Talking about Shields, One Handed Weapons and Dual Wielding on Str Based Characters

Hi, I noticed an opportunity to buff Warrior's damage and wanted to share it with GGG. Like always, they forced me to post here, so you guys have to see it as well.

I won't be posting to ask for buffs to Armor is a stat, because most people want to put too many eggs in that basket and make it an over complicated mess. This makes them wrong to ask for even more buffs to armour, but entitled to do so, because they paid to test this game. This is all I will say about Warriors and Armors.

Furthermore, if in the absence of Giant's Blood, you have Armor as an uber stat, then your class will still be shit because you are either too squishy due to the lack of a shield, or unable to kill stuff because you rely on one handed melee weapons, the proud owners of the lowest damage score in the game.

1) So, the first thing we need to do, is add more damage nodes as well as a Key Stone available to both Str based and Str-Dex hybrid characters. It has to be something so powerful, that you can justify taking it over Giant's Blood.

We should place both of these Keystones in place of Bulwark and Unwavering Stance because these Keystone are going to be critical, in determining the damage potential of both Warrior and the upcoming Duelist, while maintaining player decision making in the personalization of their melee build.

The reason we do this, is because, due to the long wind up of most skills and their dependency on combos paired with the lack of mobility skills, we need the bonuses from shield to survive surrounds.

But, in the current state of the game, we can't deal respectable damage with one handed weapons (that aren't spears - they are the exception because they are projectile based not melee based).

2) Secondly, we need to understand that once the game comes out of Early Access, the relevance of Dual Wielding will rise through the roof, as a mechanic which allows you to combine weapon skills from multiple weapon types.

With the 0.2 version of Giant's Blood, this would open up for all interactions between different weapon types to deal more damage than predicted and forcing individual nerfs on multiple weapon skills...or nerfing Giant's Blood to tone down the damage back to levels acceptable for GGG (and most likely, not us).

3) The reason why we shouldn't be asking for Dual Wielding nodes is because, the drop in survivability is not enough to justify the damage gains outside of boss fights.

If we are to take Hammers/Maces as a baseline for Axes and Swords will turn out, then the animation speed is likely to be so bad, that we won't be able to make use of the extended combo opportunities provided by pairing different weapon types for dual wielding because we will be very vulnerable to dying from surrounds, in spite of having even respectable damage for end game.

This makes asking for more damage nodes while wielding a shield or buckler to be a safer option for fixing PoE 2 on the melee spectrum of the game, by accounting for the implementation of new skills and also accounting for existing trends resulted from players adjusting to the dev's decision making tactics.

4) I mentioned earlier, that I strongly disagree with the notion that we should be asking for more buffs to armour and instead ask for more innovations in improving survivability for Warriors?

Well, I have several suggestions, but most are centred around creating skills focused on avoiding surrounds.

a) Create skills which consume part of your stun meter or Endurance Charges to allow you to move through enemies!

This would be huge because now melee characters can actively avoid surrounds into terrain effects, which are the number one cause of death for melee builds.

Leap, Stampede & Shocking Totems are the top three skills I can think off that would benefit from this sort of functionality improvement.

b) Rework existing mobility skills to work on multiple melee builds. There are two existing skills which could be reworked as part of this patch and improve the mobility of warrior to the point where we can justify removing Dash as a mechanic.

*Shield Charge transformed into Reckless Charge. It will be the same skill in practice, but it can only be used with either Axes, Maces, Swords, Daggers or Spears, regardless of whether you are using a Shield, Buckler or Dual Wielding.

*Disengage. Now requires a Buckler to cast, but can be cast with any one handed weapon such as Sword, Dagger or Spear. I limited my examples to these weapon types, because Swords and Daggers have the potential to benefit as much from the Frenzy generating mechanic and exploiting the Parried Debuf as much as the Spear.

c) Create skills which actively prevent surrounds by placing barriers around the caster.

Again, one skill that could benefit from this is Shield Wall, by having it always center around yourself and surround the caster...think of it as if always having the Fortress support gem equiped, but with no penalty to damage.

In the absence of skills which allow you to move through enemies, these sort of changes are not worth having.

What could be worth having instead is having Earth Shatter execute it's explosion by expanding an Endurance charge instead of having to activate a shout in order to expedite the damage.

Same for having Supercharged Slam and Perfect Strike avoid the need to channel by expanding Endurance Charges...t

All of these are minor changes, that will have little to no impact, compared to the other suggestions proposed up until 4b.

5) Recommendations on how to balance passive nodes and notables for Warrior, Duelist, Marauder & Mercenary.

On both the Warrior and Mercenary side of things we need damage nodes that benefit the use of either one handed or two handed weapons, while Marauder & Duelist forsake access to Two Handed weapon nodes in favour of Dual Wielding nodes.

The reason for this separation is two layered. First, one handed + shield is the most optimal setup for end game, due to the spike in survivability. If this spike would be maintained and then enhanced with relevant passive nodes, then melee could end up in a good place.

Secondly, this is to limit the amount of damage done to melee builds. By taking away from both Str based and Str-Dex hybrids the ability to stack Two Handed and Dual Wielding nodes, we reduce the damage potential of all four classes, helping to justify undoing the nerf to Giant's Blood.

Because Warrior and Mercenary will have access to Two Handed Damage nodes, they will have the flexibility of branching out to either Bows or Crossbows for enhanced kiting potential and improved viability with Quarterstaves for the sake of novelty for both the Warrior, Druid and Templar on some weird off meta builds.

Meanwhile, Marauder and Duelist, will not be able to gain as much value from Bows and Crossbows as secondary weapons, but in exchange they will benefit from improved versatility due to the amount of skills they can mix.
Based on how GGG optimises Axes, Swords and Daggers for dual wielding this can be hit or miss. Maces, in their current form, are decent jack of all trades weapons that could easily supplement more specialized weapon types.

They grant access to serviceable projectiles and kiting potential. In spite of the fact that I haven't had the opportunity to test the Forge Hammer skill this patch, I've played extensively Huntress with Molten Blast and have had serviceable results up until Jamanra on Cruel, where the lack of Giant's Blood was severly impacting my survivability rate. If these were to be moved to other weapons, then Mace would be a specialized weapon focused on stunning and dealing high amount of damage.