05-16-2012, 06:01 PM
I was chatting with Skandranon last night about weapon normalization in Diablo III. He had mentioned a Blizzard blue post that mentioned that there isn't weapon normalization in the traditional sense for Diablo III.
All I could find was a discussion on the Battle.Net forums a while ago about this.
Basically it's like this, from my understanding:
1) All skills' damage and speed is based on your weapon damage and weapon speed.
2) At any given item level, 2-handers will do more damage than 1-handers.
3) There is no weapon normalization for procs (AFAIK).
What this means is that skills that proc effects are much better served by having 1-handed weapons. For example, if you're using a skill that's runed to occasionally stun enemies, you're much better off with using fast 1-handed weapons over two handeds, because you'll get off more stuns per minute. Diablo III doesn't normalize the proc rate as it does with World of Warcraft, so if you use a big slow weapon, you're just flat-out getting less procs per minute. Add to that that slower attack speeds leave you more open to interruption effects (knockbacks, stuns) preventing you from getting off any attacks at all, and the choice becomes clear.
The only reason I can think of to use a big slow 2-handed weapon is when using abilities that have cooldowns. Since those are never your primary attacks, it doesn't seem worthwhile to prioritize those.
Now, the key is: at what breakpoint does having a lesser-damaging but faster-attacking weapon set gain traction? Assuming equal item levels, the 2-handed weapons will do more damage per second in raw output. Depending on your abilities' procs, however, the lesser-damaging 1-hander may be the superior choice. This should be an interesting topic for theorycrafting as time goes on, especially when considering end-game weapons and what skills are being used.
All I could find was a discussion on the Battle.Net forums a while ago about this.
Basically it's like this, from my understanding:
1) All skills' damage and speed is based on your weapon damage and weapon speed.
2) At any given item level, 2-handers will do more damage than 1-handers.
3) There is no weapon normalization for procs (AFAIK).
What this means is that skills that proc effects are much better served by having 1-handed weapons. For example, if you're using a skill that's runed to occasionally stun enemies, you're much better off with using fast 1-handed weapons over two handeds, because you'll get off more stuns per minute. Diablo III doesn't normalize the proc rate as it does with World of Warcraft, so if you use a big slow weapon, you're just flat-out getting less procs per minute. Add to that that slower attack speeds leave you more open to interruption effects (knockbacks, stuns) preventing you from getting off any attacks at all, and the choice becomes clear.
The only reason I can think of to use a big slow 2-handed weapon is when using abilities that have cooldowns. Since those are never your primary attacks, it doesn't seem worthwhile to prioritize those.
Now, the key is: at what breakpoint does having a lesser-damaging but faster-attacking weapon set gain traction? Assuming equal item levels, the 2-handed weapons will do more damage per second in raw output. Depending on your abilities' procs, however, the lesser-damaging 1-hander may be the superior choice. This should be an interesting topic for theorycrafting as time goes on, especially when considering end-game weapons and what skills are being used.
Quote:Considering the mods here are generally liberals who seem to have a soft spot for fascism and white supremacy (despite them saying otherwise), me being perma-banned at some point is probably not out of the question.