2 Hand weps, 1 hand, dual wield

[qOcOp]

Make it so 2 handers and dual wielding arent useless. everyone in d2 had sword and shield. thx.:coffee::coffee::coffee:

[stephan]

Eh no. Not everyone in D2 has a sword and a shield. Frenzy barbs are obviously dual wielding, Whirlers are usually 2 handed or dual wielding (e.g. BvCs) and many (PvP) sins dual wield. Zerkers, Concentrators and Wereform druids are often 2 handed as well. Spears Amazons are the only potential 2 handed build that isn't really played.

This only really leaves Paladins, but they have Holy Shield and Smite which puts a rather large advantage on having a shield.

Your premise is simply wrong.

[Dimmu]

Eh no. Not everyone in D2 has a sword and a shield. Frenzy barbs are obviously dual wielding, Whirlers are usually 2 handed or dual wielding (e.g. BvCs) and many (PvP) sins dual wield. Zerkers, Concentrators and Wereform druids are often 2 handed as well. Spears Amazons are the only potential 2 handed build that isn't really played.

This only really leaves Paladins, but they have Holy Shield and Smite which puts a rather large advantage on having a shield.

Your premise is simply wrong.

Zerkers, Conc barbs, and werewolves should never use 2 handed weapons. The bonus of having a shield far outweighs any advantage of 2 handed weapons. Only exception being an eth zodded ribcracker for a wolfer, but shield is still preferred in most cases. Dual wielding is great, but only 2 chars can use it (barb, assassin).
There's an easy solution to making 2-handed weapons useful, though. Just enable blocking for them and buff up their damage dealing potential. Maybe even add some 2-handed only skills.

[Brother Laz]

The problem isn't 2h weapons (though their modifiers usually sucked as well). The problem is 75% shield block = x4 survival.

Nerf block, problem fixed.

[stephan]

Zerkers, Conc barbs, and werewolves should never use 2 handed weapons.
This is simply plain wrong. Barbs and Wolves really don't need shields. With Zerk having block is even detrimental. A shaelled upped ribcracker beats any 1 hander for a PvM furywolf.

[Dimmu]

This is simply plain wrong. Barbs and Wolves really don't need shields. With Zerk having block is even detrimental. A shaelled upped ribcracker beats any 1 hander for a PvM furywolf.

LoL what D2 are you playing? I don't want to turn to arguing, unless maybe it's via PM, but on a pure Zerker, you absolutely NEED a shield and max block. Otherwise, when you're in the middle of combat (which a barb always will be), you're totally defenseless to any and all melee attacks being that your def is reduced to nada. There aren't many pure zerkers out there, but the ones that are would be employing suicide by fighting anything without a shield. Conc barbs are usually only built for melee duels.....i.e. shield=MUST.
And yes, a few wolfers out there use a ribcracker (usually eth zodded by the way) but it's much more effective to go either botdz/ss or griefz/ss, ribcrackers are just stylish. 75% block is way>a little extra damage. Not to mention the kind of other bonuses you get from shields. (35 dr anyone?)

But anyway, they could either nerf block all together like the above poster said, or enable some blocking potential for 2-handed weapons. Personally, I'd find more sense in being able to block with a gigantic sword than a 1 ft. diameter buckler.

[stephan]

LoL what D2 are you playing? I don't want to turn to arguing, unless maybe it's via PM, but on a pure Zerker, you absolutely NEED a shield and max block. Otherwise, when you're in the middle of combat (which a barb always will be), you're totally defenseless to any and all melee attacks being that your def is reduced to nada.
And what do you thinks happens when you combine a slow interruptible attack with 0 defense and max block? How many hits do you actually plan to land? Zerkers use warcries to be safe, not block.

There aren't many pure zerkers out there, but the ones that are would be employing suicide by fighting anything without a shield. Which means you have never played a zerker or don't know how to play one.

Conc barbs are usually only built for melee duels.....i.e. shield=MUST.
Conc barbs duel? That's quite a rare sight.

And yes, a few wolfers out there use a ribcracker (usually eth zodded by the way) but it's much more effective to go either botdz/ss or griefz/ss, ribcrackers are just stylish.
No, for PvM an upped Shaeled Ribcracker is better than Botd and Grief. You simply don't *need* block. 50% CB beats anything you can get from a Shield.

[Akse]

LoL what D2 are you playing? I don't want to turn to arguing, unless maybe it's via PM, but on a pure Zerker, you absolutely NEED a shield and max block Well actually I read from HC or barb forums that you can build a zerker with stacked some Integer physical damage reduce. When around 100 pdr and a few %DR items you get close to 0 damage when you have a merc wielding reaver so the monsters hit you with decrepify.

This way you don't have to think about block or hit recovery since all the hits you take are so low that you never go to hit rec. Almost all the normal hits won't do any damage to you and only thing that does are some Amped, aura strong bosses or such. Sounds pretty killer zerker for me.

