I thought I would get the ball rolling on this. I know they did some changes in the past to bring the 2-handed specializations more in line with the 1-handed specializations. However, general sentiment seems to be that the dual wielders outpace those who use a 2-hander with no significant benefit on the 2-hander side.

I am not sure if envoys miss this problem because most of the warrior envoys are BCs or BMs.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

The only thing I can think of offhand is that perhaps certain AL and PB afflictions should be the equivalent of two BC and BM afflictions and thus require two separate cures.

Obviously the first post only addressed the PvP deficiencies in PB and AL vs. BC and BM.

As for PvE, I am not entirely sure if chance to miss is the same for trans one-hander and trans two-hander. Perhaps alter it so the chance to miss on a two-hander is lower.

Another alternative could involve there being a bonus to the crit chance of using a two-hander to balance out for the greater ability to stack crits with one-handers.

Some of them do. Some of them also take less wounding to achieve the same affliction. And, if you read that thread again, look at Desitrus' comments (who is an envoy who has now tried out all 4 of the specs). The 2h afflictions tend to be nastier than the 1h, to make up for the fact that there's one chance at it instead of 2. 2h weapons also have a precision bonus, which means a higher chance of getting the nastier afflictions on a raw hit-to-hit basis.

These are things that tend to get overlooked for some reason, instead just looking at the raw number of afflictions.

It's not just that, but also the manner in which some of the afflictions can be delivered. An affliction that requires a strike, for instance, is much easier to get than one that requires a swing. Pureblades in particular have a wide variety of regen cures that can be obtained through strikes, some only at heavy wounds. By contrast, Axelords and Bonecrushers often need swings or assaults/sweeps to make their most dangerous afflictions.

Of course, you have to consider some people's healing balances, including allheale, green/gedulah, and phial (which is apparently on a six second balance and can cure one random afflict.)

The swing thing is actually being addressed as we speak-- it will still always be easier to get a strike than a swing, but for the most part (not always, but in general) the swing afflictions are more severe than the strikes due to the harder-to-get nature. Even so, it will become a bit less hard-to-get.

What Xenthos said.

PB/AL's also tend to have better afflictions at lower wound ranges as well, not sure if this was mentioned elsewhere. Really, it's fine. Of course, certain things need tweaking, but that goes for all classes.

All in all, it's about even. BM/PB have a leg up on stopping runners, AL/BC have an advantage in sustained combat.

Desitrus, how do you figure that Axelords and BC's don't have an edge in stopping runners? I was under the impression you guys could both use stuns and knockdown at very early levels, certainly unlike Pureblades.

That is, the ones that can't do ridiculous amounts of wounding in a single strike to cause legtendon. *innocent*

Neither of them have an affliction that stops running after that knockdown. The best an axelord can hope for is a double tap with an artied klangaxe where calcise and senso both fire and you get the knockdown + slit. In my experience that's <10% of the time. With tendon and pinleg/gut impale you can at least stop running immediately if you get the wound.

On a sweep, I can easily score this with my waraxe. According to a test I did with Kaervas, after moving, SliceThigh prones and stuns for 2-3 seconds (Kaervas wasn't that sure since he didn't have timestamps). I haven't had any real combat experience with it yet, but from a theoretical perspective this is an excellent follow up to a Knockdown, taking advantage of the lack of parry/dodge and the prone+stun to prevent instant curing. The additional stun from SliceThigh allows enough time to figure out where the target went, and the prone lengthens the window of time you have to get back into the room and resume attacking.

How are you going to manage that with the stun immunity being over a full second after your kd stun wears off? They stand, they cure, peace. There is no stun stacking or additional stun, for the same reason you can't just chain knockdowns on people. It's an INSTANT cure which means someone would have to be RETARDED to move without curing it. Straight up, try to stop someone with it with your waraxe and not in some field trial where Kaervas moves without curing it. The additional hit means that even if you place it INSIDE the kd, such as with an artied out wounding klangaxe, you are still off-balance for 2-3 seconds after your kd stun wears off.

Basically what I'm telling you is that the reality is far different from the AB file and having someone move without curing a non regen-delayed cure. Assuming your opponent is even mildly competent, slice-thigh doesn't keep them prone, so now you've accomplished two leg hits for 8p and they're still going to walk away from you. You have nothing built towards your kill or even hindering them in a decent fashion. You are far better off just going for the stunned double-tap greenlock of kd with calcise and slit with senso inside the stun. At least that way if you roll the dice hard enough you are looking at a kill already, and they can't move. Of course, it's about a 12% chance of all that firing against a fully trans'd opponent.

My statement was made from a theoretical standpoint. Nonetheless, thanks for ripping it to shreds

Additionally, the problem was that you stated that Axelords have no afflictions to stop runners after Knockdown, which SliceThigh clearly does.

P.S.: My waraxe has 400 dmg full buffed. So I don't see how I am making no progress towards a kill if I'm dishing out damage.

Anyone who can tank it is going to walk away. Even at 420 damage with elementals against someone with a weakness, you won't two-shot them. Similarly, if it's a 380 base, it's not going to be faster than 220 even with weaponaura, which is NOT enough to doubletap. So you either get a thigh or a knockdown before they move, not both. By stopping runners, I mean things like tendon and pinleg, where your offense is included in the hindering and it requires a time-delayed cure (writhe, regen, etc) to remove it. I actually used to use it as a pre-nerf aslaran, when I could hit inside waraxe stuns, but it still ends up being cured long before you have balance back and away they go.

Agreed, I'm far from being able to two-shot anybody. However, I can still put some kind of hurt on a squishy class/race. And I can get up to 217 speed with NK and forge runes, so you're right; I can't doubletap. But eventually, with weapon runes, I might be able to, especially when I go back to Aslaran (or maybe Illithoid) when I hit 90. Either way, I'm considering trading in my damage mod runes for a stat rune and 2 +wounding runes for my new klangaxe: 400 prc, 250-ish speed (I'm still trying for higher prc). I think it might be a better option for me in my current state, seeing as how I've tried going for damage kills a few times and it doesn't seem to be doing anything since people are picking tankier races now and warrior combat has become more focused on afflictions if you're not a Demi.

Anyway, I now understand what you were saying. You were classifying the hinder as an actual affliction that prevents moving at all until cured. However, you can't deny that SliceThigh, if not cured due to system bug or other afflictions being stacked on top of it, does prevent further running for a short period of time after the initial move.

I guess I meant that in a more figurative sense, in that runners are people who only run from you, not just suck and try to move with bad afflictions. I hear an axelord recently went blademaster and has a 420/240 klangaxe without runes... pay the man.

Done forging, indeed. How can you stand to pay the transfer costs for those runes?