Of AA and dead horse beating....

[Rooksarii]

Well, I have not fully found an answer to this, though I did search a bit (admittedly I dislike the search feature on this site). In a general sense, the AGI/STR line of AA seem to be king amongst the dedicated parsing community over such things as STA and/or WIS. STA seems straight forward a choice for defense over offense, so I can easily see the scales balancing on that. What I am concerned about is the abandonment (or at least precieved abandonment) of the WIS line outside of owning a kick-bottom weapon (can imagine a resurgence of the WIS line after epics). That being said, are there one or two things that would (again in a hard numbers way) make this option feasible across the board outside of one knock your socks off fabled weapon? My only quips on this would be perhaps a normalization of stats to make up for the empty offhand and/or a dps increase as well? Lunge reversal alone is what draws me to the branch personally.

[Rippitt]

Lunge reversal doesn't do much. The idea behind 1h vs DW is very simple: With a dw (str-agi-???) build, you obtain a boost to melee crit chance, and a nasty proc that fires on successful back attacks, aside from the other items in each line, these are the 2 things that you are after. With a 1h build (str-agi-wis), you obtain exceptional combat skills, avoidance, and counterattack-type procs, in addition to the raw dps bonuses of the str/agi lines. A naked character with a tin short sword or two tin short swords would see an almost identical output in DPS, but would take slightly less damage with the freehand setup. Now, in the real world, the differences between the 2 setups are very distinct. The 1h build will offer better AoE damage due to the primary weapon not being slowed as it would be wielding 2 weapons, but the pure single target damage potential with 2 weapons is astronomical. Quadruple attacks. Look at it this way: A single 3.0 weapon swings 20 times per minute with 100% DA = 40 hits A pair of the same weapons swing 15 times per minute each, resulting in 30 hits. Each weapon double attacks ~5 times(~32% DA), resulting in 40 hits. The questions you need to ask, is your offhand weapon as good as your mainhand? Probably not. How much raw melee damage would you be losing compared to using that mainhand weapon twice? Can you often get buffed to over 30% DA? Do you like being capable of tanking a raid mob even if you should never have to? 1h for life.

[TheSpin]

<p>Now I personally am a brigand and I am a big 2 hand fan.  I believe the main reason dual wielding wins out is because of procs.  2 weaopns means another slot for procs, it also means slower attacks, which means a better proc per minute rate.  Additionally because you cannot proc off of a double attack you will recieve more overall procs while dual wielding.</p><p>There may be some aspects of being a swashbuckler that allow them to benefit more from the 1 handed spec, but I don't see it being the way to go on a brigand.  There's also no way I could ever spec out of str and agility end lines to be able to spare more than 21 points in the wisdom line.  Sailwind and Traumatic swipe are just too important to me.</p>

[RaunII]

<p>you dont have to spec out of STR or AGI for one handed spec, at least if you are 70+...because i have all 3...I just dont have the final ability of the wisdom line. with the weapons available to me right now, my zonewide parses are better with this spec, because when you think about it, you dont gain anything for your dps by going STA or INT and dual wielding. your solo suriviability might be better, but why should i care since right now i am never without a group or raid?</p><p>it is beating a dead horse cause the numbers are so close, and everyone has their preferance. for me, i never seem to have two really good weapons, so there is no reason to ditch WIS line.</p>

[adamflanagan]

<cite>TheSpin wrote:</cite> <blockquote><p>...it also means slower attacks, which means a better proc per minute rate.  Additionally because you cannot proc off of a double attack you will recieve more overall procs while dual wielding.</p></blockquote><p>you don't get a better proc per minute rate. The chance of your weapon proccing an effect with each hit increases, but this is only to counter the longer delay.</p><p>Your off hand weapon can't proc anything, so your second point is irrelevent.</p><p>One advantage of dual-wielding is the added stats/effects/adornments on the off hand weapon</p>

[Rippitt]

No, a longer delay will always yield more procs once even a small amount of haste is introduced. Without haste, yes, they compensate the longer delay perfectly and you will end up with roughly the same ppm.  The only procs you will get from your offhand weapon are procs embedded specifically onto that weapon, nothing else.