[Cast_Raider]

Part of the problem is items. Grief is so ridiculously good, and deals roughly the same damage no matter what you put it in. So why not put it in a 1-hander?

Plus there's another issue: a shield is one of the best places to get elemental resistance. Depending on which character/build you're using, you may not be giving up much of anything.

Aside from that...yeah, blocking 75% is nice and maybe excessive. Hey, I have an idea. Maybe wearing a big blocking % shield should reduce your damage output by a proportionate amount.

Think about it. A whopping big tower shield should do more than slow down walk/run speed and stamina. It should reduce your 1-hander's damage. A big shield like that would be clumsy and awkward, you'd be tired and swinging slower, reacting slower, and twisting your torso around to swing would be slower.

Either that, or give blocking/resistance on some 2-handers. Or a significant damage bonus. At any rate, the barbarian should be completely unable to equip shields. It just isn't right. A big 2-hander or dual wield is the only appropriate thing. I want to hear that barb voice say "You've got to be kidding me" or some such thing when you try it.

[fatalend]

The insane damages of all of the weapons no matter what type was the problem. The fact that you could kill ridiculously fast even when using a shield with 75% block was the issue.

[Gigashadow]

I noticed that DIII has a parameter "amount of damage blocked". Shields may not be 100% block anymore.

I prefer my barbarians with 2 handers or dual wield, and these are the problems I saw:
most 2-handers have bad speeds, but their damage is barely higher. They are also considerably less effective on one-hit monsters.
Chance to block is huge. Defense given, or resistance, and any extra attributes from a shield are also pretty big. They easily compensate for a slow 2h weapon that hits a bit better.

I think 2h weapons should be a lot more powerful. More sockets, too... There should be a block modifier. Especially on 2h swords. They block just fine. Maces and axes not so much, so their block should be decreased... and go on from there, plenty of stuff to toy with.

And why are spears 100% 2h weapons? Plenty of spears are 1h weapons with a shield.

[Sylvanite]

We may see a Titan Quest style of shield use. First off, shields only block up to a certain amount of damage, when they do block. Second, there is a built in short cooldown on blocking. This keeps you from getting block-locked, but it also keeps shields from being completely dominant as a must have item.

The other thing that needs to happen, as people were saying, is a big boost to the stats of two hand weapons, or at least an adjustment...have some weapons designed to be defensive in nature just by their bonuses! Sure, shields should always make it easier to survive than using two weapons, but I'm sure somewhere along the line some warriors would have had mages craft them defensive off-hand weapons.

[Gigashadow]

Second, there is a built in short cooldown on blocking. This keeps you from getting block-locked, but it also keeps shields from being completely dominant as a must have item.Wow, I had no idea TQ had that, even though my char had a shield the whole time... it sounds like a nice feature to prevent block-locking, that was highly annoying at times.

Sure, shields should always make it easier to survive than using two weapons, but I'm sure somewhere along the line some warriors would have had mages craft them defensive off-hand weapons.That's somewhat debatable, anyway. For simple soldiers, shield is better. It's extremely easy to use. What does it cost to raise a block of wood/metal against an incoming danger?

But we are talking about great warriors here. The offhand weapon is often used as a block weapon, as well as a counter-attack weapon. Dual wield is a bit more versatile, because instead of having a large heavy shield that slows you down, you have two weapons, and if you can use them right, they may be a lot deadlier than a shield... there were some samurai that used a long sword and a short sword for blocking... Assassin in DII has block on dual wield, etc...

[Sylvanite]

Right on. I'm talking not necessarily about giving regular blue magic weapons defensive properties, but more along the line of having many more uniques and rares be designed with the idea that they could be used as a defensive offhand weapon.

To go right along with what you were saying, many warriors used such offhand weapons defensively. Between swashbucklers using a main-gauche primarily as defense and a means of disarming people, samurai using the offhand wakizashi, and many other examples, there is certainly a precedent for Blizzard to use.

I know I'm crossing worlds here, but D and D has many weapons that are designed to be offhand-defensive style weapons for dual wielders. A famous example would be the Drizzt using his weapon called "Twinkle" which specifically lets him allocate its magic towards defense instead of offense if he so desires.

It would be cool, as a dual wielder, to find a unique called something like "Knaak's Counter" which was intended to provide some defensive balance to your offensive style. Wizardspike from D2 with the casting stuff taken off and some melee enhancements instead would make an amazing offhand. It would still open up all of your skills that rely on dual wield, while providing massive defensive bonuses (namely 75 resist all).

[uzurpator]

The problem is, that Blizzard got the thing backwards when designing weapons.

2 handed weapons are IRL _faster_ then 1 handed. In real combat using bastard sword 2h > long sword + shield.

That is because the 2h user can attack before 1h/s user can swing one more time.

Two handed weapons should be much faster then 1 handed.

[Chukcharcoales]

I doubt Blizzard will allow one handed weapons combined with a shield to dominate over two handed or dual wielding in D3. They've learnt from D2 and WoW and will not make the same mistake, I hope.