So a lot of people have been complaining that dual crossbows are somehow going to be worse than a single big crossbow because abilities won't do as much damage, they wouldn't be able to use a shield, etc, etc. I wanted to take a quick look at this and see if it's true.
The biggest factor to keep in mind is that, yes, each individual shot with the Demon Hunter does less damage with dxbow, but you also fire about twice as fast. With the addition of hatred generating skills, this will, after the patch, eliminate these problems. Basically you will be able to fire two Impales in X amount of time that each do about half the damage of one Impale fired with a normal full crossbow. If you have a skill that generates a lot of hatred, or, take the passive that generates a lot of hatred, you should be fine in this regard.
The 15% increase in attack speed for double xbows is going to make them almost twice the speed of a standard crossbow which will give you a lot less wasted damage on targets that don't need the full hit. The most efficient way to do damage is quickly in small chunks as opposed to huge amounts slowly.
I plan on getting the two fastest crossbows I can find, loading them up and trying to see how fast I can shoot under the best circumstances. I'm thinking Shadow Power, Rapid Fire with Dual Crossbows. That's going to be as close to a machine gun as this game gets!
I haven't run math on overall dps but I am sure that the double amount of hate regeneration being dumped into hate spenders has to help over time for added damage and more importantly way way more added spell effects and procs.
what im wondering is if you have a 1.80 APS crossbow in one hand, and a 2.00 APS crossbow in the other, if you will be getting the maximum amount of shots out. the slower weapon takes more frames to shoot, which after a period of time would slightly delay the faster one. yes, no?
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(this build was before D3 launched... looking back on it now - i had no idea what i was doing)
I had a databse problem. Gonna see it, run numbers again, and post here.
It turns out that pistols are better then i expected. Just to point out in any case: the bonus from dual wielding is 15% attack speed, not 100%. So you do not attack twice as fast for using two weapons (you attack 1.15 as fast).
what im wondering is if you have a 1.80 APS crossbow in one hand, and a 2.00 APS crossbow in the other, if you will be getting the maximum amount of shots out. the slower weapon takes more frames to shoot, which after a period of time would slightly delay the faster one. yes, no?
It's not that simple to determine whether dual wield or 2h weapons are better, or in which cases one is better. There's actually quite a few factors to consider even with the Hatred Generator/Spender system.
Here I've made a pretty comprehensive list.
1h Weapons:
PRO:
Flat +damage favors 1h weapons.
Flat +life on hit (and other flat bonuses) favor 1h weapons.
Less Overkill
Dual Wielding gives +15% Attack Speed
Higher base attack speed means more utility skills.*
CON:
Attack speed improves Active resource regen, but not passive resource regen.**
Attack speed does not change skill cooldowns, which means high cooldown attacks will contribute less DPS.
Dual Wielding a bad offhand weapon lowers your dps
2h Weapons:
PRO:
+APS bonuses favor 2h weapons.
Legendary Offhand Quivers give +12~13% Attack Speed, offsetting the Dual Wield bonus, at least for Demon Hunters.
High base damage improves the damage resulting from both active and passive resource regen, unlike high attack speed.
High Cooldown attacks deal more damage
Only need to get one weapon with perfect stats
CON:
More Overkill
Less attack speed means fewer utility skills
*Assuming that skill attack speed is proportional to weapon attack speed
**Passive resource regen is resources you get over time. Active resource regen is resources you get from using skills.
CONCLUSION:
ASSUMING that skill attack speed is proportional to weapon attack speed...2h weapons do more damage, while dual wielding gets you more flat healing/resource regen on hit bonuses, and more utility skills (heals, snares, etc...)
You can't really compare the base 15% bonus on dual wielding to a legendary quiver. If you have legendary or set hand crossbows, they have a significant increase in attack speed as well, so it's not something that "balances it out" unless you plan on only ever using crappy hand crossbows and using legendary everything else.
