Dual Wielding vs. Two-Hander

[Silentman73]

I need the wisdom of the number crunchers. :D

I'm currently playing a Soulknife (using Dreamscarred Press' Ultimate Psionics book), and the current construction is such that she's dual-wielding. She's feated out to maximize her attacks per round (currently four per round at 7th level, with a fifth if she spends a Mythic Surge), and she threatens a crit currently on 17-20.

The problem is, the per-hit damage suffers a bit. I think right now, on average, she's hitting maybe twice out of her four attacks (so a 50% hit rate), at 1d8+8/1d6+8 per hit. It can go up with a crit (an additional d6 of bleed damage per crit), and as she's just gained a new enhancement bonus to her mindblade, I'm adding in the Psychokinetic Weapon ability (which is +1d4 damage per hit, ectoplasmic damage that ignores DR).

So really, my question is this: would I, on average, be doing greater damage by having her wield a 2-handed weapon instead of dual-wielding? If so, which feat choices are optimal for increasing the damage output at 7th level? Your help is most appreciated. :)

[Dekalinder]

you'll be doing more dpr with a 2H until level 12-13 when you can afford to give collision to your double weapons without eating into your enhancment plusses (assuming you took both inreased enhancement and the dual enhancement ability)
I runned all the math before, but now i've lost it, i only remember the conclusions.

[Justin Sane]

Some more specific details would help (race, stats, level, gear).
I've done a DW Soulknife before. Use the Gifted Blade Archetype, pick Force Screen (for AC) and Prescience, Offensive (for damage). Go with the Focused Offense Blade Skill and stay away from anything that makes you use your Psionic Focus.

*If* you take all the DW feats, plus the Twin Strike Blade Skill, it's roughly equivalent to 2HF. That said, 2HF just needs Power Attack, so if you want to spend your feats elsewhere (and Ultimate Psionics does have some nice things), it's probably the way to go.

[Silentman73]

Heya Justin. Right now, it's a human Soulknife using Gifted Blade. I'm using her Gifted Blade powers for defense via Inertial Armor and Force Screen, with additional power points spent on Inertial Armor to increase its bonus. Only combat enhancements are coming from the mindblade itself (currently dual-wielding +1 keen mindblades; with the additional +1 at 7th level, I was thinking of adding Psychokinetic Weapon to the mindblades, which gives an additional d4 of damage per hit, that bypasses damage reduction).

Currently feated with Two Weapon Fighting and Improved Two Weapon Fighting as far as taking out the penalties for dual-wielding. Strength is 21, far and above greater than my Wisdom (which I believe is around 16 or so), so Focused Offense doesn't make as much sense, since I'd be losing accuracy by applying my Wisdom bonus instead of Strength bonus to my attacks.

I've waffled on whether to take Twin Strike, as I don't see a lot of scenarios where it would be of great use aside from the first round in case I had to move more than 5 feet to close with an opponent. But even with that aside, I'm only 7th level right now, and I can't take Twin Strike until 8th level.

Does that help?

[Justin Sane]

Full stats would help too :)
Inertial Armor is nice, I guess, but unless you have 18+ DEX, a Chain Shirt is better. You're getting precious few powers known and you don't have that many power points, too.
Also, it's better to keep your Mindblades always "topped off" on the enhancement bonus. At your level, +2 is better than +1 keen (for the +hit). Psychokinetic Weapon will be better than Keen, too :)
Do you have the Alter Blade Blade Skill? It rounds out to +1 damage with your main-hand, so it's a bit underwhelming. Consider Emulate Melee Weapon (Wakizashi) instead, for the sweet, sweet 18-20 crits.
Also, is your attack routine +12/+12/+7/+7? Yeah, the -2 from TWF hurts, there. Again, consider going straight +2 on the Mindblade. Precognition, Offensive also helps.

The reason I mentioned Focused Offense is because it makes you SAD: the same attribute boosts your manifesting, your melee and your Will Saves. With a 20-point buy, I'd go 13 STR, 14 DEX, 14 CON, 10 INT, 17 WIS, 10 CHA. I'd wear a Breastplate, too, freeing up a power known slot.

