Good day all! Finally approaching the 105 lvl mark and trying to get my gear in order as Kunark (and my evening group, yeah I'm probably the only one who doesn't box) has been kind to me. I'm hearing a lot of cross talk (from non-Monk players?) that monks switch to 2hb for better damage at 105? I was under the impression that h2h was the way to go; better stats on weapons, faster delay times, better/faster procs, etc.. Can anyone explain if there is any truth to this? As a separate note, from a group perspective, what would be the advantage of ever switching to 2hb if the DPS for your group suffers? Thanks all in advance for your help! It's great to be back as I've missed the game so much!
Here is what most will tell you. Parse... get it, buff up, gets burns in order, get on a dummy and review the logs. I for one do not look at a proc for dps... it can be resisted, not happen, etc.. i run pure damage augs on my monk. In EoK the 2hb is off Glart Fink in Korhsa Lab, the 1 handers you will want to seek are 1hb off Screaming Tormenter in Labs also and h2h off Kennel Master in Chardok. Then add in whatever augs ya want. Run the parse for 5-10 mins just auto attack swapping augs around and weapons till you fund the higest average dps. (I havent gotten the dang h2h yet...) thise are the t2 ones btw, for t1 look for Searstinger in scorched woods for the h2h, and Drovlarg Lord in Lceanium for 1hb. 2hb is in FM off the Giant Briligent Brain. Again get the best augs you can and parse.
Thanks for the info! So to add a quirk to this: Does one use a h2h weapon in primary and a 1hb in the Secondary slot or is this just not done? It seems the 1hb from the Screaming Tormentor has a delay of 20 which seems good.
As said above, parse. From the sound of it you're probably not max AAs, and there are a bunch of AAs for both dual wield and 2hb that could make the difference for you personally. From a maximum standpoint (max raid gear, max AAs), 2hb is about a 7-10% increase compared to dual wield for auto-attack only. In terms of h2h vs. 1hb positions for primary/secondary, IIRC these weapons are exactly the same aside from the skill used and the proc available. If you put in the larger proc of the two (1hb for raid weapons) in your primary, it will proc more and you'll do more damage. Drop your highest damage aug in primary as well. As for 2hb vs. dual wield situations, there are a couple times 2hb will be better (that is, if you find your current setup nets you more dps with dual wield). If you're tanking, we have an AA (or more?) that adds defensive abilities for us while we use 2hb. That'll help you stay alive. When you're using destructive force, our AE, 2hb is the way to go as well. Also, the sarnak in EoK have a spell called Sarnak Finesse that is a front-facing 100% riposte. You need to be a lot faster on turning autoattack off if you're using dual wield vs. 2hb.
Thank you all for your input on the topic! Every bit helps as I close the gap to 105 now. To be ready, my group and I already have the 2hb set aside from Korsha labs along with the h2h weapon off of the Kennel Master. I just want to make the best decision between the two. I have the majority of the AA's for both weapons (staff block is maxed) and my skills are maxed for h2h, 1hb, and 2hb for my level. I know I still have TONS of aa's to go however to round out my toon. While I'm getting good info what/when is the best Spire to use? I've only been using 2nd but it seems the others could be more productive in different settings. Thank you all again for your time and help!
I'm very interested to hear your results as I'm in the same boat. And, all I hear is "parse it and find out", make sense, if I could figure out parsing. I can't even get the stupid dummy in my guild hall. I have the guild leaders account info to log in and do it, but that's about all I can figure out.
I theory the 2h weapons should be better DPS since the minimum hit is higher most of the time. I don't play a monk so take that for a grain of salt. Just get both, parse them on the combat dummy, then on real mobs. You also have to consider if tank mobs. Less swings typically translates into less damage from riposte.
2nd is the only one I use. I know some folks use 1st during burns, but I've never been able to get better numbers with it. I've never parsed the difference between the two. Maybe I'll do that in beta when I'm testing the different weapons. I might get around to that sometime next month, whenever beta is established and weapon stats are more or less locked in. 3rd spire is for defensive. I can't recall ever using it, although I'm sure I've done it once or twice. I guess if you didn't have placement permissions / access you would need a guild leader to give that to you. If you have permissions, you can just drop it yourself. Or drop one in a house you own and go to town. I wish I could give more advice for that, but I don't even have my own set up. Never got into the housing stuff in the game.
I only use 3rd spire for when I'm swarming stuff when 2.0 and Earthforce are down. I usually use 1st but I haven't really tested which is better between 1st and 2nd. For the dummy thing, all you need is to buy a small house, a training dummy, and a plot (can even use chronobines). Just drop the dummy in the house and you're good.
