Dual Wield Update

[chenw]

Has there been any testing done comparing dual wield to 2h melee weapons now?

 

I have yet to get my first Chaotic weapon, while I have enough for a Maul, I would be pretty much using it exclusively to do stuff like Dominion tower rather than slaying or general monster killing, so I was wondering, in such cases, 2h's advantage of stronger wouldn't be very much used...

[Stev]

I was using my rapiers at the new slayer creatures and killing two in the time everyone else with a maul were killing one - they'd never even reach the stage where they'd start to pummel the ground. But then again that's Drygore vs Chaotic. That's the only comparison I can give ATM. :P.

[oliboli1992]

I can only assume they will be equal but Jagex being Jagex you can't take that for granted. I would say get the maul first and foremost as it's 200k dung tokens, to get dual wield rapiers you'll need 300k tokens.

Get a maul first to take advantage of the faster kills and when you get to 120 dung you'll have plenty of dung tokens to get dual weild rapiers and longsword.

[Th e Doctor]

Sorry to hijack but seeing as I have a crapier from before eoc went live when I start playing again (barring jagex letting me recover my account) would it be worth it to get the off hand rapier? Assuming that with the new update dual wield is as good as 2h that should be as good as the cmaul right?

[chenw]

On single target, probably, for multi-targets, 2h still wins because of the AoE abilities being exclusively 2h (Cleave, Hurricane and Quake)

[xpx]

Also, wouldn't claws be better than rapier/longsword(assuming style doesn't matter) anyway? They are also considerably cheaper...

 

After testing dragon claws(4 tick dual t60) and dragon spear(6 tick 2h t60), claws are better for sure- they have additional critical(plus 1.8% damage), basically the same slice critial(1264 vs 1276) and you get get additional autoattacks.

[Quyneax]

Claws have 867/4 ticks @ 99 str. Also .9% crit. 216,75 per tick.

Rapier/ls have 1079/5 ticks @ 99 str. 215,8 per tick.

So claws would have higher raw dps, not sure how that translates to abilities and everything (it should translate pretty much 1:1), the critical bonus helps, potions/prayers do help as well I think, but slightly.

[xpx]

Claws have 867/4 ticks @ 99 str. Also .9% crit. 216,75 per tick.

Rapier/ls have 1079/5 ticks @ 99 str. 215,8 per tick.

So claws would have higher raw dps, not sure how that translates to abilities and everything (it should translate pretty much 1:1), the critical bonus helps, potions/prayers do help as well I think, but slightly.

I think the main thing here is still the speed. 4 ticks per attack gets atleast twice the auto-attacks than 5 ticks, while 6 ticks gets none.

 

So after a bit more testing t60(dragon weapons) with no damage bonuses and slice critical(=125% maximum ability damage):

 

2h, 6 tick(spear, 2h, halberd): 1276

dual, 6 tick(baxe): 1276

dual, 5 tick(longsword): 1270

dual, 4 tick(scim, mace, claw): 1264

dual, main 4, off 6(claw and off-baxe): 1268

dual, main 4, off 5(claw and off-long): 1266

 

This basically applies to all tiers, and all bonuses either are as good or better for the faster weapon, plus the additional autoattacks(as you can't spam abilities as fast).

 

In my opinion, this means the best setups right now are:

 

dual chaotic claws for t80 melee

main drygore mace and off drygore rapier/long for t90 melee

[chenw]

But, do abilities now base on DPS of the weapon rather than the damage? Because I am still somewhat under the impression that, for abilities, the slower the weapon, the better (I chain abilities back to back, so AA rarely ever comes into play for me in melee, if I am doing this wrong, please let me know), so Dual CLS/CR was, by that assumption, by default better than Dual chaotic claws...

[xpx]

But, do abilities now base on DPS of the weapon rather than the damage? Because I am still somewhat under the impression that, for abilities, the slower the weapon, the better (I chain abilities back to back, so AA rarely ever comes into play for me in melee, if I am doing this wrong, please let me know), so Dual CLS/CR was, by that assumption, by default better than Dual chaotic claws...

Rapier/long have around 1% higher ability base damage, but claws have a total of 1.8% more critical(~1.8% damage), so the claws have higher raw dps. Also, at a high attackrate you will get some additional AA's. In addition, don't forget how damage bonuses are applied(both from armor/prayer/pots).

[chenw]

That seems rather odd, since the damage difference between a CLS and CClaw is much larger than 1% (768 vs 980), which is what I assume abilities are based on, not the average damage per second of your weapon.

 

I haven't been using Dual wield melee as of late, but when I was using, what i distinctively noticed was that before the update, Abilities will always cause you to skip an Off hand auto attack, so it treats your ability as your last mainhand auto attack, and only resumes at your next designated MH AA. That is why I have a grown a habit of chaining abilities, since in that time frame, unless your weapon is fastest, your slice CD would have finished by that AA, so I basically chain abilities back to back, and so AA very rarely occurs (only when I messed up my rotation).

 

Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to disprove your suggestion, If anything, I'd much prefer to be convinced that Claws are worth using, I like Dual wielding. But I only have 200k dg tokens at the moment, and I don't plan to dg professionally anytime soon, so I would like to make sure that what I am getting is going to worth bang for the buck.

 

I'd be mainly using it for DT boss runs and odd monster hunting, so primary it'd be single target most of the time.

[xpx]

It's true that ability damage is based on damage bonus, but that's exactly why i'm making it easy for you and comparing things that are easily comparable- the ability damage, which can easily be tested using slice ability on dummys, as the critical of it is always 125% ability damage. If the ability damage was the same as damage bonus, all weapons below max speed would be useless, thus any weapon that is not fastest(4 tick) get's a penalty to equalize things- t5 is 80% and t6 is 66%.

