Dual wield logic

[Videri]

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

You are certainly not alone on the MH and OH being linked. It’s very stubborn dogma still believed by many (plus it kind of makes sense that it would be true).

Yeah, that misconception comes up disturbingly often. Maybe it's from some other game.

[Goregasmic]

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

Yeah, that misconception comes up disturbingly often. Maybe it's from some other game.

It was a misconception even back in 99, I've come across it often.

[BradZax]

The most disappointed I have ever been was when I first unlocked duel wield and i did not hit the enemy twice as much 😭

[bcbrown]

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

The formula to compare efficiency is (weapondmg x2 +dmgbonus)/delay. When in doubt math it out, there's a bunch of oddities out there so general rules might not apply to your situation.

Yep, that's the best rule of thumb for quickly comparing weapons. It's also good to take into account the chance of successfully making the dual wield check. If you look at https://wiki.project1999.com/Dual_Wield, about halfway down there's a table showing the chance of succeeding at levels 50 and 60, and it's about 60-70% chance.

So to continue the example, let's say you're a monk at level 50, and you have a Jade Mace (9/18), an Adamantite Club (15/25), and a Peacebringer (28/30 2hb). The 1h damage bonus at level 50 is 8, and the 2h damage bonus for 30 delay is 13. The dual wield success rate is 75.5%.

So Jade Mace mainhand/Adamantite Club offhand will be (2*9+8)/18 + (2*15 + 0)/25 * .755, or 2.35
Swap the order and it'll be (2*15+8)/25 + (2*9+0)/18 * .755 or 2.28
The peacebringer will be (2*28+13)/30, or 2.30

So even though as Goregasmic points out, Adamantite Club is a better mainhand than Jade Mace, if those are your only two weapons I'd still put Jade Mace in the mainhand.

The other thing to take into account is weapon procs. Offhand weapons proc half as often as mainhand weapons, so if you have a really good weapon proc it might be better as a mainhand even if the ratio is a little worse than other options. But at low levels your dual wield success rate might be only about 30%, so you might want to put your best-ratio weapon in mainhand and best-proc weapon in offhand, figuring that even if you won't actually swing the offhand weapon that often, you'll still get the value of the procs, even at half the mainhand proc rate.

[Goregasmic]

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

Yep, that's the best rule of thumb for quickly comparing weapons. It's also good to take into account the chance of successfully making the dual wield check. If you look at https://wiki.project1999.com/Dual_Wield, about halfway down there's a table showing the chance of succeeding at levels 50 and 60, and it's about 60-70% chance.

So to continue the example, let's say you're a monk at level 50, and you have a Jade Mace (9/18), an Adamantite Club (15/25), and a Peacebringer (28/30 2hb). The 1h damage bonus at level 50 is 8, and the 2h damage bonus for 30 delay is 13. The dual wield success rate is 75.5%.

So Jade Mace mainhand/Adamantite Club offhand will be (2*9+8)/18 + (2*15 + 0)/25 * .755, or 2.35
Swap the order and it'll be (2*15+8)/25 + (2*9+0)/18 * .755 or 2.28
The peacebringer will be (2*28+13)/30, or 2.30

So even though as Goregasmic points out, Adamantite Club is a better mainhand than Jade Mace, if those are your only two weapons I'd still put Jade Mace in the mainhand.

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.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

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?

I am currently using the value 400 in my calculator for what the Dual Wield Wiki Page calls "MaxSkill". I am using this value for all classes, unless someone can prove there are different values per class, as the dual wield page suggests.

According to the EQEMU code for Double Attack and Dual Wield:

1. Double Attack Chance = (Skill Level + Player Level) / 500.
2. Dual Wield Chance = (Skill Level + Player Level) / 400. [NOTE: in the EQEMU they use 375, but 400 seems closer as the wiki suggests, and it would be easy for P99 to adjust that magic number].

In the EQEMU code there aren't any special exceptions based on class that are not related to AAs. P99 could have added class specific exceptions, but I haven't seen any evidence for this yet.

When looking at my level 52 Monk Corudoth Parse while dual wielding:

1. 305 Offhand Crush Attempts [28 Delay / 1.34 Haste = One attack Every 2.09 Seconds]
2. 730 Primary Punch Attempts [16 Delay / 1.34 Haste = One attack Every 1.19 Seconds]
3. Fight was 552 seconds long

552 Seconds / 2.09 Seconds = 264 Offhand Crush Attempts * ((252 Dual Wield Skill Level + 52 Player Level) / 400) = 200 * (1 + ((218 Double Attack Skill + 52 Player Level) / 500)) = ~308 Predicted Secondary Crush Attempts on average.

552 Seconds / 1.19 Seconds = 463 Primary Punch Attempts * (1 + ((218 Double Attack Skill + 52 Player Level) / 500)) = ~713 Predicted Primary Punch Attempts on average.

The dual wield and double attack formulas I provided above seem correct for my level 52 Monk at least. I only riposted 11 times I think, so that wouldn't significantly affect either of these numbers.

[Snaggles]

The only helpful thing I gleaned from like an hour attacking Bloodmaw was that a level range lands .75 as many offhand attacks ad main hand attacks. A monk doesn’t have the luxury of picking two different emote styles of the same delay (ie slash and crush). You could accomplish the same thing with a timer and locking down one hand with a fire beetle eye or something.

It really doesn’t matter though. It’s the matter of if combo a beats combo b. DW or 2h it’s just a matter of the end results if parsing strictly for performance. Weighing things like procs and stats is a bit more subjective.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

A monk doesn’t have the luxury of picking two different emote styles of the same delay (ie slash and crush).

Monks do have a few options for same delay weapons with different emotes if you really wanted to. The trick is to unequip Epic Fist. A level 60 Iksar Monk has a 27 Delay Fist without Epic. So you can do bare fist + https://wiki.project1999.com/Club for example. But as I showed in my previous post, you don't need two weapons of the same delay to figure out dual wield chance. You just need the dual wield formula and the double attack formula.

[Defo]

Even at max skill (252) on a monk, dual wield only fires roughly 65-70% of the time, according to years of my parses.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

Even at max skill (252) on a monk, dual wield only fires roughly 65-70% of the time, according to years of my parses.

Generally speaking if you want to do a proper parse, it should be in a controlled environment. From experience I've learned that results can be skewed if you are parsing while playing normally.

As a simple example, you will probably miss a few swings on a fleeing mob. If you add that data to the parses you are reviewing, you have a dataset with less swings than there should be compared to the time of the fight. This would give you a lower dual wield percentage potentially.

Obviously you can't really have a controlled environment on parsing raid mobs, but testing something like dual wield percentage can be done on any mob.