Ok,
This is going to sound like a newb question that I "thought" I knew the answer to.
How exactly does dual wield work? The 2 opinions I have heard are:
1) Dual wield has it's own timer. It does not matter what the delay of your offhand is, it will only strike according to the offhand timer and only if you get a successful check.
2) Dual wield is based upon the weapon delay of the off hand weapon. It does not recieve any damage bonus, therefore the best ratio is the best offhand.
So can someone please help to clarify which of the 2 above are correct? I did a quick search on these forums but data was old and conflicting, thus leading me to a new post.
Thank you
- Forums
- EverQuest
- General Discussion
- Dual Wield
Dual WieldFollow
You forgot the ever popular #3) off-hand fires based on primary hand delay.
There is a lot of misinformation in the game because Verant/Sony has always been tight with the inner workings of the game. We are lucky they give us our actual HP numbers.
The trouble is, everyone has their own opinions and spread them as truth despite their actual validity.
The answer is #2
The good thing is, everyone has their own opinion and we get to discuss them on forums like this :)
There is a lot of misinformation in the game because Verant/Sony has always been tight with the inner workings of the game. We are lucky they give us our actual HP numbers.
The trouble is, everyone has their own opinions and spread them as truth despite their actual validity.
The answer is #2
The good thing is, everyone has their own opinion and we get to discuss them on forums like this :)
I'm inclined to think dw is more likely governed by it's own timer, or possibly a combination of the two opinions you stated. I just started a rogue and when I learned the dw skill my offhand rarely struck or attempted to strike at all, but as my dw ability increased, I would strike more often, so following that logic it would be pretty safe to say that there is some sort of dw timer governed by your skill lvl, but that's not to say that the delay of the weapon has no effect at all.
I'm sure someone will come along and give a detailed explanation.
I'm sure someone will come along and give a detailed explanation.
Now a friend of mine that has been playing a monk since Lord knows when explained DW to me when I asked about it a while back. He said that #1 is the correct method of Dual wield. My understanding....again from another who has played it for X amount of years....he holds a high damage high delay in the off hand because it is not subject to the weapons delay, as per the first method.
If he is wrong, then let me know so I can argue with him about it. :)
If he is wrong, then let me know so I can argue with him about it. :)
As I understand it, to throw more confusion into this, offhand is checked for DW when main swings. If delay is refreshed on offhand, you'll get a DW check. If not, it's essentially skipped until next time main swings. Also, I believe there is no damage bonus on offhand, so I would say low delay to raise dual wield skill, then best ratio after that. Not sure tho :( someone back me up/prove me wrong :)
Ok, I was expecting some dual wield expert to come clear this up but since none is forthcoming, I'll repost this from Elwin at the Ranger's Glade:
http://forums.interealms.com/ranger/showthread.php?threadid=31004
http://forums.interealms.com/ranger/showthread.php?threadid=31004
Quote:
Dual wield skill does not really determine how often it swings, it only determines if it swings or if it doesn't.
Offhand weapon performs just like a primary weapon with a few exceptions. Delay is still factored, and every weapon delay cycle it checks against dual wield skill, if it succeeds, it swings.. if it fails, nothing happens.
For example let's say you have a primary weapon with 15 delay and a offhand weapon with 30 delay.. over 3 seconds:
1.5 seconds - primary swings
3.0 - primary swings, offhand is checked if dual wield succeeded.
... and so on.
Offhand also has no damage bonus, so advantages of 'fast' weapons are lessened, which is probably where you were lead astray with misinformation...
Delay is still important, just not as much as primary hand. Obviously, a 10 damage 100 delay weapon is pretty horrible, same is true if it was in your offhand, because you'd still have to wait 10 seconds for a chance of offhand swinging. Each hand is independant of the other, going on their own delay timers. It is not tied to the primary hand's delay, which is an old and constantly debunked rumor.
Should be stressed though that you still want the better of the two weapons in your primary hand, if possible, even if the one has a better ratio.. after all, the primary hand always swings and gets a damage bonus, so don't stick the best weapon in your offhand just because it has a better ratio.. a lot of people make that mistake. Also, primary hand doesn't always necessarily need the fastest weapon.. another common mistake.
Offhand weapon performs just like a primary weapon with a few exceptions. Delay is still factored, and every weapon delay cycle it checks against dual wield skill, if it succeeds, it swings.. if it fails, nothing happens.
For example let's say you have a primary weapon with 15 delay and a offhand weapon with 30 delay.. over 3 seconds:
1.5 seconds - primary swings
3.0 - primary swings, offhand is checked if dual wield succeeded.
... and so on.
Offhand also has no damage bonus, so advantages of 'fast' weapons are lessened, which is probably where you were lead astray with misinformation...
