Dual Wield vs Sword and Shield
Diomedes33
Member Posts: 144
This question isnt just for Charname, but for npcs too. Are there cases where the shield is better than another offhand weapon? Do people here just go all out damage and forget shields?
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Me - Sorc
Anomen - Sword and shield
Viconia - Sword and shield
Jahiera - Sword and shield
Korgan - Dual wield
Yoshi/Imoen - Ranged
Edit: I was thinking of giving Jahiera a quarterstaff..?
I myself don't bother and go more with concept as opposed to sheer attacks/round and/or damage potential. Not to the point of creating a severely under-powered character mind you, just an effective concept.
For some classes, it's pretty hard to ignore the allure of dual wielding though, Kensai especially, since they can't use shields anyway.
In comparison, shields only gives you a lousy +1 AC at the start, all the way to +5 in ToB, but nowhere in the playthrough does that AC boost really make any difference. If an enemy can hit you, they can almost as easily hit you while using a shield.
It's not really about going "all out damage," it's that going shields over dual-wield is giving up a lot of damage for a little defense.
I love sword & board... its a wonderfully heroic trope with the added bonus of having a lot more historical veracity... but I know that whenever I do it I'm hamstringing myself mechanically.
Instead we're supposed to have the lousy +4 alternatives that are in the game? 10% elemental resistance or 1 to all saving throws are really shit tier stats for being the ToB alternatives.
Truth is, I hadn't even considered this an issue, but the most I think about it there's really a lot of diversity being lost thanks to the worthlessness of the shields in the game.
Might be worth fiddling with NearInfinity to make shields viable. Change some of them to work like Defender of Easthaven and the like.
So that's one of the few weapons that both has incredibly abilities and stats.
Once you get GWW your damage is back where it belongs. FoA +5, Foebane and Crom are some of the more stellar weapons, for even more tankiness you can of course wield DoE since a +3 weapon actually allows you to hurt most enemies even in ToB.
Even though the shields themselves are not that great, and sns style is a waste of 2 pips, actually using a shield can be a really solid choice.
The difference only shines once you get into powergaming territory, since you can build dual wielders to dish out insane amounts of damage that sword and board or 2handed really can't keep up with. But you shouldn't bother with such things on your first playthrough, you should just enjoy it for the experience it is.
To sum it up, AC works like damage resistances in a way: the more you have, the better it becomes point per point.
A Shield can in an optimal scenario increase your durability by 500% (yes) while dual wielding will never increase your damage output by 500%.
In a powergaming party of 6, someone should use shields and stack AC.
As Gotural pointed out, having someone who stacks AC is incredibly useful. This is especially true if you play difficulty mods/new difficulties where the normal "kill-them-before-they-kill-us" tactic doesn't work as well because your enemies have significantly more HP/protections.
IIRC, the breakpoint AC for vanilla ToB is -20 or better. That's for general epic-level mobs. I think the enemy with the highest THAC0 in vanilla ToB is the Ravager, which has -15 or so.
If you can reach those numbers (and there definitely several setups that can) then why not make the most of it?
Early on AC is very important because improving your AC can be as simple as starting with high dexterity and using heavy armor. Meanwhile, THAC0 needs levels/buffs to keep up. Shields definitely help with this, and it also helps that shields usually have a bonus against missile weapons. Many shields also have useful anti-magic properties.
Mid-game is where things get complicated because the previously mentioned "kill-them-before-they-kill-us" tactic becomes more and more viable, in a large part because AC remains mostly static while everyone's THAC0 is starting to catch up thanks to class levels/buffs. Dual-wielding becomes a lot more attractive at this point.
Late game-wise, the simple fact is that anything with warrior HLAs now has access to GWW. Suddenly the two-hand/sword and shield styles are useful again. Combined with the sheer number of powerful magical items/abilities now available to you, you are now free to try and figure out the best combination of offense/defense that you think works best for you. Shields are definitely useful if you wish to go with the AC-stacking route.
The nice thing about Sword & Shield is that you don't even need to put pips in the style to make it effective, meaning you've got extra pips for weapons. I think this needs to be reworked, but that's what we were dealt.
The Item Revisions mod greatly changes weapons and armor. Someone mentioned warhammers having a low damage output, a 1d4 base. IR adjusts dice rolls for a lot of weapons, and reworks speed factor and THAC0 bonuses as well. I highly recommend this mod to everyone, especially in conjunction with Spell Revisions
However, while that might be true, you're gearing one character to only defend the party against physical attacks. While it might be really good against the Ravager, how many pure physical dps challenges are there at that point in the game? Ravager, Balthazar, Yaga-Shura?
