Can someone explain two-weapon combat to me?

[e***@gmail.com]

The first time I won was with a paladin who was dual-wielding
Justifier and Death's Sting, and he did pretty well with them and
pretty effortlessly achieved grand mastery with the sword. Now I'm
given to understand that two-weapon combat is generally not a great
idea, but I can't understand the issue. Does it take longer (consume
more energy points) to hit with two weapons than (for instance) one
two-handed weapon, or a weapon and shield? Are there massive penalties
of some sort? What's the effect of the two-weapon combat skill?
Assuming you have two-weapon combat trained up, I assume using two
weapons means you'll hit your enemies more times within a set amount
of game time; is that correct?

Also, on the weapons skills screen, there's a skill for "two-handed
weapons". I don't think that trains if you use something like a
polearm (even though it's two-handed.) What about Vanquisher? Do you
get points for swords, or two-handed weapons, or both?

[Darren Grey]

Post by e***@gmail.com
The first time I won was with a paladin who was dual-wielding
Justifier and Death's Sting, and he did pretty well with them and
pretty effortlessly achieved grand mastery with the sword. Now I'm
given to understand that two-weapon combat is generally not a great
idea, but I can't understand the issue. Does it take longer (consume
more energy points) to hit with two weapons than (for instance) one
two-handed weapon, or a weapon and shield? Are there massive penalties
of some sort? What's the effect of the two-weapon combat skill?
Assuming you have two-weapon combat trained up, I assume using two
weapons means you'll hit your enemies more times within a set amount
of game time; is that correct?
Also, on the weapons skills screen, there's a skill for "two-handed
weapons". I don't think that trains if you use something like a
polearm (even though it's two-handed.) What about Vanquisher? Do you
get points for swords, or two-handed weapons, or both?

Well, lets see if I can explain this without getting my words twisted up...
The biggest problem with dual wielding is that you have much less DV than a
single weapon and shield. A well-trained shield can give you an extra 30-40
DV, which obviously makes a huge difference. You get a small amount of
extra DV from your second weapon, but it really doesn't compare. Now this
is coupled by the fact that you take longer to attack. You comsume around
double the energy points when dual-wielding. Technically this is the same
as 2 attacks in a row, except it doesn't give you the option to do anything
inbetween, such as heal or run away. Whilst a character with a single
weapon can hit a greater moloch, move back a space a space and hit him again
without fear of receiving an attack, a dual-wielder will get pummelled into
the ground if he attempts to melee such a monster. Or, in another example,
the Ancient Chaos Wyrm might hit a single-weapon character with his energy
ray and knock him down to a few hp, but since he only used 800 energy points
he gets his next turn first. Meanwhile the dual-wielder gets hits twice in
a row by the ACW and dies without a chance to heal or flee. So much less
defense, and much less opportunity to recover from attacks - all pretty bad.

Of course if you're careful, this isn't necessarily an issue. Powerful
monsters can be taken out with appropriate slaying ammo. Dual-wielding can
be very tasty for high damage output, and as long as you use light weapons
you can end up with a higher to hit than with a single weapon. But overall
it isn't necessary. The goblins in the game don't need that powerful an
attack, and the titans are too risky to use it against. In a game that
punishes you severely for mistakes and lack of caution, well, it's asking
for trouble. Can be fun, but use it wisely.

--
Darren Grey

[e***@gmail.com]

Post by Darren Grey
You comsume around
double the energy points when dual-wielding. Technically this is the same
as 2 attacks in a row, except it doesn't give you the option to do anything
inbetween, such as heal or run away.

So there's no actual ability to do more attacks in a given period of
time - it uses just as much energy as two normal attacks? If that's
how it works, then it's pretty obvious why it's not of any benefit
(your examples are a nice illustration.) If you have the Two-Weapon
Combat skill trained highly enough, does it allay the energy issues?
It was fun during that game I dual-wielded swords to see things like
"You hit the (whatever) and seriously injure it. You hit the
(whatever) and kill it" but if it doesn't actually let you get more
hits in for each turn the monster gets then it's obviously not worth
it.

Excalibre

[Stas]

Post by e***@gmail.com
So there's no actual ability to do more attacks in a given period of
time - it uses just as much energy as two normal attacks? If that's
how it works, then it's pretty obvious why it's not of any benefit
(your examples are a nice illustration.) If you have the Two-Weapon
Combat skill trained highly enough, does it allay the energy issues?
It was fun during that game I dual-wielded swords to see things like
"You hit the (whatever) and seriously injure it. You hit the
(whatever) and kill it" but if it doesn't actually let you get more
hits in for each turn the monster gets then it's obviously not worth
it.

