State of dual wielding - looks bad again

So I watched a video from our good youtuber ZIGGYD.

In the video he was using a reave ranger as a dual wielder. As we all know, GGG claims reave is a "dual wield skill" (we'll ignore this for now). What struck me about this video is that ziggy was using a dual wield character, to use a dual wield skill while dual wielding. But here's the funny part:

So technicalities aside, he tried to make a dual wield melee character. He used a dual wield skill and a weapon in both hands. But he's not using reave with both weapons. I thought that was hilarious and it speaks a lot about POE, in some ways good and in some ways bad. It's a truly unique game.

The question I have is: why is it, even in this remote case, more effective to use brightbeak in the main hand than it is to use an actual weapon on a character that was entirely built around dual wield? This speaks volumes about the state of dual wielding to me and IMO, shows that GGG still didn't hit the mark with their last dual wielding update. This is further evidenced to me by the fact that duelists, the "dual wield class" (all the green characters are dual wield-capable, but duelist is by far the most dual-centric class) has been utter garbage for so long. I hope to see some stats on the class performances soon, but I won't hold my breath for anything positive involving duelists.

1H + shield on the other hand, despite the shield nerf, remains as strong as it was and may have dodged some of the melee nerfs by making use of the new gems while still being able to max block and get large quantities of spell block. And 2h got major buffs (Though probably still isn't viable. Anyone got any word on this?) in several key areas as well, leaving 2W the only melee to end up with substantial nerfs.

So... RIP duelists again?

On the topic of the new melee gems, they helped out a little bit with vengeance. But riposte is largely crap and shield users can use ALL THREE gems quite effectively. I feel it was a mistake to include a gem that only works with shields when shields were already performing better than the other two options. On top of this, dual wielders received a second nerf in the form of acrobatics (RIP 2W block-evaders, but probably needed it since block-evade ranged existed), especially considering 2W is all on the dex side of the tree.

TLDR the question is: what is your opinion of the state of dual wielding today? Do you think it's ok/unviable, and where does it stand relative to shield and 2h? How does this end up looking for duelists?

"

CharanJaydemyr a écrit :

huh, taking advantage of how skills read main and off-hand? Clever. I do the same thing to force left-handed characters.

Note that Reave is no more a dual wield skill than Whirling Blades or Cleave is. Mark did say that it was made with dual wield in mind and that it should work well as a dual wield skill, but no dev has ever said it's a dual wield exclusive skill, or meant to be such.

See the difference there between cleave and reave is that you get a significant bonus from two weapons with cleave, you get nothing other than the base dual bonus with reave. At least dual wielding has improved from when reave was released though.

But that's digressing slightly. Reave isn't really the point of this thread.

"

CharanJaydemyr a écrit :

Eh, you know my stance on Riposte. I'm stubbornly determined to use it with dual wield, because that's what a riposte is. Dual wield block needs love. That'd go a long way in making riposte more attractive to some people. As would a shorter cooldown.

The larger point you're making I can't comment on, because I haven't played a Duelist seriously since the Shadow was introduced. :(...:).

Well, I'm also going to have to throw riposte in, though I'm not sure how I plan to do it yet. My gem slots all seem to be full of other important stuff, like auras, cwdt, utility, and a boss killer. I still haven't added vaal reave yet either. Sigh. Need moar gem slots :(

Also, in regards to your reave+dual wielding comment involving Mark_GGG. There is some history about why that was such a huge mistake on GGG's part.

What you need to understand is that during the time reave was released, shadow was considered a dual wielding class, but could only dual wield with dual strike (no aoe for dual wielding). It actually had dual wield nodes inside the starting area clusters. And to make matters worse, shadows had NO aoe skills that worked naturally with daggers and claws. There simply was no aoe options for dagger or claw unless you wanted to use a gem from another class (Lightning strike might have been the only gem actually, there was whirling blades but we know how useless that gem is for aoe damage).

