Favourite 2H damage dealer build?

[Cupcakes]

What has been your favourite way to go about building a character using a two handed weapon? DPS role in mind primarily. I'm planning what to try next and personally having difficulties on choosing between a ranger with a pet, fighter and slayer for 2H DPS duty in my party.

[Mork]

My favorite ones? They are companions but probably >>>

Harrim with 1 level of Fighter(optional) and a greataxe. By increasing strength when leveling + enlarge + divine power + power attack, you get a very decent physical damage dealer cleric around level 8+.

Regongar as a pure Eldritch Scion using a longsword or a falcata and by turning off Spell Combat. The strongest the enemies are the better he is versus them. Very good in a duo with a other two-handed party member like Amiri for example since he has easily enough buffing powers for the two of them and hastes for all.

Amiri as two-handed fighter 15 / barbarian 2 using a greataxe and picking up 2 or 3 extra rage feats a long the way. Very good versus a mass of weaker enemies, a little bit less against high AC bosses but still good enough if you turn off power attack.

Originally posted by Vodka:

I'm planning what to try next and personally having difficulties on choosing between a ranger with a pet, fighter and slayer for 2H DPS duty in my party.

A main character Ranger 15 / Mad dog 2 / Sacred huntmaster 3 with a reach weapon or a greataxe is a solid two-handed build all game long.

[[TGC] MadGod]

Mork stole all the fun ones..:) But he seems to be in love with the great axe when the great sword offers more damage on average. Mathematically the average damage is 7.3 vs. 6.8. Since the gain from keen or crit feats is the same for both, the distance stays the same.

So everything he said, just with a great sword. Unless you like axes..:)

[Grifta]

Reach Rogue (Thug). I use something close to what he describes in this build. Less to-hit, but all of the enemies are easier to hit, half of them are running away from you (AOOs), and you get sneak attack damage on almost everyone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYqUQHBNU80

[dwarfpcfan]

level 1 2H fighter/level 19 vivisectionists with a reach weapon

[Tuidjy]

Originally posted by TGC von Anrantz:

But he seems to be in love with the great axe when the great sword offers more damage on average. Mathematically the average damage is 7.3 vs. 6.8. Since the gain from keen or crit feats is the same for both, the distance stays the same.

So everything he said, just with a great sword. Unless you like axes..:)

It comes down to what specific greatswords and great axes you can get in the game, and when. Technically, you should also consider falchions, elven curved blades, heavy flails, etc.

What cinches it for me is the +5 great axe you can get by 'creatively' using a Dimension Door in the Lonely Barrow. It is available very early, and it is arguably a contender for best weapon in game. It is certainly head and shoulders above anything you can find around that time... sure there may be some great weapons later on, but you barely get the time to play with them.

So a character with Vanquisher will end up doing a lot more damage over the course of the game, compared to any other two handed fighter.

[razvedchiki]

dex based slayer with 1 lvl of monk for crane wing/wis to ac and 3 lvls of rogue for dex to dmg, rest slayer. the 3 lvls of rogue are for the elven curved blade.

[[TGC] MadGod]

Originally posted by Tuidjy:

It comes down to what specific greatswords and great axes you can get in the game, and when. Technically, you should also consider falchions, elven curved blades, heavy flails, etc.

Well, if you build a character with that pretext, then you chose the way to that specific weapon and thats it. Fair enough. If you build a dps character with a 2h-weapon and want to squeeze every point of dmg from it, you use a greatsword. Simple as that.

While 1d10x3 weapons (or 2 crit/x2) are the next best thing, falchions are closer to average. They were not average when crit stacking was still possible, allowing 6 or even 8 crit range. Now you need a +1 enchantment above any greatsword to actually get close by arguing that you get +1 to hit more, which will increase base average. Damage wise you can use a scythe and have the cooler looking weapon. :)

The greatsword is the only 2 point crit 2 hander that is worth wielding if you are for max damage and do not make a beeline for the weapons you looked up on the internet. :)

Maybe I should have clarified.

