Two Handed or Duel Wield

[Dredge]

Trying out a Warrior and just poking the gestalt mind of the Path community.
Both seem to do roughly the same damage least to trash mobs. Havent tried against bosses yet

[LuProo]

dual wield only viable for duellist, unplayable for marauder as there is little to no perk benefit his dual wielding

[scown]

once u unlock giants blood u are able to 1 hand a 2 handed weapon.

[Insanitor]

Originally posted by Po Tay O:

dual wield only viable for duellist, unplayable for marauder as there is little to no perk benefit his dual wielding

Wrong forum, we have neither Duelist nor Marauders here :D

[Sambol]

shield+2hmace, two 2h maces attacks too slow

[EvilHare]

dual
More stats for crushing your enemy

[RedFaster]

Two handed weapons are always going to have half as many modifiers as two weapons so it kind of depends on how complex your build strategy is.

[wulfster42]

You can actually use 2 two handed weapons if you hit giants whatever in the sw corner of the map. It tripples the stat requirements though, which is a big deal for alot of characters. Titans can handle it pretty well as you get ALOT of strength as a titan (good for max health as well).

I don't believe there is an inherant speed boost in this game for DW like there was in PoE 1 (at least there used to be).

That being said many skills attack with both weapons at 70% of max damage (30% reduced damage) but that is still a net game of 40% over all damage. Attack speed is often not a problem due to the skill hitting multiple times (sunder etc) anyway.

I would never bother with it for weapon/shield though, as you can get quite high damage on a 1 handed weapon. Not really 100% sure that it's worth it even for dual wielding 2 handed weapons (Again you get ALOT of damage from 1 two handed mace, and you can focus tree points etc to pump the damage up a ton in other ways, without the extreme stat requirements.

Two handed is often better late game (at least from my testing) than weapon shield, or has been for me, but nothing keeps you from having a weapon/shield in your alternative slot (if your not using a ranged weapon there).

[Ostrava of Boletaria]

I would recommend 2-handed with a 1h/shield swap. When you get good gear and stack strength you can go giant's blood and run 2h + shield which seems like the best setup overall for now. It's possible dual wield 2h is the eventual best option but even if it is it'll be very endgame and gear-dependent

[pirate135246]

giants blood is a trap. dual wield 2h is not worth it until mega late, also while leveling getting 2 great weapons per upgrade is much more difficult than 1. Slower attack speed, less accuracy, and triple stat requirements forcing you to sacrifice dmg or tank nodes

[wulfster42]

Thing for me is early on (first 2 acts at least) a 1 handed weapon with 2 rune slots does pretty much the same dps (if not the same damage per hit) as a two handed weapon. That is due to getting so much damage from runes (the first cold runes are 6-12 each, so 12-24 with two of em on a faster mace). That is so much damage that the slower speed of two handed weapons just isn't worth it AND you get a nice shield (with some really nice boosts on them). Even the low level unique shield adds 50 spirit and decent other mods.

Anyway there are reasons to go two handed especially later, but the overwhelming power of starting runes vs weapon damage through level 20 or so, can make the diff between 1 handed and 2 handed weapons minimal.

[wulfster42]

Originally posted by pirate135246:

giants blood is a trap. dual wield 2h is not worth it until mega late, also while leveling getting 2 great weapons per upgrade is much more difficult than 1. Slower attack speed, less accuracy, and triple stat requirements forcing you to sacrifice dmg or tank nodes

To be fair very high STR is a tank node heh, and as titan at least you get tons of strength anyway, so it's not a huge sacrifice. Strength and then strength % nodes and nodes that double the effect of small nodes, or of strength etc, all boost your max health significantly and as a warrior/titan you probably have significant % of max life as life regen (And life regen % nodes as well).

So Giants isn't all bad, but yeah, depends a ton on your build and what you are trying to do.

[Ostrava of Boletaria]

Originally posted by pirate135246:

giants blood is a trap. dual wield 2h is not worth it until mega late, also while leveling getting 2 great weapons per upgrade is much more difficult than 1. Slower attack speed, less accuracy, and triple stat requirements forcing you to sacrifice dmg or tank nodes

Giant's blood is good for 2h + shield. You keep your damage output high and you get a signficant defensive layer. It's very gear-intensive though which I think is unfortunate as it basically means it's completely unrealistic to even use the keystone if you aren't playing warrior

[wulfster42]

Originally posted by Ostrava of Boletaria:

Originally posted by pirate135246:

giants blood is a trap. dual wield 2h is not worth it until mega late, also while leveling getting 2 great weapons per upgrade is much more difficult than 1. Slower attack speed, less accuracy, and triple stat requirements forcing you to sacrifice dmg or tank nodes

Giant's blood is good for 2h + shield. You keep your damage output high and you get a signficant defensive layer. It's very gear-intensive though which I think is unfortunate as it basically means it's completely unrealistic to even use the keystone if you aren't playing warrior

I need/plan to test if you can use giant's blood with a monk staff and shield as that would be freaking amazing. It's way out of the way, but tons of good things for you to get on the way there.

Meanwhile giants blood means tons of strength which pretty much monk and warrior and maybe gemling merc, can handle well. The strength level will make you have a freakton of hp and using that in combo with a shield could make you very defensive.

I am sure there are going to be 2 two handed buids out there that just demolish everything in 1 hit (probably already are...heck 1 2 handed mace + sunder + auto crit on armor break/heavy stun already almost 1 shots everything lol).

But yeah for me, it's not really worth it currently.

[roshiron18]

It would be so darn cool if they could make Giant's Blood work for INT builds too. Imagine dual wielding staves and double casting spells?

Not currently a feature, I believe if you dual wield staves you can only alternate between equipped spells which if functionally the same as just switching between alternate weapon sets but with one less click. However, it would be awesome if GGG changed this.

[wulfster42]

If you can dual wield sorc staves there are a ton of potential bonuses from that. I have not tried it, but you can get massive spell boosts from staves compared to wands and focus, including bonuses to all spells, spell damage, elemental damage etc, not to mention the unique stave potential combos.

I think it's only melee two handed weapons you can dual wield though sadly and I'm not even sure if quartersaves count (really wanna know).

Would love dual wielding Q-staves as a monk, but none of the monk abilities mention dual wield effects (IE each does 30% less like warrior skills) so it probably doesn't work sadly.