On top of this, using a normal non-dualstrike/cleave gem while dual wielding was 100% nonviable. You were giving up your shield for a 10% attack speed modifier... while alternating two weapons that most likely did not have the same attack speed. Therefor, when you alternated to the slower weapon, you were likely losing the majority of the bonus you got for dual wielding. So not only was it pointless to attempt aoe, you couldn't dual wield without using dual strike or cleave. Basically, using daggers and claws wasn't even viable unless you used 1 with a shield and borrowed lightning strike from your red gem buddies. All the people who wanted to use 2 daggers were basically shat on (claws still got some benefit from the double leech modifier, which is a lot more than 40% extra global crit on a build where you likely already had 300% crit).

So when reave was announced, all the shadow fans were really hyped about finally getting an aoe for daggers and claws... which they did. But when everyone found out that it didn't work with dual wielding, several people blew a gasket on the failure of GGG to give realistic gem options to dagger and claw shadows. There are pages and pages of people going on about this on the first few pages of Reave feedback, and I only posted there once or twice. It was everyone.

Then Mark_GGG came in there saying reave worked as intended with dual wielding... given shadows had dual wield clusters in the starter tree, with weapons that don't have a dual wield skill, and reave being the starter gem. Shadows were given dual strike as one of the 3 hillock rewards, and it was logical shadows were designed as dual wielders given the passive tree, but the only aoe they got didn't work with dual wield. This lasted for months and months without any answer.

Enter the dual wielding "fix" several months later, which added a more physical damage bonus to dual wielders... well it helps make dual wielding with the class viable, but they never addressed reave specifically even to this day. What they did instead is move the dual wield nodes out of the starter tree and into the outer rings. And Mark_GGG will probably still tell you reave was designed to work with dual wield because the stacks go up faster, Lol.



/rant about reave and dual wield and Mark_GGG

Note that Reave was created before Multistrike or Vaal Reave were added to the game.

Getting to 8 stacks quickly and reliably used to require a fair amount of attack speed investment, and DW's 1.1x aspd does synergize well with that (as well as the tons of old DW-aspd nodes on the tree).

Nowadays just slap multistrike on it with a 1h setup and little or no aspd investment and hey presto, 8 stacks.

---

To save myself from re-writing books on the subject, dual wield has sucked for an extremely long time. It has always been the case that 1h+shield is simply better than DW** because of the massive defensive advantage that the former grants compared to the miniscule dps advantage that DW grants.

DW had been propped up by Cleave and Dual Strike for an extremely long time and still is to an extent. Were it not for those two skills, it would be obvious how bad DW actually is, and it's not healthy to restrict an entire playstyle to two* fucking skills.

My suggestion remains the same as it always has: make DW cleave/dualstrike fit in equally with the other melee skills (read: nerf to fit), then buff DW defenses and its inherent aspd advantage heavily. The former part GGG has done somewhat. The latter part is necessary and should have happened at the same time but is still nowhere to be seen. The fix isn't complete until both parts are in, and I have no idea why they continue to delay on it.

In the past it looked something like this:
- Cleave was 70%/70%*2, DualStrike was 100%*2. 140% aoe de and 200% single de blew every other melee skill out of the water, end of story.
- DW gave 15 block and 1.1x aspd.

Now it looks like this:
- Cleave gives 100%/65%*2, DualStrike gives 85%*2. 130% aoe de and 170% single de still make the other melee skills not look good in comparison.
- DW gives 15 block, 1.1x aspd, 1.2x attack pd.

My hope was to see something like this:
- Cleave is 100%/55%*2, DualStrike is 70%*2. 110% aoe de and 140% single de fits in well with the other skills (compare to Reave, Heavy Strike). Slight damage advantage when dual-wielding two equally strong weapons, but not so much that they become 100% necessary.
- DW gives 20 block (and/or other defensive bonuses, such as dodge) and 1.3x aspd.

im pretty sure that Multistrike was added BEFORE Reave.

as for the DW fixes. I do not think that making DW 'full banana ASPD' build is the right way. There has to be some other perk DW can get. It already gets 'DW Block' (that is something 'extra'). Its value after shield nerf went up. (and no, no more block.. 100% mitigation for so little cost is not healthy at all)

Something about how the damage is calculated (to lessen the effect of using different weapons WITHOUT boosting aspd to beyond broken values).