[Tatate]

#1 issue with Wisdom spec at T8: Stat loss.

[SmCaudata]

<cite>Rippitt@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>No, a longer delay will always yield more procs once even a small amount of haste is introduced. Without haste, yes, they compensate the longer delay perfectly and you will end up with roughly the same ppm.  The only procs you will get from your offhand weapon are procs embedded specifically onto that weapon, nothing else.</blockquote>*scratches head*  That makes no logical sense.If you have something that is 6ppm and you haste 100% it gives you an effective 12ppm.  If I slow the delay down, it still does 6ppm unhasted and 12ppm when fully hasted.  No math needed for a logical evaluation.Edit:  Now, with really fast weapons and low proc rates this seems to get messed up, but with a 4.0 sec delay weapon I have no difference in my PPM when I swap in an offhand weapon due to high DA boost from group buffs.

[blackspanish]

<cite>Ruen@Blackburrow wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>you dont have to spec out of STR or AGI for one handed spec, at least if you are 70+...because i have all 3...I just dont have the final ability of the wisdom line. with the weapons available to me right now, my zonewide parses are better with this spec, because when you think about it, you dont gain anything for your dps by going STA or INT and dual wielding. your solo suriviability might be better, but why should i care since right now i am never without a group or raid?</p><p>it is beating a dead horse cause the numbers are so close, and everyone has their preferance. for me, i never seem to have two really good weapons, so there is no reason to ditch WIS line.</p></blockquote><p>I'm just about to have all three lines like your discribing. I'm just not able to tell which works better. DW/1H. I know there has been a lot of discussion on this but I also can't tell much between fast or slow other then the fast seems to eat more poisen.</p><p>Just curious.</p><p> 1. 'the numbers are so close' anyone have those numbers. Or a link</p><p> 2. What is a really good weapon? Would MC T8 be really good? 67 damage rating or a 73 damage rating? </p><p>  </p>

[Woruud]

Here are the available T8 weapons (most are raid drops, some are instance drops or quested)<a href="http://www.eq2flames.com/swashbucklers/17240-swashbuckler-weapons-thread.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.eq2flames.com/swashbuckl...ons-thread.html</a>

[NiteWolfe]

 I have all 3 lines myself str,agi and wis. With a 1h i sit at about 78 self DA, 88 when my boots proc. I do change up from 1h to dw ( this spec allows for you to do both) depending on group make up. If i have just a dirge i stay 1h ( dirge boost my DA by 10%) If i have a dirge and a illy ill go DW since the illy will boost my haste way up making the 33% delay much less and with IA (25% DA) and 1h iam way over 100% DA. It just basicly boils down to the  group make up and who gets what buffs. with str.agi,wis build you get the best of the lines (sta,int are worthless lines) and the ability to change up depending on groups.

[Rooksarii]

<p>Very interesting stuff.</p><p>I am working on Soulfire Sabre at the moment, but not too convinced that will warrant a 1h or DW spec exclusively. As others have alluded to, the group make up and your primary play status (Raid, group, solo) will weight heavily on that. I'd be happy to stick with 1h for solo simply for the raw output and avoidance, but DW may get some love now for my grouping and whatever raiding I may do. </p>

[Ookami-san]

<p>For raiding, if you do the 3 lines... would it be better without the endline AGL ability or the endline WIS ability since Coule gives you a nice boost to combat skills, which should increase hit chances against T8 mobs.</p>

[Tamo]

<p>Considering hit %s dont become to flabberghastingly horrid until VP... coule really has a minimal effect. But then again, it probably won't help much in VP either.</p><p>EDIT: Bad Grammar</p>