - 4 main 2 bonus
2hand barbarian/fighter - 4 main 1 bonus: dual-wield barbarian fighter - 4 main 1 bonus
2hand pure(11+) fighter - 6 main: dual-wield pure(11+) fighter - 6main 1 bonus
2hand monk/fighter - 4 main 1(2 w/ ki) bonus: dual-wield monk/fighter 4 main 1 bonus
2hand fighter11/monk1 - 6 main 1(2 w/ ki) bonus: 6 main 1(2 w/ ki) bonus

The weakness, as has been mentioned in this thread, is it eats up your bonus action, and its incredibly likely you'll have a better use for your bonus action than a 1d6 + dex(str) mod weapon swing. Solution is obvious to me, make that bonus swing do more.

This is harder than you'd think, most damage riders (bonus damage on attack) are main hand only or once per round or tied to a specific weapon - giving no benefit to dual-wield.

There's a generous number of item based riders, but since those are class agnostic i'll leave them as an exercise for the reader - I will emphasize lightning charges and arcane synergy as being especially good for dual-wield though.

In terms of class created riders, that effect all attacks in a round from all weapons, options are extremely limited: hunter's mark, enlarge, crusader's mantle, and symbiotic entity.

Since symbiotic entity and crusader's mantle care about a class level beyond 4, you legitimately can only get 3 of these at one time: hunter's mark from 1 ranger, enlarge from level 3 duergar(or have someone cast it on you). And then either 9 levels of paladin or 3 levels of druid

Druid build takes 2 ranger levels to get the fighting style, start with ranger for weapon and armor proficiency. Highly recommend dex build over str since there's a very good light armor for spore druids at endgame https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Armour_of_the_Sporekeeper though you'll probably be using medium armor for most of act 1 and 2

I say druid is better than paladin for a few reasons

• Symbiotic entity is NOT concentration - it doesn't prevent other concentration abilities or have a risk of being lost when taking any damage
  
• Symbiotic entity is NOT timed - it lasts until its temp HP are lost (4 per druid level) or long rest, mantle is 10 turns
  
• Symbiotic entity is stronger - 1d6 necro vs 1d4 radiant
  
• Crusader mantle is NOT unique - its an aura effect, meaning if your dual-wielder is a druid they can still get the crusader bonus, but a paladin can not get the symbiotic bonus