And if skill attack speed isn't directly related to weapon speed, that's just all kinds of screwed up. I cannot imagine that it wouldn't be linked, because if it's not and only auto-attacks are related to weapon speed, you'd either never use skills, or get the slowest weapon possible because it would do the most damage.
I don't think your conclusion that 2 handed weapons do more damage is accurate. I think that both are going to be pretty similar, I think it's going to come down to how useful the 15% speed bonus is to determine exactly how DH's play. But I have to expect that, since all the DH sets are based on pistol crossbows, that they will make them competitive with anything else, or why force people into using them?
You can't really compare the base 15% bonus on dual wielding to a legendary quiver. If you have legendary or set hand crossbows, they have a significant increase in attack speed as well, so it's not something that "balances it out" unless you plan on only ever using crappy hand crossbows and using legendary everything else.
Equipping a 1h crossbow in mainhand and a 1h crossbow in the offhand gives you a +15% attack speed bonus. Equipping a legendary quiver along with your 2h weapon gives you a 12~13% attack speed bonus. They are very much comparable.
And if skill attack speed isn't directly related to weapon speed, that's just all kinds of screwed up. I cannot imagine that it wouldn't be linked, because if it's not and only auto-attacks are related to weapon speed, you'd either never use skills, or get the slowest weapon possible because it would do the most damage.
"Not proportional to" does not mean "is not affected by".
And last I heard, testing on one of the Barbarian's attacks indicated that its speed had some constant attack speed modifier, making it not proportional to weapon attack speed.
I don't think your conclusion that 2 handed weapons do more damage is accurate.
Mind giving any factual reasons? I have plenty in my post. Higher base DPS on 2h weapons, more damage from cooldown attacks, as well as greater opportunity cost for using resources on utility skills. All these make 2h weapons favor damage over utility.
First off, you cannot compare a default bonus for having an item equipped like the 15% bonus for dual crossbows to the best bonus on a legendary item. It's not comparable at all. On the legendary item you get that 12-13% bonus and a couple other random effects. On a level 60 set or legendary pistol crossbow you get things like +30% damage, +60% crit, etc. If your comparison is between the quiver or two legendary pistol crossbows, the biggest advantage of the quiver is already being nullifed by the default bonus of dual wielding and all the other bonuses on your weapons are gravy. Some of the exact calculations will have to wait until we know exactly what kinds of random bonuses quivers give you, but for now, it's basically like losing 4 random slots for the ability to have a firing rate bonus slightly lower than dual crossbows.
As far as the higher base damage from cooldown attacks, you could be correct about that, but that's not a good argument for the two handed weapon doing more damage. It's an argument that's saying if you take a build that's designed for a two handed weapon and give that build dual pistols, it's not going to do as well, which I can certainly agree on. The skill choices each of these builds would choose will be different. Dual crossbows will want more crit, more crit damage, and more attack damage, 2H crossbows or bows will want attack speed and ways to increase hatred regen so they can use their damaging attacks more often.
I also don't understand where you are getting your information that two handers have a higher base DPS, the highest level hand crossbow does ~168-190DPS by default whereas the highest level crossbow does 171-183 and the highest level bow does 164-181. How is that higher base DPS than the hand crossbow? Is there something I'm missing, or are you basing your numbers off different kinds of items? You wanted me to quote specifics, there are your specifics. The highest level item of each of those classes and the one with the highest base DPS is the hand crossbow.
I'm not saying you can't make a build that would exploit the benefits of having a crossbow instead of dual hand crossbows, but I just don't see any basis for saying it's better. It's just a matter of playstyle, just like everything else.
I appreciate the input though and I think you've made several good points and you are absolutely right about regen favoring slower weapons and cooldown skills probably being better for them, but I suspect dual crossbow builds won't use those skills as much and will look to other skills that are more direct damage to compensate. I certainly agree that quivers are going to make other weapons viable, one thing I can also say is that all my arguments are subject to change the moment we start finding out about affixes that are going to appear on these items.
