Dual wield logic

[kjs86z2]

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

Without knowing your class or budget, 2H will generally put out superior dps relative to the cost. Like a Reaver with a 40/40 ratio will blow away most 1hnders without spending serious money and/or raiding. Best 2hnders without breaking the bank are gonna be Reaver, IFS, and Woodmans Staff.

this

not to mention less dmg taken when tanking

[Goregasmic]

Parses in the ranger thread show that 2handers are more cost effective when it comes to droppables but 1h do hold their ground. Depends how much effort you want/can put in but it is a lot closer than people claim. This comes from a big 2hander fan. But yeah, at lower levels 1handers offhand double attack suffers from the DW check and your ripostes will be weaker on top of being riposted more often. That and the odd damage shields or when you're not quick enough on enrages. With most of the 2handers previously mentioned you can pretty much coast to 60 without looking back.

I'd even put peacebringer ahead of IFS if I wanted to nitpick, just 1k and should parse slightly ahead due to IFS being 33% slower for only 4 extra damage bonus.

Spade/AP work too with less class restrictions. Exquisite also but often poor value for what they are as they're often barely above AP for like 5x the price.

[TheBlob]

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

Okay, for some reason i had the idea that offhand only triggered when main hand went off.

Can you say anything more about this main hand bonus?

I think this was an urban legend on live. I remember thinking I should put the faster weapon in my primary weapon slot so the offhand one would swing faster.

[bcbrown]

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

Fair points. I mentioned <28 because that's the scenario I ran the numbers on back then, with no dmg bonus you're basically dealing with 2 offhands. I've always had trouble inserting the DW variable into DPS calculations because that page has no confirmed numbers. IIRC I've seen parses more around 65% but I'm really not sure. DSM probably has it in his calculator?

Also, to add another layer of complexity, it seems(?) double attack doesn't fire from offhand until 150 or so (lvl30) so it is probably an incentive to use the better ratio in mainhand until significant damage bonus kicks in to get a bit more bang for your bucks. Low DW chance and even lower DA on OH is why people will say to not bother with 1handers when 2h damage caps are lifted but that is somewhat beyond the point.

Yep, as you said, when in doubt math it out. It may change as you level and the damage bonus becomes more important and DW skill increases.

The DW wiki includes a formula as well as a table for lvl 50/60, and I've found it to be accurate. The last time I parsed DW success rate was at level 51, where I found it to be 65%, matching that table. The example I gave was for monks with a higher skill cap; they should be at ~75% at lvl50 but I don't have a monk to test that.

One method for checking DW success rates was already posted, using fight duration divided by adjusted delay and then scaling by DW and DA skill checks to compute an expected number of swings and comparing to the actually recorded number of swings. That works well, but I prefer a different methodology that with a few assumptions allows you to directly measure the DA and DW success rates. Both, of course, require different weapon types in mainhand and offhand so you can tell which is which.

The central assumption is that both weapons have an adjusted delay significantly longer than one second. In that case, if you have two swings in the same second you can assume that's a double attack. So first you collect all swings or attempted swings, then count how many timestamps have a single swing and how many have two. The ratio is the double attack success rate. Then, you add the counts to find the total number of successful dual wield skill checks. Dividing the fight length by the adjusted delay gives you the expected number of swings if dual wield is always successful, and dividing the actual number of successful DW skill checks by that theoretical maximum gives you the dual wield success rate.

Here's an example from when I was level 51, Infestation offhand, 22% worn haste. There were 405 timestamps with a single piercing swing and 457 with two piercing swings, giving a 53% DA success rate. The fight duration was 1944 seconds, the adjusted delay was 14.75, and so with a 100% DW success rate you'd expect 1317 rounds of attacks. Compared to the sum of 405 and 457, that's 862/1317, or an observed 65.4% dual wield success rate.

This approach breaks down when the offhand is fast enough to potentially swing twice in the same second, so for example I can't use it with my shiny new Barbed Scale Whip.

I hadn't known that DA doesn't fire offhand till lvl30, that's interesting. My baby ranger is 30 already so I guess testing that will have to wait for the next ranger. Another interesting point of trivia for dual wield is that you can skill up while wielding a shield. Also, Jimjam once mentioned that weapon procs can fire even when you fail a dual wield skill check, which is part of why I think it can be a good idea to put a weapon with a good proc but a poor ratio in the offhand.

[Goregasmic]

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

Yep, as you said, when in doubt math it out. It may change as you level and the damage bonus becomes more important and DW skill increases.

