Balancing Offense & Defense (especially duo)

[Cambi]

My main is a berserker and I duo with my wife's (Kallimina) fury. Right now we are level 30. One thing I am always trying to figure out is how best to balance offense and defense. There are the offensive and defensive stances, and when to use them. There is the choice between 2 hander, dual wielding, and 1 hander/shield. What situations are best for each combination of stance/weapon load out when duoing with a fury?<div></div>

[R2Chie]

Duoing i always stuck with offensive stance + DW (or 2h since t7 2h swords are dropping like flies) full grp of hardish mobs =  1h+shield.. the odd time i would use 1h+shield was against relatively hard mobs duoing and wanted to boost avoidance a tiny bit, even then i would still stay in offensive stance think the only time ive found myself using defensive stance is raids which im the guild MT (that is, if ive not been clearing mobs outside the zone in using offy stance and forgot to put def stance back on lol *whistles* only happened once or twice i promise <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />) <div></div>

[RaunII]

aye, in duos and trios unless its hard mobs i always went with a 2 hander. the DW doesnt work as well when you are tanking the mobs, your swings get interupted too much to get full potential out of them. i find that even if i throw a shield in its best to hold aggro and take down the mobs by staying in offensive stance. sometimes in trios taking yellow heroics i will change to defensive, only if the healer isnt good, or the mobs are tough, or the third member has really good dps.

[ThorGodOfThunder]

<P>I duo with my wife who's a lvl 40 Wiz and I mostly use shield with defensive stance.  With no healer I have to conserve hit points and my wife's wiz does so much more damage than my 'zerker can anyway :smileysad: that there's usually no point in trying to maximize my damage. When the mobs are easy I switch to dual wield just to keep my slash/crush/pierce skill at maximum (you never know what weapon may drop).</P> <P> </P> <P>Traktor, lvl 40 'zerker</P>