Best weapons to dual-wield by endgame
kaffekoppen
Member Posts: 377
Just for the sake of curiosity: From a pure powergaming perspective, what would be the best two weapons to dual-wield? I have some thoughts below, but I'm convinced there are a lot of people who know the game better than I do, so feel free to point out the flaws in my thinking 
Considerations:
- MH must count as a +5 weapon
- Crom Faeyr's strength bonus is much less useful if you have DUHM, but I'll be assuming for the sake of simplicity that we do not have DUHM type spells
These were my top candidates so far:
- Flail of the Ages +5 gimps you with Free Action, otherwise it would win as main-hander. Now I am thinking it doesn't enter the competition if you intend to use IH.
- Crom Faeyr deals 5-11 + 5 electrical from what I could find. Decent. Also sets your strength to 25 (how much can you reach naturally? 23 or 24 as a half-orc? definitely must count the last bit from 25 str as bonus damage for this weapon)
- Runehammer +5 deals 7-13 (ignoring the undead bonus here). If the enemy is not immune to electrical this is less than CF, and accounting for the strength, you'd want to be wielding CF already before wielding this as far as I can tell.
- Belm / Kundane grant an extra attack. This is useful whenever one more MH attack would be better than the bonuses offered by another OH. By themselves, Belm / Kundane aren't going to hit because they are +2 weapons so I will ignore the OH attack.
- Defender of Easthaven is *by far* the best tanking offhand. Does not enter the damage-dealing discussion though.
Based on this, here are my top combos so far:
With haste, pure damage-dealing: CF / Belm.
Without haste, pure damage-dealing: FoA / Belm
Tanking: CF / DoE
If FoA did *not* have free action: FoA/CF, FoA/Belm, FoA/DoE. You get the picture...
Considerations:
- MH must count as a +5 weapon
- Crom Faeyr's strength bonus is much less useful if you have DUHM, but I'll be assuming for the sake of simplicity that we do not have DUHM type spells
These were my top candidates so far:
- Flail of the Ages +5 gimps you with Free Action, otherwise it would win as main-hander. Now I am thinking it doesn't enter the competition if you intend to use IH.
- Crom Faeyr deals 5-11 + 5 electrical from what I could find. Decent. Also sets your strength to 25 (how much can you reach naturally? 23 or 24 as a half-orc? definitely must count the last bit from 25 str as bonus damage for this weapon)
- Runehammer +5 deals 7-13 (ignoring the undead bonus here). If the enemy is not immune to electrical this is less than CF, and accounting for the strength, you'd want to be wielding CF already before wielding this as far as I can tell.
- Belm / Kundane grant an extra attack. This is useful whenever one more MH attack would be better than the bonuses offered by another OH. By themselves, Belm / Kundane aren't going to hit because they are +2 weapons so I will ignore the OH attack.
- Defender of Easthaven is *by far* the best tanking offhand. Does not enter the damage-dealing discussion though.
Based on this, here are my top combos so far:
With haste, pure damage-dealing: CF / Belm.
Without haste, pure damage-dealing: FoA / Belm
Tanking: CF / DoE
If FoA did *not* have free action: FoA/CF, FoA/Belm, FoA/DoE. You get the picture...
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Comments
Let's say you're wearing the belt of fire giant strength and have 22 strength. Using Belm gets you an extra attack per round, using CF gets you +4 damage to each of the 9 attacks you have currently. If you deal less than 36 damage per hit with your mainhand, + (whatever CF has over Belm as an offhand) x 2, then you'll do more damage with CF than Belm. For many people that will be the case.
There are some confounding factors, though. First of all you can use potions to get 24 strength or maybe as a charname you have awesome strength to begin with. Second, CF is a great weapon and does enough damage on its own that I think your party, if you are not soloing, will be better off overall by having someone else use it as a mainhand.
As a quick estimate, let's say you have CF, FoA, Spectral Brand (chosen because it does the same average damage as CF) and Kundane/Belm. You have the belt of fire giant strength for the guy who doesn't get CF.
