The dual-weild "disparity"

[Vain]

<p>I've seen this issue come up a few times - why Crusaders cannot dual-weild while all other fighter classes can. Lore, of course, limits us to 'sword n' board' or massive 2-hander, so we're kind of stuck that way. </p><p>I'm sure some tweaks can (and maybe should) be made to many two-handers in order to bring them up to par with a comparable set of dual-weild weapons, but I'm not going to address that here. My main concern is that, with our epic weapon being a 1-hander we are, essentially, forced to tank with a long-delay weapon that could, potentially, miss on consecutive swings and play havoc with aggro.</p><p>Based on this, I'm suggesting that Kite Shields be looked at and tweaked in order to address this and other issues. </p><p>Kite shields are one of the few in-game items that help define Crusaders. First and foremost, I think that kites should be made Crusader-only items so that they can be designed with this scope in mind. Secondly, I think that there has to be some sort of "dps" element added to the shields. I'm not talking +spell/CA damage and I hope we all understand why. I know there are adornments that add a nominal amount of dps, but they do not come anywhere close to what is required.</p><p>Instead, what we should have present in the game are defense-based Kite Shields that proc on any damage to a Crusader (or on any successful attack) and  more "offensive" Kite Shields that proc on any hostile/beneficial spell. The shields should also cater to our blocking mastery and have some degree of +block on them.</p><p>I don't want to shoot for the moon and see amazing shields dropping anywhere and everywhere. I suggest one (or two) new Legendary shields that drop in a contested zone and a few fabled shields that drop throughout the tiers (eg. a decent T2 shield would be nice). I also don't expect gigantic nuke procs, but something along the lines Marr's Fury for the upper end shields would be reasonable - maybe something a little more imaginative, even.</p><p>I think that this would help define Crusaders better and address some of the issues inherent in tanking with a long-delay 1-hander. I also think that the "changes" require a minimal amount of work compared to re-visiting AA's or class abilities (something that often leads to nerfs). </p>

[Galithdor]

Hmm as much as i like the idea of something "defining" our class, I would kind of go against kite shields being made crusader only, due to the fact that some other tanks might be using 'em for all we know and with the change it would cause it to be useless, and there are some pretty good kite shields that drop in t8 that non-crusaders might use. But it is a decent idea heh.

[Niou]

One of the first book's I ever read was about a dual weilding paladin /sigh. Then again, at the end of the book he does take up a massive magical 2hander to defend the rest of the party so....yeah. In that case, i'd just like to see some crusader only 2 handers put into the game.

[Vain]

<cite>Galithdor wrote:</cite><blockquote>Hmm as much as i like the idea of something "defining" our class, I would kind of go against kite shields being made crusader only, due to the fact that some other tanks might be using 'em for all we know and with the change it would cause it to be useless, and there are some pretty good kite shields that drop in t8 that non-crusaders might use. But it is a decent idea heh.</blockquote><p>In that case, design any "new" kite shields as Crusader-only (or grandfather in those warriors who currently have attuned Kite Shields).</p><p>I flip-flop on whether or not this is a decent idea, but I still think it is paramount to somehow address the issue of Crusaders tanking with a long-delay 1-handed weapon that has the potential to not connect with mobs on a semi-regular basis.</p><p>Maybe the thread title is misleading (and I kinda think it is, looking back at it)... I don't want to push for dual weilding Crusaders. But the delay changes on Truth of Marr/Sedition were aimed at making them more like 2-handers to close the gap in offensive dps between 1-handed Crusaders and dual-weilding warriors (imo).</p>

[alexeemo]

My wife and I play together all the time. I'm the level 40 Paladin, she's the level 40 Wizard. It's a great combination. I love the Paladin class. We do very well just the two of us. I tank for her and she does crazy damage. We went up 2 levels in maybe just an hour or so the other day in the Enchanted lands. I just recently bought a more powerful weapon. We took on some bad mama jamas and I was killed. We easily killed the runts but got creamed by the named. We almost had him. We both ran out of magic and were hitting him with our basic melee attacks. My new weapon has a 5 second delay. 5 seconds! Ouch!We were so close to killing him and completing a great quest. I just couldn't hit him fast enough and sometimes I missed. That's when I started looking online for information to see if Paladin's could dual weild. Crap! I really hope they do something with this disparity as well. In battle, when your getting you a.. kicked and you've run out of magic, having a 5 second delay seems like forever, especially if you miss and have to wait another 5 seconds. Maybe the Shadow Odessey expansion will address this issue. Let's hope.

