Dual Wielding VS 2 Handed Guide & Analysis | Baldur's Gate 3 | BG3

[Music] welcome today I'm analyzing two weapon fighting compared to using two-handed weapons breaking down how they work with fighting styles and Feats that can improve them as you level at level one and with no Feats at all you can equip two light weapons to your character utilizing the shield slot as an offhand weapon this offhand attack is above and beyond your primary attack action as it uses a bonus action instead the offhand attack will have the exact same chance to hit as your main hand but it's important ently it won't gain your ability modify bonus for damage you will simply roll the dice for the weapon and that is the damage dealt if you have two weapon fighting which is a fighting style you will gain your modify bonus for damage on that offhand attack providing much better damage consistency fighting styles can be acquired by level one Fighters level two paladins and Rangers only Fighters and Rangers can acquire two weapon fighting though and there is one bar subclass that can also select it at low levels two weapon fighting or dual wield as I'm going to call it going forward can really excel at picking off multiple low Health enemies you can effectively split your damage across two attacks providing versatility in how that damage is dealt to do this easier I suggest you toggle dual wield into off and manually choose what each of your attacks goes two-handed weapons are far easier to understand you simply attack as normal rolling your damage Dice and adding your modifier bonus two-handed weapons will have more or better damage dice than compared to the single-handed equivalence and there is a fighting style great weapon fighting where once again level one Fighters and paladins at level two can acquire this fighting style it provides a more consistent damage output by rrolling damage dice that land on a one or a two if you have a great sword that deals 2d6 damage and one or both of your dice are rolled as a Warner or two you would roll those Dice and accept whatever the new role is the benefits are broken down in this great post by Ace Calhoun Link in the video description a great sword on average will be dealing 1.33 more damage and a great Axe will deal an additional 83 damage on average according to the math and this benefit goes beyond the weapon base damage because all dice are affected as we can see in this example where the 1 D4 bonus fire damage also got a roll at low levels when comparing dual wielding and two-handed weapons we can see some interesting results using spreadsheet maths a fighter between level 1 and three with 17 strength and using a great sword with great weapon fighting style will on a hit deal 2d6 damage plus three for the modify bonus to one target which is on average 8.33 which we're going to round down for Simplicity to eight plus that three for the modifier bonus damage for a total of 11 damage to that single Target a level one to three fighter wielding two short swords with 17 strength or dexterity and the two weapon fighting style will have one attack from the base action and one offhand bonus attack action the the main hand will deal 1d6 which is on average 3.5 again rounding down to three we then add our plus three for the modified bonus for a total of six and the off hand will be exactly the same six damage on average that is 12 damage across potentially two Targets compared to 11 damage to one target with the two attacks the character adds their modifier bonus twice compared to once for Two Handed characters the great weapon fighting style with rerolls closes that damage average Gap just a little bit but keep in mind Barbarian for example would not have this fighting style their average would be 10 damage two behind the dual wielding character the character also gets two attacks to deal the damage if a two-handed weapon character misses they deal no damage at all but when duel wielding you still have a chance to deal half your damage and you have an additional chance to score a critical hit likely this will only be on a 20 so it's not a massive boost but a boost nonetheless at low levels on average duel wielding would deal more damage Dage and has more versatility in how you can output that damage and do it more consistently but we need to look at how this changes when we get to higher levels with more Feats dual wielding has a few ways that increases in power as your character progresses in levels the Dr wielder feet will allow you to use larger weapons with a greater damage dice pool such as two long swords and the plus one Armor class is not to be ignored especially in honor mode where things really start to improve though is by gaining additional bonus action as these are effectively additional offhand weapon attacks the easiest and most consistent way of doing this is by taking fre levels in Rogue and the thief Suba this extra bonus action can be an additional attack every single round at level eight it's not hard for a character to go five levels into Ranger providing two weapon fighting style and the extra attack gained at level five with the feat selected either improving your ability modifier bonus which I recommend or taking the DU wielder feet if you prefer you can then have have three levels in Rogue and the thief subass for that additional bonus action you can also go fighter and then into Rogue I recommend going range of Gloom stalker as you level low especially if you're relying on this character for slight of hand checks either way this character each round will have two main hand attacks and two offhand attacks with their bonus actions this is a guaranteed four attacks a turn or six attacks when hasted going the fighter route also gains action surge for a one-off extra two attacks the Gloom stalker path with Ranger provides a free extra attack in round one with bonus damage and at max level you can resp to combine both of these options and still get fre levels in Rogue for the bonus action there are also additional ways to get more than those two bonus actions but to keep our comparisons grounded let's stick to the basics for now ignoring all of the one-off attacks and situational extras one of the most insane ways two-handed weapons improve is with the feet greater weapon Master the character receives a minus 5 to hit which is painful but you gain a crazy additional 10 damage when the hits land this can be toggled on and off helping you to decide when it's worth it or not per Target the minus 5 to hit opens up a greater chance for dealing zero damage this can be mitigated with something like Reckless attack on the Barbarian getting advantage on your attack r or using something like risky ring Reckless attack impacts the defensive abilities of the character providing advantage to the enemy's attacks in honor mode that can be really dangerous although even this can be mitigated somewhat with items or other characters abilities greater weapon master in addition can provide an extra attack VI a bonus action this is triggered on a critical hit or killing an enemy this is situational but does provide a pretty good chance of triggering and increasing our damage potential with that extra attack to determine damage potentials we must first understand how many attacks the characters will have the dual wielding character in our example will have a guaranteed four attacks each round two-handed weapon characters