Starting a new video series today where I go beneath the surface of the systems being used in Diablo 3 and try to answer questions people have/will have about the less obvious mechanics in the game.
My goal with each video will be to get to questions that will actually allow for us to make better decisions when we play the game. You can see an example of a very "actionable" question in the third question of this episode.
The three questions I'll be answering today are: 1. How much does dual wielding increase attack speed? 2. Is your attack speed when dual wielding an average of each (weapon's) speed or independent? 3. Is it always better to be using two weapons?
Hope you guys enjoy and learn something from this. I love making this style of video because I learn a lot myself, please ask questions you have and if the answer is something I think people want to know I'll include it in one of the videos! =]
1. Don't spend 30 seconds on decimals to 6 places or fractions. The approximation is fine. 2. Your conclusion on the last question really sucked because you only provided one data point. How much of a DPS increase do you get by wielding 2 clubs versus 1, for instance? How big of a disparity in damage needs to exist before you do more damage with a single weapon? 3. No one cares where you're standing in the game.
Well done, I loved your math it was really detailed for a guide to dual wielding! Perhaps for another one of your videos check the correlation of how your attack speed relates to you spell casting speed and which weapons maybe better for which spells.
(i.e. a having a wizard with a fast wand and focus, compared to a slower but stronger staff)
Just some food for thought, keep up the great work!
1. Does damage of skills change based on what "weapon is ready" to be used? or is DPS averaged etc. 2. Does this mean we would want to use huge damage skills while a slow but high damage is "ready", and use a really high attack speed offhand to help with rage gaining etc.
Also can you swap from dual wield to two handed on the fly for more damage?
On February 20 2012 12:43 dacthehork wrote: doesn't go into enough detail
1. Does damage of skills change based on what "weapon is ready" to be used? or is DPS averaged etc. 2. Does this mean we would want to use huge damage skills while a slow but high damage is "ready", and use a really high attack speed offhand to help with rage gaining etc.
Also can you swap from dual wield to two handed on the fly for more damage?
Well the thing is that those questions you asked there that I agree are related to the stuff covered in this video also lead to other related questions of their own. I wanted to make the video clear and concise and I wouldn't have wanted it any longer that it is now.
Thanks for commenting and being the first one to ask more questions!
To answer some of the details you guys didn't take the hint on:
The game actually automatically assigns one of your hands to determine the weapon damage/DPS used for each attack. This assignment is always sequential and damage is strictly based on that weapon and not the other! It's in this sense that they are "independent", no averages apply, but no multiple attacks from the same hand in a row either (certain skills will always use main/right hand though)! The only benefit you get from dual-wielding is a passive ~14.6% attack speed bonus.
Whether it always starts with main-hand or off-hand after each break is a detail that I personally wanted to check and is up to further testing and videos.
Surely another question this brings up is how often you'd want to swap your weapons around. You can indeed swap weapons all you want, but right-clicking on a weapon in your inventory always replace the main-hand only. Not sure if there's another way to do it other than point-and-clicking both weapons when you want to go back to dual-wielding.
Beta patch 13 also introduces the notion that some skills will always use your main-hand weapon and never rotate weapons between those specific attacks (the example of Cyclone Strike was given, and it clearly is a skill that doesn't use a visible "weapon swing").
If you ask about averages, the video shows very well how it works since that was one of the actual questions, starting at 2:30. Please watch it carefully.
Finally, if you feel like telling everyone what to do, you're the one who needs to realize no one really has to care about what you say either. It's his video and he made legitimate choices.
When dual-wielding, certain skills will now always use your main-hand weapon to determine damageFor example, Cyclone Strike will use your main-hand weapon damage even if your off-hand weapon is set to swing next
It's not entirely clear what the full range of skills that apply are, but if any skills without a cooldown apply to this you could get some pretty big damage increase by having a fast attacking offhand and a heavy hitting mainhand.
Yep I think your highest DPS should always be kept on MH, they just gave you a reason to since if you don't do that you'd be screwing yourself over - I'm guessing this change was because if it was random then you'd be losing DPS for no reason, now you can place the weapon accordingly to get the maximum benefit.
I expect people who want fast attacks will usually pick similarly quick weapons though, this patch change mainly avoids missing out on DPS that you could be doing.
It does make it more clear how you can calculate the DPS you get from using different skills without swapping weapons, but the options remain the same as they were before.
hey inreach you should start posting these on the blizzard forums and maybe you can become a community mvp I really appreciate you doing all this stuff(especially the people without beta like me) I know that if you posted these on the blizz forums as much as you do on here I would nominate you for MVP, you really deserve it
When dual-wielding, certain skills will now always use your main-hand weapon to determine damageFor example, Cyclone Strike will use your main-hand weapon damage even if your off-hand weapon is set to swing next
It's not entirely clear what the full range of skills that apply are, but if any skills without a cooldown apply to this you could get some pretty big damage increase by having a fast attacking offhand and a heavy hitting mainhand.
Great note, looks like I'll have to do a continuation of this topic... or two I am glad I didn't try to stuff too much information into one video though and I think this is a good start. Theorycrafting is great but there's something to be said for small doses of it unless it's for a specific purpose.
When I played through the beta on a barbarian I was thoroughly unimpressed with dual wielding. It always seemed to lower my dps compared to using a single 2handed weapon. That's probably just the items at the start of act 1 though, late game items might be really high dps 1handers compared to 2handers.
On February 20 2012 17:05 papaz wrote: I didn't quite understand why the dps decreased in the last case? What was the calculation/mechanics behind a dps decrease when dual-wielding?
To explain a little further, you have to attack with your right hand and then your left hand before you can use your right hand weapon again. So even though you're getting a net 15% increase in attack speed, each individual weapon is attacking much slower than if it was wielded alone. If your offhand does significantly less damage than your mainhand, you're going to lose dps.
I think it's easier to conceptualize the numbers in terms of seconds per attack instead of attacks per second so let's look at the two weapons he used (ignoring strength and the magic damages).
axe: 12-21 damage per attack * 1.39 attacks per second (23.0dps) club: 5-9 damage per attack * 1.2 attacks per second (8.4dps)
By themselves: axe: 16.5 damage every .72 seconds club: 7 damage every .833 seconds
With 15% dual wield bonus: axe: 16.5 damage every .626 seconds club: 7 damage every .725 seconds
Added together: 23.5 damage every 1.351 seconds = 17.39 dps (obviously lower than the 23.0 dps on the axe itself)
Disclaimer: might not be entirely accurate, but I think it's fundamentally correct.
EPT
