Confused about dual wielding and aggro (warrior)

[Ransurian]

Low-level warrior here (14). I've been trying to gather reliable information on dual wielding and aggro, but the only consistent bit of advice I've been seeing is to use my "fastest weapon in my main hand" and my "best ratio weapon in my off hand," supposedly because of some sort of flat damage bonus associated with dual wielding when using a fast main hand weapon.

However, I'm currently using a Green Jade Broadsword and a Lammy that someone was fortunate enough to give to me. GJB has both a worse ratio (11/25) and is slower than Lammy (9/18), so what weapon should go where? Should I try to find a faster weapon than GJB? Am I gimping myself by not using a faster main hand weapon? Will my damage and aggro somehow significantly increase if I use a faster main hand weapon (even if that weapon doesn't necessarily have more DPS than GJB)?

Thanks for any helpful responses. I'm not entirely sure what this "damage bonus" people have mentioned is, and how it comes into play.

[Evia]

Use lammy main hand, gjb off hand.


Always try to put fastest wep you have in main hand. It will help hold aggro. Best ratio weapon you have in offhand. right now it's gjb and that'll work.


Also keep in mind procing weapons will really help you get aggro so I'd seek out those when you start upgrading.

[xKoopa]

Grab a jarsath trident and a staff of battle, theyre both really cheap weps

use the staff of battle once you hit lvl 30 and youll do a ton of dps/aggro

[Danth]

That advice you're reading is geared towards higher levels. You don't even have a damage bonus at all until the upper 20's. At low levels like the teens, just use your best weapon in your main hand. Your off-hand doesn't even swing very often at low skill levels.

Nothing you do is going to hold aggro particularly well against the horde of epic Rogues and trigger-happy spell casters. Just do the best you can and ask someone to root stuff if you need it.

Danth

[Daywolf]

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

Your off-hand doesn't even swing very often at low skill levels

[Jimjam]

At level 14 your duel wield (and double attack skills) aren't great. You will rarely swing with your off hand, and never double attack with it yet.

Generally speaking, it is advised to ignore procs until the mid 30s, simply because any DPS weapons far outstrip any procs you can find until this point (especially since the duration of fights tends to be quite short until you reach the last third of the levels).

HOWEVER, what many people do not realise (or refuse to believe) is that the off hand weapon can still proc, even when duel wield fails to produce a swing! As such, until duel wield gets it's arse into gear (when you have over 150 skill in DW/DA) it can be worth using the off hand for a proc. A popular choice is the polished granite tomahawk, it has a rune proc (absorbs ~40 points of damage, a small amount of AoE aggro) with a strength component (supplements the damage your primary hand does, allows you to carry more loot/offsets encumberance, improving tanking). an alternative is the polished obsidian shard, which has a direct damage/ac debuff which is pretty decent aggro when it goes off (but can't be relied upon). Both of these weapons have poor ratios, so need to be ditched as soon as dw/da become reliable.

In regard to your actual question, the advice to put your fast weapon in your primary hand only becomes relevant at mid to high levels (the higher level you are the better the advice becomes). This is because you don't accrue damage bonus until the late twenties, and even then the bonus is small. The offhand not being reliable for the many levels also plays into this (where is the point putting a decent weapon into a slot that barely fires).

You know when your damage bonus kicks in (it only affects your primary hand) because your minimum damage will be greater than 1 damage (and you'll see a lot of hits for 2xDMG+damage bonus). Note for 1 handed weapons damage bonus does not scale to delay, so the faster the weapon the more times the damage bonus can be applied (at high levels it is ~13 extra damage, so if you use a low delay weapon with plenty of haste you can expect a couple of 13+ damage swings every second (ignoring misses, etc). With a high delay weapon and no haste that might only be applied every 3 seconds, so your baseline damage gets tripled by trying to minimise your delay on the primary hand.

I suggest until you are around 40 (perhaps earlier, perhaps later, maybe someone will do the math) you will probably find it best to stick the best ratio weapon in your primary.