The DW wiki includes a formula as well as a table for lvl 50/60, and I've found it to be accurate. The last time I parsed DW success rate was at level 51, where I found it to be 65%, matching that table. The example I gave was for monks with a higher skill cap; they should be at ~75% at lvl50 but I don't have a monk to test that.

One method for checking DW success rates was already posted, using fight duration divided by adjusted delay and then scaling by DW and DA skill checks to compute an expected number of swings and comparing to the actually recorded number of swings. That works well, but I prefer a different methodology that with a few assumptions allows you to directly measure the DA and DW success rates. Both, of course, require different weapon types in mainhand and offhand so you can tell which is which.

The central assumption is that both weapons have an adjusted delay significantly longer than one second. In that case, if you have two swings in the same second you can assume that's a double attack. So first you collect all swings or attempted swings, then count how many timestamps have a single swing and how many have two. The ratio is the double attack success rate. Then, you add the counts to find the total number of successful dual wield skill checks. Dividing the fight length by the adjusted delay gives you the expected number of swings if dual wield is always successful, and dividing the actual number of successful DW skill checks by that theoretical maximum gives you the dual wield success rate.

Here's an example from when I was level 51, Infestation offhand, 22% worn haste. There were 405 timestamps with a single piercing swing and 457 with two piercing swings, giving a 53% DA success rate. The fight duration was 1944 seconds, the adjusted delay was 14.75, and so with a 100% DW success rate you'd expect 1317 rounds of attacks. Compared to the sum of 405 and 457, that's 862/1317, or an observed 65.4% dual wield success rate.

This approach breaks down when the offhand is fast enough to potentially swing twice in the same second, so for example I can't use it with my shiny new Barbed Scale Whip.

I hadn't known that DA doesn't fire offhand till lvl30, that's interesting. My baby ranger is 30 already so I guess testing that will have to wait for the next ranger. Another interesting point of trivia for dual wield is that you can skill up while wielding a shield. Also, Jimjam once mentioned that weapon procs can fire even when you fail a dual wield skill check, which is part of why I think it can be a good idea to put a weapon with a good proc but a poor ratio in the offhand.

Yeah you can absolutely calculate it, just wasn't all that sure it was worth the time before mid 50s and I'm still using 2h almost exclusively.

For DA not triggering on offhand until 150, I wanted to test that on my 16 rogue that just got DA. I read it a couple times but I can't find anywhere that confirms it. Lately I was leveling 1hs and a had a croaking dirk in OH and I can say OH doesn't fire all that much so maybe it can DA but since DW hardly ever triggers and DA on main hand either so maybe it is possible but a statistically insignificant chance.

Didn't know you can skill DW with a shield, that's... counter intuitive. I know you can trigger a proc on a miss but never noticed you could proc on a non swing. I guess it is a byproduct of normalized proc rates, your odds are probably based on swing speed and it pops off regardless of outcome. Much simpler to land on the target value from a programming perspective that way too when you think about it.

For good OH procs on weapons with bad ratios, on one hand you'd have to find a proc worthy of gimping your damage for it but on the other hand for a class like rogue, apparently like 80% of your damage comes from MH (backstabs) so swapping for something like a locustlure OH might be worth the occasional proc if you're losing literally like, 3% of your total damage output vs a 10/18 weap in OH.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

For DA not triggering on offhand until 150, I wanted to test that on my 16 rogue that just got DA. I read it a couple times but I can't find anywhere that confirms it. Lately I was leveling 1hs and a had a croaking dirk in OH and I can say OH doesn't fire all that much so maybe it can DA but since DW hardly ever triggers and DA on main hand either so maybe it is possible but a statistically insignificant chance.

Here is a video of my level 25 Warrior fighting corudoth for 35 minutes.

This video is a bit unusual, as I broke my normal rule of being consistent with buffs. I did 3 casts of Cog Boost (40% Haste), as I was mostly checking max hit.

There were 987 main hand swing attempts and 336 offhand swing attempts over 2139 seconds. My haste would be 62% for 1530 seconds (Cog Boost was 8 minutes 30 seconds duration at my level), and 22% for the rest. The average haste assuming a 50/50 split is 62 + 22 = 84 / 2 = 42% haste. Since the haste wasn't a 50/50 split, 1530 / 2139 = 0.715 * 62 = 44% Haste on average.

1. 336 Offhand Crush Attempts [30 Delay / 1.44 Haste = One attack Every 2.08 Seconds]
2. 987 Primary Slash Attempts [40 Delay / 1.44 Haste = One attack Every 2.77 Seconds]
3. Fight was 2139 seconds long

2139 Seconds / 2.08 Seconds = 1028 Offhand Crush Attempts * ((130 Dual Wield Skill Level + 25 Player Level) / 475) = ~335 Predicted Secondary Crush Attempts on average.

