Monk Main Hand / Off Hand Question

[maestrom]

Originally Posted by Daldaen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

That is correct.

You want your lowest delay weapon in your primary hand.
You want your high ratio weapon in your offhand.

The reason you want fastest weapon in primary is two fold.

1. You swing your Primary every round. The secondary swing checks your dual wield skill. Which isn't a 100% check rate even at max skill (it's high, around 70-80% I think on a monk?)
2. Damage Bonus is applied to only your primary weapon. Starting at level 28 you gain 1 bonus damage to your primary hand, adding an additional 1 DMG every 3 levels:

28 - 1
31 - 2
34 - 3
37 - 4
40 - 5
43 - 6
46 - 7
49 - 8
52 - 9
55 - 10
58 - 11

This means if you have two weapons at level 60, a 9/18 (Jade Mace) and 14/28 (Knuckle Duster)

JM Primary - 20/18 - 1.11 Ratio
KD Secondary - 14/28 - 0.5 Ratio

KD Primary - 25/28 - 0.89 Ratio
JM Secondary - 9/18 - 0.5 Ratio

Clearly the top option is better. Because the faster weapon will have the primary hand damage bonus applied far more frequently.

As someone else mentioned, Haste is a big goal for a grouping DPS class. I'd save for that if I were a leveling rogue, warrior or monk.

Are you sure?

I have always been under the impression that the damage calculation was a combination of your damage bonus + variable damage.

Variable damage is calculated based on several factors including your weapon damage, target AC, and your dice to come up with a number between 1 and X, where X is the maximum variable damage from the weapon.

So say I have a damage bonus of 5 and two weapons that gives variable damage between 1 and 20. My MH will hit between DB + VD = 5 + (1 to 20) = 6 to 25. This is why MH weapon hits will never hit for less than Damage Bonus + 1.

The same weapon in my off hand will hit only from 1 to 20.