Maybe add FIXED 5% crit chance when RT when DW? something that is not simply pushing all DW into 10 APS+ territory. There are ways.

2H - just make it deal LOTS of damage. current situation is: top 1h-550, top 2h-850 (not even double), attack speed favors 2H, passives for 2H are the same as for 1H. just buff flat dmg rolls of 2H by 30%. so people can spend more passives into defense.

@Pneuma,

About the **, i have made multiple thread before about 2-handers being given double implicit rolls for starters.
(2-hand swords 32% acc for example to start with)

And giving them a second implicit that would add +3 max resis at item level 75+
(scaling from +1 at itemlevel 0 to 45, +2 from 46 to 75 etc..)

No clue why this has not been done yet, i suspect spectral throw is the culprit :p

Peace,

-Boem-

@sid, the solution for 2-handers is not increased dps, since they would just shred themselves to reflect if you do this. Increasing number value's would be the easy-way-out and not even be a fix long-therm imo.

Aldo i do see value in giving skills a %damage increase on lower attack speed value's.

i think that numbers MIGHT do the trick for 2H - if you need (lets say) 20 passives now to get to desired dps, and with 'numbers' you need only 10, then these surplus 10 go straight into defenses (armor, eva, other forms). new armor nodes when stacked are quite a solution to phys reflect. i think it can be done [note - with travel cost, these '10' can easily turn into '20' surplus nodes for defense and that is A LOT]

without numbers 'crit dagger' outdps 2H axe.. and this is kinda silly

that 'double implicit' is nice, however a) it would create legacy hell b) maces with double stun.. i dont expect it to happen

a side note after respecing my 4 melee chars - block nerf was a needed step and game looks and feels.. fresh. i can consider non-shield options and not feel like an idiot (sadly counterattack gems favor shield users.. I liked when riposte DID NOT work with shields more)

"

sidtherat a écrit :

im pretty sure that Multistrike was added BEFORE Reave.

as for the DW fixes. I do not think that making DW 'full banana ASPD' build is the right way. There has to be some other perk DW can get. It already gets 'DW Block' (that is something 'extra'). Its value after shield nerf went up. (and no, no more block.. 100% mitigation for so little cost is not healthy at all)

Something about how the damage is calculated (to lessen the effect of using different weapons WITHOUT boosting aspd to beyond broken values).

Maybe add FIXED 5% crit chance when RT when DW? something that is not simply pushing all DW into 10 APS+ territory. There are ways.

2H - just make it deal LOTS of damage. current situation is: top 1h-550, top 2h-850 (not even double), attack speed favors 2H, passives for 2H are the same as for 1H. just buff flat dmg rolls of 2H by 30%. so people can spend more passives into defense.

Re: ordering, no, MStrike was introduced long after Reave.

Re: aspd focus, I don't see why not. Making DW thematically aspd is a good thing. Let 1h+shield own block, let 2h own giant hits, let dw own aspd.

---

Actually, I remember now why they said they couldn't increase the aspd more! Last time it came up, Mark said that there are hard engine limitations to raising the aspd like that.

Of course I would love to respond with "well then slow everything else down and rescale", but that's hard.com. Maybe if the game was designed with a "max aspd" in mind to begin with, it would've been different. And we can't rightly put Multistrike back in the cage, either.

mulstistrike 0.10.5
reave 0.11.4

but it is irrelevant anyway.

what hurt DW in 1.3 is the 'melee dmg when holding a shield' nodes. these replaced '1h' nodes, sometimes entire clusters. this was harsh. DW block nodes + entire BoR/WoE/Anvil combo got gutted (that was pretty much THE DW setup). it was so good that most did not even touch other options. maybe these nerfs will change that

this does not change the sad fact of cleave/ds - these are THE skills to go for DW. again - by being simply better than others.