will have two guaranteed attacks with their primary action and a situational third attack as a bonus action if greater weapon fighting triggers level 11 Fighters with improved extra attack will have three guaranteed attacks with the potential for four and barbarians can get an equal equivalent from round two and a fight using frenzy strike and if they gain a second bonus action such as Splash into Thief they can also trigger great weapon figh him for the potential of four attacks each round our best case scenario with dual wielding characters is using two long swords for damage the average of a d8 is 4.5 which we're going to round down to four for consistency then add the plus4 modifier bonus for each attack dealing eight damage the main hand and the off hand will be exactly the same so that will leave us with eight damage times the four attacks that's 32 damage without haste with haste it's 48 damage the average damage of a great great ax with great weapon fighting is 7.33 we're going to round that down to seven and then add the same plus4 modifier bonus to bring the average to 11 but then we have plus 10 damage for great weapon Master totaling 21 damage each hit 21 damage times three attacks is 63 damage or 84 if greater weapon fighting triggers for that additional attack with haste it's 126 damage or 147 damage if greater weapon fighting triggers that is a huge difference in damage potentials and two-handed weapons appear to wipe the floor with dual wielding but it doesn't quite tell the whole story when duel wielding you have more consistency your damage output potential is lower but it is more consistent the four attacks are almost guaranteed each turn unless you must jump or drink a potion for example attacks are also more likely to hit as you don't have that minus five to hit and that increased chance to miss dealing no damage you gain plus one Armor class which is Handy espe especially if the two-handed weapon character is relying on something like Reckless attack to overcome the negative hit chance two-handed weapon characters replace those benefits with the potential for a huge amount of raw damage instead knocking enemies out of the fight faster and therefore saving damage by reducing the amount of attack actions the enemies can throw at you but there is another benefit for dual wielding you get more bonuses and abilities on those equipped weapons it's two to one and this can help us with our build choices Critical Hits double the damage dice rolled they don't double the damage you deal because modifier bonuses and flat damage boosts such as the plus 10 provided by greater weapon fighting are not doubled up but all of the dice that are rolled as part of the attack are rolled twice this includes any additional bonus damage dice for the part of the attack R this is important because dual wielding characters have a few different options to improve their critical hit range compared to the two-handed character equivalent most most notable is knife of the undermountain that can be picked up in act one and blood first from late in act three this can give dual wielding characters a critical hit range two ahead compared to two-handed weapon characters it's not that hard in act three to get a critical hit range between 15 and 20 and even lower including certain items and situational bonuses this is compared to say 17 to 20 for our two-handed weapon characters with criticals on a 15 you have a 30% chance of getting one with advanced AG that increases to 51% this is compared to 20% per attack or 36% chance with Advantage for our two-handed weapon characters a critical can turn a simple 1 D4 dagger attack with 1 D4 bonus damage dice into 4 D4 throw half into the mix with Savage attack and now it's 5 D4 and this only gets better when stacking even more damage ice onto the attack that all get doubled also this is a considerable amount of extra damage and brings us closer to to a two-handed weapon character that has less critical hit chance sneak attack and a Gloom stalker's dread ambusher attack will also have their damage dice doubled on a critical hit providing another Boos in damage when they trigger something to keep in mind even if they are situational attacks you can also increase your chances by making sneak attack automatically trigger on critical hits this way you can attack normally and if you crit sneak attack will be applied to the attack just remember to leave a primary attack as Your Last Action so that you still have the option to manually apply it if you got no crits breaking down the numbers again two-handed weapon damage is still ahead of dual wielding though in this breakdown we are assuming both characters have advantage on all of their attacks the average is still massively in favor of two-handed weapons even if no criticals are rolled the average damage across three attacks is still more than the four attacks when jeel wielding this chart does not include sneak attacks or other additional one-off damage to Jewel wielding character might have access to an additional 2d6 potentially 4 D6 with a crit from sneak attack will bring you closer to the two-handed character and stacking additional damage dice on attacks will favor the character that has more chance to roll Critical Hits this can close the gap even further but on average dual wielding characters will be dealing less damage compared to two-handed characters the greater weapon Master feet providing plus 10 damage is just such a big number and it does not rely on certain items or needing Critical Hits to achieve it now I'm not saying to never duel wield my on a mode run right now has a Gloom stalker Rogue fighter using two light weapons and Go full [ __ ] where I think knowing this information makes a difference is that I'm only running one dual wielding character the amount of items needed to lower your critical hit range and stacking bonus damage dice just to get close to the two-handed characters damage does not make it worthwhile to have multiple dual wielding characters what if there was a way to dual wield and and still get the plus 10 damage per hit hand crossbows are the solution to this problem before breaking down how this works I pride myself in showing and not just telling with my videos using Visual Evidence hopefully edited in a way to make the information easier to process and so if you found anything helpful a like on the video is really appreciated you can take Ary as a fighting style for a flat plus two to hit with ranged weapons combine this with the feat sharp shoot which gives you the minus5 to hit and plus 10 damage option just like greater weapon master and this character can still be built to have four guaranteed attacks using offhand bonus actions and they will still be dealing an incredible amount of damage and at range with the plus 10 damage on each hit the crossbow expert fee will even allow you to do all of this at close range as well as long range the only issue is that the hand crossbows currently up for grabs are not that amazing but it is still going to be a lot of damage and at range I hope this video has provided some useful information and thank you so much for watching

Channel: Gaming Existence

Views: 98,831

Keywords: Bg3, Dual Wield, 2 wield, guide, tips, help, GWM, GWF, TWF, Great weapon master, greater weapon master

Id: 2yvkymYb-vA

Length: 14min 5sec (845 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 15 2024