That character will be pretty bad against Sendai, Abazigal, and Melissan both has summons and time stops for you. Same for the later levels of Watcher's Keep. It's a lot of specialization, and that 500% durability definitely doesn't translate into every, or even most of the major fights. In a powergaming party, there's no way you'd spend one whole character on someone who is just a strong tank in some situations. Compare that to a fighter/mage who will tank everything, including spellcasters, while dual-wielding and not missing out on a single point of damage. If you're using GWW you're not using anything else. And Dual-wielders can use the same HLAs/cds to have constant critical strikes, doubling their damage output again. While yes, GWW does indeed make 2hs and SnS more viable, it doesn't mean they're close to equal to IH DWs in terms of damage output.
Regardless, if your setup allows you to facetank enemies without needing to move/cast spells then you're looking at a significant damage output increase. That way your fighter/mage (AND everyone else) can just stand still and keep attacking/using offensive spells.
Finally, you presume that just because it's using a shield then it MUST be a pure warrior or some variant or that it must have spent the last 80% of the game preparing itself for that role. Which is ridiculous. Stacking AC and using a shield only requires you cast some spells/use some items/move some gear around. Voila, high AC. This is BG2, not IWD2/NWN.
As for GWW vs Critical Strike, that's a completely different argument that also basically boils down to "It depends".
What I found is I did start him off as a flail dual wielder. 2*/3* then threw his final point in axe.
I used this simply because it boosts your apr. You chew mobs faster than they can really hurt you through the beginning stages. (Irenicus dungeon, Mae'var, and a few other quests)
I knew right off the hop I was headed for d'arise stronghold so that's why I threw points in flail. The axe was to start the game since it's common. I caught a sweet magic disruption axe from the djinn and kept rolling with it. Put together the Foa got enough gold to get a defender easthaven for the Dr and continued chewing through quests.
Granted I didn't do them in optimal order but I still managed fine. What I did find, is I was ending up using the shield of harmony from trademeet more and more than a dual Foa/doeh or Foa/balas. Heck I pretty much junked belm because against foas damage types and doeh reduction it wasn't worth the extra attack and I wasn't spec into scimitar anyways. Same deal with kudane. They're +2. Foa is +3 with elemental. Doeh is +3 with 20% off resists to counter my lack of shield when I do get hit. (So I lose 4 Ac, but I take 8 damage instead of 12 if they can break my -7 vs -10 and I get triple element damage)
Add in armor faith if a paladin or barbarians natural resists and that drops to around 4 to 6 damage if they beat your Ac. All the while you're 4 attacks ish anyways.
The reason I ended up using the shield is because it let me keep the balduran helm on. Ac save throw and thac0.
This let me get away with 1* in axe. And even after I bumped that to 2* with plans to use the vorpal axe... then adding 1 to longswords scimitar, 2 hammer, and 1 bastard at current 24 (still chapter 2). I still find I'm using shield of harmony and wasting my 3 pips in dual wield.
Reason being isn't the Ac or Dr from shield of harmony, it's the benefits it gives. They far outweigh what you're doing in a solo situation tan trying to dual wield your way through and reloading because you caught a confuse or Web and get clubbed to death over a 3 min period.
Once I aquired my final priest spells, snagged a diva and started mashing gww it pretty much became game over for needing dual wield. You just mow everything down anyways. Swap the weapons and gear in and out for the fight style.
THAT being said.
If you're running a group... dual wield. Your mages and clerics can counter those deficiencies you lack (from the bonus of shield of harmony, or the fact that you're dual wielding) and if you set the group up properly you don't even need Ac, things die so fast it's silly. Your mages hasting you, clerics free action, protection evil for save bonus, ect.
If you're running a group you don't really Bork yourself on what you choose for style since the group setup can cover anything you're lacking.
The talk of dw vs 2hd vs this or that is more for solo runs, and I'm finding at present I actually prefer diva -> gww+foa+3+soh to trying to dual wield. Things just explode.
And this is from a guy who's still chapter 2 and has cleared almost all of it to unlock the tob hla on a single run. (No run thru export import)
Bottom line. If you're group playing do whatever you want. If you're trying to solo, it depends on how far you want to progress in certain areas and what your difficulty setting is.
Edit: The only issue you will have is against gibberlings.... they will always destroy you.