Let's talk about Dual Wielding...

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Mark_GGG wrote:

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pneuma wrote:

I'm a bit confused as to why GGG went with %more physical (not even elemental) damage to "fix" the offensive DW problems. They could have kept the aspd flavor by increasing the 10% more aspd to 20-30% more aspd. This would add the same amount of final damage, but would favor elemental attacking (which isn't necessarily a bad thing).

No, we couldn't. There are limits to how much total attack speed players can be allowed to obtain for multiple reasons, including technical ones. Substantially increasing the attack speed modifier for dual wielding was not a viable option.

Hey Mark, thanks for popping in and clearing up some of our questions/concerns. Would you mind commenting why elemental attack damage was excluded from the recent buff? I understand it wasn't feasible to buff apsd, but to not include elemental damage is puzzling.

It's like saying "We're going to buff minions next patch". Then when patch hits, zombies get 20% more damage and skeletons don't lol.


Something else, I'll just use foils as an example.

Here's the best possible physical foil possible (560+ pdps):



Now here's the best possible elemental foil (330+ edps):



DW elemental is already weaker than physical. Physical DW has access to higher dps weapons, better support gems, more dps nodes on the tree, and now the 20% more damage buff.

Am I looking at this wrong?

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kolp wrote:

Something else, I'll just use foils as an example.

Here's the best possible physical foil possible (560+ pdps):

Now here's the best possible elemental foil (330+ edps):

DW elemental is already weaker than physical. Physical DW has access to higher dps weapons, better support gems, more dps nodes on the tree, and now the 20% more damage buff.

Am I looking at this wrong?

I've yet to seriously play an elemental weapon-based character before the one I'm fiddling with now, so take the following with a reasonable pile of salt. But as I understand it, a lot of the damage from elemental builds comes from Wrath and Anger at high levels--that's quite a lot of flat damage for which there's no comparable source for physical weapon wielders. Hatred is strong, yes, but since it's similar to, say, IPD from your tree (unless you're using WED or similar supports) instead of flat damage it isn't quite as broken when given both attack speed and "more" modifiers.

To put it a bit more simply, if you have sword A and sword B that have identical DPS but A hits more often (albeit for less damage), most physical builds don't care too much about the difference even if they happen to run Hatred. But for elemental weapon builds, when you add in Wrath and/or Anger sword A will blow sword B out of the water.

That is, elemental weapon builds already benefit more from the attack speed boost than physical weapon builds do. They don't need x% more damage on top of that.

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SayyadinaAtreides wrote:

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kolp wrote:

Something else, I'll just use foils as an example.

Here's the best possible physical foil possible (560+ pdps):

Now here's the best possible elemental foil (330+ edps):

DW elemental is already weaker than physical. Physical DW has access to higher dps weapons, better support gems, more dps nodes on the tree, and now the 20% more damage buff.

Am I looking at this wrong?

I've yet to seriously play an elemental weapon-based character before the one I'm fiddling with now, so take the following with a reasonable pile of salt. But as I understand it, a lot of the damage from elemental builds comes from Wrath and Anger at high levels--that's quite a lot of flat damage for which there's no comparable source for physical weapon wielders. Hatred is strong, yes, but since it's similar to, say, IPD from your tree (unless you're using WED or similar supports) instead of flat damage it isn't quite as broken when given both attack speed and "more" modifiers.

To put it a bit more simply, if you have sword A and sword B that have identical DPS but A hits more often (albeit for less damage), most physical builds don't care too much about the difference even if they happen to run Hatred. But for elemental weapon builds, when you add in Wrath and/or Anger sword A will blow sword B out of the water.

That is, elemental weapon builds already benefit more from the attack speed boost than physical weapon builds do. They don't need x% more damage on top of that.

Hatred actually ends up being a multiplier with both mpd and wed, that makes hatred a physical only build dps choice even though its really elemental, albeit converted.

Problem with (pure) ele builds

Monster resists vs 99% physical dmg penetration - NOT feasible to use 3x pen gems, cannot curse all mobs, curse immune maps and rares, cursing slows down kill speed so reduces dps in a way

Multipliers and increases are simply not as abundant and impactful as for physical

You mentioned it yourself - you really need both auras, which is no joke taking into consideration players like myself give priority to other auras and will mostly run 2 at a time. (especially a melee build)

Devs dont like it? (lol, seems so, why does dual wield only get a more to physical?)

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ancalagon3000 wrote:

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SayyadinaAtreides wrote:

Hatred is strong, yes, but since it's similar to, say, IPD from your tree (unless you're using WED or similar supports) instead of flat damage it isn't quite as broken when given both attack speed and "more" modifiers.

Hatred actually ends up being a multiplier with both mpd and wed, that makes hatred a physical only build dps choice even though its really elemental, albeit converted.

Yeah, my post was unclear, sorry--I was comparing it to tree IPD for total dps math purposes, not for viable supports or ele vs phys final damage output.

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ancalagon3000 wrote:

Problem with (pure) ele builds

Monster resists vs 99% physical dmg penetration - NOT feasible to use 3x pen gems, cannot curse all mobs, curse immune maps and rares, cursing slows down kill speed so reduces dps in a way

Multipliers and increases are simply not as abundant and impactful as for physical

You mentioned it yourself - you really need both auras, which is no joke taking into consideration players like myself give priority to other auras and will mostly run 2 at a time. (especially a melee build)

Devs dont like it? (lol, seems so, why does dual wield only get a more to physical?)

