Offense Recommendations
The following are all recommendations, suspicions and suggestions that are too complex to be addressed solely by the considerations in a single section above. You must also take into account the effect the various Bugs may be having on your game.
1) Using two Weapons slows you down, but it also increases your Attack Bonus (making it more likely that you'll hit) and your Attack Damage (increasing the damage you deliver on a successful attack). So, is one double-handed Weapon better than two single-handed Weapons? It depends. You need to compare the damage you deliver in the two cases, and each comparison is going to depend on the opponent.
Multiply your character's Potential Damage by his/her (total effective) Chance to Hit and divide by the Attack Time. Do this for both Weapon configurations and compare the two figures. This comparison assumes that the effects of the opponent's Resistance are equal in both cases, and this will always be true unless you're comparing Weapons that have different types or amounts of extra Damage. The higher number indicates the configuration that yields the most Damage per time.
You'll want to use the Excel spreadsheet in the Downloads section to calculate the Chance to Hit. I suspect you'll find the following:
If you're fighting near or at your level, the increased Chance to Hit and Potential Damage will not be sufficient to make up for the slower Attack Time of carrying the second Weapon. Use a two-handed Weapon.
However, if you're revisiting a re-spawned dungeon or province and facing weaker foes, use the combination that gives you the highest Attack Damage value.
Finally Double Daggers look cool, but by the time your character gets Master Ranking and needs to have a Speed stat of 40, the difference in Attack Times favors the single Dagger. In addition, with Master Leather you can carry a Shield with no Shield Penalty, giving you a free Armor Class boost and an extra item to carry an Enchantment!
2) Sometimes it is argued that using two Weapons is better than using one because an additional Weapon can carry a different type of Extra Damage. Thus, if an opponent is Resistant to one type of Damage, the other type of Damage provides another opportunity.
Unfortunately, this argument is almost totally bogus. Let's compare the two configurations. The first configuration is with two identical Weapons, each with a equal amount of extra Damage but of types A and B respectively. The second has a single Weapon of the identical type with the same amount of extra Damage of type A.
Furthermore, because of the additional Attack Time needed, let's stipulate that the second Weapon must do at least as much Damage as the first in order to be considered effective. This is a crucial assumption. Your characters will almost certainly be at least twice as fast with one Weapon than they are with two unless they are carrying a big Armor Penalty. You should determine the Attack Times if you want to be sure.
There are three scenarios that we need to consider. First, if the Monster is equally Resistant to types A and B, then there has been no overall gain -- the second Weapon is still doing the same average amount Damage as the first. If the Monster has Resistance to type B only, then the second Weapon is doing less Damage than the first and you'd be better off using only the single Weapon.
Only in the third scenario, when a Monster has Resistance to type A only, does the second Weapon pay off. However, the double-Weapon user would do better still by putting away the Weapon with type A Extra Damage and just using the second Weapon by itself -- the mirror image of our second scenario.
What this demonstrates is that you shouldn't necessarily use two Weapons for the additional type of Extra Damage, but you should definitely bring along at least one extra Weapon (of your choice) which carries a type of Extra Damage different than that on the Weapon you normally use. That way, if one type of Damage isn't getting through you can always try the other.
If you want to know what type of Extra Damage you should use against a given opponent, check out Resistances in the Monsters table in the Appendix.
© John C. Macaulay (Bones)May 3, 1999