 

As a whole, you are doing everything right using your abilities, but the consideration here is that if you can't use an ability in the timeframe of an AA, an AA will occour and give additional damage. As the fastest abilities are 3 seconds, realistically, you'll do some AA damage with t4, little with t5 and none with t6.

 

Also, claws cost 100k tokens each and start up 100%(though require 1m investment).

[chenw]

thus any weapon that is not fastest(4 tick) get's a penalty to equalize things- t5 is 80% and t6 is 66%.

 

 

That was the bit I was missing, thanks.

 

Oh, last thing, in the TWW update, "The latest batch of Evolution of Combat updates is here! Dual wielding has been brought onto the level of two-handed weaponry in raw damage" from the update notes, does that mean main hand abilities now also take off hand into account? (Or at least 2h and dual wield has been normalised)?

[Cheefoo]

does that mean main hand abilities now also take off hand into account?

 

Yep.

 

Funny thing is, now "decimate" (swore it used to be called "smite") and havoc do less damage than slice. Not to mention, they still share a cooldown. That gives 2h the advantage of better exclusive basics (smash, cleave) vs. dual (decimate OR havoc - both are shit). However, DW has generally more powerful thresholds, albeit only against a single target, and they're combo attacks.

 

Use 2h for hitting multiple monsters with quake, whirlwind and cleave, and prioritize DW if going against one monster at a time. The more monsters, the more 2h's AoE shines. It's also worth noting that at lower levels, when you have less abilities, DW would have a slight advantage because the faster autoattacks will come easier in between your more spaced out abilities.

 

I know we're not talking about magic, but you should know that the way autocasting works has been changed. No, not the autocasting different spells in each hand (which is a bad idea anyway). It used to allow for an autocast to fire off every two abilities (for 2h, not sure about DW or single) but now the "auto attack cooldown" resets after each ability, just like ranged and melee. Kinda shitty, but the ability damage for magic has been upped to make up for it. Also, now you won't really need to spend as many (or any) runes as long as you keep spamming abilities.

[xpx]

thus any weapon that is not fastest(4 tick) get's a penalty to equalize things- t5 is 80% and t6 is 66%.

 

 

That was the bit I was missing, thanks.

 

Oh, last thing, in the TWW update, "The latest batch of Evolution of Combat updates is here! Dual wielding has been brought onto the level of two-handed weaponry in raw damage" from the update notes, does that mean main hand abilities now also take off hand into account? (Or at least 2h and dual wield has been normalised)?

Basically they did what they should have done from the start- instead of ability damage being based on only your main hand weapon, it's now based on both.

 

But in any case, the difference in raw damage between same tier weapons is really very, very small now, so when the style matters, using the correct style weapon will deal most damage. For chaotics, dual claws are best for single target non-specific and slash, dual rapier is best for stab and maul is best for crush and multi-target(although melee multi-target is somewhat limited). For range, dual ccb is now the best followed by zaryte(+arrow weakness) and royal. For mage, virt>chaotic. Potions and prayer don't make a significant difference for varying weapon speed, however, all armor damage bonuses(and i'm guessing void) do.

[chenw]

Many thanks for the help guys, I think I have made my decision.

 

But, I know you might want to kill me now :P, but I just noticed that Off hand claw does less damage than EE (by quite a bit, 384 VS 428, a little over 10% damage difference, probably enough to counter the ~1% critical strike loss), here is my last two questions :P

 

a) If I dual wield two weapons with different tiers, do my ability accuracy come from an average of both hands or just mainhand? I am guessing it's main hand.

 

b) The upkeep of the Chaotic claws would be the same as CLS/CR? (Like 2M for MH and 1M for OH when fully broken)

[xpx]

Many thanks for the help guys, I think I have made my decision.

 

But, I know you might want to kill me now :P, but I just noticed that Off hand claw does less damage than EE (by quite a bit, 384 VS 428, a little over 10% damage difference, probably enough to counter the ~1% critical strike loss), here is my last two questions :P

 

a) If I dual wield two weapons with different tiers, do my ability accuracy come from an average of both hands or just mainhand? I am guessing it's main hand.

 

b) The upkeep of the Chaotic claws would be the same as CLS/CR? (Like 2M for MH and 1M for OH when fully broken)

That is a very nice find. Unfortunately, i'm fairly sure it's the average of the two, so you'd have the combined accuracies of t70 and t80 for a total of around t77 accuracy.

 

And yes, the upkeep is the same as any main-hand chaotic. The off-hands are half-price.

[PolarBearBlue]

So just so I'm clear on dual wielding vs. 2h.

 

A) For hitting multiple targets and actively using abilities use a 2h.

B) For hitting 1 target at a time and using momentum dual wield.

1)The best weapons for dual wield would be claws or any 4 tick (fastest) weapon. So using something like battleaxes and longsword receive a penalty and are otherwise bad to use.

2) The abilities average comes from the average of the main and offhand tiers.

 

Anything I'm not understanding?

[Quyneax]

Dual wield is good with abilities now as well, so for single-target, just dual wield, momentum or not.

[chenw]

It would be interesting if we could obtain some information how two different weapons interact with each other (such as, two different tiers, two different speeds or two different types, or some combination of the above).

[PolarBearBlue]

Dual wield is good with abilities now as well, so for single-target, just dual wield, momentum or not.

 

Okay. Thanks.