Okay, so following my 2 suggestions (1: off hand is rubbish until >150 double attack/duel wield and 2: damage bonus doesn't take effect at all until late 20s then slowly upgrades every couple of levels) you want to have the very best dps weapon you can find in your primary hand, and secondary hand will be largely irrelevant for another 10-15 levels.

You might be interested to note duel wield will still skill up even when you are wearing a shield. Bash will probably still outdps duel wield for a while!


Edit:sorry for wall of text reply. had a wordvom.

TLDR put best ratio weapon in primary. Offhand sucks until 30ish.

[jpetrick]

http://wiki.project1999.com/Sakuragi's_Warrior_Guide

Loraen has covered this pretty well.

[Jimjam]

*read obsidian shard, not polished obsidian shard.

[Ransurian]

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

At level 14 your duel wield (and double attack skills) aren't great. You will rarely swing with your off hand, and never double attack with it yet.

Generally speaking, it is advised to ignore procs until the mid 30s, simply because any DPS weapons far outstrip any procs you can find until this point (especially since the duration of fights tends to be quite short until you reach the last third of the levels).

HOWEVER, what many people do not realise (or refuse to believe) is that the off hand weapon can still proc, even when duel wield fails to produce a swing! As such, until duel wield gets it's arse into gear (when you have over 150 skill in DW/DA) it can be worth using the off hand for a proc. A popular choice is the polished granite tomahawk, it has a rune proc (absorbs ~40 points of damage, a small amount of AoE aggro) with a strength component (supplements the damage your primary hand does, allows you to carry more loot/offsets encumberance, improving tanking). an alternative is the polished obsidian shard, which has a direct damage/ac debuff which is pretty decent aggro when it goes off (but can't be relied upon). Both of these weapons have poor ratios, so need to be ditched as soon as dw/da become reliable.

In regard to your actual question, the advice to put your fast weapon in your primary hand only becomes relevant at mid to high levels (the higher level you are the better the advice becomes). This is because you don't accrue damage bonus until the late twenties, and even then the bonus is small. The offhand not being reliable for the many levels also plays into this (where is the point putting a decent weapon into a slot that barely fires).

You know when your damage bonus kicks in (it only affects your primary hand) because your minimum damage will be greater than 1 damage (and you'll see a lot of hits for 2xDMG+damage bonus). Note for 1 handed weapons damage bonus does not scale to delay, so the faster the weapon the more times the damage bonus can be applied (at high levels it is ~13 extra damage, so if you use a low delay weapon with plenty of haste you can expect a couple of 13+ damage swings every second (ignoring misses, etc). With a high delay weapon and no haste that might only be applied every 3 seconds, so your baseline damage gets tripled by trying to minimise your delay on the primary hand.

I suggest until you are around 40 (perhaps earlier, perhaps later, maybe someone will do the math) you will probably find it best to stick the best ratio weapon in your primary.

Okay, so following my 2 suggestions (1: off hand is rubbish until >150 double attack/duel wield and 2: damage bonus doesn't take effect at all until late 20s then slowly upgrades every couple of levels) you want to have the very best dps weapon you can find in your primary hand, and secondary hand will be largely irrelevant for another 10-15 levels.

You might be interested to note duel wield will still skill up even when you are wearing a shield. Bash will probably still outdps duel wield for a while!


Edit:sorry for wall of text reply. had a wordvom.

TLDR put best ratio weapon in primary. Offhand sucks until 30ish.

Thanks! Very informative post. As an extension, thanks to the other responses in this thread for clearing things up, as well.

[Troxx]

Swing hate is all about ratio. At higher levels speed becomes more important because of the damage bonus, but that's easy to calculate and it still ultimately boils down to ratio. Fastest weapon in primary is NOT always the answer. At higher levels, it's generally true that you should use the faster weapon mainhand if the ratios are at all close, but by then you'll make your weapon choices more for procs. Mainhand weapons proc about twice as often as offhand weapons.

At low levels look for the best ratio weapons. As you get higher, more good weapons with procs will start firing.