The Warrior and dual wielding, mainhand/offhand choices for max dmg/aggro?
 

Greetings,

My name is Newt, and I am an Iksar warrior

Now that my short introduction is over i'd like to ask some questions regarding dual wielding as a warrior, and what the best choices are to maintain best aggro and damage.

Firstly, I am currently relatively low level (level 17). I understand that having proccing weapons is going to give the warrior the opportunity to maintain aggro as best he can. I also understand it's not as important at low levels, but I would still like to know the best way to approach this.

At the moment I have a Venemous Axe of the Velium Brood and a Lamentation. I am sure most of you are familiar with these weapons, if not please feel free to look them up. I purchased a velium brood axe because it procs at level 1 and its a wonderful weapon to have for a lowbie.

Here's my question(s);

1. With a combination such as this, which weapon is best to have in mainhand, and which in offhand. I ask because there is benefits to both and im hoping one of you can help me decide which provides the most benefit in terms of providing max aggro and damage.

***I should preface this by saying that I also have 22%haste from chitin handwraps, and 152 STR and 127 DEX unbuffed***

- With Venomous Axe in mainhand, and Lamentation in offhand, the Venemous axe will proc more, certainly providing a lot of damage at lower levels, and more aggro. However, my dual wield checks will only occur at a 24 delay time lapse, which means my Lamentation will only hit when my Venom axe hits, and if im not mistaken that essentially makes it 9/24 instead of 9/19. Meaning not only less slashes with Lamentation but also less double attacks with Lamentation

Now please correct me if im wrong because people have told me that dual wield checks rely on primary delay. and the offhand is NOT independent of the mainhand. I've heard different stories and i'd like to know the real dynamic

- With Lamentation in mainhand, and Venomous Axe in offhand, the Lamentation will create quicker opportunities at a delay of 19 instead of 24 for both dual wield checks, and double attack checks. Meaning ill be hitting A LOT more frequently. But my Venemous Axe will not proc as much in offhand.

Is there anyone who can shed some light on which weapon should remain in mainhand, and which in offhand? I'd like to know not only for this combination of weapons, but for a situation like this in the future as well if I am to have a different combination of weapons.

Your dual wield checks will happen at the delay of your offhand weapon and are not influenced by your main hand weapon. The reason melees use fast main hand weapons is that you get a damage bonus per hit starting in your... 30s? at level34? I think.
Proc rate is halved for off hand afaik.

Off hand can proc when its delay timer expires, even when duel wield fails to produce a swing.

This means at poor DW skill levels a good aggro proc is better than a good ratio; you will probably end up procing a similar number of times to what you actually swing.

Yep good info here. Main hand damage bonus really starts to come into play in mid 30s where faster weapons become better. The proc rate on offhand weapons is half that of main hand according to wiki game mechanics page.

There is a good tool to compare weapon sets on Google docs.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...gid=1869510834

It's made for Monks but I'm sure it works just fine for warriors to give a general idea.

I recall most proc weapons are about 1ppm (mainhand) or .5ppm (offhand). With a ton of dex those proc rates can double. Slower weapons have a better chance to proc (again, it's based on swings per minute)

I don't play a warrior but understand since good proccing weapons don't fire off until at least mid 30's if not mid 40's you are mainly reliant on DPS and starting in on a mob earlier than the rest of your group. If your casters are smart they will throw a cheap root on each mob and you can prox aggro over anyone.

I'd probably just keep doing what you are doing. Once you hit 30 get a wurmslayer or something and toss the venom axe in the offhand. The proc isn't much aggro but it's not a bad ratio/dps. Probably better yet would be to toss a Scorpikis Claw Impaler in the offhand. Your offhand isnt doing much dmg anyways and the poison proc on that is aggro city at lvl 30.