And as mentioned before, the elven curved blade is actually more than decent, giving a greataxe a run for its money, even approaching greatsword level. With dex setup, it needs dip and you lose BAB when doing that (not to mention 1-2 feats). And it is exotic unless you are an elf, iirc. And who wants to be an elf..:P

I actually am tempted to run the numbers in a real game just to find out what the game favors...have not nerded out in a while.

[jsaving]

It's been a while since I ran a dex-based ECB build but my recollection is that damage was 20 to 30 percent below a comparable strength-based build (assuming full buffs in both cases). That's still more than enough damage to handle normal or challenging and you can make a good argument that the extra survivability you get from going dex-based is worthwhile. However you really start to feel the damage loss on hard or unfair while the higher AC ceases to matter all that much due to the lack of defensive buffs.

[Jester]

2H weapon with reach might be best. go the power attack and cleave route.

[Halfgeek]

2H Fighter with a Fauchard for double str bonus, the rest is optional, but essentially, a greater vital strike + greater cleave and greater cleaving finish. You only do a "single" hit, but its going to do so much dmg, and it will cleave anything half the screen nearby when he's legendary proportioned.

Kensai/Sword Saint with a similar build is also very strong with the "single" hit build. Ive had such a char regularly one-shot the entire pack of enemies, including the ranged ones staying at the back nearby.

[Azure]

Ranger/Rogue with Courtblade was pretty fun. Would work well as a Slayer as well but i didn't look at that class when i first played.

[Ariako]

The best Two-Handed build in the game, in my opinion, is Vivisectionist with a Longspear. Early game and late game, this is just a complete monster. Get Enlarge Person, Bull Strength, and all the other good buffs going ASAP, and you'll have a range of 15ft+ so that when you go to get your Sneak Attack bonus, you only need one other melee character threatening this one. Also, you threaten such a huge area that getting other sneak attackers in the mix is insanely easy to pull off.

Honestly, I've tried out all of the classes, and this one with this weapon is just more astounding on so many levels than most others. Also, with this build, you can almost always charge enemies in the first round of turn based combat. (using the charge ability) and leave plenty of room for another melee fighter to charge in, since your charge ends 15 feet short with the most brutal sneak/skewer/stab/brutal penetration you'll ever see. At level 3, I was doing 60 damage hits... at level 20, Nothing in the game could stand up to me.

[InEffect]

Melee sorc, I guess.

[thorsson64]

Originally posted by TGC von Anrantz:

Originally posted by Tuidjy:

It comes down to what specific greatswords and great axes you can get in the game, and when. Technically, you should also consider falchions, elven curved blades, heavy flails, etc.

Well, if you build a character with that pretext, then you chose the way to that specific weapon and thats it. Fair enough. If you build a dps character with a 2h-weapon and want to squeeze every point of dmg from it, you use a greatsword. Simple as that.

While 1d10x3 weapons (or 2 crit/x2) are the next best thing, falchions are closer to average. They were not average when crit stacking was still possible, allowing 6 or even 8 crit range. Now you need a +1 enchantment above any greatsword to actually get close by arguing that you get +1 to hit more, which will increase base average. Damage wise you can use a scythe and have the cooler looking weapon. :)

The greatsword is the only 2 point crit 2 hander that is worth wielding if you are for max damage and do not make a beeline for the weapons you looked up on the internet. :)

Maybe I should have clarified.

And as mentioned before, the elven curved blade is actually more than decent, giving a greataxe a run for its money, even approaching greatsword level. With dex setup, it needs dip and you lose BAB when doing that (not to mention 1-2 feats). And it is exotic unless you are an elf, iirc. And who wants to be an elf..:P

I actually am tempted to run the numbers in a real game just to find out what the game favors...have not nerded out in a while.

Earth Breaker does the same damage and has 20x3 crit. That's arguably slightly better than a GS due to the theoretical times when a 19 won't be enough to confirm a crit. Plus it also has the advanatge of being Bludgeoning damage, which is the most frequent type to get around DR. Of course the downside is that you have to take Improved Critical and can't rely on the Keen spell.

Possibly the best weapon is Fauchard though: d10, crit range 18-20 and it's a Reach weapon.

[InEffect]

Originally posted by thorsson64:

Possibly the best weapon is Fauchard though: d10, crit range 18-20 and it's a Reach weapon.

Vanquisher, if we're talking PK specifically