Brainstorming for Dual Wielding skills

I know this might sound crazy but is it possible to have a skill that temporarily disables one of the weapons, and deals that weapon's normal attack as DoT?

For example:

Deep stab:
Requires offhand piercing weapon (daggers, swords, whatever)

Stab your weapon into a monster. Deals 130% physical damage and 50%/100% bleed damage over time for stationary/mobile enemies over time. Weapon becomes unusable (obviously, its stuck in the monster) until monster dies (weapon magically returns to your hand) or some timer runs out (magically recall weapon to hand).

Maybe there can be some AoE damage as well around the monster based on the weapon, and that is from "the monster being in pain and flailing around". And then of course, the more powerful the weapon the more pain the monster is in, and the more friendly fire damage they deal flailing around.

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Mark_GGG wrote:

It's not possible to have a balanced skill that can deal damage from both weapons while dual wielding and only deal damage from one weapon while not dual wielding, unless dual wielding comes with some massive damage penalty, like Cleave. Otherwise that skill is getting twice as much damage for free, just for dual wielding, on top of the attack speed bonus of dual wielding. Dual wielding is not supposed to be a free x2 on all damage.

Of course it needs some kind of penalty for this, double damage "for free" would be OP... but shouldnt we expect to have some "more" reward for dual wielding than only the attack speed increase? Explanation:
with one weapon and a shield, you have your "basic" damage and the advantage of the shields defensive stats, with a two-hander(*) you give up that defensive for a (massive) damage increase... and dual wield should be somewhere in between , giving at least some defense from its inherent blocking chance, but also some noticeable offensive advantage?

(*) sometimes I think about the loss of up to 7 stats on a two-hand weapon, compared with bow+quiver... is this already taken into account to be balanced anyway?

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Mr_Cee wrote:

sometimes I think about the loss of up to 7 stats on a two-hand weapon, compared with bow+quiver... is this already taken into account to be balanced anyway?

The base DPS of best bows is 62, and others two weapons have 104 and 114 (119 for one axe) so it seems balanced with quiver use.

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Mark_GGG wrote:

*snip snip to avoid long post spam*

Thank you for your explainations Mark. Indeed I don't think that dual wield == 2x damage for free. But some skills just seem to make better use of dual weapons than others.

About the trolling comment, it was because your reply about how other skills also work for dual-wielders left me a bit surprised, as it went contrary to what I think is the general feeling from dual wielders that skills which don't specifically say "uses both weapons" are seen as sub-optimal.

Anyways, I think this is just perception. Ask anyone "which skills do I use for a dual wielder"? And the answer will be Dual Strike + Cleave + whatever utility/curses you prefer.

Of course you could use "Elemental Hit" or "Heavy Strike" if you really wanted to. I'm sure they'd be useful... but... I never would :-p

How about something like this:

Lava Plume:

Stab the ground with both weapons violently, creating a surge of molten rock to explode as geyser on the target area damaging mobs, and shower the area in molten lava causing burn damage over time.


Decreases physical damage by 50%

50% of physical damage is converted to fire damage

35% to stun targets in the area

Burn effect area lasts 4 seconds

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Mr_Cee wrote:

with one weapon and a shield, you have your "basic" damage and the advantage of the shields defensive stats, with a two-hander(*) you give up that defensive for a (massive) damage increase... and dual wield should be somewhere in between , giving at least some defense from its inherent blocking chance, but also some noticeable offensive advantage?

It is like this. block chance is pretty good and attack speed is great. You also get a few great passives (ambidexterity, twin terrors) and offensive bonuses from 2 weapons that can't be found on shields.

Attack speed scales with on hit life and mana gain; and with added base damage so: wrath, anger, added lightning, cold, fire, chaos damage. So while percentage based damage and leech is the same, other skills work better for dual wielding than for 2-handers.

Still, some skills suck with dual-wielding. For example we don't gain anything for whirling blades by using 2 weapons in comparison to 1h + shield. My suggestion for some changes:

- Make cleave work like normal attacks - faster attacking with switching weapon (I'm sure it was considered but requires new animation, so maybe some time. It would definitely be more intuitive than big attack with 2 weapons but damage lowered anyway for balancing, also more natural to dual wielding)

- Make phase run work for 2 attacks when dual wielding for skills that modify normal attack (like elemental hit or viper strike). It wouldn't allow for similar bonus to 2-handed weapons without forcing players to use dual strike for only optimal solution.

gotta say that my dual strke/cleave/whirling blade sword/axe shadow was amazingly fun and FAST. just sucked when I got insta gibbed at lvl 40 in hc :D!

I don't really know how the 10% multiplicative attack speed works out for increased offense so this might be enough to offset what I'm about to say, but ignoring that advantage for a moment having skills alternate weapons while dual wielding is not only no benefit at all, but a damage penalty as well as the loss of the ability to use a shield. If you use your most damaging weapon and a shield, every hit from those alternating skills uses the best damage you can get; if you alternate weapons for that skill while dual wielding the best case you can hope for is having your off hand be exactly as damaging as your main hand. If your off hand weapon is much weaker than your main hand weapon, as I imagine it generally is, every other hit with an alternating skill is effectively taking a damage penalty.