EDIT: Twin Strike: Attacks of Opportunity. Charges. One of the main advantages of 2HF over DW is not losing a ridiculous amount of damage whenever you can't full-attack. Twin Strike brings DW up to par.

EDIT2: IMHO, that's the problem with DW. In some conditions, it *might* do more damage than 2HF, but the sheer amount of resources you have to spend just to get up to par... Ugh.

[Silentman73]

I don't have her character sheet right in front of me (I'm at work); we didn't use point-buy, we used a house-ruled stat rolling method (roll 3 sets of scores @ 4d6-drop-lowest, then pick the best set). But I have a 17 Dex. With an enhanced manifestation of Inertial Armor and the Force Screen, in conjunction with her Dexterity and a +2 Ring of Protection, she's rolling with a 24 AC without armor penalties (if she has a round to manifest Force Screen before she closes).

I'll play around with numbers tonight once I'm home in relation to maxing out the enhancement bonus and combining in Emulate Melee Weapon for a wakizashi. I can take the 8 hours to reform the blade @ +2 Psychokinetic as well if I need. I don't have Alter Blade right now; the penalties associated with it didn't seem desirable at lower levels, and I don't play around with my mindblade configurations much to begin with, at least with any frequency that would make the valuable blade skill slot worth spending on that particular blade skill.

I'll also take a look at wearing actual armor. Thanks for the recommendations. :)

[Justin Sane]

If you're worried about ACP, try to get your hands on a Mithral Breastplate :) It's equivalent to Inertial Armor augmented by 4. Eventually, get a +1 Mithral Breastplate of Comfort, for 0 ACP. Alternatively, if you have access to traits, Armor Expert (the other one should be Psionic Knack, no questions asked).

I figured you had Alter Blade because you mentioned your damage was 1d8+8/1d6+8, so it was either that or a typo :) Also, according to your stats, I'm getting just 1d6+6, where's that +2 from?

So. Number-crunching time.
Assuming you picked Weapon Focus, TWF/ITWF, Double Slice, Offensive Prescience (unaugmented/3 points augment), +2 Psychokinetic Wakizashi: 38.81 / 41.46 DPR vs AC 20, 25.31 / 27.04 DPR vs AC 24.

Assuming you picked Weapon Focus, TWF/ITWF, Double Slice, Offensive Precognition (unaugmented/3 points augment), +2 Psychokinetic Wakizashi: 36.44 / 39.35 DPR vs AC 20, 24.78 / 27.69 DPR vs AC 24.

Assuming you picked Weapon Focus, TWF/ITWF, Double Slice, Offensive Prescience (unaugmented/3 points augment), +2 Keen Wakizashi: 37.38 / 40.37 DPR vs AC 20, 24.06 / 25.99 DPR vs AC 24.

Assuming you picked Weapon Focus, TWF/ITWF, Double Slice, Offensive Precognition (unaugmented/3 points augment), +2 Keen Wakizashi: 34.13 / 36.86 DPR vs AC 20, 23.21 / 25.94 DPR vs AC 24.

All results don't include Rending Blades, mostly because I don't know how to model Bleed damage :)

Some results are obvious: Prescience is better against low ACs, Precognition is better against high ACs. Psychokinetic is always-on damage, Keen is spike damage. Thanks to Rending Blades, I'd call them both pretty much equal.

A two-handed comparison: Assuming Weapon Focus, Power Attack, Furious Focus, Offensive Precognition (unaugmented/3 points augment), +2 Psychokinetic Two-Handed Mindblade: 36.05 / 38.72 vs AC 20, 25.73 / 28.04 vs AC 24.
So roughly equivalent to DW, at a much, much reduced cost.

A big point in favor of DW: Keen Wakizashi + Deadly Blow + tons of attacks = Industrial-grade blender :)

[wraithstrike]

Generally speaking two handers will do more damage unless you have a special ability such as smite or favored enemy.

