Why Can't you use Grips when using H2H?

[Atomic_Skull]

You can't use grips with hand to hand because they don't count as 2handed weapons. They're teachnically dual-wielded 1-handed weapons - There's an invisible weapon in the offhand slot which is what gives you your second attack. As a result, you can't put anything there.

Hand to hand does not get the 2-handed attack/accuracy calculation, either. The game does not treat them as 2-handed weapons, simple as that.

2-handers were never "nerfed". They were initially considered weaker, so SE buffed them to 1 stat = 1 attack/accuracy. They decided that was too much and lowered it to 3 stat = 2 attack/accuracy. This is still above the original state. They buffed 2h, then they partially removed the buff.

The 2007 2H buff also made 2H weapons partially ignore defense and level difference, about a month later SE realized how overpowered this was (a couple 2H melee could mow down Fafnir in less than a minute) so they scaled this back (although 2H still have an advantage here) and lowered ACC/ATT to 4:3 instead of 1:1.

Grips were introduced with the initial 2H buff not later.