So, all in all, dualwielding is faster than one big weapon, but it does approximately the same DPS?
Big news.
No. 2h weapons are better for cooldown skills and dual wielding is better for utility (non-damaging) skills and skill effects. Also 2hs are better with +APS bonuses and dual wielding is better with flat +damage and other flat bonuses like +healing on hit.
First off, you cannot compare a default bonus for having an item equipped like the 15% bonus for dual crossbows to the best bonus on a legendary item. It's not comparable at all. On the legendary item you get that 12-13% bonus and a couple other random effects. On a level 60 set or legendary pistol crossbow you get things like +30% damage, +60% crit, etc. If your comparison is between the quiver or two legendary pistol crossbows, the biggest advantage of the quiver is already being nullifed by the default bonus of dual wielding and all the other bonuses on your weapons are gravy.
They are absolutely not gravy. We know that at the very least, +elemental damage bonuses only apply to the weapon they're on, and not your other weapon. If any other stats follow this pattern, it significantly weakens offhand pistols.
I also don't understand where you are getting your information that two handers have a higher base DPS, the highest level hand crossbow does ~168-190DPS by default whereas the highest level crossbow does 171-183 and the highest level bow does 164-181. How is that higher base DPS than the hand crossbow? Is there something I'm missing, or are you basing your numbers off different kinds of items? You wanted me to quote specifics, there are your specifics. The highest level item of each of those classes and the one with the highest base DPS is the hand crossbow.
I was basing that on the beta items. I guess the trend doesn't continue at high levels. Also, you should compare weapons of the same quality and same number of random properties. Right now hand xbows are only better because they're set items and there aren't any set bows or xbows listed.
I'm not saying you can't make a build that would exploit the benefits of having a crossbow instead of dual hand crossbows, but I just don't see any basis for saying it's better. It's just a matter of playstyle, just like everything else.
I have a basis for saying it's better because it has particular benefits, as you mention. Whether that requires a particular playstyle is beyond the issue. I'm just listing the relative advantages of each weapon. And like I said, 2h weapons get more benefit from passive resource regen than dual wielding at the very least.
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The biggest factor to keep in mind is that, yes, each individual shot with the Demon Hunter does less damage with dxbow, but you also fire about twice as fast. With the addition of hatred generating skills, this will, after the patch, eliminate these problems. Basically you will be able to fire two Impales in X amount of time that each do about half the damage of one Impale fired with a normal full crossbow. If you have a skill that generates a lot of hatred, or, take the passive that generates a lot of hatred, you should be fine in this regard.
The 15% increase in attack speed for double xbows is going to make them almost twice the speed of a standard crossbow which will give you a lot less wasted damage on targets that don't need the full hit. The most efficient way to do damage is quickly in small chunks as opposed to huge amounts slowly.
I plan on getting the two fastest crossbows I can find, loading them up and trying to see how fast I can shoot under the best circumstances. I'm thinking Shadow Power, Rapid Fire with Dual Crossbows. That's going to be as close to a machine gun as this game gets!
http://www.diablofans.com/topic/30178-can-demon-hunter-use-a-1h-xbow-and-shield/page__view__findpost__p__694630
I haven't run math on overall dps but I am sure that the double amount of hate regeneration being dumped into hate spenders has to help over time for added damage and more importantly way way more added spell effects and procs.
I had a databse problem. Gonna see it, run numbers again, and post here.
It turns out that pistols are better then i expected. Just to point out in any case: the bonus from dual wielding is 15% attack speed, not 100%. So you do not attack twice as fast for using two weapons (you attack 1.15 as fast).
