What do 2 handers SPECIFICALLY need? Case by Case?

Grim Dawn Ideas and Feedback
1

This thread will carry the spirit of this thread: http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=81779&page=13

in a more useful manner.

If you want really nuanced solutions instead of an over-reaching buff (which maybe 2 handers could use?) then you need to look at each legendary/MI 2 hander, figure out the best possible build they intuitively fit into, and then write what that build lacks for using a 2 hander instead of other weapons.

We have some strong 2 hander builds. Ultos set, Sharzul, etc. But some canā€™t even compare.

If you can A. Show that a 2 hander makes a build significantly worse than a non 2 hander variant of it, and B. point out why/what could change that, then Z will be more likely to implement a change.

The guy has a ton to think about and we can talk about generalized 2hander problems for ages in hope of an-over-arching buff or set of buffs (which on some level might be warranted) but doing it case by case might also be of value.

My suggestion is you format posts as:

2 hander name.
Link to grim tools

Link to grim tools of best build it fits into
List out why itā€™s worse than non 2 handers versions or non functional.

List out what you would add to fix it. Including potential skill modifiers.

2

Mythical Leviathan
https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/9432

Build
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/d2jqDbvN
or
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/p253GBBZ

Suggestions: Add small attack speed bonus (something under 10%) and tighten up that damage range to make it more consistent.

It is mostly an issue of sustain, as dual wielding in a build like this just helps you stay alive more consistently. This build really shines until fumble debuff hits and then the inconsistent damage makes it very difficult to get back in shape. This is compounded if you have -attack speed debuffs.

3

Also on the topic of mythical Leviathan, compare what youā€™re trading off with the above blademaster compared to a similar DW Beronath one:

  • The whole line of NB WPS, including execution, which hits almost as hard as cadence on top of your actual Cadence.
  • A second component/augment slot, which costs flexibility.
  • Your PB cooldown is double, making it weaker as an emergency button and as a source of sustain.
  • A big chunk of attack speed, which makes fumble all the more painful, as bystander noted.
  • You donā€™t have the advantage of 100% elemental and chaos conversion (an even bigger deal on Witchblade).

In exchange, youā€™re getting Menhirā€™s Will, ~200% more physical damage, 8% phys res, 10% more critical damage, and freeze resist. Weapon damage on a DW hit is about on par with Leviathan, while being far more consistent. If the lower end of Leviathanā€™s damage range was pulled up significantly, to around 1/3 of the max damage value, it would already do wonders for its consistency. As itā€™s nominally an ABB weapon, maybe add some marginal CDR to it, or the above suggestion of a little attack speed.

As an aside, a lot of the good 2-handers are forcewave weapons. Stonefist Rebuke is solid, Arcanor and Sharā€™zul are both excellent. It seems like a combination of not being hampered by fumble and having cast speed scaling instead of attack speed. All of them also have much tighter damage ranges than the AA ones. Compare 130-812 on Leviathan to 252-568 on Stonefist Rebuke.

4

Yeah, everything you said is part of the reason DW for both of those builds is true. Honestly it seems to me that the most reasonable change would be to make components double in efficacy when placed on a 2h weapon and to pull up the minimum damages. That would probably be enough to place them at least close enough to DW to not feel completely outpaced. There is the additional problem of wps skills like markovianā€™s actually reducing 2h dps, though Iā€™m not sure how much that has changed with the new animations. Still, Everything about the DW build you posted is better. There are essentially no upsides to playing with the 2h build other than aesthetic.

The 2h weapons that seem to be designed for forcewave are indeed good and Iā€™m not sure I could say they need any sort of buff/change. I suppose itā€™s important to clarify that in most cases the 2h weapons that feel outclassed are 2h melee weapons.

5

Sorry, donā€™t have any specific builds in mind but hereā€™s a few opinions from a 2H-only player. :slight_smile:

Mastery-wise, 2H kinda sucks at times. 2H savagery is great with the transmuter, so is forcewave and PS. But then you have Word of Renewalā€™s 2H transmuter which only reduces a 15s CD to 12s. Why?

