Jordi B wrote...
Personally I don't really care all that much about two-handed combat, because I'm fairly pleased with having Alistair as my only real melee guy. The only experience I have with it is with my Arcane Warrior, but I quickly switched to sword and board on him too, because the slowness of two-handed weapons bothered me. So the only thing I can really say from my own experience is that I think it would be nice if it was a little bit faster.
From reading this topic, I tend to agree with the OP. It seems that in seven pages there has been little in the way of a rebuttal to the point that two-handers are underpowered compared to the other classes. To some people this may not matter. I understand that some people might think it's interesting to play a gimped character and not a minmaxed powerhouse, but I still think it doesn't really make sense for any class to be less powerful than another one no matter what you do. If you want to play an idiot, there's always that possibility, even with an overpowered class. If a class is underpowered, you can still make it work, but it kind of gets in the way of roleplaying the ultimate badass hero (a role I think would normally fit a two-hander pretty well). This is also why the "this is a party-based game"-argument doesn't really make sense to me. Sure you are controlling the entire party. And sure you can still beat the game. But you are going to identify most with the guy that you made. And for a lot of people, it would be really nice if he could at least keep up the appearance that he is a pretty big deal.
Maybe the problem is not even that one class is more powerful than another at the end of the day, but what seems to be problematic about the two-hander is that there appears to be virtually no role for which it is the best. It obviously can't tank as well as sword+board and it can't deal damage like a dual-wielder. Apparently the argument is that it has great crowd control capabilities, but I'm not really convinced. First of all, the other specializations also have crowd control capabilities and it doesn't seem like they are that much worse. Second of all, like someone else put it: it's better to have a dead enemy than to have a knocked down enemy. If 2-handers have better crowd control capabilities (and I'm not that convinced they have), are they really that much better that they warrant the apparently huge DPS loss?
People say DPS is not all that matters. Obviously it's most important to have fun, but I don't see how having the potential to contribute as much as other classes can limit that, whereas not having it could definitely. Having said that, *party* DPS seems to be one of the most intuitive ways to measure a parties power (to take survivability into account, let's say that at reload the seconds keep ticking, but the damage starts over). You can either contribute to this by dealing a lot of damage yourself, or by enabling others to do this. A two-hander seems to be a suboptimal choice for either.
It is a big problem when there are no situations in which a class really shines, because it will just not be cool to play such a class (for a lot of people). I've heard people make arguments about armor penetration, but it seems to me that dual-wielding daggers (especially for backstabbing roogues) penetrates armor just fine. Tanking? Use a shield. Damage-dealing? Use two weapons. Crowd-control? Riposte/Cripple/Punisher/Shield Bash/Shield Pummel/Overpower/Below the Belt/Dirty Fighting. Erm... "role-playing" an all-bark-no-bite character who can barely lift his weapn? Use two-handed weapons.
At least, that's the way it seems to me from reading this topic. It would be great though if someone could do a point-by-point comparison of the two classes to support their arguments (i.e. "a two-hander has these and these stun talents, and a dual-wielder has these, hence (1) the dual-wielder has the same CC-abilities or (2) the two-hander has much better abilities (pick one)").
The problem, with out a combat log or damage parser, people are citing only antecdotal evidence to support their 'OMG MY 2H IS NOT DOING AS MUCH DAMAGE AS MY ARMS WARRIOR' argument.
By level 17 I was one-shotting white con mobs. Casters were unable to get anything off, and if I did have to eat a fireball, I had enough hitpoints to sit the mage on its ass and then kill him or her. In addition, adding critical strike against petrified and frozen targets resulted in yellow enemies going down quickly as well.
And again, these detractors see DPS as existing in a vacuum. I am not even talking about the other 2handed abilities, but they synergies with specializations. A fully speced champion 2 handed warrior can keep a large (and I mean a LARGE) gruop of mobs busy while the rest of your party picks them off. Stuns and knockbacks allow for a strategic placement of enemies that makes both you and your allies more effective.
Competitive gaming enviroments have encouraged over-specializations, which is fine, and actually good and productive in the right context. This sort of mindset encourages innovation, but innovation along a linear model, i.e. doing more damage. Things like tank, dps, healing all have thier places, but I don't think DAO is one of them. I never remember speccing my cleric for optimal healing while playing table-top decades ago. My warriors often went out of their way to protect the mages, but Alistair could do his own damage, my 2h Warrior could take a beating, Wynne could throw some damage, and Morrigan could heal.
Retour en haut
And it was the only Jedi class where darkside where just as good as lightside.
