Dual Wield versus 1 hander and Shield.

[wajamacallit]

<DIV>Becouse I can,  I keep a 1 hander and shield handy, you never know when you are going to need it.   So yesterday, bored waiting for the gatecaller to do their thing I decided to re-check the impact of switching to shield.   Before this has resulted in a decrease in avoidance but a larger increase in mitigation.   This time however I was shocked to find avoidance went down but mitigation remained the same. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Has anyone else experienced the same effect?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[Ranja]

<blockquote><hr>wot4 wrote:<div>Becouse I can,  I keep a 1 hander and shield handy, you never know when you are going to need it.   So yesterday, bored waiting for the gatecaller to do their thing I decided to re-check the impact of switching to shield.   Before this has resulted in a decrease in avoidance but a larger increase in mitigation.   This time however I was shocked to find avoidance went down but mitigation remained the same. </div> <div> </div> <div>Has anyone else experienced the same effect?</div> <div> </div> <div> </div><hr></blockquote>Unless you solo you should never use a shield.  To answer your qeustion: I have never see avoidance go down with  a shield. Mitigation will remain the sme because shields do not add mitigation they add avoidance. Did you agility go down? Did you switch stances?<div></div>

[wajamacallit]

<DIV>I keep its around to give me more flexibilty, normally use it only as a break from dual wield.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I say mitigation and this is probably incorrect.  I refer to the percentage value associated with this.   This is I believe an average of Block/Parry/Riposte?? values.   Before this update by equiping shield the block %age increased,  which should have resulted in an increase in the average here.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>In any case this does not seem right, adding shield should result in a slight increase in survivability at the expense of a some DPS.   This does not appear to be the case.</DIV>

[TaleraRis]

<div><blockquote><hr>bentgate wrote:Unless you solo you should never use a shield.  <hr></blockquote>If you solo and use a shield, you're cutting yourself in the neck in terms of damage. You should never have to go toe-to-toe with a mob as a soloist. We pale in our melee capabilities, so soloers should strive to keep the mob away and take it down as quickly as possible if it does happen to get up close. Maybe if you solo heroics, but then I don't consider people who are out there soloing heroics to be soloers. They're kiters or heavy raiders. </div>

[TerriBlades]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> TaleraRis wrote:<BR> <DIV><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> bentgate wrote:<BR><BR><BR>Unless you solo you should never use a shield.  <BR><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>If you solo and use a shield, you're cutting yourself in the neck in terms of damage. You should never have to go toe-to-toe with a mob as a soloist. We pale in our melee capabilities, so soloers should strive to keep the mob away and take it down as quickly as possible if it does happen to get up close. <BR><BR>Maybe if you solo heroics, but then I don't consider people who are out there soloing heroics to be soloers. They're kiters or heavy raiders. <BR></DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>I have to completely agree with everything that was said above. Using a shield while soloing is an sure way to [Removed for Content] youself. Damage output is already reduced due to having to melee, but then to cut your Autoattack melee in half by taking a shield over a DW? You'd have to be insane to want that.

[Lev]

well if you look beyond soloing and grouping.. statwise it is possible to get a better benefit with a 1 hander and a shiled.. f. ex the most str and int you can get out of your weapon slots (not counting ranged) is Qeynos Kilji and Roundshield of the sky. and then you also get a very nice proc (which I hear is supposed to proc of ranged). This is not counting EoF items, cause too little is known about it yet.and as far as I know in groups/raids we never use our melee auto attack and we would then benefit from this. However there are very few good roundshields out there.<div></div>

[TerriBlades]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> RabbitFly wrote:<BR>well if you look beyond soloing and grouping.. statwise it is possible to get a better benefit with a 1 hander and a shiled.. f. ex the most str and int you can get out of your weapon slots (not counting ranged) is Qeynos Kilji and Roundshield of the sky. and then you also get a very nice proc (which I hear is supposed to proc of ranged). This is not counting EoF items, cause too little is known about it yet.<BR><BR><FONT color=#ff0000>and as far as I know in groups/raids we never use our melee auto attack</FONT> and we would then benefit from this. However there are very few good roundshields out there.<BR> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>We do in fact use our melee attacks in both groups and raids, as our autoattacks switch as we switch from ranged to melee. Thats why its so important to be in the beloved "sweet spot". Your melee autoattack damage alone (if raid equiped, I cant speak for anything else) should be somewhere between 350-550 self buffed. You might want to give up that extra DPS for what you think is only a few seconds, but I wouldnt.