[Prrasha]

That's purely an issue of <i>your perception</i> of the damage you do, though. If you have a 5sec delay, hit 50% of the time, and do 250 damage per swing; or you have a 1sec delay, hit 50% of the time, and do 50 damage per swing; you do the same amount of damage over time. Delay has nothing to do with it. It's purely hit rate and average DPS. Those long runs of "no damage" when you miss consistently are balanced out by long runs of "huge damage" when you hit consistently. It's less likely to string together 50 hits of the fast weapon (to do 2500 damage in 50 seconds) than it is to string together 10 hits of the slow one (to do 2500 damage in 50 seconds.) The odds of the former are 1 in 1125899906842624, the latter only 1 in 1024. Of course, you have the same odds of a string of 50 or 10 misses, for zero damage over 50 seconds... A faster weapon just makes you more "average" (less variance over a short period of time). Less chance of defeating a mob tougher than you, and less chance of failing against a mob weaker than you. And, of course, as soon as you start using spells, the longer the delay the better, as you become less likely to delay autoattacks. Cast a 2 second spell, and get interrupted twice, and it takes almost 5 seconds to cast. With a 5-sec weapon, you lose nothing. With a 1-sec weapon, you've just skipped 4 autoattacks, and cut your weapon's DR from, say, DR100 to an effective DR20.

[alexeemo]

Over time it might not make a difference I'm sure. The damage will be the same. However, when you're getting your freakin butt kicked and you've got little time before you die, you're all out of magic and you can't heal yourself anymore, it would be nice if there wasn't a 5 secong delay on a weapon. By the time you do 250 points of damage, you are DEAD. That sucks! Short delay weapons take too long to kill as well in that situation cause they don't do enough damage. Once again....welcome to the after life!

[AziBam]

Alexeemo, you may want to consider going to sword and board for that type of fight anyway.  Your wife's wizard is the one killing the mob.  You just need to keep it's attention so it doesn't kill her in one hit in the meantime.  So, as much defensive capacity as you can maintain along with self healing to stay alive while keeping aggro.  Overall, I don't see a huge issue with the 2 hander vs. DW question.  I don't know any warriors (either guard or zerk) that use DW.  They are either buckler spec'd so they use a one-hander and buckler or they use a 2 hander for dps.  /shrug

[alexeemo]

AziBam, I really hate repling thinking that I'll sound like a complete noob, but what do you mean by sword and board? You're right, my wife does most of the killing while I tank. Sometimes we split up and go solo though. It would just be nice to be able to do lots of damage in a shorter period of time. When I picture holding a 2H, I see it as needing two hand cause it's so big and heavy. Yet, with my strength I think I would be able to swing it faster. In the end, I would just like the best tips on how to do the most damage in the shortest period of time. Gonna start the Bone Bladed Quest today, now that sword is awesome. Did Berik already so I'm gonna forge the two.

[LygerT]

<p>let me know when you see any other plate tank dual wield and i'll point out a [Removed for Content]. </p><p>the title of this thread is a little off base, no warrior can effectively use dual wields(as soon as any warrior gets more than 8 AAs they immediately go into stamina for buckler) for any real benefit so arguing that we can in fact use dual wields as a bonus where you can't has no real footing. </p>

[AziBam]

<cite>alexeemo wrote:</cite><blockquote>AziBam, I really hate repling thinking that I'll sound like a complete noob, but what do you mean by sword and board? You're right, my wife does most of the killing while I tank. Sometimes we split up and go solo though. It would just be nice to be able to do lots of damage in a shorter period of time. When I picture holding a 2H, I see it as needing two hand cause it's so big and heavy. Yet, with my strength I think I would be able to swing it faster. In the end, I would just like the best tips on how to do the most damage in the shortest period of time. Gonna start the Bone Bladed Quest today, now that sword is awesome. Did Berik already so I'm gonna forge the two.</blockquote>By sword and board I meant to use a sword and shield rather than a two hander.  Personally, I almost always run with a sword and shield when solo or tanking.  I stay in offensive stance most of the time but love the huge boost to avoidance from the shield.  I use a two hander only on very easy content or when I am trying to dps and not tanking.  I know there are others that prefer to use a two hander far more often though.  So, in your example of not quite being able to survive a tougher encounter I was suggesting that you do what you can to survive by using a one hander and shield rather than a two handed weapon.  You just need to do enough dps to keep hate off of your wife's wizard (along with amends or whichever hate transfer version you have at your current level) while she nukes them to oblivion and you "turtle" yourself as much as possible to survive.  Everyone finds their own style.  I'd recommend trying out different weapon/shield setups and see what you like most for the different encounter types. You might find you prefer a two hander on some occasions but need the shield on others.  Try to keep a good set of each in your inventory for the various encounters. Oh, for the shield you'll want to focus on tower shields and kite shields.  You get the most avoidance from those and unlike warriors we don't get any AA benefit from a buckler.  Look for haste items and AA lines (STR) to reduce the time on that 5 second swing btw.  You are at a good level to work on the Flowing black silk sash (FBSS) under the HQ "The Teachings of Yoru".  Been a while since I've worn it but believe it's 15 haste.  At higher levels there are more options for haste gear.  Most don't stack though so just be aware as you level up. 

[Zapat]

whether u dual-wield or use a sworn n' shield, i think it all comes down to how u spend that AA, i dual-wield 100% of the time and have had no problems doing DPS and tanking, heck, im even taking down heroic mobs by myself. switch up that stance and strategically use them spells son, and you'll do just fine.