FoA + CF + extra special gloves, Spectral Brand + Belm
7 FoA hits, 2 CF hits, 8 SB hits, 2 Belm hits. 9 attacks made @ 25 strength = 14 damage each, 10 made @ 22 strength = 10 damage each (which weapon is making these attacks is not relevant)
FoA + Belm (APR on the gloves is irrelevant here), CF + Kundane
8 FoA hits, 8 CF hits, 2 Belm hits, 2 Kundane hits. 10 attacks made @ 25 strength, 10 @ 22 strength.
Eliminate the ones in common from both sides, and we get
2 CF hits vs 1 attack @ 25 strength + 1 FoA hit + 2 Kundane hits.
The second setup definitely comes out ahead there. So basically, if you have someone else who can use CF competently, then let them use it instead. Of course there are confounding factors there as well because Belm and Kundane might not be able to hit the enemy in which case you're comparing 2 CF hits vs 1 FoA hit + 14 damage, which if you do the numbers comes out to... nvm, the second setup still wins there nope, it doesn't, forgot about the strength bonus.
Actual summary
CF offhand can be good when: you are soloing or have no one else to use it, or your opponent cannot be hit by an APR offhand.
How does it work exactly with haste? As far as I can tell, a figher with the gauntlets gets 3.5 MH attacks and 1 OH attack. Hasted 7 MH/2 OH. With Belm OH, how does this work? Will you get 8 MH and 2 OH or 9 MH and 1 OH?
Say it works out for the best and you get 9 MH / 1 OH. Against a tough enemy, that 1 OH attack will not connect, but with a +5 OH they will so it's 9 hits versus 9 hits. With the CF buff, you will deal minimum 18 extra damage (if you could reach as much as 24 str without CF).
I think this tells us that when it really counts, there may not really be a good reason to wield Belm in the OH at all! It's really kind of obvious. If you can't hit with Belm, it adds 1 or 2 attacks but you miss out on 1 or 2 attacks from an OH that *can* hit. If haste only gives the Belm setup 8 MH attacks, you're actually missing out on one potential attack by using Belm.
All of this seems to speak in favor of using Belm against weak foes but getting the hardest hitting MH and an OH that gives you the best buffs and hits at +5 for the tough ones
The question that remains is then: which 1h weapon deals the most damage per hit other than CF and FoA?
PS: I know there are other party members. For the time being, I'm just looking at optimizing one melee combatant.
Using Belm and and Kundane was how my elven F/M killed half of the population in Amn, killer combo here, mostly while in SoA, not many enemies are immune to +2.
CF works pretty well with AotU, that deals Vorpal Hits, save vs death at -4 or die, and both are +5, +1 to AC and CON, might help to tank while dual wielding a lot.
To keep the Haste and use FoA just switch weapons in the game screen, it will work until @CamDawg fixes it (he will).
Foebane actually does 14 on average if you include the minor drain and even more against the creatures it slays, so for pure damage it looks like a pretty good choice. I haven't gone through all the weapons to find which one is the best, though. 8 MH and 2 OH. Your attacks are capped at 5/round no matter what, so Improved Haste gets around it by makes your rounds go twice as fast. I'll be honest, I didn't answer your OP because I was too lazy to look through all the weapons and calculate the damage. I might give this a shot later, though really I was hoping someone else would have the answer
Oh, the Equalizer is also a good contender for an offhand because (supposedly) the bonus carries to your mainhand as well. There's lots of good weapons really, and it's probably worth swapping in specific ones depending on who you're fighting.
I don't think I want to exploit to make FoA work, though it is a damn cool weapon. Perhaps it's good that you can't be hasted with it actually, because otherwise it's the obvious MH choice every single time.
The club of detonation has super high damage too, somewhere in the range of 18 per hit. But in practice I've found a lot of things like demons and giants and mages are immune to fire, and there's the fireball too.
What would you recommend be the ideal weapon combo by TOB?
Now that Nano has reminded me of the power of the humbler weapons like clubs, I'm thinking Club of Detonation / Defender of Easthaven is a super fun setup for a fighter/cleric. They easily have fire resistance and 25 strength anyway, and with this setup you *can* be hasted.
1). Purifier +5 is probably the best for anyone who can wield it. Magic resistance and dispel on hit.
2). Axe of the unyielding +5 is amazing for regeneration and vorpal effects.
3). Foebane +5: 8MH attacks = lots of hp healed each round.
Charname uses Crom Freyr main with Kundane/DOE off hand, but this is actually mostly dictated by only having 2 fighter types in this group. Viconia has FOA for example...