Two-handed weapon balance

[Phoenix]

One hing I keep seeing peoeple do wrong again and again is comparing just pure DPS of basic weapons (two swords vs two-handed sword for example) and completely ingoring ENCHANTMENTS.
Two weapons or a weapon and a shield have twice the enchanments a two-handed weapon has, atumatically giving you morebenefits and options. Time and time again I see RPGs forget that.
I could have a two-handed sword with +20% fire resist....or two swords, one with +20% fire resist, other with +20% ice resis. Geez, hard choice!
Two-handed weapons either need stronger enchantmens or more enchantments to compete.


Also, some disintion between different weapon would be great. Why are hammers the same as swords mechanically? They shouldn't be.
Swords are faster, better balanced and they primarily cut and piece. Hammers/axes don't have good balance by virtue of center of mass being near top, thus being less nimble but having a stronger impact.
Maybe give hammers greater damage + knockaback/stun chance or greater ani-armor potential, but defense/accuracy/parry penalty?
Meanwhile swords would be more accurate, have higher critical, could cause bleeding.

[Sunshine]

I dont think anyone seriously believes that 2H weapons need to be buffed. they are by a big margin the best in this game

[kricket]

They are actually very balanced Alexei. The problem is most people are not expending their points properly with other builds. 2 handed is the most intuitive, so most people are getting it right without trying.

For dual wield builds you need to avoid the dual wield skill al togeather. It is literally the worst possible way to increase your dual wield damage. But that's okay, because Warfare & Scoundrel are great. The thing is, very few people are putting warfare points in scoundrels, leaving themselves damage poor.

There is a calculator for it all here, which suggests where to spend points for your weapons.

www.irodemine.com/divinity2/damage.php

[Ashera]

Originally posted by Alexei Stukov:

I dont think anyone seriously believes that 2H weapons need to be buffed. they are by a big margin the best in this game

^ that. 2H weapon builds are crazy strong.
My "rogue" type character, with its guaranteed back stabs was hitting say 1k. My partner with his 2h hammer, points sunk into warfare, str, wits has 60% crit chance, non crit for 800. Crit for 2k.
I think that raw damage beats out ANY 20% resist buff or +2 finesse buff your offhand weapon will bring.

If anything, 2h weapons need their math changed so they don't scale so crazily.

Difference between sword/mace/axe?
Lets say all these weapons are the same level, here's their damage...
Axe: 27-33, average: 30
Hammer: 28-32, average:30
Sword: 29-31, average: 30
The weapon types will have the same average DPS regardless, but each type has a different min/max damage range.

I know axe's have the biggest damage range, I'm not sure which is lowest range / in the middle between the sword/hammer.

[Shotagonist]

Doesn't help that Warfare has enrage which means certain critical hits. That on Elf with a dip in Scoundrel and the Executioner feat is going to 1 round kill almost every single enemy in the game, it's absolutely ludicrous.

[kricket]

Ashera, where do you have your points spent on your rogue?

[Hyperion]

staves are included in 2h so I'd say not ALL 2h are equal, there you have it now.

Staves weapon damage is lower than that of other 2h.

[Ashera]

Originally posted by kricket:

Ashera, where do you have your points spent on your rogue?

Lost it recently in honor mode...
From memory it was something like (lonewolf), 10 warfare, 10 scoundrel, 6 dual wield.
2 geo, 2 hydro for support options.
Roughly 40 finesse, 24 con.


Kricket, if you have any tips on how I should distribute points to max my efficiency or nice tricks I'd love them :)
Nothing has been more amusing than, Rupture Tendons + Chicken Claw + Corrupted Slash + Restoration.

Does Polymorph's Apotheosis synergies as well with Mortal Blow as I am assuming?

[dtsmart1981]

what level is that? at 20 my rogue was doing well over 2k hits with various skills easy.
at 22 I could almost one shot braccus with mortal blow.

[Ashera]

Level 13-15. Somewhere around there. Either way, crit builds for 2h weapons are insane. Especially if you can find a decent hammer with +10-20% crit chance and have some points in 2h weapons as that increases the multiplier like scoundrel does.

