Is dual wielding worth it?

[Bob of Mage]

If I recall right there seems to be a cap for the number of attacks you can pull off in a round. With master speed, and flurry, if I remember correctly, you end up hitting that cap easily. So is there much of a reason to use two weapon fighting over dueling?

[DJ]

Totally, dueling does almost nothing for you, but using two blades adds an extra attack. Master speed + duel wield + master flurry makes for a lot of attacks, its pretty much always better, only good reason of a single blade is roleplay

[Emmental]

Originally posted by DJ Spicy Deluxe:

Totally, dueling does almost nothing for you, but using two blades adds an extra attack. Master speed + duel wield + master flurry makes for a lot of attacks, its pretty much always better, only good reason of a single blade is roleplay

I have to respectfully disagree.

Duelling actively improves your character instead of reducing penalties from self gimping. Master duelling is the equivalent of +6 dexterity. You'll be harder to hit and hit more frequently as well as having a much higher chance to cause critical damage on a successful threat. It's more noticable early game, but the frequent missing from dual wielding isn't worth one measly extra attack.

Some classes and characters are better at duel wielding notably Hanharr and weapon master/marauder and soldiers because they have the feat progression and or strength to tank the penalties effectively, but duelling is more effective for most classes.

[Ai]

Using dual lightsabers seems to be the best damage and stats wise, given how many upgrades you can use at once.

It's not worth the 3+ attack and defense perks gives you if you have 5 less upgrade slots and one less attack per round.

Aslo some upgrades are *very* powerfull, doubling on those will make you so overpowered that you can solo the entire game at that point...even more that before.

...but it's only if you want to min-max things really, you can't go worth with any weapon loadout, maybe except having your main character use a blaster the entire game that is, since blasters DPS cannot match lightsabers, so the game is suddenly much harder.

[DJ]

Originally posted by Dave:

Originally posted by DJ Spicy Deluxe:

Totally, dueling does almost nothing for you, but using two blades adds an extra attack. Master speed + duel wield + master flurry makes for a lot of attacks, its pretty much always better, only good reason of a single blade is roleplay

I have to respectfully disagree.

Duelling actively improves your character instead of reducing penalties from self gimping. Master duelling is the equivalent of +6 dexterity. You'll be harder to hit and hit more frequently as well as having a much higher chance to cause critical damage on a successful threat. It's more noticable early game, but the frequent missing from dual wielding isn't worth one measly extra attack.

Some classes and characters are better at duel wielding notably Hanharr and weapon master/marauder and soldiers because they have the feat progression and or strength to tank the penalties effectively, but duelling is more effective for most classes.

Dueling does almost nothing, just +3 to defense and offense (at the highest level). That is a small amount, but duel wielding can be incredibly effective, esp combined with master crit strike and a keen lightsaber crystal (or other keen modification), by that point you are likely to land a critical strike at least once a round, when can lead to enormous damage (the more modifications to increase damage or crit abilities the better!)

[Emmental]

This will probably annoy everyone as well. Armour is better than robes most of the time unless you're a consular.

[red255]

Ok so comments. Is MC male or Female, LS or DS.

a LS male gets WIS to defense from the handmaiden as well as Force enlightenment which allow him to cast Force speed, Force Valor and force defense as a single light side spell action for reduced spell cost (not that it really matters at that point)

So Robes (ossus keeper generally) are better than armor.

Armor you could cast (assuming Jedi armor) with 30% energy damage reduction, +3 STR +3 CON and uh, 4 defense and 4 max defense from Dexterity. I don't think you get your WIS to defense with armor. only in robes.

so it was something like 43 defense vs 67 defense armor vs robes. which is alot of difference.

Single wielding vs dual wielding.

OK so there are Expert fencing emitters. which give 2 defense so you get 4 defense for dual wielding and you'd have 5 defense for single wielding with master dueling. If you could manage 2 points of WIS on the off hand sword it would be 5 Defense vs 5 defense with an extra attack.

Master speed does not work with critical strike or power attack, just flurry.

End game I try to find a ankarres sapphire and kaiburr crystal for the offhand so the offhand sword gives me +3 WIS +3 CON +2 strength +1 Dex.

the main hand crystal holding the CHARNAME crystal giving a second massive boost to stats.
But if Lightside you get a huge boost of STR, DEX, and WIS from the charname crystal and so Maybe a pontite for +2 CON Or I guess we could use a Kaiburr for just +3 CON.

Point is if you dual wield you get a second item slot which can give you a whole mess of extra stats. if we did Kaiburr and pontite in both hands thats +6 WIS +6 CON +4 CHA for +5 spell DC and 3 extra hit points per level. meaning dual wielding gives 2.5 spell DC and 1.5 extra hit points per level.

