I'm exclusively soloing my warrior to level him up. My question is, if I have two weapons that have the same ratio, but one is slower, which should I put in my main hand? At L52, I have my Truncheon for slow and Silken whip for snaring. But for those times in the fight where I just want to max my DPS, is it generally better to use your faster weapon in your main hand or in the offhand? I'd heard back in the old days that the choice made a difference, but I never heard the details. Thanks!
Same ratio weapons means both will do approx. the same aggro as aggro ( iirc ) is based on the max hit per swing. As it seems that both are the same average it wouldn't matter much. Maybe a slight personal preference to the fastest in main. What procs do you have on the weapons? I guess i would take the one with the best set of procs in main hand. Its always preferential to have the fastest in the main hand for dps. Highest base damage in secondary. This as is seems that the Dual Wield check (does secondary swing?) is based on the timing of the of the primary swing. Depending on AAs and skills it might also be preferential to use a 2 hander. But test yourself on a guildhall dummy mob and with some software like gamparse if you want to be exact.
Totally incorrect. Your hands swing independently. Equip a fishing pole and try it out. There are certain abilities that add flat damage which will favor faster weapons, but you typically won't see these until later when weapon speeds are fairly normalized, or your weapon damage is so low (<10) that a significant portion of your DPS is coming from damage bonus. Generally speaking, ratio is king for DPS, and you want your best weapon in primary because the primary hand generates more attacks (no triple/flurry with secondary) And don't discount 2 handers - a good 2H will usually beat two mismatched 1handers (so can 1h+shield with shield spec) and 2H really takes off after 85. Riposte uses the primary hand's damage. Useful to note when tanking multiples, particularly if they are easier mobs and you've got a good riposte rate. Not really a big consideration pre-70'ish I'd say. When it comes to procs, proc rates are normalized to attack speed so you will proc at a similar rate regardless of how fast you swing. However - primary procs more than secondary. Good to note if you have agro proc weapons, but you really want two agro/stun weapons with agro/stun augs. Warrior agro at lower levels is a losing battle to begin with, don't start off underequipped.
Seems i stand corrected :+) From some other source : Delay of the offhand weapon plays the same role in your offhand swing as the delay on your primary weapon plays a role in your mainhand swing. So a lower delay on your secondary wepaon theoretically means more swings from your offhand. The only difference is that each time you would normally be able to swing your secondary weapon, an extra check is made using your Dual Wield skill, which reduces the chance that your offhand swing will actually occur.
Great discussion, thanks! Good point on double/triple only firing on the primary hand, I didn't know that. Is this why procs on the main weapon average more procs per minute... simply because the primary is swinging more often? And thanks for the interesting subtlety on riposte dmg coming from main hand weapon's damage. So a very slight preference for big, slow weapons from that perspective, assuming the ratio isn't sacrificed. Right now I'm just Moloing myself with a J1 tank merc, so aggro isn't really an issue. The tanking ability of J1 mercs is rather silly at this level, so I'm just taking advantage of it for now. It's all vendor-bought DD and DOT augs for now. Taunt and Bellow are enough to take a bit of aggro and keep my defense skills topped up.
You can definitely double attack with your secondary. By the time you're secondary double attack rate nears 100% you should start getting triples and flurries in the main hand. No. Proc rates are normalized to a certain number of procs per minute. Whether you are hasted, slowed, using faster or slower weapons will not impact your proc rate, nor will the number of attacks per round. Offhand is just hard coded to proc less. There are outliers, like a 10ppm ability can't proc 10x a minute if youre only swinging 5 times due to a slow effect.
On that topic, is there a "ballpark" number that one can factor the offhand weapon's ratio downward by, to do a comparison against a 2-Hander? For example, if a 2-hander has a ratio of 1.0, and your primary and secondary one-handers are each 0.66, then how much should the offhand ratio be factored down to allow for comparison against the 2-handed ratio? I understand there are many complexities (e.g. Dual Wield & Double/Triple Attack rise over the levels; riposte dmg; slower swings against targets with damage shields; offhand procs, etc), but it's nice to have a number on-hand to compare the ratios, if possible.
The dealio with damage bonus, is delay only affect 2Her dmg bonus. 1Her is purely based on level. See Lucy Damage Bonus charts. At mid levels I consider dmg and dmg bonus on 2Hers to be used with the Riposte disc. Since, high dmg bonus on slower weapons makes a difference, and delay is based on fast the mobs are swinging at you, not the weapon itself when using the Riposte discipline. It's a minor thing overall, but if you use the disc alot it can make a noticeable difference. As Dre mentioned, proc rate is based on time, and adjusted by delay, haste / slow, etc. and is why when Shakerpaging worked as it did originally, you'd want a slow weapon and to be slowed to maximize your proc rate on AE procing weapons while using a Riposte disc on huge swarm of mobs. AEs only proc on the targetted mob now though, not any you may hit with AE attacks or ripostes that don't have the mob targetted. Yther Ore.
