The point of dual wielding

[DrDuckman]

Is it just me or is Dual Wielding completely pointless? In PoE it would mechanically reduce your recovery speed. It does not seem to do that in Tyranny.

Indeed, each individual weapon attack seems to take the same amount of time as a single weapon attack. So your only advantage is alternating your damage types? This actually lowers your versatility compared to one hand, since you'd need to have two high powered weapons instead of one at all times. Am I missing something? What happens to recovery speed via spells etc?

It gets even worse once you realize how much more powerful one hand alone is with duelist. More accuracy is more crits which is more damage. Or you can get a shield, and have tons more suitability.

Have been seeing mentions of dual wield dagger mages in the forums, but wouldn't a single dagger mage be just better?

You can get the same 0 recovery penalty, but you always hit with your best weapon, and can get duelist. Or go for a shield. For 0.7 recovery penalty before bonus, you can get over 50 block from the best shield and talents. Same with pretty much any build that uses one handed weapons...

TD;DR, any point to dual wield other than holding one more artifact when you don't want to use a shield or Duelist for some reason?

 

[Kerssi]

I'd also like to know the reason for this, if you want different damage type that's what the weapon sets are for :/

 

[Geofferic]

I valuable use of dual wielding is to get the magical bonuses, like +10 Healing, etc.

 

[KDubya]

I also see no redeeming value to dual wielding unless we are somehow not understanding some basic mechanic of the game like each weapons recovery runs at the same time effectively doubling your attacks.

If you are using abilities they all are based off of your primary weapon so only one of the weapons matter, there are not any double weapon attacks like Verse gets.

I'm early in Act II but so far I've seen nothing that makes me think that Unarmed is not the best melee attack style, even for spells with the super low cooldowns. With leather armor I'm at a 2 second recovery and have stuck entirely in the Power tree until I got to Skull Cracker. The guy can endlessly cycle through Thrust, Cleave, Palm Strike, Head Strike, Sunder, and Skull Cracker. When you add in spells and reputation abilities and combos he hasn't performed a simple auto attack unless I get distracted and forget to click. Then you add in Dodge which covers both ranged and melee and you have a hard case to make to not go Unarmed.

 

[Geofferic]

I definitely do not think they play tested enough.

 

[Aotrs Commander]

Whelp. I was just about to start my first game and I'd been trying to work out whether to go full caster or have some two-weapon in there as well.

I think, then, it might be wise to stick to the former option (and go with the magic stick) at the moment, then...

 

[Victor Creed]

The answer to your question is double attacks and talent tree.
If it's as strong as one handed is another question, but dual wielding has it's justification.

 

[Luckmann]

I think a better question would be if there's any point to not dual-wielding or carrying a shield.

Playing a duelist was a good and fun build in PoE, but a lot of the stuff supporting different kinds of builds seem to be gone in Tyranny, sadly.

I definitely do not think they play tested enough.

I think it's obvious to everyone by now that there was no playtesting whatsoever. Literally none.

 

[Zefirisss]

Seems to me we shouldnt play these games at lauch. They have too many problems. Only, maybe, one year later after a lot of patches.
I'm really disappointed.

 

[Victor Creed]

If you're the kind of guy actually not enjoying a game because of minor flaws, then don't play at launch, I agree.
I remember when PoE came out everybody complained about everything, too.
Now that game all of a sudden gets praise.
Funny thing is mechanic wise he game didn't get changed a lot the biggest changes were actually nerfs (also well complained about in the forums) apart from the obvious bugfixes ofc.
(But which game starts without bugs?)

 

[Anthedon]

Seems pretty useless, yes. Not that it matters a whole lot if you dual-wield or use a shield/two-hander. The game is pretty easy compared to PoE.

 

[Luckmann]

If you're the kind of guy actually not enjoying a game because of minor flaws, then don't play at launch, I agree.

[...]

Hahaha, "minor flaws". Comedian.

 

[KDubya]

Getting past the "game is terrible/so easy it doesn't matter"

What is the benefit of dual wielding?