Tried the housing, failed miserably, it wouldn't let me drop the hall thing anywhere. Next is to just log in as the guild leader and go buy a dummy and put into the guild hall. Then have to do the whole parsing thing, which I'm sure i'll fail at also lol
Thanks for the responses all! I'm interested to hear what people think about the difference between 1st and 2nd spire. Thrillo or Phrovo1. If you do any checking/testing I'd be interested in the results. When it comes to housing, I haven't opened that can of worms yet. I'll have to check in with the GL from the way it sounds. Don't give up Kinadafz! Monks for the win!
Fists of Fury procs about 2x more from dual wield than 2hb. No buffs, max AAs - waited for FoF proc then restarted two 10min parses: quick 10 minute parse - 22 procs from dual wield quick 10 minute parse - 11 procs from 2hb Wish there was command to allow buffs to tick down in guild hall so we can get accurate parses. If you tank, use 2hb. If you plan DF/FDF, use 2hb. I would parse with FoF running, if dual wield is close to 2hb, then dual wield should be better dps when FoF can proc and expire as normal.
Absolutely. I'll try to post the 1st vs. 2nd spire parses in here. Any RoS parses will be posted in the beta forums though, whenever they open up.
Thanks guys for the info and checking into the parses. On a related note: with the Hundred Fists Disc being on a different timer than Speed Focus, is it worth using over terrorpalm disc? As we talk about Fists of Fury procs...
1a: Heel+Spire+IoT+BP+Dicho 1b: Speed/DF+Spire+IoT+BP+Dicho 3: Iron+Crane+Whatever is up after Heel/Speed combos done 4: Terrorpalm+Whatever is up 5: Eye+Whatever is up 6: Earthforce+Whatever is up That's pretty much your pecking order of discs. If you need to open with AE, then it is more than acceptable to begin with Speed/DF over Heel. However, if there is no reason to AE, then beginning with Heel usually is the best option. Terrorpalm is just a filler disc these days. Most times in a raid, I'll use it and Crane as my 2nd Shaman Epic disc since I pair Everything with Heel and then wait for it to repop to pair everything with Speed on a later shaman epic click. This is dependent on the Raids you are doing and on your Raid force speed in killing things. Most of EoK takes long enough that this is an acceptable practice. To the point of 2h vs 1h, it's no where near worth it to me to even bother with trying to squeeze in what little fraction of time that 1h MIGHT scoot ahead given the absolute perfect situations. Especially when 99% of the time 2h will win easily. 1st vs 2nd is still kind of up in the air. I haven't devoted a ton of time on it, but I have been using 1st during EoK simply because of the higher procs now on weapons, but I've never really parsed it in depth.
I've had a lot of success using Terrorpalm with DF. I've found that to be as good or better than Speed + DF. Other than that, yeah, TP isn't that useful. Then I can use Speed with something else - epics again, dicho, IoT, etc.
Have a button that swaps in epic2, triggers Innerflame, then swaps back to EOK 2her so Terrorpalm has 14 minute refresh. Limited use but if you were to Speedfocus+FDF/DF, then use my macro, Terror would be ready about the same time as FDF/DF refreshes...
Thank you Symbius for the disc/aa combos! I've been trying to figure out what works best together and what seems to give little output. I've been going off of one of Thrillho's posts this year for combos as well: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/monk-burns.242877/page-2 towards the bottom of the page. I've used these combos with good success as I'm mainly just a grouper at this point. I have to work on my 2hb now to get it maxed as I think i have a 40 skill pt deficit between it and h2h. With h2h vs 2hb: wouldn't you get more proc's from 2 weapons and 1st spire, on average, then 2hb though? Maybe I'm not thinking about this correctly.
If you have all the 2 hand and Blunt AA's done, 2hB is better offense and defense both because of staff block. A few years ago Hth was still better DPS than 2 handers, but since all the blunt AA's it's pulled well ahead. That is provided you have one of the newer monk/Bst only 2hBlunts. Don't waste your time on just any 2hander. As for Procs, I tested that about a year and half ago and to my surprise I got nearly the same proc counts from 2hB vs HtH. I can't say for sure but either their is a hidden Proc modifier for 2h or because of PPM rating on procs, I got close to the same amount. At times their was a few more Fists of Fury procs with HtH, but it still didn't make up for the massive hits from 2hB in the DPS department. It was debatable a few years ago which was better dps but not anymore. 2hB all the way once ya got all the good AA's.
