Talk:Combat

Things to do while running - Talents

The section on running away states that the class specific things do not include Talents. Should Talents be added but noted as such? For example the Druid talent [Nature's Grasp] is incredibly useful when running away as are talents that grant instant cast abilities such as [Nature's Swiftness]. --Bres 20:46, 20 Jun 2005 (EDT)

Dual-Wielding vs. Two-Handed

Of course this disregards armor, special moves/abilities, talents other than dual-wield, etc., etc., and as such must all be taken with a pinch of salt, but I'm suspicious that [Blizzard] have slightly over-calculated 2H weapon DPS compared to dual wield (unless I've missed something!?). -- Goldark

Yes, you have. According my calculations, a Rogue with Dual-Wield Specialization will deal exactly 1.4x the base damage that he would deal with only one weapon (assuming two equal DPS weapons). For warriors, dual-wielding might not be worth it (all signs say no), but rogues with Dual-Wield Specialization do a lot more damage than a 2H-weapon warrior. -- nano (Knardi)

Not exactly. Since warriors get much more rage with DW than with a 2h, due to both the way rage is generated and some DW specific talents, warriors do 20% more damage with both DW and 2h. See this thread for Blizzard's thoughts. The consensus is generally that DW is better for grinding and endgame PvE (with higher sustained dps), while 2h is better for PvP (due to its higher burst damage). -- haslo

A Hunter or Warrior might still benefit from Dual Wield because the Off-Hand Weapon may have large stat bonuses - which are not cut in half for being Off-Hand. Two weapons (Blue for example) with high stat bonuses may combine to a much higher stat bonus than you could ever buy or find for one 2-handed weapon at your level - sometimes cheaply. The result might mean stats so high it causes your 2 weapons to do more DPS than you would with one. --SoopahMan

Also worth noting is that due to using table based hit solving, the effect of 24% miss rate is much higher due to taking parry and dodge out of the 100% hit as well. This pushes the calculations even more towards 2H. (1 - miss%) * DPS -> (1 - miss% - parry% - dodge%) * DPS -- Zala

One thing that is easily forgotten is that the off hand also recieves the bonus from attack power. This means that a dualwielder will benefit 1.5 times from an attack power increase (since the bonus is applied to the off hand before the damage is cut in half). This is why dualwielding for warriors is even more gear dependant than using a 2H as they only have their more effective use of power to counter the baseline better dps of 2H (pointed out in the article and in Zala's post). As a side note, dualwielding is more effective in raids, were the mob is always safely attacking the tank so you can attack from behind to eliminate parry. (see Zala)

Many warriors moves are based on weapon damage, i'm not sure the exact number that would add to dps, but cleave definatly does more than 2x weapon damage, if u hit more than one mob, and Whilwind would do 5x normal damage. If u have a slow weapon that would really add up, especially since many 2h epics deal more than 1.5x damage of a fast epic. Again i'm not sure of the exact numbers, but i am reasonably sure that using a big 2h weapon will do more dps, whether they have dual wield specialization or not. Also 2 handers generate more rage per hit than 1h, and miss alot less, so i would say they produce the same rage.Therinau 22:19, 19 April 2007 (EDT)

One thing that may need to be figured into this debate is the Warrior Protection Talent One-Handed Weapon Specialization(Warrior), which increases DPS on one-handed weapons by 10%. It affects both weapons when Dual-Wielding, but I'm not sure how exactly the bonus is applied to the offhand, or what the total effect is on DPS, particularly versus a two-hander. Graptor 23:50, 19 October 2006 (EDT)