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Dual Wielding: Greater Whirlwind Attack vs. Improved Haste.

I'm trying to decide which is better for my PC (dual wielding blackguard). He can either take Greater Whirlwind multiple times or rely on Improved Haste via special equipment/mages casting it on him in the party.

Greater Whirlwind HLA
+ sets attacks per round to 10 without the need for Belm/Kundane (allows the use of Defender of East Haven in the offhand for some juicy resistances)
- very short duration (1 round)

Improved Haste Spell
+ much longer duration
+ doubles number of attacks
- requires Belm/Kundane in the offhand to reach 10 attacks per round


Which do you prefer on your fighters?

Comments

  • elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,317
    Generally Greater Whirlwind only because its quick casting and requires less prep time (I'm lazy).
  • nanonano Member Posts: 1,632
    Improved haste because you only need to cast it once (I'm lazy too :p)

    Also you can use crit strike which is super cool
  • serialthrillaserialthrilla Member Posts: 26
    elminster said:

    Generally Greater Whirlwind only because its quick casting and requires less prep time (I'm lazy).

    I see, thanks elminster =)

  • TressetTresset Member, Moderator Posts: 8,268
    In one of my games I used the Scarlet Ninjato in place of Blem since it is +3 and does poison too. My character was a fighter/thief so not for everyone I guess.
  • Lord_TansheronLord_Tansheron Member Posts: 4,212
    As @nano said, GWW is for the lazy. It's easy to use, but that comes at the price of being short duration, and fairly limited in uses. Improved Haste lasts a long time and can pump damage outputs to ridiculous levels, not to mention it works on everyone, fighter or not.

    As for the "requires Belm/Kundane" part, that's not really specific to GWW. You should be using it regardless. +1 APR is the best your offhand can give you, the only thing I'd even consider as an alternative would be Crom Faeyr on low STR characters, or *maybe* Equalizer in some scenarios. For the vast majority of cases, though, Belm & Co. will be by far the best offhand choices, regardless of GWW or IH.

    That being said, these distinctions are often barely noticeable for most people. If you don't play at the high end of the difficulty spectrum (lots of mods), a little bit of extra damage will not even be noticeable. You can literally finish the vanilla game without leveling up, basically half naked; a bit more APR here or there aren't really going to matter. Play what you find coolest, what you find most convenient, what you LIKE.

    Of course, if you *do* play with a higher difficulty setup (and I do recommend trying it, SCS should really be *the* go-to mod) then you may want to go with the more efficient option, i.e. Improved Haste. Wailing on a dragon has never been more fun! Interesting example, by the way, those dragons: they regularly use Wing Buffet to knock your people all over the room. Not only does that potentially waste GWW (since it lasts only one round, bad timing might screw you over), it also showcases Improved Haste's movement speed increase in running back into the fight more quickly. Just an example, of course!
  • PantalionPantalion Member Posts: 2,137
    Even for a Blackguard without access to improved haste I'd still say get Critical Strike. 4-5 Attacks autohitting for double damage versus 10 Attacks maybe hitting for regular damage is a perfectly valid choice. When it comes to Critical Strike + Improved Haste, 8-10 autocrits and several rounds of 8-10 attacks anyway blows GWW out of the water.

    Incidentally, does Spell Deflection still prevent Wing Buffet?
  • ThrasymachusThrasymachus Member Posts: 903

    For the vast majority of cases, though, Belm & Co. will be by far the best offhand choices, regardless of GWW or IH.

    I'm not sure why you would claim this, as GWW sets your character's APR to 10, irrespective of whether your character is dual-wielding or not, and Belm does not increase that APR beyond 10.

    GWW is good for characters using only one weapon, as it gives them 10 APR no matter what. It's less of a boon for dual-wielders.
  • Lord_TansheronLord_Tansheron Member Posts: 4,212
    GWW also only lasts one round. If you can finish all fights in one round, then by all means, but chances are you'll be spending time fighting outside of GWW, too - and for that, having a +APR offhand is the best choice. In fact, it's also the lazy choice, as you don't need to keep activating GWW all the time and still have great damage output.

