Dual-Wielding Should Not Double your Melee Power Bonus

Dual-Wielding is, in my opinion, the biggest thing making melee weak. Dual-Wield makes melee weak because melee needs to stay weak enough that Dual-Wielding doesn't make it OP. If we fix the Dual-Wield skill tree, we can dramatically increase the effectiveness of melee in general.

Imagine your skill choices in very basic numerical terms. Most skills trees boil down to something like:

Skill Tree A : +5 damage.
Skill Tree B : +3 burning damage.
Skill Tree C : +2 damage and +5 dodge.

But Dual Wield boils down to:

Skill Tree DW : double all damage and damage bonuses.

So a warrior deals a base of, say, 50 damage. Her skills can be either:
7x skills granting +5 damage each.
Total bonus: 35.
Total damage: 85

or:

6x skills granting +5 damage, and DW
Total bonus: 30 (will be doubled)
Total damage: 80 x 2 = 160

We can try to balance melee assuming every melee character uses DW, but that's silly. So we need to bring DW more into line with all of the other melee skills, and then globally improve melee for all characters.

 

On your turn you attack a monster and it counters and the counterattack is a crit. Then on its turn it hits you and that also crits. Hence, you got hit with two critical attacks with one click of your mouse! That can ruin your day.

 

Mr_Strange, while I agree with you in theory, keep in mind that from a strictly mathematical point of view, if DW is currently considered on par with magic, the solution has nothing to do with nerfing DW -- we can leave DW exactly where it is and bring S&B, S&T, Sh&T+U, DSh+U, and DT+U up to par with DW.


Guide To Essence's Acronyms:
DW: Dual Wield
S&B: Sword and Board -- a weapon and one shield
S&T: Sword and Tome -- a weapon and a tome
Sh&T+U: Shield and Tome, Unarmed
DSh+U: Dual Shields, Unarmed
DT+U: Dual Tomes, Unarmed

The only reason to nerf DW is if it's MORE powerful than the curve we want to balance to -- and if (as seems to be generally accepted) DW is the closest thing that meleers have to the magic-user's curve, it would seem that nerfing DW is counterproductive.

 

I agree with Essence.

And I'm still not entirely certain how Dual-wield makes Melee weak at all.
I'm sorry, but I don't really see how that's possible.
Melee is weak, and needs all the help it can get. Dual-wield is that help.

You're getting one skill tree that basically doubles your damage, and doesn't ruin the point of the other skill trees.
How can the dual wield skill be so bad that it makes melee weak?
There's no penalty for using dual-wield save for the loss of shield So...how can it be making melee weaker?
If you give up a shield, surely you should be rewarded for that sacrifice.

And you can indeed get up to around 50 block/dodge/counter with a good melee build relying on Dual-wield.
Archaelolgy/Burglary/Maces/Smithing/Dual-wield/Perception/Artful Dodger. That's what I normally have as a dual-wield build, and it is by no means making Melee weaker.

Now I haven't run through a full dual-wield max weapon teir in the newer DLC RC3. But still.

I'm probably just not getting it. There's something simple, and it's just eluding my grasp. I really am not trying to be annoying, I just think I'm missing something. And I'm sure someone will finally be able to explain it to me.

In a way, I'm just confused over this topic. It's like I'm missing something so obvious.

 

That would be great, but how do we do this without also enhancing DW at the same time as a side effect? Make 5 new skills that double your damage in each of those other configurations? Make tomes that add 50 damage? (Since you can dual wield 50 damage evil chest weapons.) Make shields that add 25 different resist points to be about as effective as having an extra 50 damage?

DW is so insanely good. You give up maybe 10 block and 5 armor from a shield in order to gain whatever damage weapon you find, plus an additional serving of melee power. (Assuming that's true. It doesn't make sense to me, and I've never tested it.) Regardless, that's so much better than any other melee skill in the game, and that's for putting zero points in the skill. The ratio of power of DW to any other melee skill totally dwarfs the ratio of power of the best magic skill to the second best magic skill.

If DW were nerfed and melee in general improved by a lot, then every melee build can automatically rise to a power level similar to any magic build. I think that's the better strategy.

He's saying that melee without DW is weak, and that this was done by the designers because if melee without DW was as good as magic, then imagine how overpowered it would be with DW. He did not say we should simply nerf DW. That's obviously silly. He said to nerf DW and "dramatically increase the effectiveness of melee in general."