Delay is still important, just not as much as primary hand. Obviously, a 10 damage 100 delay weapon is pretty horrible, same is true if it was in your offhand, because you'd still have to wait 10 seconds for a chance of offhand swinging. Each hand is independant of the other, going on their own delay timers. It is not tied to the primary hand's delay, which is an old and constantly debunked rumor.
Should be stressed though that you still want the better of the two weapons in your primary hand, if possible, even if the one has a better ratio.. after all, the primary hand always swings and gets a damage bonus, so don't stick the best weapon in your offhand just because it has a better ratio.. a lot of people make that mistake. Also, primary hand doesn't always necessarily need the fastest weapon.. another common mistake.
The two hands are totally independant of each other.
The main hand calculation simply starts with a swing, the hit/miss, mitigation, weapon skill and damage calculations are performed, some damage is done (or not if its a miss) and then the weapon delay timer counts down and resets the calc.
The offhand does exactly the same thing, except that it has an extra step that takes place at the beginning. Dual wield skill is checked to calculate the probability of an off hand swing, if the probability check returns a "yes" the off hand swings into action (sic).
Delay is relatively unimportant by itself, what is important is ratio. However as you level your main hand recieves a damage bonus that is added to the result of the intial damage calculation. eg If your main hand damage bonus is 10 your minimum hit will always be for 11. So it is easy to see that a low delay weapon brings a large advantage by allowing the 10 dmage bonus to be applied more often.
This can be graphed and shows an "efficient frontier" where you can achieve the maximum damage with main hand using the combination of ratio/delay and main hand bonus and the best ratio in the off hand, this always shows that once your main hand bonus reaches <> 8 you should put your best ratio weapon in your off hand and your best ratio/delay compromise in your main hand.
Typically this results in a faster weapon in your mainhand and a slower high damage in your off, hence the general advice that you hear.
However before reaching the 8 damage bonus level, very often it is much better to simply have the best ratio weapon in your main hand, especially as at these levels your dual wield skill is also less developed and your off hand is simply swinging less often.
The main hand calculation simply starts with a swing, the hit/miss, mitigation, weapon skill and damage calculations are performed, some damage is done (or not if its a miss) and then the weapon delay timer counts down and resets the calc.
The offhand does exactly the same thing, except that it has an extra step that takes place at the beginning. Dual wield skill is checked to calculate the probability of an off hand swing, if the probability check returns a "yes" the off hand swings into action (sic).
Delay is relatively unimportant by itself, what is important is ratio. However as you level your main hand recieves a damage bonus that is added to the result of the intial damage calculation. eg If your main hand damage bonus is 10 your minimum hit will always be for 11. So it is easy to see that a low delay weapon brings a large advantage by allowing the 10 dmage bonus to be applied more often.
This can be graphed and shows an "efficient frontier" where you can achieve the maximum damage with main hand using the combination of ratio/delay and main hand bonus and the best ratio in the off hand, this always shows that once your main hand bonus reaches <> 8 you should put your best ratio weapon in your off hand and your best ratio/delay compromise in your main hand.
Typically this results in a faster weapon in your mainhand and a slower high damage in your off, hence the general advice that you hear.
However before reaching the 8 damage bonus level, very often it is much better to simply have the best ratio weapon in your main hand, especially as at these levels your dual wield skill is also less developed and your off hand is simply swinging less often.
Thorric wrote:
If he is wrong, then let me know so I can argue with him about it. :)
Heh. Give your friend hell. He's wrong. You should slap him around a bit for spreading misinformation. Both weapon delays work independantly of eachother. There is no "DW delay".
Your DW skill is only checked to determine if a swing occurs or not. It does not affect the frequency of the swings. If you have a faster weapon, it'll swing faster. Always.
King Nobby wrote:
More words please
Quote:
when I learned the dw skill my offhand rarely struck or attempted to strike at all, but as my dw ability increased, I would strike more often,
That's just because your skill was too low, not because of any hidden timers.
The chance for DW (And DA) to fire is Skill/400, a skill of 200 gives you a 50% chance to DW (or DA) So basically:
Right hand is checked every primarydelay/10 seconds for DA. If the roll succeeds, you swing twice, otherwise you just get one swing.
Left hand is checked every secondarydelay/10 seconds for DW. If it succeeds, you get a DA check. If the DW fails, nothing happens. If it succeeds but DA fails, you swing once. If both pass, you swing twice.
When you first get DW, your skill is in the teens so the chance of it working are pretty low, but every time your offhand delay comes up, you get a skill check, so a faster offhand when trying to raise skill will get it up quick. Until its past 100 don't count on it going off very often.
Recent Visitors: 143
All times are in CST
Anonymous Guests (143)
- Forums
- EverQuest
- General Discussion
- Dual Wield
© 2024 Fanbyte LLC