Thread: 2 handed versus single handed weapons

Haha it is! :P

use either one
no matter what anyone says the difference is so minimal it really doesnt matter.

I'm not so sure...

Up until very recently (last Thursday) I was a 2H user. I was bored so decided to try out a 1H... made one, put wild attack, remorseless and crit multi on it, stuck in a star lit crystal (there are 2 on my 2H) same relics as the 2H and went to town on a dummy.

My first finding is that you end up with better stats using the DW setup. I have a Straight sword of the brute as an off hand. My crit rose by about 500, my phys mastery by about 800. It's much easier to get good stats on an off hand than a 2H where you're relying on dumb luck, very little of which I possess (well lots of the dumb, not much of the luck )

For me, a 2H user since Mirkwood, I expected to parse much better with the 2H as I'm used to the flow... I didn't, over 5 or 6 parses of a few mins each the DW setup came out on top every time. Not by much, maybe 100 dps, but it was consistently higher. The thing I did notice though is that I burned power much faster with the DW setup. Though not so much that I think it would be a problem if I had a captain in a group.

I've not live tested it due to us not doing many instances/raid due to people being MIA watching football

NOTE: the lorebook links to the wrong swords, the brute is the might one, the stoic is the fate/tact mastery one...

Originally Posted by pwl120

Ok- so here's an actual instance that happened.

We were in a Foundry T2 run

Since we are recounting anecdotes, here is mine : I reached level 75 with my champion two weeks ago, and the day after reaching level 75 I was fervor tanking penrith (T2 HM), relying mostly on bubbles and the reflected healing from the captain mark. I don't say this to brag or to mock you, but I was dual wielding, and since this is the topic of this thread I felt that I needed to chime in and say that dual wielding was fine for me for the same instance, with a very close setup (gardian, minstrel, cappy, burg, hunter and champion). So anecdotes are just anecdotes, and DW and 2H are to be compared on hard data, not feelings. Get a dummy, try it out for yourself, but don't preach to others !

I leveled from bree-land to 75 using a 2H, mostly to simplify my gear : no off-hands means one less piece of bling to find. So only two weeks from now did I use a 2H. I may at some point in the future go back to DW, but for the moment I enjoy the faster flow of combat, and the lower crits make it easier to manage my aggro generation (dps output is smoother). I am not preaching here, pick what suits you best.

Disclaimer: my main is a guardian, so I knew the instance pretty well, and I am not exactly new to tanking. I also have a nice kin which offered my roll a full set of GR jewellery, and helped me through ToO T1 on my first day as 75 to validate all the deeds (I had enough seals to buy ToO helm and shoulders, and enough medaillons to buy the 4 lower draigoch pieces).

Originally Posted by Maelendil

Since we are recounting anecdotes, here is mine : I reached level 75 with my champion two weeks ago, and the day after reaching level 75 I was fervor tanking penrith (T2 HM), relying mostly on bubbles and the reflected healing from the captain mark. I don't say this to brag or to mock you, but I was dual wielding, and since this is the topic of this thread I felt that I needed to chime in and say that dual wielding was fine for me for the same instance, with a very close setup (gardian, minstrel, cappy, burg, hunter and champion). So anecdotes are just anecdotes, and DW and 2H are to be compared on hard data, not feelings. Get a dummy, try it out for yourself, but don't preach to others !

So, I enjoy both styles and i like the really big numbers on remorseless with a 2h but what i don't like is the LI lottery with the passives on the 2h. So that'll probably keep me as a dw when I get my FA. As for the above quote, i'd like to thrown out there: If you had a guardian in the group why did you folks bother to offtank penrith. Just have the tank, tank both the bosses that way your dps can kill the forge faster and finish up the fight that much faster....

It might be my playstyle or whatever but on dummies my 2H parses between 1.7-2k sustained(3-5min) dps while I barely scrap 1.5k with DW not to mention the power issues. I've tried multiple variations with relics going all crit then all p.mastery and a balanced build. Also tried brutal heavy, remorseless heavy and a combination but I just can't get anywhere near my 2H dps. We have a champ in kin who has clasped necklace and cloack and 2 FAs and all that fancy stuff but when it comes to going all out crazy dps I usually out dps(dps agro on sarumans for example) him. Might be that I suck with DW but I just don't see my DW doing same dps as 2H.

Originally Posted by lestat86

If you had a guardian in the group why did you folks bother to offtank penrith. Just have the tank, tank both the bosses that way your dps can kill the forge faster and finish up the fight that much faster....

I honestly can't exactly remember if it was a warden or a guard, but that should not make a big difference. The thing is he wasn't very confident in his abilities, and probably a very recent 75. As a guard I generally do tank both Penrith and Gash, but I have been in pugs where the leader insisted that they are separated. I did not hold back on my DPS since I was fervor tanking, so I do not think that my off-tanking was slowing down our speed. I also went full out on other targets whenever Penrith took his little bio breaks.

Originally Posted by Shintagh

It might be my playstyle or whatever but on dummies my 2H parses between 1.7-2k sustained(3-5min) dps while I barely scrap 1.5k with DW not to mention the power issues. I've tried multiple variations with relics going all crit then all p.mastery and a balanced build. Also tried brutal heavy, remorseless heavy and a combination but I just can't get anywhere near my 2H dps. We have a champ in kin who has clasped necklace and cloack and 2 FAs and all that fancy stuff but when it comes to going all out crazy dps I usually out dps(dps agro on sarumans for example) him. Might be that I suck with DW but I just don't see my DW doing same dps as 2H.

Same experience here, and I have done extensive testing when I had 2nd Agers--which I have posted on the DPS thread.