Blizzard has increased the speed reduction from 10% to 15% in last patch to make Heavenly strength less desirable.
Prior to that, they made 2-handed weapons slightly faster to improve wrath generation in an attempt to make 2-handed weapons more desirable, although they lowered damage so the dps would be approximately the same. This improves wrath gen very slighly, but lowers damage output from skills that work off of weapon damage. They also tweaked stats on 2H weapons to make them a little better, but it doesn't look like the adjustments closed mcu of the gap: dual-wielders and main hand+off-hand are still better than using 2-handed weapons in all but a few special cases.
They also reduced Akarrat's Champion cooldown from 120 seconds to 90 seconds. I think the direction they are going, they want you to take Akarrat's Champion and have it up for every fight, something that they are reducing with the other classes (WoTB for Barbarian, Archon for Wizard). This isn't helpful for build diversity, but that is the direction.
With only a few more weeks before launch, it is looking like Crusaders aren't going to be a desirable class once the novelty wears off: Crusaders are either going to move slow (they are making the steed cooldown longer again) and do damage on par with other classes or will move at the same pace and do less damage until they get a very specific set of crusader gear and use Akarrat's Champion.
I don't think there is any hate, helpme123. The issue is that the damage output of dual wielding is far better than that of a 2 hander when you do an apples-to-apples comparison. There are a few good legendary 2-handed weapons, but it is because of some legendary property, not the base stats.
For instance, if you had two perfect yellow/rare 1h axes versus the perfect rare 2h axe, the dual wielding will win every time. If my memory serves me correctly, a perfect pair will get roughly 25% more crit damage, more stats, faster swing time leading tofaster resource regen,and 15% built-in attack speed buff. In addition, if you have 2 separate procs that have an internal cooldown, you get them for each weapon versus the internal cooldown of 1 big weapon. The advantage of a big 2-handed weapon is skills that rely on weapon damage do more damage. That perk doesn't seem to compensate for the 1 handed perks in most situations. What players are asking for is to narrow the gap so that both are viable alternatives. You never see a well-equiped monk running around with a daibo, or well equiped barbarian run around with a 2-hander (except Skorn). When was the last time you saw a paragon 100 wizard run around with a staff?
Back to the original thread topic, to stay relatively competitive in terms of dps, crusaders need to use heavenly strength. A one-handed weapon and shield build gives none of the advantages above. You will get resources faster than a 2-hander, but slower than a dual wielder is good, but you aren't doing much damage with your swings and your skills aren't going to hit as hard since your weapon damage is so low. So you are being forced to take heavenly strength because this game is about killing monsters. And taking a low dps build with no real advantage is gimping the character.
So here are 2 ideas: reduce the dps gap between dual weilding and 2-handed attack styles, and let there be some viability in the non-heavenly strength builds.
Idea 1:
Since dual wield currently gets a 15% increase in speed, if we drop it to 10%, it will: -slows down secondary proc rate -reduces dps by about 5%
Then we lower the monsters hit points by 5% -Dual wield weapons kill the monster in about the same time -weapon + offhand kill the monsters about 5% faster than presently (may need some off-hand lowering of Crit Hit or average damage) -weapon and shield kill the monsters about 5% faster than currently, making them more viable -2 handed weapons kill the monsters about 5% faster than currently, making them more viable
Idea 2: reduce the weakness of 1 hander + shield by making it more survivable Monk and Barbarian are considered close range, and thus get 30% damage reduction to attacks Witch Doctor and Crusader are considered mid-range. Witch Doctor has Jungle Fortitude Passive which reduces all damage taken by 15%. Crusader doesn't get damage reduction. Wizard and Demon Hunter are considered long range, and thus get 0% damage reduction
A logical passive would be for a Crusaders using 1 hand weapon to have 15% damage reduction (same as WD) or just make it an inherent class attribute that occurs when they aren't using a 2-hander. A crusader that takes 15% less damage may not kill monsters quickly, but he will not die as often to elites or higher levels.
It is just an idea. It probably has plenty of holes in it that I am hoping someone will point out.
So there are two choices: make a 2-hander in 1hand less desirable or make the 1-hander & shield more viable.
Assuming that Blizzard development is happy with the current dps output of crusaders now (the baseline), reducing the desirability would move more people away from heavenly strength, which would lower the baseline, requiring them to retune crusader dps entirely. They have a lot of issues they need to fix to hit their launch date, so I think they would look for the quickest and simplest fix, if one is available. The easier routes would be:
Give 1-handers their own benefit under heavenly strength, as Xiam points out
Make 1-handed flails more powerful than other 1-handed weapons (being Crusader only, they won't get abused by dual wielders).
Given that option 1 allows for the most diversity of weapons, I would put that as the most likely solution.
Giving it some thought, I like"improve your block % by X" or "improve the amount you block by Y%" or "reduce damage taken by Z%" --This would allow you to become more turtle-like (more survivability at the cost of less damage output and speed).
