Why would you use a two handed weapon over dual wield?

[kapruski]

Let's say it's not a polearm or staff and you don't have dual parry. Why would you take a two handed weapon over dual wielding a good pair of weapons?

[Smotpoker]

I would assume damage output

[Nycticora]

[Davairus]

I would use foreign weapon penalty / vuln / higher ave over raw parry ratings and style matchups

[kapruski]

Wouldn't a possible 6 to 8 attacks be better than a possible 3 to 4, though?

[Davairus]

It would be better, in the ideal scenario, meaning you got them all to come out.

First attack frequency = 100% (i.e. every round)
Second attack = 50%
Third attack= 25%
(Its random - these are expectation values)

Then I think dual wield is half the frequency of each of those. Out in the field I think two handed's boosted enhanced damage bonus on that 100% attack (which basically doubles the weapons ave dam, as opposed to one-handeds x1.5) is very appealing whenever you can multiply that bonus with a vuln bonus.


I definitely don't see anything more sensible than high ave dam bows that hit strong vulns right now. Throw a haste in there (adding a second guaranteed attack, and also guaranteeing second attack, which for two-handed means guaranteeing at least three powerful attacks) and it doesn't even have to be a bow at that point.

Remember, dual wield is pitter patter. If you aren't in a situation where you can multiply that damage with vulns, and if you aren't a character with offhand enhanced damage, or dual parry..etc... it begins to look less and less appealing to dual wield since it has some real drawbacks. If you manage to hit a perfect round with dual wield, right after a murder that also hit a perfect round, well obviously that's a ton of attacks. But unless you have something with an on-hit proc to take advantage of that extra volume (like envenom or something) and can't see some of the other things I mentioned, you're probably going to be ok just sticking with the 2 hander. I'm sure dual wield flails on a vuln is very nice if you have access to it.

At any rate you can just take a look at your DPR with each and see what works best. Plus I just gave you the numbers so you can think about it independently if you want. Make sure you have dual wield mastered though. That's the other thing nice about two-handed - you don't have to bother training it.