Originally posted by Bob of Mage:

If I recall right there seems to be a cap for the number of attacks you can pull off in a round. With master speed, and flurry, if I remember correctly, you end up hitting that cap easily. So is there much of a reason to use two weapon fighting over dueling?

For the record you are not remembering correctly.

Probably alziemers.

Power attack and Critical strike seem to be capped at 2 attacks per round but with Flurry, 2 weapons master speed or master fury and a saber form you can get 6 attacks per round.

also oddly HK-47 seems to only manage one power attack with two pistols which is odd.

[Emmental]

Originally posted by DJ Spicy Deluxe:

Dueling does almost nothing, just +3 to defense and offense (at the highest level). That is a small amount, but duel wielding can be incredibly effective, esp combined with master crit strike and a keen lightsaber crystal (or other keen modification), by that point you are likely to land a critical strike at least once a round, when can lead to enormous damage (the more modifications to increase damage or crit abilities the better!)

+ 3 isn't a small amount and attack rating is the most important aspect of combat in this game. Attack ratings get very high as the game goes on, but so does enemy defense as everything is level based, so every modifier is valauble at every stage of the game. So compared to master two weapon fighting with a balanced off hand weapon a master duellist is 5 attack better than the off hand and 3 attack better than the main hand. This will result in more hits and more critical damage at any stage of the game.

So ignoring the defensive benefits of duelling, if you want to look at it in terms of dexterity or strength your +10 better than the offhand and +6 better than the main hand. If the modifiers are so pointless would you intentionally reduce your characters strength or dex by a minimum of 6 just for one extra attack which will likely miss alot especially early game?

Please understand I'm not saying dual wielding is rubbish, quite the contrary if done right on the right classes it's epic, but to say duelling is for roleplay only is nonsense as far as I'm concerned.

Originally posted by red255:

So Robes (ossus keeper generally) are better than armor.

You can't put ballistic weave and armorweave on robes, which brings me to my second point.

Originally posted by red255:

so it was something like 43 defense vs 67 defense armor vs robes. which is alot of difference.

But by the end game defense goes out of the window as enemy attack rating becomes ludicrous (It's broken in my opinion, but that's how it is), it comes down to damage reduction which only armour upgrades can provide effectively enough. If you're worried about force powers just use the zieson sharr or jal shey stuff, you can put the upgrades needed on those.

If you're wearing robes the giant storm beast near the end of the game can hit you for well over a hundred damage on hard with only a 5% chance to miss regardless of defense rating. With the right armour and equipment he can't hurt you at all.

Originally posted by red255:

End game I try to find a ankarres sapphire and kaiburr crystal for the offhand so the offhand sword gives me +3 WIS +3 CON +2 strength +1 Dex.

the main hand crystal holding the CHARNAME crystal giving a second massive boost to stats.
But if Lightside you get a huge boost of STR, DEX, and WIS from the charname crystal and so Maybe a pontite for +2 CON Or I guess we could use a Kaiburr for just +3 CON.

Point is if you dual wield you get a second item slot which can give you a whole mess of extra stats. if we did Kaiburr and pontite in both hands thats +6 WIS +6 CON +4 CHA for +5 spell DC and 3 extra hit points per level. meaning dual wielding gives 2.5 spell DC and 1.5 extra hit points per level.

There's no guarantee you'll get all the exact crystals and lightsaber variants you want so you can't really base any potential builds on specific items. Unless you cheat of course. You can largely do this in the first game as all the gear is specifically dropped and the vendors always sell the same items, but this game it's all random.

For the record I always play on the hardest difficulty setting where you take 50% more damage and all difficulty classes are increased. If you don't believe what I'm saying you're always welcome to join my broadcasts. I play with no live status so I have no idea if I'm being watched or not so you'll just see natural gameplay.

[cerberusiv]

A few other thoughts on dual wielding. Not saying any particular outcome is best. Also I generally play as a Sentinel so you get enough feats to make dual wielding effective.

What makes this not straightforward is use of force powers, specifically insanity or stasis field, against non boss enemies. I usually find it possible to reliably freeze even large groups of enemies by the time I get to prestige class. So defence becomes much less important compared to how fast you can cut down the opposition.

Dual wielding allows extra crystals and upgrades so if you can boost WIS and CHA with these your force powers become more effective.

I only single wield if I start as a Consular where you don't get enough feats to develop your lightsaber effectiveness and the other things you need.

It comes down to your choices of class, playstyle and build in the end.

[ÄmJii]

Originally posted by Ai:

...but it's only if you want to min-max things really, you can't go worth with any weapon loadout, maybe except having your main character use a blaster the entire game that is, since blasters DPS cannot match lightsabers, so the game is suddenly much harder.

