duelwield question

[freakyuno]

Originally Posted by Pescador [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[From 2001] "Off hand swings are on an independant timer not on the same on as your primary. To try it give a high level warrior a fast weapon for off hand and a really slow one for primary. Every so often he will end up swinging the off hand weapon a couple times in between primary swings."

[From 2002]: "Yup. I'm still amazed that this rumor is hanging around. How often your Secondary weapon swings has NOTHING to do with your Primary's delay. Do a test yourself if you really want to. Used to use a Wurmslayer/Lupine Dagger, and I can tell you without a doubt that the Lupine was frequently getting in twice as many hits as the Wurmslayer (and yes, I took Double Attack into account, had Misses turned on). "

I'm not disagreeing with you, in fact I really "don't know" the answer. I know how I remember it being discussed openly in the game every time this question would come up. But just to point out, this information is 2 years newer than the game release - and a lot of us started playing in beta in 98. It's very possible it WAS both ways and not one or the other.

[Rejuvenation]

Originally Posted by freakyuno [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'm not disagreeing with you, in fact I really "don't know" the answer. I know how I remember it being discussed openly in the game every time this question would come up. But just to point out, this information is 2 years newer than the game release - and a lot of us started playing in beta in 98. It's very possible it WAS both ways and not one or the other.

Yea, but it is extremely unlikely that they would change a mechanic as drastic as Dual Wield so late. This was probably stock. When the game was released, there weren't very good log parsers available...It is not a stretch to say that it took a year or two to get one produced that was able to evaluate melee skills accurately.

Dual Wield is independent of the primary weapon...And it will never be different on this client...

When Damage bonus is implemented, you want the fastest weapon possible (as long as the ratio isnt complete garbage) in mainhand, and the best ratio in offhand.

BUT NOW, Best ratio mainhand, next best, offhand.

[Bubbles]

Every time someone asks this question, i click on the thread, excited to finally (i never really played a melee seriously, after all) understand the answer to the "which weapon goes where" question and understand why once and for all.

And i always leave the damn thread understanding even less the mechanics and the answer to the question than i did when i first started reading it.

sigh.

[Estu]

Originally Posted by Rejuvenation [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

BUT NOW, Best ratio mainhand, next best, offhand.

WHY ARE YOU SAYING THIS. DAMAGE BONUS IS CLEARLY IMPLEMENTED. PEOPLE DO MUCH MORE THAN 2X WEAPON DAMAGE PER SWING.

[Chanus]

Are people confusing "Dmg Bonus" as listed on an item's stats with damage that is calculated outside of the written "DMG" number on the item's stats?

[Wildas]

Damage bonus adds a set amount of damage to each swing, it is only applied to mainhand weapons.

Because of this a faster, worse ratio weapon could outdamage a slower better ratio one.

For instance, let's take a 60 war in Kunark with a jade mace and a wurmslayer, which would they want to use?

Damage bonus at 60 is 11, so every mainhand hit gets 11 extra damage applied. Jade mace has a ratio of .5, while the Wurmslayer has a ratio of .625, clearly superior. However because the extra 11 damage is applied over twice as often in the case of the jade mace it will win in terms of dps output. How do we know that? We can use a simple formula which gives the "sweet spot" of weapon damage and divide by delay. The sweet spot is 2x weapon damage + damage bonus, This is usually the most common hit (other than min or max depending on mobs your fighting) and hits tend to be normally distributed from there).

For jade mace this gets us 9 x 2 + 11 / 18 = 29 damage per hit / 1.8 hits per second. Cancel the hits out to get a rudimentary form of damage per second (misses, duel wield, double attack, atk vs. mobs defense will all play into the actual formula). Reducing that gives you 1.611. Doing the same for Wurmslayer gives us 25 x 2 + 11 = 61/40 = 1.525. A good bit less damage than the jade mace.

This is why the general rule is keep your low delay weapon mainhand for the damage bonus and keep your best ratio weapons offhand sort of works. However, neither duel wield nor double attack fire 100% of the time, so offhand is going to naturally swing less. Because of this, if the offhand weapon ratio is superior enough to the mainhand, you'll lose dps by keeping it in your offhand.

Offhand also checks (or did on live) entirely independent of primary hand.

[Rhambuk]

Originally Posted by Estu [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

WHY ARE YOU SAYING THIS. DAMAGE BONUS IS CLEARLY IMPLEMENTED. PEOPLE DO MUCH MORE THAN 2X WEAPON DAMAGE PER SWING.

DMG bonus is not in game, or you wouldn't be seeing people hitting for 1's.

People hit 2x as hard because dmg is calculated by some formula ( dont ask im fuckawful at math) including wpn dmg wpn skill and attk, When a melee gets a str buff attk goes up max hit goes up BUT you can still land a min hit of 1. Hence no bonus.

[Rhambuk]

Found this DW guide, its dated 05 but I believe these are the mechanics this server uses not the classic "offhand proc" mechanic. (sorry for the length)

EverQuest Guides : Dual Weilding Contributed by: Aquendar on 8/26/2005 9:55 AM
Let me break the biggest myth about dual wielding that is out there right now: your primary weapon has NOTHING to do with how often your secondary weapon swings.



Ok, phew, that’s out of the way. Now, dual wield, not to be confused with double attack, is the ability to use two weapons, one in your primary hand, one in your secondary. Double attack is the skill of hitting twice in one ‘swing’. The best way for me to describe this is to detail what happens with a 21-delay weapon in primary and a 34-delay weapon in secondary:



You hit auto-attack.

