Two handed vs Two weapon
Draconus
Member Posts: 24
Always believed that by the end of ToB two weapon would be better. However having just finished my first playthrough of EE I've found that the +6 Ravager Halberd is probably better than any two weapon combination especially since Flail of Ages has been nerfed.
I thought my Korgan was pretty much unstoppable and the strongest member of my party bar in my protagonist. However, my Korgan has 5 stars in Axe, 5 stars in Warhammer and 3 stars in Two weapon style. He's equipped with Crom Faeyr and Axe of Unyielding in each hand. My Dorn has 2 star in Halberd and 2 star in two handed style equipped with Ravager +6. When I order them to fight Dorn wins everytime with the Ravager +6. I've done 5 fights with both on greater whirlwind. 4 times Dorn has won and once Dorn and Korgan have killed each other.
I don't remember Ravager +6 in the original game (before EE) was it always there and is it now the best weapon in the game? I can't see any two weapon combination being better than it...?
I thought my Korgan was pretty much unstoppable and the strongest member of my party bar in my protagonist. However, my Korgan has 5 stars in Axe, 5 stars in Warhammer and 3 stars in Two weapon style. He's equipped with Crom Faeyr and Axe of Unyielding in each hand. My Dorn has 2 star in Halberd and 2 star in two handed style equipped with Ravager +6. When I order them to fight Dorn wins everytime with the Ravager +6. I've done 5 fights with both on greater whirlwind. 4 times Dorn has won and once Dorn and Korgan have killed each other.
I don't remember Ravager +6 in the original game (before EE) was it always there and is it now the best weapon in the game? I can't see any two weapon combination being better than it...?
Post edited by Draconus on
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If you did a test without Whirlwinds, however, the outcome might be different. Especially when fully buffed. There are some specialists on these boards who will tell you how to achieve 8-9 attacks per round consistently over long periods of time (with improved haste, multiple rounds). I suppose even Ravager won't save you then.
That's speaking pure mechanics.
I don't like belm or kudane swords nor do I enjoy the concept of taking them for the sake of extra attacks. Thematically I enjoy two handed weapons more. By far - be it halberds or two handed swords.
IT is better version of Silver Sword from SoA witch i give to dorn or Sarevoc
also i think the Axe of the Unyielding +5 in BG2EE is downgraid in bg2 has 10% chance of instat kill. now has 10% but enemy can make save throw sacks;P
in may opinion SoA two weapon stayl rulzz but in ToB is tie bitwen those profections
tennisgolfboll - excuse my ignorance but was is def of easthaven?
Does not dorn auto kill korgan as ravager has 10% no save death effect?
If so def of east wont help but hindos doom and foa will still come out untop
I've seen a Dev saying that the Free Action effect always stopped haste and they chose not to change it in EE. What they did change is Keldorn's armor which initially allowed haste effect but that was a bug.
The competition becomes much more even once you get whirlwind since it sets APR to 10 regardless of what your base APR is. However, as others mentioned, improved haste means that dual wielders can also achieve similar number of APR without using whirlwind and it lasts longer too. Moreover, they can simultaneously take advantage of the critical strike HLA (although at that stage of the game, this just means killing nameless mobs faster since most bosses are immune to critical hits) and weapons such as DoF increases your beefiness like no other two-handers.
Having said all of that though, I still prefer two-handers over dual-wielding. I hate prebuffing each of my fighters individually with improved haste and would rather have my mage just cast normal haste to save time and speed up the entire party. I also like keeping ranged weapons on my fighters (be it throwing weapons or bows) and wielding two-handers means easily switching between quick slots without having to manually equip and unequip the offhand weapons which dual/shield wielders would have to do.
So is two-weapons superior to two-handers? Yesh. Especially with improved haste. But I'll have my character wield Lilacor, Carsomyr, Dragon's Breath, Impaler etc anyday over this silliness:
@Draconus The problem with the "better" shields is that AC becomes irrelevant in the late game as enemy THAC0 gets super high. That's why people bring up the Defender of Easthaven: 20% physical resist is a lot more useful than AC against a late game melee monster that's going to hit you regardless.
You might want to take shield only if you are interested in additional effects which are granted by some of them. Shield of Harmony comes to mind with immunity to charm, confusion, domination and hold. That alone might be useful.
Still, there is little point in investing points in the style: it only affects your AC against missile weapons. Weak if you ask me.
only chances. dmg reducers are:
fail of easthaven 20%
cleric spell armor of faith 5%-25%
worior HLA 40%
Jan jansen armor 25%(only jansen use)
classes Barb 10% on 11 lvl and 20% on 19 ; Dwarfdef. skill 50% plus every 5LVL 5% to max 20%
Haer'dalis his deavils res 15%
and some more i thant remmber all of them.
Ie avoidance factors it all in because a hit that doesn't penetrate armor is counted the same as a miss.
As for the plate vs robe its totally crazy. But then again summoning a zoo, raising someone from the dead 100 times when you are a medium level cleric even if a year has passed etc is aswell.
Ac works well enough as a game mechanic
That's not to say the Ravager is bad. A 65% chance of decapitation in one round is very, very good. Even if that doesn't happen, you're still doing tons of damage. I'm glad to have read that. Maybe I'm not the only one slightly annoyed by those game-changers after all. I find them cheesy and entirely unnecessary in a design sense since DW is already amazing without them.
As you increase your sample size of GWW versus GWW, it should overall work out at around 63 victories for Dorn versus 37 for Korgan, based on the simple mathematics of 8 to 10 chances per round.
The key advantage, however, for Two Weapon Fighting is that it doesn't need to use Whirlwind attack to hit 10 attacks per round.
2 Attacks from Fighter + 1 from Grand Mastery + 1 from Two-Weapon Fighting + 1 from Belm = 5 Attacks per round.
2 Attacks from Blackguard + 1/2 from Specialisation = 2 1/2 Attacks per round.
With the 10% lethality axe you've four chances to vorpal every round normally, versus two and a half for the Ravager +6.
Instead of Whirlwinds, which last one round, TWFers use Critical Strike, automatically hitting, and critting, with every attack. They also ask the party mage to Improved Haste them.
This works out to 10 Attacks for the TWFer under Improved Haste that lasts multiple rounds, versus a paltry 5 for the Ravager. Combined with Critical Strike, that's x20 attack equivalents, which even with only 21 Strength = ~300 damage minimum. Offhanding Crom Faeyr instead that's only 8 attacks, x16 damage and 330 odd damage for the round, and still 6 attempts to Decapitate versus Dorn's 5.
So for N rounds per day, Dorn has the edge over Korgan (unless he actually drops his offhand and has a pip in Single Weapon Style), where N is his number of GWWs. The rest of the time, Korgan is king.
At least until a Mage comes along and kills them both.