1.8 and 1.8 with 15% gives us 2.07 attacks per second
using a regular 1 hand bow main hand and 3% increased attack speed off
1.8 and 1.85 with 15% still gives us 2.07 attacks per second
using a 3% increased attack 1 hand bow main hand and regular 1 hand off
1.85 and 1.80 with 15% still gives us 2.13 attacks per second
using 1 hand bow main hand and shield off
1.8 and shield = 1.8 attacks per second
so use your fastest bow in main hand for bonus. (not sure if this is a bug in ui since dps does not change at all, will report it and see.)
Here I've made a pretty comprehensive list.
1h Weapons:
PRO:
2h Weapons:
PRO:
*Assuming that skill attack speed is proportional to weapon attack speed
**Passive resource regen is resources you get over time. Active resource regen is resources you get from using skills.
CONCLUSION:
ASSUMING that skill attack speed is proportional to weapon attack speed...2h weapons do more damage, while dual wielding gets you more flat healing/resource regen on hit bonuses, and more utility skills (heals, snares, etc...)
And if skill attack speed isn't directly related to weapon speed, that's just all kinds of screwed up. I cannot imagine that it wouldn't be linked, because if it's not and only auto-attacks are related to weapon speed, you'd either never use skills, or get the slowest weapon possible because it would do the most damage.
I don't think your conclusion that 2 handed weapons do more damage is accurate. I think that both are going to be pretty similar, I think it's going to come down to how useful the 15% speed bonus is to determine exactly how DH's play. But I have to expect that, since all the DH sets are based on pistol crossbows, that they will make them competitive with anything else, or why force people into using them?
"Not proportional to" does not mean "is not affected by".
And last I heard, testing on one of the Barbarian's attacks indicated that its speed had some constant attack speed modifier, making it not proportional to weapon attack speed.
Mind giving any factual reasons? I have plenty in my post. Higher base DPS on 2h weapons, more damage from cooldown attacks, as well as greater opportunity cost for using resources on utility skills. All these make 2h weapons favor damage over utility.
As far as the higher base damage from cooldown attacks, you could be correct about that, but that's not a good argument for the two handed weapon doing more damage. It's an argument that's saying if you take a build that's designed for a two handed weapon and give that build dual pistols, it's not going to do as well, which I can certainly agree on. The skill choices each of these builds would choose will be different. Dual crossbows will want more crit, more crit damage, and more attack damage, 2H crossbows or bows will want attack speed and ways to increase hatred regen so they can use their damaging attacks more often.
I also don't understand where you are getting your information that two handers have a higher base DPS, the highest level hand crossbow does ~168-190DPS by default whereas the highest level crossbow does 171-183 and the highest level bow does 164-181. How is that higher base DPS than the hand crossbow? Is there something I'm missing, or are you basing your numbers off different kinds of items? You wanted me to quote specifics, there are your specifics. The highest level item of each of those classes and the one with the highest base DPS is the hand crossbow.
I'm not saying you can't make a build that would exploit the benefits of having a crossbow instead of dual hand crossbows, but I just don't see any basis for saying it's better. It's just a matter of playstyle, just like everything else.
I appreciate the input though and I think you've made several good points and you are absolutely right about regen favoring slower weapons and cooldown skills probably being better for them, but I suspect dual crossbow builds won't use those skills as much and will look to other skills that are more direct damage to compensate. I certainly agree that quivers are going to make other weapons viable, one thing I can also say is that all my arguments are subject to change the moment we start finding out about affixes that are going to appear on these items.
Big news.
They are absolutely not gravy. We know that at the very least, +elemental damage bonuses only apply to the weapon they're on, and not your other weapon. If any other stats follow this pattern, it significantly weakens offhand pistols.
I was basing that on the beta items. I guess the trend doesn't continue at high levels. Also, you should compare weapons of the same quality and same number of random properties. Right now hand xbows are only better because they're set items and there aren't any set bows or xbows listed.
I have a basis for saying it's better because it has particular benefits, as you mention. Whether that requires a particular playstyle is beyond the issue. I'm just listing the relative advantages of each weapon. And like I said, 2h weapons get more benefit from passive resource regen than dual wielding at the very least.