Level 12 Brawler Confused

[LeonTheKnight]

I have heard from the guides and what have you on these forums that fists aren't a good weapon. I've tested my fists (I'm a High Elf) VS a few other weapons, and here's what I've come up with. Note that I have no actual parsing, and I'm going by my gut feeling.The first weapons I tried were Dual Wield.A Maple Fighting Baton in the mainhand. It has 5.4 dmg rating with 4-13 My dmg and 1.5 speed.I off handed Conditioned Maple Cudgel with it. The Cudgel has 6.0 Rating, My dmg of 5-16, and a 1.7 speed.I fought some mobs for a while, using only auto attack to kill them. It went fairly well, but then I decided to try barehanded just for fun.My fists hit from 15-35 at level 12, and swing rather slowly. I found I killed creatures faster with them then I did with the Dual Wield weapons. I also tried a Main Hand Fist and Off Hand Cudgel, but the off hand didn't seem like it was swinging..Now later, I find a Priest's Walking Stick. 9.0 dmg rating, your damage of 11-34, 2.3 attack speed. 4 wis 5 health and 5 power if that effects it somehow.All I can say is wow. The Priest Staff beats my fists by a bit and makes dual wield look bad.So my question is this. What is going on here exactely? I've only had the game for a few days so I'm very confused =(.<div></div>

[Rapinis]

I dont know what the "damage rating" of a monks fists at lvl 12 are..but your comparing 5-6dmg rating dual weild to a 9dmg rating 2handed staff......no kiddin your getting different resultsTry getting 2x dual weild with a 9 damage rating and try your tests again<div></div>

[LeonTheKnight]

This must be where I misunderstand. 9.0 is less then the combined Damage Rating of the DW weapons so I thought that they would do more. Is Dual Wielding penalized in some way?<div></div>

[Bladewind]

<div></div><div></div>No, you were comparing correctly initially.  Dual wield was recently rebalanced, and dual wield weapons are considered 'comparable' to a 2 hander if their combined DR totals about 115% of the 2 hander.  It used to scale directly (ie, comparable DW DR was half of a 2 hander), but DW weapons failed to perform, so they were beefed up a bit.  At higher levels the balance is pretty close, but I have not tested it at low levels.  You could have just had a streak of luck with your 2 hander damage rolls.  Any buffs placed on you that effect str, dps, or attack speed would also skew things.  Even the majority of parses you see people post are invalid because people fail to set up tests that are truely impartial and/or have a large enough sample size.  By the time you test it enough to get an accurate idea of your average damage in either setup, you will probably gain a few levels <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  At your level, you are splitting hairs since the differences between weapon tiers are pretty small.<p>Message Edited by Bladewind on <span class="date_text">01-11-2006</span><span class="time_text">03:21 PM</span></p>

[Pnaxx]

<div></div><div></div><p>5.4+6.0=11.4 vs the 9.0 on the wand....so in my limited and half [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] opinion.....something is terribly wrong. Thas all I know.:smileysurprised: (are you sure the DW are attuned?)</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Message Edited by Pnaxx on <span class="date_text">01-11-2006</span><span class="time_text">03:25 PM</span></p>