Double Strike vs Heavy Strike

The only reason why Double strike would be better than Heavy Strike in term of pure dps is the interaction of the skill with Lightning damage and Crit.

If you are dealing Lightning damage and you crit with double strike, the first hit shocks the target and the 2nd hit deal 30% "more" damage.

So, if you shock with double strike on the first hit, the damage is actually 0.7+(0.7*1.3) = or 1.61 vs 1.5 for Heavy Strike. However, you need to shock at least 47,6% of the time for double Strike to dish out higher dps than Heavy Strike.

And that doesn't take into account the armor penetration factor which favors Heavy Strike.
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Last edited by Velkor on Nov 27, 2013, 11:28:05 AM
Another thing to factor is Life Gained on Hit and Endurance Gained on Hit. If you support Double Strike with multi-strike and one of the Gain on hit support gems you would gain life/endurance faster than Heavy Strike.
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Heavy strike would probably be more effective with life leech supports. It would be interesting to see a comparison of leveled quality HS+LL versus DS+LoH
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narthagass wrote:
Hi.

I am working on a physical 2H build and was wondering what skill to use for single target DPS. I really like Double Strike's style but it sesms Heavy Strike is just so much better.

Heavy Strike seems not only to deal more damage overall but also since it's only one single big hit it penetrates more of the target's armor and has a higher chance of stunning the target. It also gains more attack speed per quality and has the reduced stun threshold. The only thing I dislike is the knockback which is actually I slight DPS decrease I feel (small time of running in between hits).

Double Strike's only upside seems to be "On Hit"-Effects, but I don't plan on using any of these.

So what are your thoughts on this?


Heavy strike deals more damage, but it cant be used with certain weapons. For them, you dont have options really.
Heavy strike Knockbacks. While fun, that deacreses killing speed and you cant use Multistrike because of that (and Multistrike is the best melee support gem). Believe me, it isnt fun to spend time running after each hit when your attack speed is high.
Heavy strike stuns, however.
For certain purposes (life on hit, cast on crit, etc), double strike is much better. For others, Heavy strike. These skills verve different purposes.
For slow hard-hitting twohanders Heavy strike is generally better, as it should be.
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Heavystrike can be great vs necromancers...keep them away from the corpses.

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