Dual Wield Mastery?

[Hearst]

Just curious about this, have a friend that keeps asking me.

 

As Watchman spec, mind you, isn't it worth taking the full 3 points in Dual Wield Mastery for the sake of our Merciless Strike?

 

Since it says it attacks with both lightsabers and all, I'd imagine that it'd be a nice increase on Merciless' damage. Considering that's such a big part of the rotation, I don't understand why it's passed over so often.

 

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[Asphen]

Yep. However, I'll also add that there are quite a few attacks that don't even consider that you have a 2nd hand sword like Force Leap, Force Sweep, Bladestorm

 

And a few attacks have 'IgnoreDualWieldModifier' in the code, so the off hand is doing as much damage as the main hand. The only ones i can think of like that though is Master Strike, and Strike that build 2 focus. However, I think each hit with strike only deals 33% of your damge, and it does not uses normal accuracy, instead of special accuracy.

 

So yeah, all that.

[Hearst]

Still, would it be worth it for a pure Watchman spec?

 

I rarely even use Bladestorm/Sweep in my rotation -- so if there really is a sizable damage increase in Merciless Slash, it definitely seems worthwhile to me.

[neeman]

My current understanding of dual wielding mechanics has led me to determine that Dual Wield Mastery is relatively insignificant. I say "current" because, in the end, I've had to pick which sources seem to credibly know what they're talking about, and "relatively" because the math does of course show an increase in damage, but by what I would consider not much.

 

Your offhand begins, with 0/3 buffs from Dual Wield Mastery, doing .3 of your lightsaber's base damage. Base damage does not include bonuses from Strength and Power, as it is just the damage listed upon your lightsaber's hilt. A Champion Saber hilt does 302-458 damage; .3 of that is an extra 100.6-152.6. This is however weapons damage, which gets fully mitigated by other players' armors. With 3/3 buffs from Dual Wield Mastery, your offhand would do .66 of its hilt's listed damage, which with the same Champion saber would come out to an extra 199.32-302.28 damage per strike that uses the offhand saber. Again, this number will get added on to the amount of damage you do, but will not receive any bonuses from your stats or the type of attack (e.g., Slash or Merciless) that you're performing.

 

That all said, we need to factor in the reduced accuracy of an offhand attack to actually get some averages that we can use to decide whether Dual Wield Mastery is worthwhile or not. I've read that offhand accuracy starts at .57 with however .63 on some special attacks. Hopefully we can still get the gist if I just stick to .6.

 

Factoring in reduced accuracy and sticking with our 302-458 Champion hilt, you should get per strike that uses your offhand saber:

 

with 0/3 in DWM, an average 60.36-91.56 extra weapons damage;

with 1/3 in DWM, an average 76.1-115.4 extra weapons damage;

with 2/3 in DWM, an average 97.8-148.39 extra weapons damage;

& with 3/3 in DWM, an average 119.59-181.36 weapons damage.

 

These numbers will increase slightly when you increase your accuracy (I assume our accuracy bonus is applied to the offhand as well) and get an offhand T3 saber. Doing an extra 80ish weapons damage seems to me very unhelpful at endgame, however, especially in PvP.

 

If, as a Watchman, you're trying to get to the second tier of the Combat tree, I would recommend putting two in Jedi Crusader, one in DWM, and two in Defensive Forms. Jedi Crusader seems to get a bad rep on these forums (maybe because it's passive), but I personally think the extra 10 Focus you get in a battle is great.

Edited March 1, 2012 by neeman

[Hearst]

My current understanding of dual wielding mechanics has led me to determine that Dual Wield Mastery is relatively insignificant. I say "current" because, in the end, I've had to pick which sources seem to credibly know what they're talking about, and "relatively" because the math does of course show an increase in damage, but by what I would consider not much.

 

Your offhand begins, with 0/3 buffs from Dual Wield Mastery, doing .3 of your lightsaber's base damage. Base damage does not include bonuses from Strength and Power, as it is just the damage listed upon your lightsaber's hilt. A Champion Saber hilt does 302-458 damage; .3 of that is an extra 100.6-152.6. This is however weapons damage, which gets fully mitigated by other players' armors. With 3/3 buffs from Dual Wield Mastery, your offhand would do .66 of its hilt's listed damage, which with the same Champion saber would come out to an extra 199.32-302.28 damage per strike that uses the offhand saber. Again, this number will get added on to the amount of damage you do, but will not receive any bonuses from your stats or the type of attack (e.g., Slash or Merciless) that you're performing.

 

That all said, we need to factor in the reduced accuracy of an offhand attack to actually get some averages that we can use to decide whether Dual Wield Mastery is worthwhile or not. I've read that offhand accuracy starts at .57 with however .63 on some special attacks. Hopefully we can still get the gist if I just stick to .6.

 

Factoring in reduced accuracy and sticking with our 302-458 Champion hilt, you should get per strike that uses your offhand saber:

 

with 0/3 in DWM, an average 60.36-91.56 extra weapons damage;

with 1/3 in DWM, an average 76.1-115.4 extra weapons damage;

with 2/3 in DWM, an average 97.8-148.39 extra weapons damage;

& with 3/3 in DWM, an average 119.59-181.36 weapons damage.

 

These numbers will increase slightly when you increase your accuracy (I assume our accuracy bonus is applied to the offhand as well) and get an offhand T3 saber. Doing an extra 100ish weapons damage seems to me very unhelpful at endgame, however, especially in PvP.

 

If, as a Watchman, you're trying to get to the second tier of the Combat tree, I would recommend putting two in Jedi Crusader, one in DWM, and two in Defensive Forms. Jedi Crusader seems to get a bad rep on these forums (maybe because it's passive), but I personally think the extra 10 Focus you get in a battle is great.

 

I get all that and have little to no interest in how much it adds to our regular attacks.

 

My only concern is what it adds to Merciless Slash, which is the cornerstone of the proper Watchman spec rotation.

 

If the damage increase is sizable enough, I would think it well justified. Enough to drop 2 points from something else, at least (considering I already invest 1 in it to reach Combat tier 2.)

[neeman]

I'm afraid I tried to help you and you didn't read the post correctly.

 

The numbers do not change depending on the attack, whether Merciless or Slash.

 

EDIT: Rather, they change very slightly, if special attacks have an inherent accuracy bonus.

 

EDIT2: Cauterize is actually your cornerstone, but whatever.

Edited March 1, 2012 by neeman

[PantsOn]

I get all that and have little to no interest in how much it adds to our regular attacks.

 

My only concern is what it adds to Merciless Slash, which is the cornerstone of the proper Watchman spec rotation.

 

If the damage increase is sizable enough, I would think it well justified. Enough to drop 2 points from something else, at least (considering I already invest 1 in it to reach Combat tier 2.)

 

He just told exactly how much damage it will add to your Merciless. Can you not read?

[FobManX]

It's worth it because there is really nowhere else to put the points, and you need to put 5 in the bottom tier of Combat anyway to get important talents like the AOE damage reduction, and 3% accuracy increase.

[nachoman_randy]

Im going 3 on DWM and 2 in DF, but 2 on JC, 1 in DWM and 2 on DF sounds good. That focus extra focus on pvp looks solid imo.

[Psybin]

In my opinion two points into jedi crusader is a waste... One point will give you nigh on the uptime as two points due to the 3s cooldown.