[Dragonchess Player]

As stated, two-handed weapons generally do more damage. However, dual-wielding is superior when you can either stack additional damage per hit (also mentioned) and/or threaten/inflict status effects with each hit/critical (more attacks = more chances at hits/criticals); it does require more investment in feats, etc. to pull off successfully and the critical route is heavily dependent on weapon choices.

[Jeremy Smith]

I can tell you that when I was balancing the soulknife during beta play testing, the two hands build always out damaged the dual wield build. So if you're going for raw damage, you want two hand.

As mentioned, dual wield is better if you have a NICE benefit on hit or critical, it's not the damage output build.

[Justin Sane]

I'm pretty sure I messed up my math, then, because that's not in line with my results. Then again, I'll just attribute the oddity to the benefits of various buffs :)

[CommandoDude]

Also, just on my experience, there seams like a lot more magic items that benefit TWF than THF - especially if you're sneak attacking. Sword of Subtlety, Handband of Ninjitsu (for Sneak Attacking) or Duelists Vambraces, etc; so there are certain ways to supplant your lack of to-hit though magic item use.

Plus, as people mentioned - crit feats.

[GhanjRho]

As has been said, TWFing is much better when you have a flat source of damage or rider effect on your hits: critical feats, sneak attack, even just buckets of flat damage bonuses (Smite Evil, Favored Enemy, Weapon Training). The Gifted Blade is somewhat worse off than a baseline Soulkinfe (Psychic Strike is somewhat more useful for this than GB powers).

As far as crit feats are concerned, my personal favorite is Bleeding, as a bucket of bleed damage is useful against quite a few enemies. You should definitely be emulating wakizashi and using Deadly Blow. In addition, pick up Piranha Strike. It only works with light weapons, but it gives you a better return than Power Attack; PA only returns 1-for-1 on the off hand no matter what, whilst PS always gives 1:2. The only downside is the Weapon Finesse requirement.

[Justin Sane]

GhanjRho wrote:

As has been said, TWFing is much better when you have a flat source of damage or rider effect on your hits: critical feats, sneak attack, even just buckets of flat damage bonuses (Smite Evil, Favored Enemy, Weapon Training).

This is true.

Quote:

The Gifted Blade is somewhat worse off than a baseline Soulknife (Psychic Strike is somewhat more useful for this than GB powers).

This is false. Psychic Strike need to be recharged after each use, which limits it to a 2-4 uses per combat, tops. Gifted Blade gets powers that grant him a flat damage bonus, like Offensive Prescience. Plus Psionic Lion's Pounce, which is... well, pounce.

EDIT: Okay, I'll admit that's debatable, Psychic Strike + Dual Imbue + Reaper's Blade + Critical Refocus + 2x Keen Wakizashi makes for a really scary crit-fisher. It boils down to the age old question of raw damage vs utility, I guess :)

Quote:

As far as crit feats are concerned, my personal favorite is Bleeding, as a bucket of bleed damage is useful against quite a few enemies.

This is true. Note Bleeding Critical doesn't stack with Rending Blades, so make sure you retrain it into some other Blade Skill by then.

Quote:

In addition, pick up Piranha Strike. It only works with light weapons, but it gives you a better return than Power Attack; PA only returns 1-for-1 on the off hand no matter what, whilst PS always gives 1:2.

This is false. Piranha Strike: "This bonus to damage is halved (-50%) if you are making an attack with an off-hand weapon or secondary natural weapon."

[GhanjRho]

Re: Pirahna Strike; ahh, dang it. For a second I thought Paizo let DEX-fighters have nice things.

And I agree it's debatable, and generally I come down on the side of utility (my favorite soulknives are generally Half-giant Gifted Blades, though I'm working on a Dark Tempest build ATM). It's my opinion that a properly built baseline Soulkinfe is better for buckets of damage (or even CHA damage from Knife to the Soul)

[HangarFlying]

I actually worked out a DPR matrix some time ago. If you can find a way for the TWF to make up the -2 for TWF (either being two levels higher, magical item, STR), essentially some way to make the Attack Bonus of the TWF to be the same as the THF (while all else is kept equal), the TWF outperformed the THF.