All comments about curses apply equally to physical builds, so that's hardly an elemental vs. physical issue. The aura difference is fairly significant, but especially with Arcing Blows you can get by with just Wrath instead of both. And, as previously mentioned, as long as you use a fast weapon the fact that it's considerably easier to stack flat ele damage compensates for a lot of physical's perceived advantages. They honestly feel pretty even to me, with physical actually feeling slightly "underpowered" compared to elemental damage when it comes to DW.

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SayyadinaAtreides wrote:

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ancalagon3000 wrote:

Problem with (pure) ele builds

Monster resists vs 99% physical dmg penetration - NOT feasible to use 3x pen gems, cannot curse all mobs, curse immune maps and rares, cursing slows down kill speed so reduces dps in a way

Multipliers and increases are simply not as abundant and impactful as for physical

You mentioned it yourself - you really need both auras, which is no joke taking into consideration players like myself give priority to other auras and will mostly run 2 at a time. (especially a melee build)

Devs dont like it? (lol, seems so, why does dual wield only get a more to physical?)

All comments about curses apply equally to physical builds, so that's hardly an elemental vs. physical issue. The aura difference is fairly significant, but especially with Arcing Blows you can get by with just Wrath instead of both. And, as previously mentioned, as long as you use a fast weapon the fact that it's considerably easier to stack flat ele damage compensates for a lot of physical's perceived advantages. They honestly feel pretty even to me, with physical actually feeling slightly "underpowered" compared to elemental damage when it comes to DW.

you dont need a curse to reduce physical resists, because 99% of your dmg gets through. Elemental resists are everywhere, so even a 1:1 ratio of phys:ele on the sheet would mean less dps for ele users. I would say that is an issue.

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ancalagon3000 wrote:

you dont need a curse to reduce physical resists, because 99% of your dmg gets through. Elemental resists are everywhere, so even a 1:1 ratio of phys:ele on the sheet would mean less dps for ele users. I would say that is an issue.

Monsters have armor. It's a thing.

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SayyadinaAtreides wrote:

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ancalagon3000 wrote:

you dont need a curse to reduce physical resists, because 99% of your dmg gets through. Elemental resists are everywhere, so even a 1:1 ratio of phys:ele on the sheet would mean less dps for ele users. I would say that is an issue.

Monsters have armor. It's a thing.

it is <1k, which means 95%+ of physical builds are getting the vast, vast majority of their dmg in

Really, why every single element build tries to sacrifice a gem slot for a pen gem? Monster resists eat up a lot of elemental dmg

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ancalagon3000 wrote:

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SayyadinaAtreides wrote:

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ancalagon3000 wrote:

you dont need a curse to reduce physical resists, because 99% of your dmg gets through. Elemental resists are everywhere, so even a 1:1 ratio of phys:ele on the sheet would mean less dps for ele users. I would say that is an issue.

Monsters have armor. It's a thing.

it is <1k, which means 95%+ of physical builds are getting the vast, vast majority of their dmg in

Source? Also, math?

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ancalagon3000 wrote:

Really, why every single element build tries to sacrifice a gem slot for a pen gem? Monster resists eat up a lot of elemental dmg

Yes, but keep in mind that penetration gem math is a bit wonky.

Assume your gem grants 25% lightning penetration (level 10). Assume a monster has 75% lightning resistance (which is very high for your average monster, even in merc). That gem is effectively a "100% more lightning damage" modifier (which is insane, given how well it scales with flat lightning, which is where most elemental weapon damage comes from in the majority of builds).

Now assume a monster has 0% lightning res, and you're using the same gem. It's *still* a "25% more lightning damage" modifier.

Elemental damage also has much better synergy for offensive curses (Warlord's Mark is your only real offensive curse for non-crit phys builds), with the ability to stack Elemental Weakness and Conductivity.

In short, saying that "every single elemental build needs a pen gem" is a fairly useless counterpoint even if you *do* understand how powerful elemental penetration is--almost all physical builds will take a Melee Phys or PPAD gem, which are substantially less powerful than elemental penetration gems and so probably pretty well balanced to a single elemental penetration gem. By that logic, saying GGG hates elemental builds because you'd "need" three penetration gems to equate to a physical support gem is even more pointless.

This doesn't even consider the fact that by their nature, flat elemental gem supports scale even better with the DW aspd boost than the various other phys-related weapon supports.

I'm not trying to say that elemental damage builds are terribly overpowered, although I might think they are a bit (I haven't thought about it enough to figure out what I think, and I don't care that much). But they sure as hell aren't *underpowered*, and they most certainly don't need a "more" modifier with DW the way that physical did.

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ancalagon3000 wrote:

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SayyadinaAtreides wrote:

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ancalagon3000 wrote:

you dont need a curse to reduce physical resists, because 99% of your dmg gets through. Elemental resists are everywhere, so even a 1:1 ratio of phys:ele on the sheet would mean less dps for ele users. I would say that is an issue.

Monsters have armor. It's a thing.

it is <1k, which means 95%+ of physical builds are getting the vast, vast majority of their dmg in

Really, why every single element build tries to sacrifice a gem slot for a pen gem? Monster resists eat up a lot of elemental dmg

And how do you know how much armour monsters have?

This talk about elemental vs physical is nonsense. Hatred and added fire both get a buff from dual wielding. All skills that convert physical to elemental damage get a buff from dual wielding. If they gave elemental damage a separate buff then physical builds will double dip.

*Edit* I just did an in-game test. I gain 1100 cold and 1100 fire damage, just from dual wielding. I am not even using a mirror weapon. I gain 2.2k dps just from dual wielding.