Easy comparison using ratios of Dmg / Dly: Primary Ratio + 1/2 Secondary Ratio = total Dual Wield Ratio; 2H Ratio = Dmg / Dly with same ratio 2Hers having more average damage for longer delay due to how damage bonus is figured. Parsing is still more accurate and a better way to determine, but this works for quick comparison. EDIT: A more complex forumula at Old Alla Weapon Comparison Formula Yther Ore.
Personally, I still like faster 2Hers if equal ratio for general use. Only using the slower ones at mid levels with Riposte disc when the dmg bonus is significant compared to the actual weapon dmg. They seem to keep aggro a little better and just feel better hitting faster (note the seem, haven't tested it out thoroughly to see if actually is more aggro, just seems that way). Yther Ore.
Nice useful formulae, thanks. Especially good to know that they give "damage bonus" half the weight of the primary weapon damage, and Offhand damage 62% of the weight of Main Hand damage. It probably varies over the levels, but it's good enough for the gnomes that I garnish on my dinner plate! If I ever need to get precise, I'll start parsing. Thanks again!
While we're on the topic, could someone explain to me what Damage Bonus is about? I don't understand why they wouldn't just increase the main damage by 50% of the desired Damage Bonus, and make it less complicated. Can anyone explain how it might situationally differ from that simple calculation?
I would go further and suggest using the fastest weaponry is usually going to be better at lower levels so you can keep your skillrates up.
http://fer.guildportal.com/Guild.as...3231717&GuideAction=viewGuide&guideToShow=573 This is a pretty good explanation. And for all combat effects see http://samanna.net/gen.info/effects.shtml ('cause some of it is related to dps and how hits are figured). And I only limited slower weapons to mid-level using riposte disc for the higher dmg bonus. At higher levels the plain dmg is way more than the dmg bonus.
Hmm now I'm confused! If I read it correctly, that explanation describes a damage bonus that non-casters get on any main-hand weapon. But some weapons have a "bonus damage" in their stats. Assuming that these are two different things, then I still don't quite understand how "bonus damage" listed on a weapon's stats relates to the primary "damage" stat. The "Old Alla weapon comparison formula" gives half the weight of a weapon's "bonus damage" compared to the weapon's main damage number. This aspect is what I'm trying to understand. No doubt that Alla's "half" is a reasonable approximation, but I'm trying to understand the underlying math difference between "bonus" and "main" damage, so I know how to situationally adapt my weapon choices. I hope that's clear, this is some heavy stuff
All weapons show a dmg bonus, but it only applies to non-casters. Casters are not known for the melee skills. dmg. bonus is what the page I linked is talking about. Bonus damage such elemental is different with differing opinions. General 1/4 to 1/2 of the listed dmg is figured in. The caveat is that such dmg goes into full effect for aggro calculations, despite the lower dps. This is why many tank weapons have elemental dmg. To keep the aggro up without outdoing a dps melee. So 10/25 weapon with +5 cold dmg does 15/25 in aggro calculations, but actual dps is between 10 to 15 dmg for 25 dly, depending in mob resists. Tending toward 11 to 12.5 for average mob. Wording in EQ bites sometimes. Yther Ore.
And other skill dmg modifiers, are simply added at the end of the dmg calculations. Such as Kick dmg +10. I had backstab dmg in there too, but, it's only for +dmg not backstab dmg: ## which is generally the same as the dmg: ##, and used to use the dmg: ## until they added a separate stat for it. Backstab dmg is another involved calculation. Yther Ore.
ROFL.... I understand now. Just logged on my WAR and then my DRU, and confirmed what you describe. They really need to make a little more effort in describing things better. I don't mind a bit of mystery, and it's always been part of EQ's charm for me. But in my opinion, this is actually a case of MIScommunication. If they're going to add a statistic to a weapon's GUI popup, at least take the extra few seconds to properly explain that it's a property of the character and not the weapon!! /facepalm Thanks for clarifying that, Yther! /salute
The damage bonus works entirely different from base damage. Base damage is used as part of a calculation involving your skills & stats vs the enemies'. Damage bonus is a flat number tacked on to the end of every hit. The Alla calculation only works at low levels; at higher levels you're going to be doing way more than 2x base damage, while your damage bonus will still be a direct number. If it's mostly your merc tanking, then you definitely want the faster weapon in primary, if ratios are equal. This is because the damage bonus is a flat amount, and only works on primary. The more swings you get in, the more times the bonus applies. It becomes a little trickier when you're tanking because of ripostes, but personally I'd still go with faster primary for usual cases. Ripostes become more important when tanking multiples.
