1H + Shield Vs 1H + 1H Vs 2H

[Ramp[GER]]

What are the Pros and Cons for these:

1) 1-Hand Weapon and Shield
2) Two 1-Hand Weapons dual wield
3) A 2-Hand Weapon

EDIT: I made a summary and a conclusion here :

[Gnoupi]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von dierampe:

My Question was "WITHOUT significant Execute% or a special dual-wield skill, why on earth would someone dual wield?"

Well, it's fun and feels like you are a walking razor, for starters.
Other than that, if you dual wield claws, you get a significant armor penetration, which can be nice on bosses, for example.

[illidasi]

Execute can make dual wielding dps on par with a 2h, and even higher with high execute chance. But, since you asked for why bother if you ignore execute, think about the the item bonuses. If you dual wield, you get any stat bonuses on that second weapon, the elemental damage it deals to add more effects, any crit chance or damage bonuses, execute chances, dual wielding damage bonuses, attack speed increases, procs, etc. If you have some really nice stats or effects on a weapon that might not be the strongest, it is usually still worth using. Biggest numbers aren't the only way to play in this game.

[Matthew]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Korrok:

Especially in multi-player, if I'm low on mana I'm not going to rush in and start hacking away with a sword.

Right, but how often are you out of mana? I always have an excess of potions, and if I didn't, an excess of gold to purchase more.

When your dropping Blazing Pillars and spamming Prismatic Bolt, it really doesn't matter what you are holding in your hands. If min/maxing, may as well go with shield.

Of course, "it is fun" is an acceptable answer too. The only point I am getting at is dierampe seems to want a specific answer of what is optimal, but in the big picture it is often irrelevant.

But, dierampe, to answer your question dual wielding should give the most single target DPS even without execute. I believe there is a 10% IAS bonus, so as long as the damage on both weapons is the same, you will do more than 1H+Shield. And as mentioned previously, 2Handers don't really have higher DPS than 1Handers. They do attack multiple targets, but it is more likely you will want higher single target DPS; AoE skills will take care of masses of weak enemies.

Once you factor in execute, dual wielding should really begin to outdamage other options. A Zerker with 100% execute and a high crit chance does ridiculous damage.

[Ziel]

I guess if you dual wield you have one more weapon in which to socket skulls/gems that give bonus to critical damage, critical chance, and execute chance. That could really raise DPS.

[Wobb the Great and Terrible!!!!!]

My engie with sword and shield I see a HUGE difference in the damage I take than if I have no shield, so I take shield all the time with my engie.
I'm not into this game in the way many people are, looking at all the stats and everything, I just look at what I see working, and I found a shield works well for a character you would use for soaking up damage while others work on the enemy

[Ramp[GER]]

Ok, lets see what new arguments we have here.

Gnoupi says: "its fun"
Ok this is an valid argument to me

and: "if you dual wield claws, you get a significant armor penetration"
More than with a single claw? why this?

ragnarokseig says: "But, since you asked for why bother if you ignore execute, think about the the item bonuses. If you dual wield, you get any stat bonuses on that second weapon, the elemental damage it deals to add more effects, any crit chance or damage bonuses, execute chances, dual wielding damage bonuses, attack speed increases, procs, etc. If you have some really nice stats or effects on a weapon that might not be the strongest, it is usually still worth using."
I see your point. Nice bonuses (or boni) on 2 weapons is better than on only one. On the other hand a shield can also have (other) nice bonuses. So Im not completely convinced. Another thing: you are speaking of "dual wielding damage bonuses" is there a default bonus for dual wielding in the game or are you talking of a specific skill here?

matthewameluxen says:
I believe there is a 10% IAS bonus, so as long as the damage on both weapons is the same, you will do more than 1H+Shield."
That would change everything. Is there any proof of that?

and: "And as mentioned previously, 2Handers don't really have higher DPS than 1Handers."
Is this really common sense? Is there a proof?

and: "Once you factor in execute, dual wielding should really begin to outdamage other options. A Zerker with 100% execute and a high crit chance does ridiculous damage."
Totally right. BTW are there any Berseker builds with high execute chance? Pushing Focus to get high execute% with a Berserker sounds counterintuitive to me. But I could be wrong with that. Im not a pro at what possible good builds are out there.

Sorry guys, if I want proof on some statements its not I dont belive you, I just want to understand the game mechanics. Thanks for the feedback so far.