-Primary weapon swings.

-If you hit, mob gets to check their secondary defenses (parry, dodge, etc.)

-If you still hit, max damage possible is calculated for primary weapon, minus damage bonus

-Damage is mitigated by EQ

-Damage bonus is added

-Crit check is made, and if you do crit, damage is multiplied by 1.7

-Double attack is checked, and if you pass that check, previous few steps are repeated.



-At the same time as primary, dual wield skill is checked.

-If you pass dual wield, then you get to swing secondary, otherwise wait for secondary weapon delay

-If you hit, mob gets to check their secondary defenses (parry, dodge, etc.)

-If you still hit, max damage possible is calculated for secondary weapon, no damage bonus

-Damage is mitigated by EQ

-Crit check is made, and if you do crit, damage is multiplied by 1.7

-Double attack is checked, and if you pass that check, go back to step 3.

2.1 Seconds later (not hasted)

-Primary weapon swings.

-If you hit, mob gets to check their secondary defenses (parry, dodge, etc.)

-If you still hit, max damage possible is calculated for primary weapon, minus damage bonus

-Damage is mitigated by EQ

-Damage bonus is added

-Crit check is made, and if you do crit, damage is multiplied by 1.7

-Double attack is checked, and if you pass that check, previous few steps are repeated.



1.3 MORE seconds later

-Dual wield skill is checked.

-If you pass dual wield, then you get to swing secondary, otherwise wait for secondary weapon delay

-If you hit, mob gets to check their secondary defenses (parry, dodge, etc.)

-If you still hit, max damage possible is calculated for secondary weapon, no damage bonus

-Damage is mitigated by EQ

-Crit check is made, and if you do crit, damage is multiplied by 1.7

-Double attack is checked, and if you pass that check, go back to step 3.



0.8 MORE seconds later

-Primary weapon swings.

-If you hit, mob gets to check their secondary defenses (parry, dodge, etc.)

-If you still hit, max damage possible is calculated for primary weapon, minus damage bonus

-Damage is mitigated by EQ

-Damage bonus is added

-Crit check is made, and if you do crit, damage is multiplied by 1.7

-Double attack is checked, and if you pass that check, previous steps are repeated.



2.1 MORE seconds later

-Primary weapon swings.

-If you hit, mob gets to check their secondary defenses (parry, dodge, etc.)

-If you still hit, max damage possible is calculated for primary weapon, minus damage bonus

-Damage is mitigated by EQ

-Damage bonus is added

-Crit check is made, and if you do crit, damage is multiplied by 1.7

-Double attack is checked, and if you pass that check, previous steps are repeated.



0.5 MORE seconds later

-Dual wield skill is checked.

-If you pass dual wield, then you get to swing secondary, otherwise wait for secondary weapon delay

-If you hit, mob gets to check their secondary defenses (parry, dodge, etc.)

-If you still hit, max damage possible is calculated for secondary weapon, no damage bonus

-Damage is mitigated by EQ

-Crit check is made, and if you do crit, damage is multiplied by 1.7

-Double attack is checked, and if you pass that check, go back to step 3



1.6 MORE seconds later

-Primary weapon swings.

-If you hit, mob gets to check their secondary defenses (parry, dodge, etc.)

-If you still hit, max damage possible is calculated for primary weapon, minus damage bonus

-Damage is mitigated by EQ

-Damage bonus is added

-Crit check is made, and if you do crit, damage is multiplied by 1.7

-Double attack is checked, and if you pass that check, previous steps are repeated



And so on. Now, because the delays are different, you’ll notice that at one point the primary weapon will swing 2-4 times between secondary weapon swings. EVERY swing you have a chance to crit. Every swing you have a chance to proc. Every swing you have a chance to do damage.



Note that on each pass, EVEN IF YOU DON’T hit on the first swing, double attack is still checked so you may hit on the second pass. Quadding is when both weapons are due to swing, you pass dual wield checks and both double attack. You hit 4 times in one pass. A high-level melee character with two swords of the same delay will ‘quad’ a lot. It’s fun!

[Gorgetrapper]

Also another thing to point out about whether weapon damage is in game or not, when dual wielding the same weapon in both main and offhand, you will always do the same max damage with both regardless of what hand swings. For me with two SSOYs in my hands, I do a max of 36 with either hand with like 225 str and a max of 30 with like 170 str. This shows that of course str plays a part in how much damage you do per swing in pretty large increments, but that damage bonus is NOT in play for seperate hands.

This could mean that damage bonus IS in the game, just applied to both hands, or that it's NOT in the game, and that your damage is raised based on str, level and weapon/offense skill.

[Mardur]

Originally Posted by Gorgetrapper [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Also another thing to point out about whether weapon damage is in game or not, when dual wielding the same weapon in both main and offhand, you will always do the same max damage with both regardless of what hand swings. For me with two SSOYs in my hands, I do a max of 36 with either hand with like 225 str and a max of 30 with like 170 str. This shows that of course str plays a part in how much damage you do per swing in pretty large increments, but that damage bonus is NOT in play for seperate hands.

This could mean that damage bonus IS in the game, just applied to both hands, or that it's NOT in the game, and that your damage is raised based on str, level and weapon/offense skill.

Damage bonus isn't working here, but I could have sworn it worked on other emus, thus I was assuming it worked on P99. Damage bonus really needs to be a priority to get fixed here, because it's one of those classic mechanics that really made EQ different than other games, a somewhat hidden mechanic (before it was displayed on the item) that makes certain weapons better than they seem at first (moss covered twig, etc.)