 

Then again, I think the point there is to make sure that players won't get Dual Wielding's full effect from the get-go. I've nothing against it effectively doubling melee power (though ideally, it might be better for it to add a lower percentage of it instead of the full value, with the weapon skill trees [as well as some other warrior skill trees] getting an appropriate boost in effectiveness), it's the fact that you don't even need to spend a single point for it that irks people (and I don't think I need to remind you that some trees, like Burglary, Fungal Arts, and Big Game Hunter, were changed [partially, it BGH's case] precisely because they gave us their important bonuses with the first level).

 

Er, Glazed, he said this,

I must have misunderstood what he said.
For that I do apologize.
I still agree with Essence.

But I do apologize for misunderstanding his complaint about it.
No hard feelings, I hope.

And yes, maybe Melee needs to be boosted, and dual-wield nerfed. But first I want to see someone beat going Rogue on permadeath with a pure melee using dual-wield maces before I think it needs a lot of nerfing. And they have to also not use No time to grind.

 

I am so putting this in the next ECSR.

 

This is an interesting idea... melee power already scales with level, but the fact that the bonuses are static does seem like an interesting place to explore changes. A simple change would be to change Overhau, for example, into a damage% increase, instead of just a +X damage effect.

Ooh - I just had a totally off-the-wall idea about Dual Wield - what if it allowed you to make 2 simultaneous attacks to 2 adjacent squares? That would allow you to fight groups twice as effectively, but wouldn't double your damage on single targets.

That sounds kind of hot.

 

That couldn't happen unless the second target were chosen randomly. There's no way in the game to select two targets at once, and they would never add that just for this one use. Even randomly choosing a nearby target would be something new that would need to be programmed.

 

Honestly, Melee is already at the sweet-spot for balance. After the combat formula changes, improved warrior skills and new equipment it's still challenging but definitely viable. Magic's power level isn't some to 'aspire' to - it's just plain broken (or at least boring). That said, 'Sword 'n' Board' could be made more appealing without nerfing any other skills with some minor changes:

• Weapon skills losing the 2x stat bonus when Dual Wielding, but doubling their base stats to compensate.
• Weapon skills improved to be more like Unarmed.
  • Short cooldown active abilities.
  • Good stat bonuses.
• Shields given significant and resists (although this would buff Unarmed as well, which is already perhaps a bit too good)

Now if we were looking at nerfing Dual Wielding I think the most obvious problem, both for balance and theme, is the lack of risk for the massive reward you reap. I think Lorrelian's suggestion is the best idea for solving this:

This would result in:

• Higher risk of enemy . You could potentially by triple 'd.
• Higher risk of enemy / (although it's half as effective).
• More chances for your own procs to activate.
• Weakness against heavily armoured enemies.

 

And lo, a shield improvement thread approaches....

 

If that's the case, then it shouldn't be changed much, should it?
Yes, maybe Dual-wield might need a little nerfing, but let's not overnerf it.

I'm just a bit skeptical about throwing down the nerf hammer on a skill when there are other ways around it.
It's not like Dual-Wield is Obvious fireball before it's 23 nerfs that it had.

I know it didn't have that many, but still.
I just firmly believe that nerfing a skill is a bit like putting a bandage on a severed aorta. It's just not going to get the job done.

 

Dual Wield is good as it is. It needs no nerf at all.

That said, Lorrelian's thread about shields is the way to go. Shields are useless compared to another weapon at current. (Except in a few rare situations.) My suggestion is to make the capstone of Shield Mastery give a second chance to block after failing once. That would make it genuinely difficult to figure out if I would be better off with Shield Mastery or Dual Wielding.

 

Sure it could: you could just have it automatically make an attack with a template that hits the square immediately behind you.

 

That doesn't sound like selecting two targets to me. And it sounds worse than choosing a second one at random. What if the only targets are to the front and sides of you?

 

Or just attack the same target twice.

 

I believe melee power is only factored once in dual wielding, though all weapon damage is doubled. I've tested this with a low level character where weapon damage x2 + melee power = 7 if melee power had been doubled the total damage would be 10. 7 is what I dealt again and again.

Challenge accepted.

Edit for relevant thread: http://community.gaslampgames.com/threads/melee-a-love-story.3268/