1H + OH vs 2H weapons and how to compare them?

[JJBandit]

Hey folks,

I'm trying to work out the best way to compare 2h weapons against 1 hand weapons and an off hand item?

Has anyone worked out a good/easy way to do this?

Other than actually equipping them, which isn;t always easy as you need to carry the possible objects taking up valuable bag space. I don;t see an easy way to compare, as even using the advances compare tooltip, it seems to compare the 1h vs the 2h, not including the off hand..

also, can you apply weapon aspects to an off hand weapon/item? I simply havent been in the position to try yet.

Does anyone have any tips?

I'm currently playing Druid, so totems are my off hand, but i really struggle to find 1h weapons to go with them. I see 2h maces. and maces, but both 'seem to not give me the option of an off hand.. Am i missing something? surely a mace (rather than 2h mace) is a 1 handed weapon?

any advice or suggestions?

[Neithan]

Main difference between 2x1h and 1x2h is the attack speed and damage per attack. With 2x1 you attack faster, so you can basically profit more from "proccs on attack" stuff, while 1x2 offers more per-hit damage, useful for utilizing overpower, or skills that scale especially good with higher damage.

Then there is ofcourse the predefined mod for different weapon classes. Like swords doing extra crit dmg, axe does extra damage vs healthy, and so on. For Sorc as example, it is quite important regarding your build, as the offhand source has cooldown reduction. 1H weapon for sorc is either +LH% or +close dmg. 2H staff was +cc dmg iirc.

Yes, OH item counts as a weapon, and takes the same aspects.

A onehand mace should indeed let you use a OH as well. I am not totally sure about the Druid, but I'd say if you go for Bear, probably with overpower, 2H mace should be best. For a caster druid, I assume 1H + Totem, not sure about Werewolf.

[Edith says]
Oh, and regarding comparison of 1h vs 2h, in D4 the weapon damage is tied to the item level, so 2 1h or 2h weapons (same speed) of the same ilevel have the same damage. If they have different speed, the damage is "balanced" according to that. And unlike D3, the item mods are NOT reflected in the item stats. In D3, if a weapon had a +dmg or +attkspeed mod, it would be shown in the item stats accordingly. In D4, those mods are not reflected, but all get calculated on the character-side. So when comparing 1h+oh vs. 2h, compare the average ilevel of the 2 vs the ilevel of the 2h.

During leveling, you usually want to use the weapon with the highest ilevel (and thus, base damage) only when nearing endgame, you might prefer some specific mods over a few ilevels.

[JJBandit]

Thanks both!

That certainly clears that up. Maybe i was missing something with the inability to equip an oh with some of the maces i was looking at.. it was late

appreciate the advice.