Gear-wise, items like Titan Pauldrons (https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/9207) are great. But they tend to be limited to a few damage types, mostly physical. Thereā€™s more to 2H builds than Shaman/Soldier, guys.

Soulrend
https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/9433

Great item, but potential for more. It should really have some support for necromancer, if only because itā€™s a freaking scythe for grim reaper cosplaying. Not to mention the flavor text ā€œā€¦devourer of soulsā€. Plus 2H bone harvest exists, with the awesome cold transmuter. Incidentally, necromancer supports cold in DE and BH, but thereā€™s no -% cold res to be found, not even in the chillwhisper set. A +1 to necro would be cool, just like Bane of the Winter King has +1 Shaman.

Rancor
https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/11701
Nadaanā€™s Reach
https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/12700

Love them both, but they are too similar in my opinion. TWO new swords and they both support only pierce? Remember that the pierce canā€™t be converted to anything else either. How about cold/acid RoS or ABB. Missed potential there, I know pierce needed support but why two NB pierce swords? Why not pierce RoH infil, or pierce forcewave soldier, for example.

Alkamos Scythe
https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/8768
Alkamos Warsword
https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/8774

The warsword is the real star of the show with the conversion on PB, this opens up so many build possibilities. On top of already supporting the OK mastery. The Scytheā€¦ just kinda gives you blitz. And not much else. Some other crazy conversion would be nice, or at least another modifier.

Honorary mention to Cesarinā€™s Conviction
https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/8795

ā€œ50% Lightning Damage converted to Physical Damageā€
Clearly meant to support physical. But the weapon has 25% armor piercing that you canā€™t get rid of. Self-inflicted debuff? :rolleyes:

6

Since I like incorporating caster skills into melee build.

Blazerush: https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/7739 design of this seems to want grenado to be incorporated into a melee build since there is no casting speed and low conversion to fire for grenado (only conduit for pierce and nothing else for full phys to fire afaik). Point starvation does not allow melee + grenado points.

Build: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/lV76dAd2 Veretragna build already does respectable time of averaging under 8 min (but it is not elementalist so keep this in mind!). I am only asking for thematic purposes so that it is actually worth using grenado at least once every 5-10 seconds and will only be a minor damage boost.

Currently grenado does less damage than a single melee hit. Average melee hit on savagery does ~390% WD with average sheet flat fire dmg of 460, so total average fire dmg per hit is 1794. On the typical blazerush elementalist with one point into grenado line for 10/7/8 grenado would do average total fire damage of 322 (from %WD) + 710 fire and 500 burn which is 1532. Less than a single melee hit and it takes at least 5 seconds to realise all the damage.

My suggestion is to add ~1200 burn damage over 5 second to grenado. This will only make using grenado better than a single melee hit by only a mere ~50% or so; since it is only once every 5-10 second the overall dps boost would be low (but at least Elementalist would have a use for grenado).

Mythical Adversary: https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/9402 The design of this is so bizarre I wonā€™t do any GD math because itā€™s too long winded :eek:. The item has 0 speed, low + all skill relative to other weapon, mismatched weapon damage to grenado and canister etcā€¦

7

Hellborne https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/9404 probably needs some phys > fire conversion but I am not even sure fire retal is even possible/worth doing which is a topic for another thread. Oh and it also needs more flat fire damage on it, the base flat fire is puny.

8

+1. Could we please get a buff to Soulrend (along with purple Alkamos rings, but thatā€™s a topic for another thread) for reapers? Could just be a + to the Soul Harvest skill.

Besides this, a dedicated cold reaper set that provides cold RR to say Ill Omen or Spectral Wrath would be cool. Iā€™m bummed that the Chillwhisper set is yet another Inquisitor-based set instead of this.

9

I think Soulrend is fine personally. Not sure how it could support reaper without becoming better for something else tho.

