Are 2-handers obsolete?

[Cblade]

The current status quo of this game is dual-wielding above all else for melee damage. I have put together a small bit of information to see how others feel about this compared to 2-handers. When one talks about melee damage, they speak of a few things: accuracy, crit rate, attack speed, damage per swing, number of swings, tp gain and tp feed. Currently, even after the update, dual-wielders win in all but 1 category. Dual-wielder jobs have higher dexterity in gear and thus have higher accuracy and critical hit rate. They hit for, on average, ~60-110% of the damage of a 2-hander per swing (the low end variability in 2-handers on high def mobs is lower than the high end variability of 1-handed swords on the same mobs). They then hit twice per attack round for 1.2-2x the dot of a 2-hander.
The gear for these jobs normally has much higher TA and QA than the gear for 2-handers, meaning they hit even more often. The ws's on dual-wielders get an auto-DA and have higher accuracy due to it. Certain ws's, namely CDC hit harder with low damage and far worse-geared dual-wielder jobs than much better geared 2-handers at a much higher tp. A 2-hander with 250-300+ dmg and higher attack with 2-3x the tp can easily be beaten in damage by a worse-geared dual-wielder using CDC and a sword with 150 or so power at 100 tp. This is seen even more easily on higher defense enemies (namely most enemies people fight currently) since the critical part of the ws allows it to do more damage to higher defense enemies.
The tp buff given to 1-handed weapons (and thus amplified by having dual-wield) allows them to get tp as fast, and sometimes faster due to attack rate than 2-handed jobs. This allows them to ws as fast as 2-handers and many times hit harder in the ws. This tp buff was an ~16-19% free stp buff on low delay weapons and an ~0-1% increase in stp for high delay weapons (poor scythe).
In all, 2-handers hit slower, hit for less damage per attack round, get tp ~same amount, hit for less in weapon skills, are less accurate, miss by default 2x as many ws's even if they have the same accuracy, and have a lower critical rate. The only area they win in is tp feed.
So I ask, "Are 2-handers obsolete?"...

[dasva]

Wait I'm really curious how you are having swing for swing 1hd weapons doing potentially more than 2hd weapons on same mobs? Especially when as far as we know they use the same pdif formulas but 2hds have both higher ratio caps and higher attack to begin with.

[cengeal]

Obsolete is a strong word. Valuable is probably a better choice. But the answer is no, they are not valuable. Anything they can do well, a dual wielder can do better. The large amounts of accuracy on 2-handed JSE weapons from Oboro was a step in the right direction. But that's all it was: a step. A lot of the WS's need to be adjusted (looking at you Drakesbane). Accuracy ratio needs to be adjusted.

However, one thing could possibly help more: introducing better grips. A lot of the grips they add in updates just suck. It makes you wonder why they added them in the first place. I think the most amount of accuracy on a grip is +10. If you double this to +20, then maybe the accuracy from your weapon and grip can match the amount from a set of daggers or swords. This is not including the JSE weapons, as they are single weapons and the amount of accuracy they have is not the norm for that weapon type. This also does not include ARME's, because a weapon that takes over 2 months to obtain cannot be the norm.

[Cblade]

I normally assume that as well, but some testing I did with ~same attack as a blue (within 20-30 either way, can't remember who had more) but higher strength for a higher base damage yielded the low end variability of my GK under that of the high end variability of the blue's swords. I realize that attack could have been a factor, but the difference was quite small and should not have been able to alter the results unless the variability was already very close.

I do agree that using the term obsolete versus less useful in near every way is a bit harsh, but maybe the wording will get attention for a discussion on it.

[dasva]

Are you trying to say you were comparing min dmgs of 2hd with max dmgs of swd...? Cause that's pretty poor for analyzing anything. Otherwise not really understanding what all those words are trying to get across. Anyways to get serious discussion should be using average for both or maybe max for both using similar attack amounts pre self buffs.

Unless this update really messed things up average melee hits for 2hders are much higher almost but not quite proportionate with their usually making each attack round slightly higher for dual wielders. Combine with sometimes faster attack speeds they've traditionally had slightly better melee dot. Meanwhile 2hders got better tp per attack round combined with more store tp/easier to make hit builds for greater ws frequency and they had better ws and just higher dmg from ~twice the base dmg.

From what I've seen most of that still holds up.... but tp gain rate differences are a bit closer and 1hd melee dot wins slightly more now thanks to more multi hit and slightly higher acc caps. As far as the crit rate and total acc... dex is really only a small part of that. Overall accuracy builds between melees are pretty similar now and well Ddex only matters much in small windows that we don't even know. Indeed before the big 1hd ws adjustment 2hd was still doing great. But then some 1hd ws got a huge boost and now 1hders have equivalent to outright better weaponskills. And not just better but better enough that they can still do more dmg despite using lower dmg weapons.

This attack update did help some... it definitely gave more to 2hrs than 1hdrs though gave the least to ranged and in fact for the first time in history of the game has put ranged pdif caps potentially lower than melee <.<. But not enough especially if they want an attack matters theme. And yeah 2hd weaponskills... and for that matter ranged too definitely need an update.

Another point that is easily overlooked is in a bizarre twist of fate in general 1hd jobs are better actually standing around AoE mobs. Physical AoEs haven't been the main issue for a long so while heavy gear does have more def it's pretty meh. Meanwhile light DD armor generally has more mdb and/or meva which are rather helpful for surviving and resisting debuffs