• You attack with one hand, recover and then the other. There is no increased attack speed.
• Use of abilities like Sunder of Flurry of Blows only use the primary weapon not both.
• You give up the ability to use a shield which will drastically improve your defenses
• You give up using a big two hander for increased damage per hit for getting past armor
• You give up using Unarmed which gets you an all in one defensive skill, the fastest recovery for spells and abilities, and increased DPS
• You give up the ability to go one handed duelist for increased accuracy and Riposte.

What should be changed:

• Cut recovery by 50% when dual wielding
• Use both weapons for damage when performing abilities

 

[fides5566]

In term of mechanic, no. In term of build, it's the easiest type of weapon to use if you want to maximize Agility skill tree as you don't have to invest on other tree for bonus 15% dmg(which most of the time doesn't really worth anything). Also you can have an additional buff from an offhand weapon ... I think that's all. Quite disappointing but not a game breaking.

 

[fides5566]

I also see no redeeming value to dual wielding unless we are somehow not understanding some basic mechanic of the game like each weapons recovery runs at the same time effectively doubling your attacks.

If you are using abilities they all are based off of your primary weapon so only one of the weapons matter, there are not any double weapon attacks like Verse gets.

I'm early in Act II but so far I've seen nothing that makes me think that Unarmed is not the best melee attack style, even for spells with the super low cooldowns. With leather armor I'm at a 2 second recovery and have stuck entirely in the Power tree until I got to Skull Cracker. The guy can endlessly cycle through Thrust, Cleave, Palm Strike, Head Strike, Sunder, and Skull Cracker. When you add in spells and reputation abilities and combos he hasn't performed a simple auto attack unless I get distracted and forget to click. Then you add in Dodge which covers both ranged and melee and you have a hard case to make to not go Unarmed.

Later on unarmed can be a bit weaker than using a weapon. You won't have additional +accuracy or armor penetration from a weapon or any type of buff/skill from artifacts. Recovery time is pretty no issue later on with haste + selfless accent. But just a little bit.

 

[Ruminate]

Unarmed doesn't have an advantage in spellcasting speed. Recovery time for spellcasting only takes into account armor. You can check by right clicking on a spell.

Anyways, i'm not sure what the point of dual-wield is either. Seems like an oversight to have all Fatebinder abilities use "primary attack" instead of "full attack".

 

[MundaneSoul]

I decided to go Dual Wield and have been pretty disappointed with it mechanically. Now I spend most of my time casting anyway, oh well. I guess the only thing is you get a small chance of double/triple attacks if you go that far into the talent tree.

 

[KDubya]

I think all of the Mastery abilities are trash as well, be it two handed, dual wield, unarmed, whatever. All of my attacks are abilities like thrust and sunder, I just cycle through all that I have adding in spells as filler or as desired. An occasional extra basic attack or a miniscule +5% damage buff is not worth a pick. Better to grab some Leadership tree for better potions and extra spell slots or adding blind or magic breaching to Thrust which is up every 14 seconds.

Now the Agility tree looks interesting to take for a Two hander, Flurry of Blows or Whirlwind with a greatsword sounds great as well as getting the parry works against ranged ability.

 

[Bob_Herzog]

Yea currently dual wield is one of the weakest options. More like a challange playthrough similar to going unarmed (though unarmed at least has the doge everything pary nothing going for it). The Talents trees are not really so much an argument given that you can use all but a few (dual wield mastery are the only eyceptions that come to mind) with either one weapon or even with a totally different gear.
I'm not so sure, if it would be such a good idea to just double your speed when useing it (balance against the other styles might then tip extremly towards dual wield) at least not without compensation (like accuracy reduction). But one could easily adjust is to faster recovery between the alternate hits that is still significant but lower than double speed.
One could make a case for the second item's potential effects. But that is true in principle for shields too.

Still it is only an issue in direct comparison. Overall even a dual wield character true to their form will eventually become a reliable and strong meele option when one sticks to the correct attributes and has a plan which skills to train (most common would likley to teach such a character at least some lore and thus magic). Personally I skipped the role of a buffer and healer mage almost entierly out of the game (only for the truly lore heavy aura stuff you really need those). My front meat just learns to cast their own stuff when it comes to the basic stuff like simple healing (life), attribute buffs (vigor) or defensife boosts (illusion).

 

[dubo84]

hey guys is there a monk option is duel wielding fists an option are legs count as off hand weapon