Part of the problem is definitely broad, 2-handers not being able to survive/sustain as well as dualwieldersā€¦ but they also seem to struggle to clear as fast or do as much dps in a lot of casesā€¦

Blazerush: I agree with comments above and also feel it could use -% targetā€™s damage for 3 seconds. Vireā€™s Might builds tend to be on the squishier side and because you need to actually charge through enemies to do dmg it puts you at a lot of risk. Dmg reduction to enemies would help it a lot.

Mythical Stonefist Rebuke: https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/9422
At 6 seconds its nuke could actually be even stronger. The FW soldier build I saw for it did like 11 minute Crucibleā€¦ I like soldier builds being a bit slower but I also donā€™t know if physical Vireā€™s might is a good direction for this.

Venomlance: https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/8755 You could up the %weapon dmg on the proc, the chance to proc, maybe just have higher weapon dmg.

Mythical Obsidian Juggernaut: https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/9425
Bonus ability could do more dmg/weapon dmg, health bonus could be higher, cast speed could be higher. If the weapon is going to get a spam ability it might as well shine around it. It would really benefit from some built-in stun resist.

I wish I could add more boys but I havenā€™t played with the rest recently as I keep hearing that two-handers are still bad.

One might also suggest that non-twohander slots could use more passive bonuses like titan pauldrons have, to give 2-hander only passives. There are a couple belts that do this but probably room for more. Itā€™d be interesting to see on some rings, or maybe on some tankier underused legendaries.

10

In my opinion, a large part is the just general slowness for 2H melees. 2H ranged has some tricks to bypass this (Shot winddown animation can be canceled, letting you move to kite, and you can even start another attack during it. Fun little thing is ranged Thunderous primal+Savagery effectively letting you break the AS cap by about 20% or so. Except you canā€™t due to other issues (The lack of AS access on the weapons best to do this with legendary wise, otherwise needing a really well rolled MI), but the basis is there.

2H range just lacks options compared to dual wield. Too many of the 2H guns try and act like caster implements (Vortex of Souls is the worst offender of this, and it would be so good too with it already having target piercing if it wasnā€™t for the worst possible ranged damage type. And even that could be fixed if Bonemonger set had a weapon attack replacer for the potential to synergise it with VoS on an Apostate), and a broader access to target piercing mechanics on 2H guns would diversify them a bit from dual wield as well. Currently the best dual wields are either purifier with dual dagallon, vindicator with dual dagallon, or dual Myth havoc Tactician. Note they all have target piercing in common.

If you really wanted to get crazy on creating strong diversity to 2H weapons though on the ranged side, you could consider making them make skills able to turn into shotgun mechanics. Something like having the Ulzuinā€™s Flamespreader have +3 projectiles, +20 degree attack arc, -65% damage to Firestrike. Iā€™ve never really considered using 2H over dual wield for firestrike after Inquis came out and it became easy to get access to dual wield, but this would instantly make me consider using the set by itself with no other changes just because this. Fits in with the theme of the set too, with wild flame spreading via shotgun bursts. Something like that, along with another 2H gun that makes the attack ā€œblastā€ out but have short range (AKA almost turn it into a Bone Harvest) it could create some interesting diversity and choices.

11

+1 for turning some 2h ranged weapons into shotguns.
There are literally rifles (common ones) that are called shotgun but have a single projectile.

12

these shotguns you mentioned probably have very tight projectile cone spread, or
they use slug ammunition or something.

regardless, thereā€™s already skills from masteries, gears, and devotions that could
be considered shotgun special attacks (e.g : firestrikeā€™s aoe autoattack definitely feels
like shotgun attacks for me)

what we need is an occasional shotgun barrel pumping sfxā€¦ i need to hear that
clicky reload sfx when iā€™m using a shotgun or rifleā€¦:frowning:

13

No, the common weapons with the shotgun name have exactly the same shots as any other rifle.

14

Turning 2h guns into shotguns would require tons of rebalancing and is unfortunately unrealistic.