2139 Seconds / 2.77 Seconds = 772 Primary Slash Attempts * (1 + ((130 Double Attack Skill + 25 Player Level) / 500)) = ~1011 Predicted Primary Slash Attempts on average.

Both of the predicted numbers above track with my log results. Also looking at my logs, I didn't see any crush attempts that occured within the same second.

So at least at level 25, it doesn't look like double attack triggers on offhand. Also it looks like 475 is the correct "MaxSkill" value for warriors, as the wiki suggests.

[Goregasmic]

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

Here is a video of my level 25 Warrior fighting corudoth for 35 minutes.

This video is a bit unusual, as I broke my normal rule of being consistent with buffs. I did 3 casts of Cog Boost (40% Haste), as I was mostly checking max hit.

There were 987 main hand swing attempts and 336 offhand swing attempts over 2139 seconds. My haste would be 62% for 1530 seconds (Cog Boost was 8 minutes 30 seconds duration at my level), and 22% for the rest. The average haste assuming a 50/50 split is 62 + 22 = 84 / 2 = 42% haste. Since the haste wasn't a 50/50 split, 1530 / 2139 = 0.715 * 62 = 44% Haste on average.

1. 336 Offhand Crush Attempts [30 Delay / 1.44 Haste = One attack Every 2.08 Seconds]
2. 987 Primary Slash Attempts [40 Delay / 1.44 Haste = One attack Every 2.77 Seconds]
3. Fight was 2139 seconds long

2139 Seconds / 2.08 Seconds = 1028 Offhand Crush Attempts * ((130 Dual Wield Skill Level + 25 Player Level) / 475) = ~335 Predicted Secondary Crush Attempts on average.

2139 Seconds / 2.77 Seconds = 772 Primary Slash Attempts * (1 + ((130 Double Attack Skill + 25 Player Level) / 500)) = ~1011 Predicted Primary Slash Attempts on average.

Both of the predicted numbers above track with my log results. Also looking at my logs, I didn't see any crush attempts that occured within the same second.

So at least at level 25, it doesn't look like double attack triggers on offhand. Also it looks like 475 is the correct "MaxSkill" value for warriors, as the wiki suggests.

What's the DA skill max for a 25 warrior? 130? I guess this pretty much confirms what I read. We'd need to find the exact point where it starts triggering but it does confirm that DW is pretty shit if you can 2h mostly uncapped.

Do you "lose" skill points if you delevel? Unless it is already documented somewhere I have a monk that is pretty much exactly 30. I could delevel him, see if it triggers at 28 and then check again at 29 then get a whole bunch of rezzes. Or I could just get my rogue/war to 28 and see but that isn't a priority right now.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

What's the DA skill max for a 25 warrior? 130? I guess this pretty much confirms what I read. We'd need to find the exact point where it starts triggering but it does confirm that DW is pretty shit if you can 2h mostly uncapped.

Do you "lose" skill points if you delevel? Unless it is already documented somewhere I have a monk that is pretty much exactly 30. I could delevel him, see if it triggers at 28 and then check again at 29 then get a whole bunch of rezzes. Or I could just get my rogue/war to 28 and see but that isn't a priority right now.

Yeah double attack max skill is 130 for warriors at 25.

As far as I know, when you delevel, your skills become capped at the max for that level. So if a level 26 Warrior had 135 Double Attack skill, deleving to 25 would mean his Double Attack becomes capped at 130 until he leveled again.

[WarpathEQ]

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

Yeah double attack max skill is 130 for warriors at 25.

As far as I know, when you delevel, your skills become capped at the max for that level. So if a level 26 Warrior had 135 Double Attack skill, deleving to 25 would mean his Double Attack becomes capped at 130 until he leveled again.

Where are the red heads when you need them? It seems to me the meta was deleveling toons to gain significant advantage in PVP which doesn't jive with this sentiment. Maybe someone in the know can confirm.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

Where are the red heads when you need them? It seems to me the meta was deleveling toons to gain significant advantage in PVP which doesn't jive with this sentiment. Maybe someone in the know can confirm.

If someone can show evidence that skills do not get capped as you delevel, that would be cool.

I don't think the practice of deleveling characters itself is evidence for this. There are other benefits to deleveling a toon. As a crude example, you need to be level 46 to enter the planes. So leveling to 46 allows you get gear you wouldn't otherwise be able to get as a low level, which is advantageous.