[Lev]

then you also have to consider that using a one hander has higher dps than just 1 dw.. and if with the qeynos Kilji you get a 800+ proc.. plus even with the added auto attack between the ca and the time it takes for ranged auto attack to activate which is like 1 auto attack I bet it would not be less, maybe even more.. of course depending on how lucky your with procs.However as it was with KoS you would want exactly those two to overgo any DWs statwise (of course can be debated and depends on the DWs).. and now with EoF that info is not reliable anymore<div></div>

[pseudocide]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> TerriBlades wrote:<BR> <BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> RabbitFly wrote:<BR>well if you look beyond soloing and grouping.. statwise it is possible to get a better benefit with a 1 hander and a shiled.. f. ex the most str and int you can get out of your weapon slots (not counting ranged) is Qeynos Kilji and Roundshield of the sky. and then you also get a very nice proc (which I hear is supposed to proc of ranged). This is not counting EoF items, cause too little is known about it yet.<BR><BR><FONT color=#ff0000>and as far as I know in groups/raids we never use our melee auto attack</FONT> and we would then benefit from this. However there are very few good roundshields out there.<BR> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>We do in fact use our melee attacks in both groups and raids, as our autoattacks switch as we switch from ranged to melee. Thats why its so important to be in the beloved "sweet spot". Your melee autoattack damage alone (if raid equiped, I cant speak for anything else) should be somewhere between 350-550 self buffed. You might want to give up that extra DPS for what you think is only a few seconds, but I wouldnt.<BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>just fyi melee auto attack <U>does not</U> work from the sweet spot

[TerriBlades]

<DIV>And steping in 5m is harder then stepping in from 35m?</DIV>

[jrisley69]

I use a shield and 1hander, been using it alot more than duel wield lately, i still keep 2 handy DW's by in case, but i find that in raid situations the shield i use offers extra resists and good stats.  +  if i'm soloing, i'm not really standing toe-to-toe with the mob, i'll pull with culling or snare, with focus aim up, get off about 2-3 combat arts including the aa' attacks, when mob gets to me, cheap shot while moving back, shoot off another arrow attack, hit root  shoot off a nother couple CA's, then point blank shot, folowed by another arrow art.  then i hit vines and kite him in a small circle till they refresh.  not too much Toe-to-toe in there for me. <div></div>

[Torrin]

tested this.. just last night..True Labs is an easy zone for the raid force we had.. but.I fought fights from the "sweetspot" stepping in to use Melee attacks while ranged CAs were refreshing and such.. then I fought fights from a distance playing my normal style.I rarely made the parse fighting from the sweetspot and stepping in to melee or Melee CA..but when I used my normal style I was top5 constantly..My style follows:*mob pulled by puller*Wis-doll > Cover Fire > Focus Aim > Devitalize > Triple Volley > Confounding > Leg Shot > Culling Jump to the Mob > Vines > Poison Combo > Mortal Reminder Lunging + Ranger's Blade as I am in process of jumping backPrecis Shto > Counfounding > Surveil + Veiled Fire > repeat.I don't have the greatest gear.. especialy compared to most raiding guild rangers.. but using that combo I was parsing 1k+ per fight easy on trash mobs and about 600-800 on nameds depending on the named etc.. (some nameds you just can't get close to or bad timing on my part heh).I have thought about using Sword & Board for a while.. but i can't find anything to be worth giving up Oblivion's Edge and Dragonfang for.  Especially now that I have lv.60 Adornments to tack onto them... and since i'm on a pvp server.. decided between Viral + Molten or Poison + Cold..  <div></div>

[jarlaxle8]

<P>In the sweetspot mellee CAs, bow CAs and bow aa work, but not mellee aa. You may as well just stick in sweetspot and switch back to bow aa inbetween mellee CAs then stepping closer for mellee aa. When a bow aa went off you won't be doing any mellee aa anyway till the delay from the bow has run out.</P> <P>In solo you try to stick with bow CAs, bow aa, and some mellee CAs mixed in. So it's kinda unreasonable to say it's worse to use sword-and-board over dual wield, if you ain't gonna mellee much anyway.</P>

[jrisley69]

dont know if you do this or not, didnt see it mentioned, but if you do the sweet spot method, between ever 2 melee CA's, hit your ranged auto attack button.   do this till all melee CA's are gone or your arrow CA's are up.  That's what i do and i average around 1200-1400dps a fight.<div></div>