The Manual Says:
----------------
AFAIK, If your two-weapon combat skill is zero, then you spend 800 energy
more on your attack than you would if you were to swing once with the slower
weapon. This penalty is reduced by 4 energy points per skill point.
If I understand correctly, this results in a net reduction of raw
damage/time only if your faster weapon costs less than 400-800 energy
(depending on your TWC skill level).

That is, in most cases, attacking with two weapons wielded at once deals
more damage, per energy consumed, than attacking with them in sequence, at
the expense of a greater delay between turns.

As for the to-hit penalties (and bonuses!), you can find the exact formula
in the game manual in the 'Races and Classes' section, under the 'Rangers'
heading.

Advantages:
----------
One, arguably insufficient, advantage of using two weapons at the same time
is that the monster has no chance to act between the two hits. This means
that if the monster's HP is such that one hit would only wound it, while two
hits would kill it off, you would prefer to deal two strikes in one turn.

Tactically, I think this is similar to the Barbarian class power.

It is better than the Barbarian class power in that the energy cost of the
entire turn is much cheaper, and in that there is a double chance to hit.

It is worse by the fact that you need to spend a turn changing equipment to
pull it off, so limiting its usefulness to situations where there's
sufficient space between you and the meleeing monster, or where you have the
room and ability to step back a sufficient distance to switch to a
dual-weapon configuration. The other reason that it's not as nice is that
the damage is reduced by the enemy's PV for each blow separately, while a
mighty blow only counts PV once.

A practical example where I can see two-weaponing to be of quantifiable use
is the gremlin cave, where the gremlins slowly get harder. By dual-wielding,
you can kill more gremlins before they become tougher than a one-hit-kill.

[gut]

***@gmail.com wrote in news:13ff3a81-5d7c-4b9f-b86f-***@s37g2000prg.googlegroups.com:

snip a bit

Post by e***@gmail.com
It was fun during that game I dual-wielded swords to see things like
"You hit the (whatever) and seriously injure it. You hit the
(whatever) and kill it" but if it doesn't actually let you get more
hits in for each turn the monster gets then it's obviously not worth
it.
Excalibre

If it was fun, then it was worth it:) ADOM has so much variety,
that you don't really need to do things optimally to win. It is
quite possible to win the game, even if you never even equip a
melee weapon at all.

[e***@gmail.com]

Post by e***@gmail.com

Post by Darren Grey
You comsume around
double the energy points when dual-wielding. Technically this is the same
as 2 attacks in a row, except it doesn't give you the option to do anything
inbetween, such as heal or run away.

So there's no actual ability to do more attacks in a given period of
time - it uses just as much energy as two normal attacks? If that's
how it works, then it's pretty obvious why it's not of any benefit
(your examples are a nice illustration.) If you have the Two-Weapon
Combat skill trained highly enough, does it allay the energy issues?
It was fun during that game I dual-wielded swords to see things like
"You hit the (whatever) and seriously injure it. You hit the
(whatever) and kill it" but if it doesn't actually let you get more
hits in for each turn the monster gets then it's obviously not worth
it.
Excalibre

A high-level assassin dual-wielding phase daggers will slice through
anything which doesn't notice him first in one turn, even the nastiest
endgame stuff the game can throw at you. Backstabbing bonuses +
ignoring PV, twice in a single action? There's not much that can
survive that, and the few things that can will most likely be stunned
anyway, allowing for another double-backstab which will - and this
I say from experience - which will dispose of even the mightiest
foe in the game, apart from *the* EnDgAmEbOsS himself, which, I
believe, can't be (and shouldn't be) backstabbed anyway.

[myrddinbach]

Ive been happily dual wielding phase daggers w/ my Gnome bard for most
of the game. One thing I've noticed is your marks go up much quicker!
At level 27 I am already at level 14 w/ daggers.

I'll probably hit Grand Mastery within a few more levels - I think
that makes me a pretty powerful dual wielder at this stage.

[t***@gmail.com]

Post by myrddinbach
Ive been happily dual wielding phase daggers w/ my Gnome bard for most
of the game. One thing I've noticed is your marks go up much quicker!
At level 27 I am already at level 14 w/ daggers.
I'll probably hit Grand Mastery within a few more levels - I think
that makes me a pretty powerful dual wielder at this stage.

At level 14 one hit costs 630 energy points. Dual-wielding would cost
1030 (with two-handed combat skill at 100) or 1430 without two-handed
combat (which means NO to dual without the skill)

1030/2 = 515 energy per attack, and that sure is faster than 630.