I mean just picking out specific legendaries and suggesting why they fail in general or just in comparison to a 1handed version of a similar build. What would need to be changed to make them better.

Maybe more 2h transmuters would help too? I dunno.

15

Iā€™d like a 2-handed Cadence transmutor, maybe for 2handed RoS aswell and what about giving Storm spread for example a 2h transmutor that turns the shotgun into a single piercing shot for the Sniper rifle feeling? But generally adding and buffing 2h transmutors would also be really appreciated.
Edit: for the shotgun: I just meant some of the ā€œobviousā€ legendary/epic/rare ones, not all of them. They could take ideas from the Outlaw mastery in the Grimarillion mod

16

yea i know that, i just pretend that those ā€˜shotgunā€™ use single slug ammo
to immerse myself as shotgunner.

17

https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/8804 This item could use like 10% more attack speed honestly. The builds that run it could certainly use a bit more AS. Also the pierce portion of the proc is thematic but does absolutely nothing for your damage. Iā€™d be okay with a new proc that did flat physical instead as an additional source of damage.

18

Nightshadeā€™s Reach (GrimTools)

for the Witch Hunter Combo

Overall it is a good sword. It kinda became a meme because Nightblade and 2-Hander? olololol, also you can get better numbers and options if you go DW. But I actually enjoy the playstyle it enables veeeeery much. But it is lacking something.

I have played a ton with it, as you can see here:

I play this build:

Offensive Version (GrimTools)

The offensive version does good damage because I can get the +Crit Damage up to 47% and the needed 5% OA with Ulzuins Torch and the Attack Speed is OK. So far so good.

The problem is that I totally miss out on Health Regeneration from the Behemoth constellation which is badly needed for tougher stuff like SR with this build. I just get smacked down by a lot of Boss combos. Pushing it beyond 25 is pointless with this setup.

So I made a

Defensive Version (GrimTools)

It has still relatively low DA for todays standards just like the Offensive Version but at least I have a considerable amount of Health Regen now and survivability is improved overall with this. But the trade-off is less Crit Damage and less OA. The build is quite average now.

This is where I see a problem with Nightshadeā€™s Reach. With DW you could get all of it. Health Regeneration from Devotions and ADctH + high Crit damage (Mad Queens Claw), very high OA, full Attack Speed and more options for Components and Augments, obviously.

So, my personal conclusion would be:

Give Nightshadeā€™s Reach eather

a) Considerable amount of Health Regen
b) at least 150 OA
c) at least 5% Crit Damage

or even both, b + c.

This would balance out a more defensive, sentient Devotion Setup that is pretty much needed.

EDIT: Soulrend pretty much does what Nightshadeā€™s Reach should do for Acid/Poison Witch Hunters.

19

https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/8800 - Mythical Deathā€™s Reach

It wants to be a Vitality EoR weapon, but it lacks attack speed. Itā€™s really hard to get enough Lighting -> Vitality or Phys -> Vitality from other gear and skills to make EoRā€™s flat damage good enough. Even just giving this weapon +10% attack speed and 25% Phys -> Vitality would make a huge difference.

Also, DAE think itā€™s weird that a grim reaper scythe weapon that does pure Vitality damage, has ā€œDeathā€ in the name, and grants a skill called ā€œWave of Soulsā€ doesnā€™t have any Necromancer synergy built into it? Thematically, it just doesnā€™t make sense to me that this is an Occultist/Shaman/Oathkeeper weapon instead of Necro/Shaman/Oathkeeper or Necro/Occultist/Oathkeeper.

20

I just want to iterate on my proposal for buffing Nightshadeā€™s Reach with +Crit and OA:

The gimmick with this sword is basically the CDR, which favors a fast playstyle centered around low Shadowstrike cooldown which is cool. Since FG came out it got trivialized because I can have 2 Shadow Strikes without any penalty. So, in that sense, you kinda miss the advantage over Dual Wielding anyway.

So, yeah. Again, give NSR +Crit Damage and OA and make it more competitive in the damage department to bring it more in line with DW playstyle.