Offhand Question

[Hiro1034]

After reading posts on what type of weapon to use in the offhand, I see that Rangers (or any dual wielder) want to use the best ratio. Now I'm wondering what would be better to use:

Silken Whip of Ensnaring 14/28 or
Jade Mace 9/18

I know I've read that delay doesn't matter for the offhand, but I swear I unleash way more attacks when using the mace in my offhand over the whip.

Does anyone have any insights to this?

[Thulack]

you would see more attacks from the mace cause its faster.....Both have the same ratio though so go with the higher dmg weapon in my mind. bigger hits and less Dmg taken from ripostes or a ds if mob has one. Just save up for a woodsman staff though and this discussion is moot.

[Yinikren]

I would go with the bigger offhand hits for less DS damage, etc. I don't follow the woodsman's staff cult following, though, but I will have to level my ranger and parse to see for sure. On paper, fast one handers appear to deal a lot more damage than the staff simply because two-handers have crappy damage bonuses at this point in the timeline.

Fun fact: Did you know that at level 50, with a damage bonus of 8, a Revultant Whip will cause around 650 damage per minute on a dark blue con mob, at 50% haste, just using its damage bonus by itself? There's a reason the mosscovered branch got nerfed to offhand only.

[BlkCamel]

Look at yinikren below.

[Yinikren]

DW isn't a proc. DW is a skill check. It is a calculation performed at (DWSkill+Level)/500=DWChance. A 60 ranger has a 60% ((240+60)=300, 300/500=.6, so 60%) chance to dual wield per swing attempt. A 24 delay weapon will attempt a DW check in the offhand every 2.4 seconds regardless of mainhand attack delay. You simply want the faster mainhand weapon because the damage bonus is a static value which is applied more with a faster weapon. This is why a Revultant Whip (5/14) probably comes close to out damaging most high-end kunark weapons - that static damage bonus.

They have a further check for Double Attack (59%@(235+60/500)=.59) regardless of which hand swings. This is how you can double attack off the mainhand and then a half a second later off the offhand with two different weapon delays.

It should be noted that DASkill needs to be >150 to attempt a double attack from the offhand.

[BlkCamel]

Look at Yinikren info above

[Yinikren]

For sure, I agree. But saying that your offhand swings have anything to do with your mainhand swing timer isn't correct, and we don't want to pass along incorrect information.

[BlkCamel]

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

For sure, I agree. But saying that your offhand swings have anything to do with your mainhand swing timer isn't correct, and we don't want to pass along incorrect information.

I appreciate the response, I cleaned up my response and if you want to elaborate further but you cleared up a misconception. I only hope I wasn't making similar mistakes when I was playing my monk and wasting a bit of his efficiency!

[Thulack]

Lol please do a parse for me with Rev whip compared to high end weapons. While damage bonus is nice for mainhand ratio is still king. No ranger would be caught dead using a rev whip more then a month into velious.

[Yinikren]

Probably not Bongs, but that's because in Velious some stupid ratios come out which outweigh the benefits of a fast mainhand weapon. We don't have any 15/21 weapons running around currently.

STR also has the effect of skewing your damage curve upward and making the damage bonus via mainhand speed a bit less relevant.

The question is this: at 100% haste and level 60, a Revultant Whip will cause 950 or so damage per minute just from its damage bonus. An Earthcaller (or CSS, or any 24 delay mainhand) will only cause around 500 damage bonus damage. At what strength level, then, would the harder, slower hits from a better ratio weapon outdamage the guaranteed damage of such a fast weapon?