Unique Chest Piece * That allows wielding 2h wep with 1h

first of all, that's entirely untrue about WoE -- it was only nerfed once, block chance 10%->8% (a minor nerf, at that).

secondly, it's a moot point since WoE says that it already counts as dual wielding. you can't double dual wield, that's just silly.

granted, the numbers would need to be played with, and other balance factors taken into effect -- maybe you can't block with them, maybe they are treated as 1h weapons (2h nodes have no effect on them; instead, 1h nodes do), maybe nerf dmg more or less, etc. honestly, that stuff'd be up to GGG anyways, and it's complicated enough that i at least will admit that i'd have a hard time tackling it.

as for the "if it's balanced dmg-wise, why use it?" question, 2 answers:

1) it might be balanced for a small tradeo₣f of defense for damage, which would fit the flavor

2) even if not -- even if the damage is perfectly equal -- it opens up a lot of new builds. as an example, dual wielding Oro's (2h) with Hyaeon's (1h) would allow a cool burninate+shockify build.

I would add, however, for balance's sake, that 2 of the same unique should probably be banned (to avoid Queen's/Terminus/etc abuse).

edit: forgive typos, i hate typing out big posts on a phone...

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BearCares wrote:

Unrivaled Under Heaven

While dual wielding you can equip one 2H weapon
Resolute Technique is Invalid
50% Less Critical Strike Chance
+4% chance to block

550 + 550 = 1100 DPS - 1H DW
(880+880)x85% = 1496 DPS - Titan's Rage
880 + 880 = 1760 DPS - Barbarism Keystone
880 + 550 = 1420 DPS - UUH Keystone

When I compare your keystone to the Chest piece, the original suggestion of this thread, the DPS is almost the same. The only difference between them is that you want to nerf crit, where I increase the requirements to use top level items.

Lets take Atziri's Axe as an example. To wield it with one hand you need at least 395 Str & 190 Dex. This is IMO not easy to reach and requires additional passives nodes in STR & DEX and/or Gear to reach. With top lvl maces it's around 540 STR and top lvl swords it's around 300 STR and 300 DEX. This is for an increase of 30% Base Damage.

@Damon_Tor - You got a point there. Question is if the loss of a chest piece equals to the increase in DPS with two-handed weapons. The Barbarism keystone is probably equal to the Unique, except with the Unique you eliminate the problem with BoR.

@tsgtd - I don't think Queen's & Terminus would specifically be a problem. Queen is for a summoner build who, if I'm correct, spends a lot of points north of scion. The Chest piece requires at least 177 STR which is a lot for a summoner. So if summoners want to use this unique, they will need to spend valuable passives to make it work, which is balanced. Some affixes like the Frenzy charge gain on Terminus won't stack. You will still only gain 1 frenzy charge even if you cleave with two Terminus's.

Edit: BTW I find the idea that 2H axes, maces & swords counts as 1h weapons interesting.

the issue with terminus is the extra frenzy charge, not the gain part. also, i suspect that mechanically you would gain 2, which would have to be coded around. easier to just say that you can't equip 2 of the same to avoid the many breakable scenarios that could occur.

as for queens, double queens would just be ridiculously overpowered -- stronger than double midnight, and that reserves 60% of your life and can't be used with CI. it's not very hard to stack that much strength, and many gems that summoners use already require a fair amount of strength (e.g. MPD which requires 109@lvl 20).

there are other examples, those were just the two I thought of off the top of my head.

as for the DPS thing, like I said that's simply a matter of tweaking the numbers. some formula could be devised which would bring the DPS in line

I thought on the problem the Queens poses. Queens is exactly the reason why I did not include staves. Spell caster builds have all these funky modifiers that makes this unique difficult to implement if staves were included. Queens is actually an oddball because it is one of the few pure Spellcaster 2hand weapons that is not a stave.

This unique is meant for the big tanky builds in the marauder/dualist area. So in order to minimize the problem of double wielding queens, I made an alternative chest piece:

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Titan's Wrath
Gladiator Plate

Has no Sockets
70% - 100% Increased Armor
25% Less Damage
Can wield 2 handed axes, maces & swords, 1 handed
125% Increased Strength requirement
10% Increased Character Size

In order to eliminate pure spell caster builds from using this chest piece, I moved the attribute requirements from the weapons to the chest (398 STR). This STR requirement should also eliminate similar problems if other two-handed axes, maces & swords spell caster uniques should be implemented in the future. Of cause this did mean I had to reduce the damage further to balance this change.

I checked the other uniques where double wielding could still pose a problem. I did find uniques where Double Wielding unintendedly makes builds stronger. Most of them are items that are not used often and suddenly becomes viable with this. Go check these out:

The Harvest - Can get +500% increased Global crit chance.
Edge of Madness - Can get +160% Increased Elemental & Chaos damage
Chober Chaber - Can get 80% Increased Minion Life
Quecholli - Can get 20% of life explosions on kill
Reapers Pursuit - Can get 80% Increased Rarity

Just to be clear: I am not completely convinced that Double wielding Queens is overpowered. It would be difficult to have enough defenses and resists if you plan to make such a build. But I created another unique, as a possible alternative, if double wielding is still deemed as a problem:

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Titan's Right Hand
Titan Gauntlets

Has no Sockets
Can wield two-handed axes, maces & swords, one-handed in Main Hand
30% Reduced Attack Speed of Main Hand
+(60 to 80) to maximum Life

Edit: Shoot, just saw Mjolnir and got a better idea to balance the unique.

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Titan's Fury
Gladiator Plate

Has no Sockets
70% - 100% Increased Armor
15% Less Damage
Can wield 2 handed axes, maces & swords, 1 handed
+250 Strength requirements of 2 handed axes, maces & swords
10% Increased Character Size

Works almost the same as original idea, but excludes pure spell casters

i think less attack speed is the more elegant solution compared to less damage.

as for dual wielding, rather than try to account for individual weapons, just say either:

1) you can only wield a single 2h weapon in 1 hand (2nd for dual wielding would have to be 1h)

2) you cannot dual wield 2 of the same 2h

either one solves the dual wield stacking issue. number 1 further reduces the power of the idea as well. it's not that hard to stack str. the fact that mjolnir is commonly used by casters for coc is a perfect example of this.