[illidasi]

When I said dual wield bonuses, there are passives that give bonuses to dual wielding, in outlander and berserker i believe. But more than that, there are actual item bonuses on some one handers that say "x% dmg bonus to dual wielding" or something like that. Its on a number of items and gems to socket.

[Astral Pork]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von dierampe:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Korrok:

I also have a lvl 100 embermage and I use duel wield with it and try to arrange my points to get the most out of Execute.

My Question was "WITHOUT significant Execute% or a special dual-wield skill, why on earth would someone dual wield?"

And you're answer is: I use Dual Wield, because my Embermage has significant Execute%
Really?

I swear you're asking a rhetorical question. You're asking why anyone would want to dual wield with zero execution chance; why would anyone want to? That's like using a two hander on a freaking tank - there's zero synergy.

And just to answer your question: no. There is no reason why you would use two one handed weapons if you have no execute. Execute is why you use two one handed weapons.

1) One handed weapons + shield: Shield gives additional armor, useful for tanking or an aegis engineer build.

2) Two handed weapons: Arguably highest DPS. Attacks are landed less often but for HIGHER damage. This means, assuming enemy armor is a flat reduction (which, to my knowledge, it is), you're DPS will be reduced by it less.
EX: enemy has 500 armor. 2x1000 damage - 2x500 armor = 1000 damage. (one hand example)
1x2000 - 1x500 armor = 1500 damage (two handed example)

3) Two one handed weapons: I haven't tried a dual wielding build yet, so I'll just go off assumption. Assuming you have HIGH EXECUTION (remember, there's no point in dual wielding unless you do), you could probably get more DPS autoattacking that you could with a two hander. This won't apply to skills since executes (probably) aren't taken into account for your skill damage.
Anyway, there's some other crap dual wielding would benefit from. Armor reduction gems, for example, would be applied faster due to your increased attack speed. I'd assume DoT weapons would be appliable twice (once per weapon, non stacking) which means you could equip 2 DoT weapons for twice the effect.
Critical builds would benefits as well, fast attacks = more crits. And the increase of damage gained from them usually makes enemy armor fairly neglectable. I'm not sure how crits with executes are determined but making two crits simultaneous could probably destroy the universe.

Yeah, that sums it up mostly. Remember that my section on dual wielding is mostly theoretical. Veterans feel free to enlighten me if anything is off.


EDIT:
As a note, I've found that, generally, two handed weapons tend to have between a 30-60% increase in DPS compared to one handers. Since executes use both weapons at once, a high execution chance should be able to get you a higher average DPS than two handers would.

[Matthew]

The 10% is wrong. I must have had a weapon with it when I had first noticed it.

Here you can compare top weapons. http://torchlight2armory.com/items?item_category=Weapon&quality[]=5#table:items_default+0+2+desc+null+20

There is little difference in DPS. I also tested whether skills use DPS or base weapon damage, as I was curious myself. It appears that the game does in fact use DPS, not base weapon damage, just like the tooltips state. This means that no, 2Handers won't outperform 1Handers when comparing skills using a % of weapon DPS.

As for execute, there is no reason to pump focus. Between skills and gear, you can get an extremely high execute chance. http://torchlight2armory.com/items?f=81&fe=g&fo=0 Base chance of 40% with skill. Harbringer set would add another 50%, but also other gear options and for other classes.

Also note there are +dual wield damage spells and gear further separating it from 2Hand and 1Hand/Shield.

Unfortunately that website does not separate the different element types, but if you manually look through them you will note the large number of high damage elemental boosts. This was my point in my original post. Throwing out Glaives with +100% poison damage, or dropping Blazing Pillars with +100% fire damage, or spamming Northern Rage and Permafrost with +100% cold damage: All of these will greatly outperform any base weapon attack combination that you can come up with.

Thus, if you are min/maxing, just go with 1H and shield.

[Matthew]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Astral Pork:

2) Two handed weapons: Arguably highest DPS. Attacks are landed less often but for HIGHER damage. This means, assuming enemy armor is a flat reduction (which, to my knowledge, it is), you're DPS will be reduced by it less.
EX: enemy has 500 armor. 2x1000 damage - 2x500 armor = 1000 damage. (one hand example)
1x2000 - 1x500 armor = 1500 damage (two handed example)

It is true that the game calculates with flat reductions (making critical hits extremely powerful in both Torchlights) but it is hardly noticeable on lower difficulties. But then on elite, you need to deal with enemy hits, so the benefit of a shield also becomes noticeable.

