The State of Balance: Dual-Wield vs Two-Handers
by JR Cook - 10 years ago show comments
Game balancing is a subtle art. Small oversights often lead to some skill, character or item being absurdly overpowered and chosen by most players in spite of the rest of the content the devs worked so hard to produce. In this series, we will look at Balance in Diablo 3 and see how fair things are right now.
Another Monday, and another State of Balance. Once again, here’s your host Dannie “Incinerator” Ray bringing you the latest on Diablo 3 Balance.
Last week, we analyzed the performance of Two-Handers against the One-Hander + Off-Hand combination. It wasn’t even a contest, Two-Handed weapons had no place on the arsenals of Witch Doctors and Wizards.
Can Monks and Barbarians help Two-Handers reclaim a bit of glory? Or will Crusaders be the only bastion of hope for Two-Handers in Sanctuary? Let’s go find out!
Two Handers:
The fastest weapons are Swords at 1.15 Attacks per Second and the slowest ones are Maces at 1 ApS.
Note: for some reason, pre-RoS maces still have their old value of 0.9 APS on the game guide. I’m 75% sure that the level 70 versions of the weapons will roll with their new value of 1 ApS.
Note 2: It appears this is the case not only for maces, but for all weapons.
Two Handed Swords:
Without 10% extra damage or any attack speed a top end sword would look like this:
- 2072-2733 Damage.
- 1.15 Attacks per Second.
Factoring in 10% damage, we get:
3038.8 DPS and 2642 DPH.
Two Handed Maces:
without 10% extra damage or any attack speed a top end mace would look like this:
- 2448-2896 Damage.
- 1 Attack per Second.
Factoring in 10% damage, we get:
That’s 2939 DPS and 2939 DPH.
Extra Attributes:
Two-Hander weapons usually come equipped with 3 more attributes. Since we are talking about top end weapons, and we already considered 10% extra damage; they would look like this.
- 1125 Base Stat.
- Socket
Dual Wield:
Daggers:
Without 10% extra damage or any attack speed a top end Dagger would look something like this:
1156-1625 Damage, 1.5 Attacks per Second
Considering 15% IAS from DW, we have
2398.7 DPS and 1390.5 DPH
One Handed Maces:
Without 10% extra damage or any attack speed a top end mace would look like this:
- 1515-2075 Damage.
- 1.2 Attacks per Second.
That’s 2477.1 DPS and 1795 DPH
Extra Attributes:
One-Hander weapons usually come equipped with 3 more attributes, and since we are talking about top end weapons they would look like this.
- 10% CDR/RCR, 8% Damage to Elites, or 24% Area Damage
- 10% CDR/RCR, 8% Damage to Elites, or 24% Area Damage
- 1500 Base Stat.
- 2 Sockets
Results:
Unlike last week’s Off-Hand scenario, the DPS isn’t that even. In fact, Two-Handers boast a 25% DPS advantage and a brutal 72% more DPH.
So it is 25% DPS and 72% DPH vs a Socket, 375 Base Stat, and two Primaries.
If you remember my piece on weapon gems, then you know that socket and the base stat will compensate the 25% DPS difference; you also know that it would reduce the DPH difference to about a 40% advantage on the Two-Handers.
Is 40% extra DPH worth the two primaries? That is in fact a hard question, and it would likely vary depending on each spec. I project that it would take a very in-depth look to a few rotations before we can figure it out.
Conclusions:
This week we found out that Two-Handers aren’t as bad as Wizards and Witch Doctors made them out to be. The problem seems to be that Off-Hands were just too strong. But keep calm, I’m not going to call for nerfs to Off-Hands. In fact, I’m advocating a buff to Two-Handed Spellcasters in the form of Passive Skills for the Wizard and Witch Doctor.
Additional data is needed to verify the viability of Two-Handers on Monks and Barbarians. Don’t worry about it just yet, Dannie Ray has you covered. If you can only wait for next week, you will get the answer to that, and many more questions.
See you next monday…
Same time, same website!
Nice article! I was surprised to see that 2H weapons can be useful for non-WD and Wizard classes. A buff to 2H weapons for those two classes would be great.
I’ve been thinking about the trade-off design of DW / 1H+Off-Hand and 2H weapons since the D3 launch. My current solution to this issue is adding RANGE stat to weapons. The more range you have in your weapon, the more AoE you get. (btw, missile weapons might be an exception to this solution.) As you might know, D2 had a range stat but doesn’t do much to skill AoE. In D3, weapon range should gain much more to skill AoE than D2!
Increased Area Effect would be an interesting stat, but I wouldn’t restrict it to weapons. Increased Area Effect and Splash Damage would become a deadly combination.
Thx for pointing out the important issue. Actually, “Weapon Range” is similar but different from “Splash Damage”. Splash Damage is a stat to gain more area DAMAGE. But what I meant here in the last comment is a solution only for widen the AREA. When 2.0.1 came out, I didn’t expected to have a stat like Splash Damage in Paragon Points and as a gear stat, but they can be either redesigned, removed, or keep both of them as a synergy option.
yes, Synergy between the two stats would be best. I’m going to mention it on an article down the line. Care if I mention you specifically by your twitter handle?
No, not at all! Thanks for your kindly approach! I hope discussions like your articles goes hot in D3 community and make D3 better!
Weapon Range is a stat ONLY for weapon it self. Never gain extra Range from other sources, and their value is depended by each specific weapon type. For example, 1h dagger = range: 1, 2h Axe = range: 4, 2h Polearm = range 5 etc. (just an example.)