Dual Wielding question

[Treesh]

I know it's a bit early for this question, but I'm curious and I'm asking it anyway.

When I was fiddling with the monk in beta I noticed that equipping a second weapon, even one that had greatly differing damage than the first, my damage on the LCS (I don't care that it's a new game and may or may not be lying to me. It's a Diablo character screen; it's lying about something) really doesn't change much at all. The damage number doesn't change if you switch what hand holds which weapon, but the attacks per second certainly does. What I want to know is exactly how it determines the damage added in from the offhand and how it calculates your attack speed because it's doesn't seem like it's just a straight average of the two speeds.

[MMAgCh]

Dual wielding confers a 15% attack speed bonus. Depending on the weapons' individual speeds and DPS, dual wielding thus can reduce overall DPS, so it's not always the ideal choice. This video elaborates on it a little.

As far as I know, it isn't entirely understood yet how dual wielding interacts with all skills. Some obviously and visibly alternate between weapons with each swing, but with others it isn't clear – the jury is still out on whether these simply use the main weapon's stats, or whether damage is added together, or averaged. It is probably one of those questions that can't be answered until the game has gone live (or, if people have looked extensively and conclusively into the matter during the beta, I have been unable to locate any posts to that effect).

[MonTy]

All classes use their main hand damage for skills when dual-wielding, as per Bashiok: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4216984727#4

[Roland]

I know it's a bit early for this question, but I'm curious and I'm asking it anyway.

When I was fiddling with the monk in beta I noticed that equipping a second weapon, even one that had greatly differing damage than the first, my damage on the LCS (I don't care that it's a new game and may or may not be lying to me. It's a Diablo character screen; it's lying about something) really doesn't change much at all. The damage number doesn't change if you switch what hand holds which weapon, but the attacks per second certainly does. What I want to know is exactly how it determines the damage added in from the offhand and how it calculates your attack speed because it's doesn't seem like it's just a straight average of the two speeds.

If each weapon has equal DPS, dual-wielding them will increase your overall DPS. Otherwise, if the gulf between each weapon's DPS is too great, you will actually lose DPS.

[Treesh]

All classes use their main hand damage for skills when dual-wielding, as per Bashiok: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4216984727#4

Ooh. Thanks for the link. Good read (still reading it).

---

If each weapon has equal DPS, dual-wielding them will increase your overall DPS. Otherwise, if the gulf between each weapon's DPS is too great, you will actually lose DPS.

That was the odd thing. I had one weapon equipped in 1-hand slot, equipped a second one in the off hand and yeah, my damage went down even though I put on a higher damage weapon in the off hand. And that really prompted me to think "just what in the sam hell is going on with this?"

Edit: It was also similar speed weapon so it wasn't a difference in speeds to cause the damage to go down, iirc. Just completely backwards from what I expected.

---

Thanks for the vid link too, MMAgCh

[MMAgCh]

All classes use their main hand damage for skills when dual-wielding, as per Bashiok: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4216984727#4

Of course, on the subsequent pages of that thread, a number of people go on to claim this isn't actually the case, stating that their skills quite visibly did alternate between weapons, as evidenced by varying damage figures.

Then again, that was in late March, so maybe the game really does now work the way Bashiok said it would. vOv

[NuurAbSaal]

...so maybe the game really does now work the way Bashiok said it would. vOv

How very Diablo!

take care
Tarabulus

[FireIceTalon]

Interesting. Thanks for the info.

[Sir_Die_alot]

All classes use their main hand damage for skills when dual-wielding, as per Bashiok: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4216984727#4

This is the way it is suppose to work, but leveling a barbarian I gave him a pretty good weapon to start (14 dps or so) but I didn't have an offhand for him. I figured I would find something pretty quickly and since it is suppose to use your main hand damage it "wouldn't" matter. It was a pretty big difference though (I had actual floating combat text up so I saw the numbers as they went out). I didn't extensively test it with other skills and such, but bash had a pretty clear difference.

[Roland]

Then again, that was in late March, so maybe the game really does now work the way Bashiok said it would. vOv

First rule:
Never listen to anything Bashiok has to say - about anything. He's a PR guy, not a Dev.

[PapaSmurf]

A good post about monks. There is a very helpful section on dual wielding. The important learning is that spirit generators alternate attacks while spirit spenders will always use the MH.

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/4...489?page=1