And with the number of -amor, X damage over Y seconds, and skill damage modifiers, the 2H advantage for bypassing armor isn't as great.

I'd even go as far as arguing that outside of the engineer, there is little reason to go 2Hander (except for fun, which again, is OK). They typically have points into strength already for higher crit damage, and Heavy Lifting gives a 30% IAS bonus along with the stun chance to combine with Coup De Grace.

Berserker? Benefits most from dual wielding than any other class.

Mage? Brands end up doing most of your damage, so just equip shield.

Don't have too much experience with Outlander, but I get the impression they are set up to use various options with success. Akimbo gives a huge bonus to pistols. I suspect many of the heavy %weapon skills would benefit from shotgonnes and bows just as well as pistols. And many of the glaive attacks are heavy elemental based, allowing you to essentially play like a mage, so using a 1H and shield would likely be a logical choice.

[Elazul]

Since the block cap was raised to 75% I cannot think of a single reason to go anything other than 1h/shield unless you just want a guy with a big hammer or what not for the heck of it.

[Ramp[GER]]

Summary

1) 1-Hand Weapon and Shield

Pro: significant better defense by Armor + Block %, More Hits per Time (good for effects triggered Per Hit)

Con: less Damage

2) Two 1-Hand Weapons dual wield

Pro: Extra Damage by Execute (even better because of Flat Armor reduction), More Hits per Time (good for effects triggered Per Hit)

Con: less Armor, no Block %

3) A 2-Hand Weapon

Pro: Higher DPS-Weapons sometimes, More Damage per Hit (even better because of Flat Armor reduction), higher Range, Additional Damage on secondary Targets

Con: less Armor, no Block %, less Hits per Time (bad for effects triggered per Hit)

Conclusion

Taking a 1-Hand Weapon and Shield seems to be the "normal" configuration. It gives you a high defensive Bonus. So:

- If you have no clue what we are talking about here, take a shield.
- If most of your attacks/damage come from Skills, take a shield.
- If you dont want to absolutely maximize your Damage, but survive more easily, take a shield.

Every class can play with 1-Hand weapon and shield.

Exceptions

For dual-wield or a 2H weapon it depends on class/skills if it makes sense to drop the shield. Only drop shield if you have a reason for that and reasonable skills. That could be:

Berseker with Dual Wield
because he has skills that raise execute chance like "executioner" AND skills that are triggered on hit and stack like "Armor Shred". (1H Weapon(s) = more Hits per Time)

Engineer with a 2H Weapon
because Engineer can compensate the disadvantages of a 2H Weapon. Engineer has "Heavy Lifting", so this makes your very slow 2H Weapon up to 30% faster. And he doesnt suck without a shield, because he has defensive skills that work without a shield like "Forcefield" and "Aegis of Fate". (correct me if Im wrong here)

("BTW: he has also skills, that work perfect with a shield: "Sword and Board", "Shield Bash", "Fire Bash") (correct me if Im wrong here)

Embermage with Dual Wield ?!
- High Focus -> High Execute % ( on the other Hand, Damage comes from spells/skills, so the benefit from a shield outweights the bonus of execution% most of the time)

[deeveejay]

i played shield + 1h engineer, it's pretty good in soaking up damage when u play coop on harder difficultiies, BUT it deals damage really slow, compared to 2h engie. i recommend finding claymore, whis is two-handed sword with average attack speed, it's simply great... i was lucky to find one without much stat req (level 40, only 96 strenght needed), and with "kill 250 enemies" upgrade option. the chaos i spread with this baby is simply amazing. for me, 2h engineer is the best choice, if u look for dual wield, i recommend berserker instead, which in my opion benefits much more (cuz usually u should pump your dex on berserker).

[Elazul]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von nG. deeveejay:

i played shield + 1h engineer, it's pretty good in soaking up damage when u play coop on harder difficultiies, BUT it deals damage really slow, compared to 2h engie.

I completely disagree. My 1H/Shield Focus Engineer completely destroys maps using Emberquake/Seismic Slam and outpaces my 2H Engineer in terms of DPS and in Survival.

[Ramp[GER]]

I think it really depends on your build with Engineer. Its the perhaps most versatile class. But generally speaking its without a doubt that playing with a shield is the best option in terms of capability of survival.