Trying to get absolute clarity on 2H vs. DW

[Symbeorn]

Hey gang! On and off player here, returning for the new servers. I dabbled in Beorning back when it first came out, and I'm interested in possibly maining one come Thursday. One thing I can't get clear on is the differences/advantages/pros/cons of using a two-hander versus dual wielding. I understand that you do more damage in bear form with a two-hander, which makes it seem the obvious choice for dps. What of tanking or healing though? From reading the some posts in the Champ forums, it seems that dual-wielding should have a wrath-gain-speed advantage over two-hander? Is that the case? Does that mean dual-wielding is more ideal for tanking and healing since it will ultimately give you more time in bear form? Also, I think you get increased stats from having the offhand stats rather than just having the two-hander, yes?

If anyone can produce or point me towards some actual numbers on this stuff, I'd super appreciate it. Thanks very much!

[slicewalker]

Hey gang! On and off player here, returning for the new servers. I dabbled in Beorning back when it first came out, and I'm interested in possibly maining one come Thursday. One thing I can't get clear on is the differences/advantages/pros/cons of using a two-hander versus dual wielding. I understand that you do more damage in bear form with a two-hander, which makes it seem the obvious choice for dps. What of tanking or healing though? From reading the some posts in the Champ forums, it seems that dual-wielding should have a wrath-gain-speed advantage over two-hander? Is that the case? Does that mean dual-wielding is more ideal for tanking and healing since it will ultimately give you more time in bear form? Also, I think you get increased stats from having the offhand stats rather than just having the two-hander, yes?

If anyone can produce or point me towards some actual numbers on this stuff, I'd super appreciate it. Thanks very much!

At this point in time dual wielding is worthless in bear form due to it not being considered into the skill damage equation ,so its preety pointless stick to two handers.

[Symbeorn]

At this point in time dual wielding is worthless in bear form due to it not being considered into the skill damage equation ,so its preety pointless stick to two handers.

Thanks for the reply. I understand this much. However, if I'm healing, I care less about DPS and more about the wrath generation so that I can pump out more HPS. Wouldn't that make dual-wielding's superior wrath generation (supposing this is true) the better option for dedicated healing?

[Joedangod]

Thanks for the reply. I understand this much. However, if I'm healing, I care less about DPS and more about the wrath generation so that I can pump out more HPS. Wouldn't that make dual-wielding's superior wrath generation (supposing this is true) the better option for dedicated healing?

Dual wield is better for healing from a stats perspective alone. No need to run a wrath generation comparison.

[laughatdo0m]

I use a 2H Club for Redline - because bear form damage matters. For tanking or healing I use 1H LIs so I can get off-hand stats (if I could use a sword I would, but that technology is beyond us).

[Estelrandir]

If anyone can produce or point me towards some actual numbers on this stuff, I'd super appreciate it. Thanks very much!

This might be slightly more difficult to answer than it seems because no one played beo when max level was 50. Well, beo didn´t exist in that time. But there might be some beos with locked progress on level 50.


There are two parts to answer this question: are you able to use LI or aren´t you able to use LI.


If you can use LI (lvl 51 and more):


one-handed Lis have no stats on them but two-handed LIs have. In the moment, when off-hand weapons have better stats than two-handed LIs, it is better to use dual wielding with an off-hand weapon. When I reached max level, max level was 105 and then the dual wielding yielded better stats than two-handed LI. Before that I was only leveling, so I just played red line with two-handed LI, can´t say where the boundary exactly lies.


If you can´t use LI:


You mentioned that you want to play on the new legendary server. There will be no Lis until Moria arrives. I think difference between two-handed and one-handed weapons was more balanced, so the choice of the wepoans might be made on personal preference.


Final note:

It seems beo will get class update in month or two, so if the problem with dual wielding will be solved by then, this answer will be invalid.

[Vastin]

My apologies, but the overall issues with Beorning Dual Wielding have not been addressed by the recent work I've done on the class.