[Judist]

<P>The only time I'll equip a shield is when soloing or a need help in increasing a resist which my shields have. </P> <P>Otherwise, my offhand is holding something with STR on it...</P> <P> </P> <P> </P>

[Lev]

well shields can have STR on them.. quite alot also<div></div>

[Teksun]

I have switched to shield a few times on raids. Depending on the stats a shield can be a lot more beneficial...<div></div>

[Nagous]

<P>  About the only thing a shield is really good for is extra resists when you are going to need them.  I know there's alot out there that we can use that might add a bit to avoidance, but with diminishing returns now, i've noticed that going from 7k avoidance in defensive with DW equipped to 8.2k avoidance with the shield only increases avoidance by about 1.3%.  Not enough to be worth it to me when my autoattack gets gimped so much.  Playing on a pvp server, it was at one point a bit better for you to have a shield, as the avoidance gains were noticably higher (going from 54.5% avoidance to 67.2% when equipping my old shield in the old system).  But you don't have to listen to me, really...i'm the gimpy ranger who has 4 DW's in my backpack that have over 60 DR and still use a 51 DR dagger because i love the sound of the lifetap proc.</P> <P> </P> <P>Nagous 70 ranger of Den Of Madness, Venekor</P>

[Xenon Crimson]

Sh.. Shie... no wait I cant even bring my self to say it.  They're good for sitting on if you dont want to get your bum damp on wet grass - otherwise stats on 2 DW will be better 99% of the time.<div></div>

[Mronin]

I carry a shield and one hander with me all the time. They come out when it looks as if the group or raid situation I'm in is going south and I need the extra resists and the boost in mit. Other than that it's dual wield at all times. So far as the sweet spot and melee aa goes, if I'm in even a semi decent group there isn't time for melee aa because the mob usually dead by the time I've gotten off 2-3 ranged CA's. Now again if things aren't going that well then yeah I'll dance the sweet spot to squeeze in as much damage as I possibly can.

[Kala Asuras]

I am curious about the Qeynos Kilji specifically.  It has a large damage proc that to the last of my knowledge was going off on ranged attacks.  I would think that the kilji + good roundshield like Round Shield of the Sky could be preferable in raids considering my melee autoattacks are limited to 2 swings between melee CAs.<div></div>

[Crychtonn]

<P>From my experience it all comes down to what bow you have.  If you have a top end raid bow go with the sword and board.  If you are using a low end or mid range quest bow duel wield might be best.  Reasons being that with a top end raid bow the ranged AA will be greater then stepping in for duel wield AA.  And if you're no longer stepping in for duel wield AA's then a top end sword and board will give you better stats plus some resists then a set of duel wield weapons.</P> <P>From a solo'ing standpoint the mob should almost never get close enough to use melee AA.</P>

[Mronin]

<blockquote><hr>Kala Asuras wrote:I am curious about the Qeynos Kilji specifically.  It has a large damage proc that to the last of my knowledge was going off on ranged attacks.  I would think that the kilji + good roundshield like Round Shield of the Sky could be preferable in raids considering my melee autoattacks are limited to 2 swings between melee CAs.<div></div><hr></blockquote>Used the Qeynos Kilji on beta and in beta it would trigger on ranged as well(bearing in mind that doesn't necessarily xfer to how it will behave on live). More specifically the Kilji is a good weapon and even if the proc is just off melee it's still a worthwhile weapon to have around. If I ever get my hands on it I'll have to do some testing and see how it works out.Remember folks just because things have been done a certain way, were successful or a certain style was the best in the past (even as little as a week ago) doesn't mean that it's always going to be the best. I constantly stress that Rangers are a pendulum class and as such it is vital that we be open to new ways of doing our job. If were not we risk getting left in the dust. Improvise, adapt, and overcome <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />.<p>Message Edited by Mronin on <span class=date_text>11-28-2006</span> <span class=time_text>11:39 AM</span>

[Lev]

well said<div></div>

[Xenon Crimson]

/glares at increasingly redundant Qeynos CutlassWouldnt expect that the Kilji proc on ranged to last long though - they seem to be all over "fixing" that kinda thing.  1h and a shield if you can get the good stuff in a raid situation is great but its the lack of decent scout shields really stops most from doing this, plus its yet another class fighting over the good 1h weps <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><div></div>