Someone obviously hasn't tried dual blasters. Full upgraded Disruptor pistols with Keen scope (Crit Threat 15-20 -> 30% chance to crit) deals 80-110 damage per shot, which translates to 400 - 550 damage per round with dual wielding, Master Rapid Shot and Master Force Speed.

Nothing lives long enough to get into striking distance.

[red255]

the game swarms you and blasters are still single target. much better to cast stasis field + force lightning with force channel form.

Blasters do NOT match lightsaber DPS since light sabers benifit from lightsaber forms and can get an additional attack or increased threat range.

but as mentioned dual blasters can do....alot of damage. Enough to kill something in one round at 23 meters.

with precision shot and weapon specilazation you add 10 damage per round. lightsabers would add the strength mod on top of that.

so they do do more damage, but blasters are Enough.

[ÄmJii]

Originally posted by red255:

the game swarms you and blasters are still single target. much better to cast stasis field + force lightning with force channel form.

For some reason my max WIS Consular really struggled to reach higher than 50/50 consistency with Force DCs even against grunts.
Also, enemies seem to scale quicker than Force Lightning damage, you'd have to spam multiple Force Storms to clear enemy groups.

Originally posted by red255:

Blasters do NOT match lightsaber DPS since light sabers benifit from lightsaber forms and can get an additional attack or increased threat range.

but as mentioned dual blasters can do....alot of damage. Enough to kill something in one round at 23 meters.

with precision shot and weapon specilazation you add 10 damage per round. lightsabers would add the strength mod on top of that.

so they do do more damage, but blasters are Enough.

It'd be silly if ranged DPS outpaced melee DPS (see Dragon Age: Awakening).
Ranged has couple advantages, you start damaging enemies right away (no need to walk up to enemies to commence beating -> no "DPS loss") and melee foes take longer to reach you... if you want to, you can even kite enemies with M. Force Speed and avoid all damage.


The last areas, where you're forced to go solo, blaster jedi doesn't even break a sweat on Very Hard difficulty. Storm Beasts drop within two rounds and groups of 4 Sith Assassins go down like sack of potatoes. True, one or two might live long enough to land hit or two, but you're still taking far less damage than melee build would.

[red255]

I suppose thats a thing. never really was much for a damage slider of difficulty. numbers are now higher. Roll better. we are playing on Very Hard. see its a higher number. that makes it more difficult.

I'll play on higher difficulties if it removes lower difficulty crutches to the game. like Neverwinter Nights has Core rules which removes the no friendly Area affect damage from spells.

because game is super easy when you can just throw fireballs without worrying about hitting your own guys.

and fireballs are ranged attacks that dwarf Melee damage in terms of damage.

and aren't silly.

[MajorEarl12]

I dont like dual wielding in the slightest, it gives no bonuses early on and makes things alot harder if you are fighting alone (spoiler: YOU FIGHT ALONE QUITE OFTEN). Meanwhile dueling gives some nice bonuses to fighting and changing between forms makes things even easier. Im also biased against it as when i played KotoR 1, i dual wielded as Revan, so i could play canonical, and i missed alot of the time and relied on force powers alot of the time.

[jackhickman999]

Yes if you build right dualing 2 light saber is the best but you can't be a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ casul so you need to work out the math before you go and do it.
If you understand the game well you can reap massive damage from it.

Classes:
You can take either jedi sentinel either prestige sith assassin iirc is slightly better for damage.
Jedi guardian either prestige is fine just remember

Sith marauder gets a plus 1-8 damage and a +6 damage and i'm pretty sure you can use some dark side weapons and crystal which are also better. Also +30% damage from sith power.

The Jedi weapon master gets like +3 str and + 6 damage.

You will need to pick out your stat boosting items you want to use to make sure you end on a even strength number.

Stats:
Honestly go take the highest str number after you've choosen your class and gear.
You going to need to end up with at least 18 con for the best implants and you want to gimp some of your stats dex is a good one you might want to keep some int to make sure you can craft what you need.
You can aslo just gimp it and take like 10-14 wisdom just so you can buff and heal yourself.

Force powers:
Force valor, force speed and battle med.
So standard buff you should already be taking.
Max them.

Feats you can't really ♥♥♥♥ up because even the jedi watchmen can get more than all the worthwhile ones.

[jackhickman999]

Honestly Sith Marauder is the best class and in my experience for this by far. I played the guardian the least mostly sentinels and then jedi consulars but the 2 times it buttered everything like the next best thing to 2 shotting a room with force storm and much better against kreia

They literally remove the penalty for 2 weapons so people that say it's ♥♥♥♥ have no idea.