    With GWW, the optimal play is to unequip your offhand entirely for the duration; or to use an offhand with substantial stat buffs (like Crom Faeyr or Angurvadal+5); or to use a 2h weapon for the duration.

    Also, @Pantalion is definitely correct in that Critical Strike as a GWW alternative is a very powerful choice, particularly when combined with IH. You can't really use it in conjunction with GWW, since they not only both share a HLA slot (you can pick one or the other, limiting their use) but also only last one round, meaning you can't activate both at the same time. The same is true, to a degree, for things like Kai.

    Keep in mind that Critical Strike has the somewhat "hidden" bonus of making all your attacks hit automatically (since a 20 is a hit regardless of thac0/AC), even if the enemy is immune to the extra damage of critical hits. Combined with IH this is often enough of a reason to make it better than GWW. There's several relevant enemies that *can* be critically hit, too - my favorite is eradicating whole legions of Beholders with my 5 APR Archer + IH and CS.
  • ShireShire Member Posts: 58
    What about my paladin with Carsomyr?
    I got Gaxx ring and therefor a few improved haste. Should i use a mix of GWW and CS?
  • PantalionPantalion Member Posts: 2,137
    Paladin: 2 Attacks + 1/2 for Specialisation. 5 Attacks with IH. CS = 5 attacks at x2 damage, autohitting.
    Paladin: 10 Attacks with GWW.

    If you're facing something with Stone Skin, in need of a lot of dispelling, or Mirror Images, GWW is probably your best bet. If you're not, then you're comparing x10 Damage guaranteed versus x10 Damage with a 5% miss chance minimum, and a 10% x2 damage chance.

    In the end, it depends on your miss chance versus their AC. If you hit on a 2+, then GWW with 2HF style is mathematically slightly better in a single round, but Improved Haste lasts longer. If you hit on a 3+ it's equal, 4+ it's mathematically worse, with the gambler's chance of doing better.
  • GamingFreakGamingFreak Member Posts: 639
    I think 2-handers benefit more from Greater Whirlwind because they only have to swing one weapon and they still get the 10 attacks per round, whereas a dual-wielder is dual-wielding to get more attacks per round naturally, and generally off-hands Kundane, Belm, or Scarlet Ninja-to to achieve these effects, but Greater Whirlwind will give the dual-wielder a standard 10 attacks anyway. I'm not great with math but 10 attacks per round with a guy having GM in a 2-handed weapon would probably beat out a guy with GM in 2 weapons he's using at once....

    ...Unless the dual-wielder is a Kensai and the 2-hander isn't, in which case lolkensaiwins is the only thing I can say regarding that.
  • kryptixkryptix Member Posts: 741
    The difference is that, how many GWWs will you realistically have on a character? 5? Whereas my fighter/mage can Axe of the Unyielding + Belm/Kundane and IH for 10 attacks for like 30 rounds...
  • ShireShire Member Posts: 58
    Ill go a mix then but with a few more points in CS. Makes sense to use GWW when i need dispelling done and such. Thanks for great info.
  • Lord_TansheronLord_Tansheron Member Posts: 4,212
    Shire said:

    What about my paladin with Carsomyr?
    I got Gaxx ring and therefor a few improved haste. Should i use a mix of GWW and CS?

    Keep in mind that the IH from the ring has a fairly short duration, much shorter than the mage spell. Also, as people have already pointed out, you can only really compare IH and GWW when dual-wielding, as that is the only way to get to a natural 5 APR (which then becomes 10 with IH). Using a 2h weapon you cannot get that high, doubly so as a Paladin who doesn't have Grandmastery. GWW will always give them more APR, and is usually preferable for them and similar classes (like Rangers or unmodded Multiclass fighters). Still, GWW is short duration burst, while IH lasts long - it may be more beneficial even for 2h users, if the fight lasts a considerable amount of time (which most vanilla fights don't).
  • GamingFreakGamingFreak Member Posts: 639
    kryptix said:

    The difference is that, how many GWWs will you realistically have on a character? 5? Whereas my fighter/mage can Axe of the Unyielding + Belm/Kundane and IH for 10 attacks for like 30 rounds...

    Not even that, you can just have a mage cast Improved Haste on your fighter character with that set up and you don't even need mage levels.
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