Either way, the second set of stats on the offhand do not outweigh the raw damage of 2h, as OP suggests.

[wendigo211]

Originally posted by Ashera:

Originally posted by kricket:

Ashera, where do you have your points spent on your rogue?

Lost it recently in honor mode...
From memory it was something like (lonewolf), 10 warfare, 10 scoundrel, 6 dual wield.
2 geo, 2 hydro for support options.
Roughly 40 finesse, 24 con.


Kricket, if you have any tips on how I should distribute points to max my efficiency or nice tricks I'd love them :)
Nothing has been more amusing than, Rupture Tendons + Chicken Claw + Corrupted Slash + Restoration.

Does Polymorph's Apotheosis synergies as well with Mortal Blow as I am assuming?

Chicken Claw was nerfed in the last patch, enemies will now only run 6m, instead of using all their AP running.

You have three multipliers, Attribute+Weapon Skill, Warfare and Critical Hit. To max your damage you want to increase the lowest of those multipliers. That means maxing Warfare and Scoundrel and leaving Dual Wield alone.

So with Lone Wolf you should end up with something like a 70 Finesse, 20 Warfare and 20 Scoundrel. Making your multipliers 4, 2 and 2.5 giving you a 20x damage modifier on your backstabs. Don't forget to use your masterwork runes on your weapons too.

If you went, 70 Finesse, 20 Dual Wield and 20 Warfare instead your multipliers would be 5, 2 and 1.5 giving you a 15x damage modifiers on your backstabs.

Of course 2H is even better, with 70 Strength, 20 Two-Handed and 20 Warfare your multipliers would be 5, 2 and 2.5 for a 25x damage modifer, but you would need to find another way to get critical hits.

Putting all the multiplier stuff away, dual daggers also have a lower base damage than the two-handers do for most of the game. I.e. when two-handers were averaging 100 damage, daggers were averaging 40 damage, so dual daggers were 60 base damage vs. 100 base damage for the two-handers. Daggers do start to catch up, still, until I hit about level 17, my two-hander's normal attacks did as much damage as my dagger wielder's backstabs.

[dtsmart1981]

Yea that sounds about right, daggers picked up hard at the end of the game. Way better then anything I had imagined. I haven't used any twohander builds yet. Maybe ill switch over and rock a twohander while I clear Nameless isle

[Ashera]

So leave dual weilding completely alone? I read somewhere that getting it to +8 makes your offhand do 0% increased damage rather than -50% at 0 dual wielding. I suppose multiplication from warfare/scoundrel makes it redundant.

The nerf to chicken claw isn't really much of a nerf. Enemies have 6ap each turn anyway, only way they'd have spent more would be from any saved up AP, eg dogs that chill at the bottom of a ladder till the end of the fight.

I haven't made it far into the third island so that may be why I think 2h is so strong, is the second island sort of where you see the biggest gap between the different melee builds?

[BW022]

You are also forgetting that dropping enemies faster often makes up for the lack of other enchantments.

If you drop an enemy one round sooner... that means one less attack it has on the party. This more than makes up for increased armor or defensive enchantments by the numbers in most cases.

[murkly gurgles]

Originally posted by kricket:

They are actually very balanced Alexei. The problem is most people are not expending their points properly with other builds. 2 handed is the most intuitive, so most people are getting it right without trying.

For dual wield builds you need to avoid the dual wield skill al togeather. It is literally the worst possible way to increase your dual wield damage. But that's okay, because Warfare & Scoundrel are great. The thing is, very few people are putting warfare points in scoundrels, leaving themselves damage poor.

There is a calculator for it all here, which suggests where to spend points for your weapons.

www.irodemine.com/divinity2/damage.php

This link seems really helpful if its accurate, can anyone confirm the math behind the coding on that calculator is accurate to the current patch?

[Fitcher]

Originally posted by dtsmart1981:

what level is that? at 20 my rogue was doing well over 2k hits with various skills easy.
at 22 I could almost one shot braccus with mortal blow.

Wow dude, i was just readin about weapons and then all of sudden BAM you throw a spoiler without even warning or anything... thanks alot.