Two Handed Weapons

Hello All,

I've spent the last couple of weeks trying out various builds that focus on the use of two handed weapons in melee combat I've been stuggling to figure out how to make them on par with one hand/shield builds. Some of my observations are as follows:

Shield - The lack of shield appears to be the single largest drawback for a few reasons:

1. You can't block, unless using a staff build which is too niche for 2H melee and would require you to find a rare staff that doesn't roll spellcasting mods mixed with melee ones. There isn't really a melee focused unique staff in the game yet, unless you count Pillar, which requires a very niche build to work properly.

2. A lot of the POE shield uniques are very powerful, fun, and not too hard to acquire from a cost or drop rate standpoint. Crest of Perandis comes to mind, which has an awesome block rate and life bonus for a low level item.

3. You lose the potential stats of the shield. Shields are a great way to get extra life and resistance bonuses which are not possible using 2H weapons.


Other Defenses - Armor, Evade, Dodge, Life

1. Other than shield, the only way to completely avoid damage is to focus on evade or dodge, but most of these nodes are on the completely opposite side of the tree from the good 2H melee nodes, so it is expensive for a Marauder or Templar to travel to that side to obtain them.

2. Armor works to some degree, but you really have to take Unwavering Stance, Iron Reflexes and run the Grace aura to make it very effective. This still won't save you from a series of big hits that you can't block, and can't absorb through your life pool without the Kaom's unique.

3. As previously mentioned, the loss of shield is one less slot that can roll a life bonus. There are plenty of life nodes near the primary 2H area near Marauder and Duelist, but you still need to travel somewhat far to get to the big 18% life nodes near the Templar and Ranger.

Offense

1. It's definitely possible to do more damage using a 2H build versus 1H/Shield, but this additional damage doesn't offset the loss of defense. Although two handers tend to hit harder, they are also slower, and this slower speed seems to result in only an incremental improvement in DPS over a one hander. The immense power of the anger and wrath auras also have the potential to push the one handers into higher dps given that the auras greatly benefit from attack speed.

2. One of the advantages of a two handed build is that it is possible to run two different skills in five or six link setups (weapon and chestpiece). However, in most builds, the secondary skill (i.e. leap slam) tends to be more of a utility skill in which it isn't that important to have five or six links. One skill could be used as single target and another as AOE, so you don't have to suffer the use of a melee splash socket, but obtaining two five or six link items is inherently more difficult and expensive than obtaining only one.


Suggestions

1. Either give two handed swords, axes, and maces and implicit life roll, or allow these weapons to roll explicit life mods. This would help offset the loss of a shield given how important that life is for survival.

2. Slightly increase the base attack speed of all two handed weapons, so they truly become a dps advantage over one handers in exchange for lower defense.

3. Tweak the damage effectiveness on skill gems to create different levels for one and two handed weapons.

4. Improve the frenzy skill gem by reducing mana cost and/or increasing damage. Frenzy has good potential to be used in two handed builds that want to utilize evade and dodge as a form of defense given the location of the frenzy charge nodes.

5. Create a parry keystone that works similar to dodge, but only works against melee attacks and is located near the marauder or duelist area. The drawback would be "Cannot Equip a Shield".


I'd be interested in hearing everyone's thoughts on how they feel about the general state of two handed weapons and other potential suggestions.

I think a much better solution would be two classes of off-hand items similar to quivers.

Straps for melee purposes and spell books for spells.

Can only be used with two-handed melee weapons and provide similar stats to a quiver (straps could roll +1/2 to melee range instead of projectile speed). No sockets on them either.

Make anger and wrath gives greater bonus when using a 2handed weapon.

As someone else suggested, add a parry mechanic exlusive to 2 handers and have passive points that allows to boost it. Find a way to make it work against both attacks and spell damage. Maybe cap it at like 50% so it's not as good as block since 2 hander still have higher dps potential.

I'd like to see an item that gave you 30% more life when wielding two-handed weapons.

"

Crackmonster wrote:

I'd like to see an item that gave you 30% more life when wielding two-handed weapons.

Or it could be integrated by default, if 2H is used, similar approach as DW mechanics ;)
But I guess 30% is too much.

2h is supposed to be trading survivability for big damage hits.
Since the leech nerf, however, I find the only real appeal of big hits to be stun.
Rather than buff 2h I wish they'd buff monsters to make big hits matter more.

"

Gobla wrote:

I think a much better solution would be two classes of off-hand items similar to quivers.

Straps for melee purposes and spell books for spells.

Can only be used with two-handed melee weapons and provide similar stats to a quiver (straps could roll +1/2 to melee range instead of projectile speed). No sockets on them either.

Good point. I think this change alone would single handedly go a long way in fixing the problems with two handed builds.