However:
- Not that much faster, really.
- You are not wearing a shield, easily losing something like 30 DV and
5 PV. You will gain 2 DV from the dagger in the off-hand to
compensate. (half of the +4 DV bonus at 14)
- Spending 1030 on a single attack move is tactically far worse than
630. If your character is quite fast, he might do a hit - retreat -
hit routine aganist many monsters without getting hit in return at
all. That is harder with 1030. And some slow monsters can hit HARD.
Also spending that time means that fast-ish or even normal speed
monsters can easily get two moves on you from time to time -
potentially lethal as you now cannot heal between the attacks.
- If your first attack kills the enemy, you still "pay" the energy
cost for the redundant second attack.
- You also lose a little +to-hit. Possibly unless you are a ranger.

But then again:
- If you are really fast, this attack energy is not problem
- You might have good enough armor already to survive "anything", and
just need to finish as fast as possible.
- A certain pair of daggers need to dual wielded to work at all.

So just do it if confident enough that you can handle the negatives.
And the advantage in my opinion is not much at all, really. Better
spend one extra round killing a

Gaining weapon marks will seem to be faster, real-time wise, but
really not by much. Less keypresses, but game-time not much different.

[myrddinbach]

Post by t***@gmail.com
At level 14 one hit costs 630 energy points. Dual-wielding would cost
1030 (with two-handed combat skill at 100) or 1430 without two-handed
combat (which means NO to dual without the skill)
1030/2 = 515 energy per attack, and that sure is faster than 630.

What is the EP cost at level 15? Is it different for different weapon
types? Seems to me weapon type and weight should have an effect on
this - but maybe it doesn't.

Do blessed SLB's (which I got in beginning of the game as my heir
item) reduce this? or Does it only reduce the EP's for walking?

[TragicTheGarnerer]

Post by myrddinbach
What is the EP cost at level 15? Is it different for different weapon
types? Seems to me weapon type and weight should have an effect on
this - but maybe it doesn't.

You can find EP costs for weapon levels in manual. It's the same for all
weapons and weight have no effect.

Post by myrddinbach
Do blessed SLB's (which I got in beginning of the game as my heir
item) reduce this? or Does it only reduce the EP's for walking?

No effect. Only walking.

[myrddinbach]

Post by Darren Grey
single weapon and shield. A well-trained shield can give you an extra 30-40
DV, which obviously makes a huge difference. You get a small amount of
extra DV from your second weapon, but it really doesn't compare.

From the Manual:
The shield skill yields a +2 bonus to DV per level in that skill. The
trick is that you can't get a higher bonus to your DV than twice your
shield DV bonus.

The best shield in the game has 20 DV and you aren't likely to find it
early in the game. The next one down is 13. So max bonus on #2 would
be only 26 and they drop from there. Not likely you are going to have
30-40 DV from shield unless you find that one special one. You are way
overstating the DV benefits most players will see when using a shield.

[Stas]

Post by myrddinbach

Post by Darren Grey
single weapon and shield. A well-trained shield can give you an extra 30-40
DV, which obviously makes a huge difference. You get a small amount of
extra DV from your second weapon, but it really doesn't compare.

The shield skill yields a +2 bonus to DV per level in that skill. The
trick is that you can't get a higher bonus to your DV than twice your
shield DV bonus.
The best shield in the game has 20 DV and you aren't likely to find it
early in the game. The next one down is 13. So max bonus on #2 would
be only 26 and they drop from there. Not likely you are going to have
30-40 DV from shield unless you find that one special one. You are way
overstating the DV benefits most players will see when using a shield.

I have to disagree.

As deep as danger level 6, you can find adamantium shields (a medium one is
[+9, +3]).
With shields at level 9, you're getting 27 DV in your normal stance.

Thus, even an unsmithed shield that's found early can give nearly 30 DV
bonus.

Do compare that with the highest-DV weapon class: polearms, which will
provide +22 DV at *level 15* (Grand Mastery).

When combined the tactics skill, which many PCs will have, losing 27 DV of
normal stance means a loss *much* bigger than that in defensive stances.

Some of this amplification occurs even without Tactics for characters born
in Sword/Dragon.

[sandra]

Post by myrddinbach
The best shield in the game has 20 DV and you aren't likely to find it
early in the game. The next one down is 13. So max bonus on #2 would
be only 26 and they drop from there. Not likely you are going to have
30-40 DV from shield unless you find that one special one. You are way
overstating the DV benefits most players will see when using a shield.

You are disregarding the fact that the shield itself grants you a DV
bonus, so for the +13 shield and 13 shield skill that's altogether 39.
Training shields to 13 is difficult, but finding a +15 tower crystal or
eternium shield is not so rare. There are also shield talents that you
can take, so 30-40 DV seems to me like a a realistic assessment of what
you're giving up when dual wielding.

s.