Two Weapons vs. Shield as Weapon

[Grail Quest]

First off I would like to say it's a great move to put Warfare and Defense together.

Something that bugged me about Warfare vs. Defense was that it seemed more useful to dual-wield with a shield than with another weapon. There are so many issues, such as:
- no speed decrease, which also translates to a greater chance of the multi-attack activating, and higher rate of delivery of add-on effects such as weapon enchantments (e.g., psionic touch).
- retaining the defense of having a shield
- shield bonuses tend to be concurrent whereas weapon bonuses apply only to the weapon (? - actually, can someone confirm? I mean, if you have two life-draining weapons, the % doesn't stack, right?)

I notice that this has been brought over to the Masteries mod, and again I am deterred from using actual dual-wielding. If I want to dual wield, I'd go with the shield option again, especially as the speed cap is higher when not dual wielding with two weapons.

[The Rock-man]

The thing is Shield and weapon are to different entities, at lest in Masteries the bonus on the passive is Flat (means it dont effect main hand). Also Note that with that double kill attacks with both of the 2 weapons for duel weilders (As far as I can tell).

Also duel wields have something proc on every hit compared to 26% of S&B and 46% of just sword. This IMO balances it out also note that bonus on one weapon dont transfer to anything other weapon (includes shields but i am not sure but shield bonuses are likely to transfer too you weapon).

[Viper_Sweden]

The biggest issue for me when DW'ing is that you don't get any charge-skill.

As for DW vs. Shield, I say both... ;)

[Matseb2611]

It seems like dual wielding got better with masteries mod, but I am yet to check it in greater depth.

[bimdi]

A note on Dual wielding taken from: http://www.titanquest.net/forums/spoilers/1159-knowledge.html


Singing with blades

Dual wielding seems to be a cause of enormous confusion, so a few points

First, while yes, the Dual Wield ability itself only gives a small chance to trigger, this isn't quite the whole story. The Dual Wield ability is giving a chance for BOTH weapons to hit at the same time, dealing full damage, modified by your abilities, each with a chance to score a critical hit.

The rest of the time, your hands randomly attack, with a 50/50 chance of either hand swinging (they do not alternate, it's random - you can try it yourself, stand still with Onslaught on your rmb and hold it down, watching the swinging pattern - you can even see Dual Wield/Cross Cut/Tumult triggering).

Your attack speed is averaged between the two weapons you have equipped, so if you have a very fast sword in one hand and add a slow club in the other, your attack speed will drop (causing a resultant decrease in DPS).

Keep in mind that the visible average damage/DPS/attack speed display isn't entirely accurate when it comes to figuring Dual Wield damage, because of the element of chance involved.

Another important point to Dual Wielding - as you are giving up a shield, the return in offensive power is substantial. First, you can wield two weapons, and this gives you access to powerful offensive modifiers that affect BOTH weapons. Have a weapon in your offhand with +50% attack speed and +30% physical damage? Both weapons get those bonuses. Further, because you can modify both weapons with Charms and Relics that can only be applied to weapons, you are getting an even larger offensive bonus.

Please note the above talks about vanilla TQ & TQIT but I doubt the game mechanics are any different for this mod.

[Knivel]

Another important point to Dual Wielding - as you are giving up a shield, the return in offensive power is substantial. First, you can wield two weapons, and this gives you access to powerful offensive modifiers that affect BOTH weapons. Have a weapon in your offhand with +50% attack speed and +30% physical damage? Both weapons get those bonuses. Further, because you can modify both weapons with Charms and Relics that can only be applied to weapons, you are getting an even larger offensive bonus.

Please note the above talks about vanilla TQ & TQIT but I doubt the game mechanics are any different for this mod.

That left me with a doubt... which type of bonuses applies to both weapons? For example, with a sabretooth that has %DCtH, this only works with that weapon, not the other, right?

[nemhauser]

percentage bonuses affect both weapons (%total damage, %damage, %elemental (or one of those elements)...)

the rest bonuses that affect the weapon is only used for that weapon (i.e. %DCtH)

the attack speed (i believe at least) is also only for one weapon... but the total attack speed is a average of those two so that bonus indeed affects the other weapon but indirectly (please correct me if i'm wrong :P)

[Grail Quest]

That left me with a doubt... which type of bonuses applies to both weapons? For example, with a sabretooth that has %DCtH, this only works with that weapon, not the other, right?

Yeah, I'd like to know this for sure as well.
I've tried Dual Wield and using the Shield in the off-hand, and so far it looks like using a shield as the second weapon seems to work out better.
Besides, if the bonuses share, then wouldn't a shield-as-weapon also share them?

[The Rock-man]

Anything apart from -% health +flat and %ADtoH transfers from weapon to weapon. An attack with a shield gets the bonuses as well, the big thing is everything on a shield transfers to your weapon (as far as i can tell).

[Knivel]

Anything apart from -% health +flat and %ADtoH transfers from weapon to weapon. An attack with a shield gets the bonuses as well, the big thing is everything on a shield transfers to your weapon (as far as i can tell).

Well, then it means that if a weapon that i hold has +28% attack speed, both weapons benefit +28%? This means, if i for example (when dual wielding) have 130 attack speed, socketing a weapon with something that gives +15% attack speed, the average attack speed increases to 145%?
I guess i got to confirm this!

[bimdi]

From what I have seen with my current dual wielder adding +15% attack speed to an individual weapon will not give a true 15% bonus. It seems every time I try this due to averaging and rounding down I guess I end up with +14% or so.

[Knivel]

That's probably because the game only displays the rounded numbers, while the bonus is something like 14,6% attack speed, i guess.
This means that the buff is applied to both weapons, which makes dual wielding more appealing to me :)

[bimdi]

i gotta say my lvl 60 dual wielding Myrmidion does not miss her shield :D

[The Rock-man]

How it does it is something like this:
Weapon 1 has 120% (BAS) base attack speed weapon 2 has 75% BAS this gives 97.5 which is rounded to 98% (in most systems).
Then +20% IAS will give weapon 1, 144% AS and weapon 2, 90% AS?
this gives 117% attack speed total. so it appears to give +19% IAS. Though its really 20%.
The other thing is to make sure you are comparing the IAS value to the base AS IE going from +10% to +20% will not make a 10% boost in displayed attack speed but a ~9% boost and 50-60% IAS will net you a 6% bonus (this is only in the displayed values) if this is not the case and it closer to 110% then it more it only effects weapon 1.

But this dont take into account the duel wield penalty (this can be seen by equipping 2 identical weapons your attack speed always drops.)