Unfortunately the bear form skills were never really set up with dual wielding in mind, and as such they really only fully benefit when you are wielding a 2H weapon, as such this makes Dual Wield a... generally sub-optimal choice for the class, even though they are capable of it.

While this is certainly something that can be addressed in theory, retooling a skill to allow dual wielding is actually a pretty big deal and it was too large a scope issue for me to address in this pass.

-Vastin

[Hiltia]

Hey gang! On and off player here, returning for the new servers. I dabbled in Beorning back when it first came out, and I'm interested in possibly maining one come Thursday. One thing I can't get clear on is the differences/advantages/pros/cons of using a two-hander versus dual wielding. I understand that you do more damage in bear form with a two-hander, which makes it seem the obvious choice for dps. What of tanking or healing though? From reading the some posts in the Champ forums, it seems that dual-wielding should have a wrath-gain-speed advantage over two-hander? Is that the case? Does that mean dual-wielding is more ideal for tanking and healing since it will ultimately give you more time in bear form? Also, I think you get increased stats from having the offhand stats rather than just having the two-hander, yes?

If anyone can produce or point me towards some actual numbers on this stuff, I'd super appreciate it. Thanks very much!

For healing...

Wrath generation is independant of the weapon you use as in many instances you can't/don't want to be in melee range.
DW is the way to go... Just buy 2 axes from the lootboxes (this one) and you are set.
Why 2 axes ? Because you don't even bother with a legendary weapon as weapon LI are useless for healing (might change with the revamp... ) and you will be loosing stats for doing so at lvl 120.

[camenecium]

My apologies, but the overall issues with Beorning Dual Wielding have not been addressed by the recent work I've done on the class. [...] While this is certainly something that can be addressed in theory, retooling a skill to allow dual wielding is actually a pretty big deal and it was too large a scope issue for me to address in this pass. -Vastin

Sigh. This would have been a real nice-to-have, but I get not wanting to touch every single bear damage skill.

For me, it doesn't actually have to be dual-wielding like a Champion; the damage skills just need to work off a respectable base damage. Perhaps you could wrap dual-wield stats into a single weapon adapter and pass that wrapper into bear-form skills?

Is base damage passed into a skill implementation or picked out of the character data by the skill's implementation? I've always wondered how LOTRO abstracts and implements such things.

[Vastin]

Perhaps you could wrap dual-wield stats into a single weapon adapter and pass that wrapper into bear-form skills?

That would certainly have been the sane way to do it from the beginning, but whomever originally designed DW decided to make it a lot more complex than that. When you dual wield you're actually using a whole different set of skills. (I'm not kidding...)

Bearform doesn't HAVE all those dual-wield skill versions, not yet anyway.

-Vastin

[gildhur]

That would certainly have been the sane way to do it from the beginning, but whomever originally designed DW decided to make it a lot more complex than that. When you dual wield you're actually using a whole different set of skills. (I'm not kidding...)

Bearform doesn't HAVE all those dual-wield skill versions, not yet anyway.

-Vastin

LOL! Graal, Hakai, Orion, or Avon? Fess up.

[Vastin]

LOL! Graal, Hakai, Orion, or Avon? Fess up.

That was waaaay back at the beginning, and I suspect it was a group effort.

I was working on content back in those days, so I swear innocence!

-Vastin

[camenecium]

... but whomever originally designed DW decided to make it a lot more complex than that. When you dual wield you're actually using a whole different set of skills. (I'm not kidding...) -Vastin

Ugh. It's an unavoidable risk of the profession, spending time in coding hells devised by others.

...and I suspect it was a group effort. I was working on content back in those days, so I swear innocence! -Vastin

It would have to go all the way back to the beginning, the initial design process, since dual-wield with Champs and Hunters goes back to the very beginning. That said, a trip through SCM should nail the culprits with, um, bits on their hands. Oh, Git Blame, how I love thee...

To be fair, there may be tradeoffs between optimized performance and long-term maintainability that would push the design towards less elegant solutions like this. Again, I have sympathy for those who come later into those compromises and have to make sense of it all.

Anyway, thanks for the information, thanks for the changes, and good luck with what's next!