How would you explain why /NIN dual-wield > twohanded weapon

[Yutuyu]

"B) Damage Calcs
Damage calculations are as follows~
(DMG Rating on Weapon + fSTR) * pdif

An attack round from a dualwielder will be
(DMG Rating on Weapon 1 + fSTR) * pdif + (DMG Rating on Weapon 2 + fSTR) * pdif
which simplifies to
(DMG Rating on Weapon 1 + Weapon 2 + 2*fSTR) * pdif

vs an attack round from a 2H:
(DMG Rating on Weapon + fSTR) * pdif

Each attack round from a dualwielder is going to include more base damage from the extra fSTR."

That's not valid. Assume the simple example where the two weapons have equal damage.

(DMG Rating on Weapon 1 + Weapon 2 + 2*fSTR) * pdif = 2 *(DMG Rating on Weapon + fSTR) * pdif

Which is just 2 strikes from Weapon 1's damage in double the time (ignoring the haste bonus granted by dual wield).

So point B is really irrelevent.

[Venture]

Think of the mages, please. If not for Rampage, at least Utsusemi. If you're gonna blast off Raging Rush at 99% monster health, i'm sure the mages are more then happy to dump five Cure IVs on you to keep you alive and waste half the party's MP on Chain 1.

[S N K]

Also important, you need to sub /drg or /sam to really boost g. axe damage as a war, so you lose your main source of damage mitigation in the process, utsusemi of coarse.

What annoys me thou, is low level wars never bothering to use g. axe, and going axe/axe from 1-75, even thou g. axe is so much better for a while.

Cue eff tee for all of it

This is my 2nd biggest annoyance, right after axe/axe DRKs

Fuck I can't agree with this more. After I saw how damn good a g-axe was at early levels and then getting Sturmwind in exp partys, I couldn't be assed to use single handed Axes until the mid 40s.

I had to go back and sadly skill the shit out of my one-hand axe for awhile because of it.

Learned a good lesson on keeping multiple weapons skilled up at once. It made leveling DRK less painful in the end.

~S N K

[Kirschy]

That's not valid. Assume the simple example where the two weapons have equal damage.

(DMG Rating on Weapon 1 + Weapon 2 + 2*fSTR) * pdif = 2 *(DMG Rating on Weapon + fSTR) * pdif

Which is just 2 strikes from Weapon 1's damage in double the time (ignoring the haste bonus granted by dual wield).

So point B is really irrelevent.

Using your formula still proves the point I was trying to make~

2 * (DMG Rating on Weapon + fSTR) * pdif

To have it make sense, just plug in some average values during a merit XP pt. (Lets ignore delay for intents of showing the calculation is relevant to the original discussion.) Maneater + Jugg vs Byakko's Axe. Let's say it was two DMG: 47 axes vs Byakko's Axe. 47x2 = 94 DMG, the same as Byakko's axe DMG rating. Lets assume fSTR is returning a value of 6, and pdif is averaged at 2.0.

Two 47 DMG Axes vs Byakko's Axe

2 * (47 + 6) * 2 vs (94 + 6) * 2

(53) * 4 vs (100) * 2

212 vs 200


While that may not seem like a lot, add that extra 12 damage in for every attack round and it adds up overtime. It's also a lot more apparant in much lower delay weapons. The easiest example to bring up are Ninjas who dualwield low delay/DMG katanas.

[Yutuyu]

Except fSTR has a different cap based on the main hand's d-rating, a choice of 6 fSTR is just at the cap for the 1 handed, so your scenario was cherry-picked.

It also turns out in general that the faster you hit with melee attacks (lower delay) the more of a benefit you're going to get over time from fSTR. So it's not really a benefit from dual wielding as much as it is one handed weapons or dual wielded. You could argue that dual wielding's haste helps it, but there's no innate fSTR advantage to dual-wielding.

[Yutuyu]

"fSTR's lower and upper cap values are affected by weapon rank

The lower cap of fSTR is - Weapon Rank
Exception: Rank 0 weapons have lower cap -1.

The upper cap of fSTR is ( weapon rank+8)."

[Yutuyu]

Keep in mind also, weapon rank is determined off of the non-latent damage. The rank does not change with the latent's activation either, so the cap for Maneater's fSTR is actually pretty low.

[Kirschy]

it's not really a benefit from dual wielding as much as it is one handed weapons or dual wielded.

The point of the post was comparing /nin and using two lower delay 1-H weapons vs a higher delay 2-H weapon. Using 1-H weapons is part of dualwielding.

Except fSTR has a different cap based on the main hand's d-rating, a choice of 6 fSTR is just at the cap for the 1 handed, so your scenario was cherry-picked.

the fSTR cap on Maneater is 12
the fSTR cap on Jugg is 13.

6 was not "cherry-picked." Thats my rough estimate on a well-geared war during meripo. It was only an example to illustrate that my original general point was correct. Dual wielding two weapons with DMG that add up to a 2H weapon have an advantage over the 2H weapon due to the way damage is calculated.

[VZX]

Kirschy brought up a good point I missed why dual wield can give damage advantage.

I didn't realize it was a pseudo fSTR2 you have when you dual-wield.?i.e. Its fSTR value raises as fast as fSTR2 and has the same cap as fSTR2

Yutuyu : Capping fSTR on high rank weapon is hard. Practically, you won't reach it (for rank 7 and higher weapons) unless you're really desperate

Upper cap of rank 7 weapon is (14+ 7x2)x2 = 56 STR above enemy VIT. Assuming Enemy rank is D/D/D (race/main/sub), you got 128~133 STR in average to cap this rank 7 weapon fSTR.

[Yutuyu]

My point ultimately was that with the way that fSTR works, it actually benefits faster hitting weapons if your fSTR is positive but not positive enough to cap out on 2 handed weapons. fSTR in general is biased towards 1 handed weapons whether they are dual wielded or not in your typical merit-burn situation. But if you're in a situation where the enemy's vitality is greater than your TP-setup's STR, you will actually be losing damage over time from fSTR instead of gaining, by hitting faster. That was my (albeit poorly communicated) argument.

The entire point of the OP's question was "what advantages does dual wield have over 2 handing." So yeah, you're right in that if you look at it like /nin dual wield vs. 2 handing, you can consider the bonuses provided by 1 handed weapons in general, but I guess what I was arguing was that the fSTR situation isn't excuse to /nin.

More or less if we're generally discussing balancing dual wielded weapons and two handed, the real problem here is the fact that burning is so much easier on lower level mobs (vt-t) than it, the advantage dual wielders have lessens heavily as mob level increases, but there is still in advantage because of the haste bonus one receives form dual wield.

Which was my ultimate point, in my opinion the prime reason why /nin exceeds 2 handing is the haste bonus (20% with suppa) you get from dual-wield.

[Kyreth]

someone who's relatively new to the game

...in a meriting PT would be a bad idea

Why would meriting party strategy matter to a person who is new to the game. As they level they will realize on their own. And if its a bought account, that is the biggest problem with buying accounts, people dont know wtf they are doing.

Heaven help us that people might ask questions in advance, or that at this point "relatively new" vs. me could easily be "only started playing the game this year and are getting to 75 right now.