Just my 2 cents, as I am not in the ROS beta. What I see from the weapons, it appears to me that the Crusader's one-handed flail legendaries will be the new insta-brimstone unless the Blizzard team gives it a whole lot of lovin'.
Given the stats of shields and crusader shields don't add damage (unlike WD and Wizard off-hands), it is hard to justify a 1H when using heavenly strength + 2H is so much more powerful. An example of what would narrow the gap would be the ability to roll 2 gem sockets (like skywarden) on 1H flails or other crusader affixes that strengthen it beyond what you would get in the rest of the weapons that dropped (I am thinking of the thorn axe).
Another solution would be to allow heavenly strength to give 1H weapons some advantage much like the barbarian's passive weapon mastery: Perhaps wrath on hit or increase in crit hit %. I am not involved to know what would make 1 handed flails viable, but I do see that this combo is undertuned and therefore few will use it for a comparable 2H weapon. The problem seems to be masked by most (all?) of the level 70 crusaders using heavenly strength.
edit: inserted the word "don't" in para 2, sentence 1
Blizzard has increased the speed reduction from 10% to 15% in last patch to make Heavenly strength less desirable.
Prior to that, they made 2-handed weapons slightly faster to improve wrath generation in an attempt to make 2-handed weapons more desirable, although they lowered damage so the dps would be approximately the same. This improves wrath gen very slighly, but lowers damage output from skills that work off of weapon damage. They also tweaked stats on 2H weapons to make them a little better, but it doesn't look like the adjustments closed mcu of the gap: dual-wielders and main hand+off-hand are still better than using 2-handed weapons in all but a few special cases.
They also reduced Akarrat's Champion cooldown from 120 seconds to 90 seconds. I think the direction they are going, they want you to take Akarrat's Champion and have it up for every fight, something that they are reducing with the other classes (WoTB for Barbarian, Archon for Wizard). This isn't helpful for build diversity, but that is the direction.
With only a few more weeks before launch, it is looking like Crusaders aren't going to be a desirable class once the novelty wears off: Crusaders are either going to move slow (they are making the steed cooldown longer again) and do damage on par with other classes or will move at the same pace and do less damage until they get a very specific set of crusader gear and use Akarrat's Champion.
-slows down secondary proc rate
-reduces dps by about 5% Then we lower the monsters hit points by 5%
-Dual wield weapons kill the monster in about the same time
-weapon + offhand kill the monsters about 5% faster than presently (may need some off-hand lowering of Crit Hit or average damage)
-weapon and shield kill the monsters about 5% faster than currently, making them more viable
-2 handed weapons kill the monsters about 5% faster than currently, making them more viable Idea 2: reduce the weakness of 1 hander + shield by making it more survivable
Monk and Barbarian are considered close range, and thus get 30% damage reduction to attacks
Witch Doctor and Crusader are considered mid-range. Witch Doctor has Jungle Fortitude Passive which reduces all damage taken by 15%. Crusader doesn't get damage reduction.
Wizard and Demon Hunter are considered long range, and thus get 0% damage reduction A logical passive would be for a Crusaders using 1 hand weapon to have 15% damage reduction (same as WD) or just make it an inherent class attribute that occurs when they aren't using a 2-hander. A crusader that takes 15% less damage may not kill monsters quickly, but he will not die as often to elites or higher levels. It is just an idea. It probably has plenty of holes in it that I am hoping someone will point out.
- Give 1-handers their own benefit under heavenly strength, as Xiam points out
- Make 1-handed flails more powerful than other 1-handed weapons (being Crusader only, they won't get abused by dual wielders).
Given that option 1 allows for the most diversity of weapons, I would put that as the most likely solution. Giving it some thought, I like"improve your block % by X" or "improve the amount you block by Y%" or "reduce damage taken by Z%" --This would allow you to become more turtle-like (more survivability at the cost of less damage output and speed).Just my 2 cents, as I am not in the ROS beta. What I see from the weapons, it appears to me that the Crusader's one-handed flail legendaries will be the new insta-brimstone unless the Blizzard team gives it a whole lot of lovin'.
Given the stats of shields and crusader shields don't add damage (unlike WD and Wizard off-hands), it is hard to justify a 1H when using heavenly strength + 2H is so much more powerful. An example of what would narrow the gap would be the ability to roll 2 gem sockets (like skywarden) on 1H flails or other crusader affixes that strengthen it beyond what you would get in the rest of the weapons that dropped (I am thinking of the thorn axe).
Another solution would be to allow heavenly strength to give 1H weapons some advantage much like the barbarian's passive weapon mastery: Perhaps wrath on hit or increase in crit hit %. I am not involved to know what would make 1 handed flails viable, but I do see that this combo is undertuned and therefore few will use it for a comparable 2H weapon. The problem seems to be masked by most (all?) of the level 70 crusaders using heavenly strength.
edit: inserted the word "don't" in para 2, sentence 1