PoP Two handed weapons broken/badly itemized, details

[Kreugen]

In short, damn near every single two handed weapon in PoP, in every tier including the elemental planes, take a huge step backwards and are inferior to top end weapons in Luclin - which themselves were not significant upgrades over top end Velious weapons.

Boy am I tired of this subject.

Back when the two hander revamp was made, a large damage bonus was added to them to raise the minimum hit and make two handed weapons viable weapons with comparable damage output to other choices. However, there was a cutoff at 28 delay where this bonus ended - at 28 delay, the damage bonus jumps from 14 to 30's. The reason for this was a handful of kunark era weapons like the runed fighters staff or moss covered branch that would have gotten to0 much of a boost - so instead of fixing those items as they should have, they left this cutoff in that one day would come back to haunt them.

Well it has, here in PoP.

In short, any two handed weapon with a sub 28 delay is likely much worse off than one that gets the damage bonus, no matter how much better the ratio is.

.. and almost every single two handed weapon in the upper tier of the planes has a sub 28 delay. Apparently, the designers were thinking with the old rule of "faster = better" Well this was true before the revamp, however what they have done is completely broken these items. 40/25 uber two hander from Earth plane with incredible stats? Banked. 32/20 lance in air plane? Piece of shit. There are so many I gave up trying to get screenshots of them all for this post - please contribute what you can.

Compare - the goldenrod is 40/32 +3 disease. Thus a 40/25 weapon from the Plane of Earth with a much better ratio should rape it, right? Well it does not. In fact, the goldenrod from the pathetically wimpy cursed encounter in luclin is STILL the DPS king for knights.

Fix please.

Of course, its entirely possible that they don't mean any of this stuff to be an upgrade. That would make no sense whatsoever to me, but whatever.

At the very least this 28 delay cutoff nonsense makes things very confusing - how are we suppsed to know how good a weapon is without hours of research and logging? Its just too damn confusing.

[Cybsled]

Fully agreeing with Kruegan...the sub-28 delay is a relic of the kunark era back when moss branches and that ranger sword were creating whines. IMO the RFS was fine considering they made it monk only (It should have always been better then the T-staff considering where it dropped), but even that was considered too powerful as it was removed from the loot tables some months later.

Anything under 28 delay is essentially a fancy 1hander. Your DPS gets gimped, your stats get gimped, and the item gets a trip to the bank because it has no practical value for the raiding parties that actually got the thing.

We either need intelligent design around the current delay rules or a bending of the rules to accomidate the current low delay 2handers.

[oni]

heh

"goldenrod"

[Genado]

What I find even more troubling is that verant hasnt learned its damn lesson from putting PaL SK 2Hers on every fucking Uber Mob, and making them common as hell. Does every single pally/Sk in your guild have a goldenrod? I know Mine does. Does every one of your warriors have a bloodfrenzy? No way. This is Just as fucked up as what Kruegan started.

[Ceefo]

My biggest problem with the 2 handers I'm seeing is not the dly/dmg ratio although Kreugen makes great points here. For me, as a warrior, I cannot justify losing 125hp and stats to use one over a dual wielded 1hs combo.

The devs are still creating them like 1 handed weapons or using old guidelines. In order for them to be truly useful, they need to come pretty close to giving the same stat bonuses that a dual wielded 1hs combo will give you.

[monkaddict]

Ceefo unless you are the warrior serving as main tank the difference in stats between a good 2h and dual wielding is fucking pointless except for your Magelo cybercock profile. Any melee besides the MT wants to maximize DPS, and the difference between 8000 and 8075 hps, or 5-10 less on saves, will not make a noticeable difference in your survival rate. Hell even for MTs it could be argued that the significantly less riposte frequency could negate the lost stats with a 2h (assuming one can still hold aggro with similar ease). But I never played a MT warrior so I may be off on that last statement.

Kreugan's point is dead on, the fast 2h are a broken insult - but stop whining about the stats.

[Lydirn]

/agree Kruegen
This is especially frustrating to Knight classes since it seems they're incredibly gung ho on us using 2handers to get our DPS up.
I'd prefer a shield/1hander combo if the DPS didn't drop completely off the chart.
While I can't attest to using a Goldenrod, I can say that I've been using a Facesmasher from 2 expansions ago in favor of any 2hander I've seen drop in PoP, and it's frustrating.
Ideally, a 2hander should give an increase in damage for the huge AC and HP loss I'm undergoing, correct? The idea being that a Knight is sacrificing one of his defending arms in favor of swinging harder.
I hope the guys that do loot see this thread.
btw, Kruegen, have you parsed? would help to throw some hard data up on the boards for them to see.

[Samus Aran]

I think this is another one of those coding issues.
Where its easier to add a code than to remove it.
More quickfixes from those wonderful people who are at Sigil now.

[Iannis]

You could have just used "Search" and copy and pasted all previous rants about how ghey 2handers were into a new post, saved some trouble...

=)

[Kain of BotS]

I agree with kru...

The twohander weapon choices are flat out sad... Not only do the ratio of the PoP two handers blow... but the procs suck as well... The reason why I choose my Golden rod is 1) 150life tap proc (lure) and 2) its ratio.

Fix the two handers in PoP or let us use the sword of truth from seru

[Blackdoom]

don't be afraid to put a % mod on 2h slash/blunt/peirce.

and don't be afraid to add something other than boil/ing blood or a 150 dd tickle - you cock sucking mother fucking cowards you sit while you pee fuck you die. oh god see what you made me do? deep breath, deep breath... count to ten, count to ten... warm happy place, warm happy place.

[Sean]

While we're on the topic of weapons - where are the uber 1handers? We've seen this flood of 2 handers, yet jack shit for 1 handers. Also, if you tune these 2-handers to what they SHOULD be, they're just going to blow away everything else and it won't even be an option to not use them anymore. Please, put some thought into your freaking itemization.

[Furor Planedefiler]

Or rather lack of (useage).

At first glance of the weapons (Ornate Greatblade et al.) it would appear that the weapons are superb. Unfortunately for anybody that understands how the combat engine works and how DPS is meted out, the sub 28 delay kills almost every single one of these weapons.

I don't think the designers intended on laying out sub-par 2handers but instead just do not understand what exactly a damage bonus means/does.

I also don't know if I see them remedying this problem anytime soon. Instead what you'll probably see is this detail being given to some apprentice to go back in the DB and rework the ratios of all the 2handers that fall below the cut-off point to make them feasible.

shrug

[EQrandomname]

The only PoP 2hander that seems to match the Goldenrod so far is the Resplendent War Maul (51/37) which comes off the wimpy Vallon Zek. It parses about the same DPS as a GR or slightly better. Sad that Knight weapon progression currently stops with it due to the way bonus's are coded.

[Slaxor Sneakypants]

"you cock sucking mother fucking cowards you sit while you pee fuck you die"

...and that is why i quit the game. didnt want to end up like that :P