I posted this on another board, I wanted to get the word out to people.
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Ok I just got done testing a varied number of pistols dual weilded including the BBI Faithful with my lowbie Advent. Here is what I found.
- There is no damage varience whether your pistol is offhand or man hand. You do the same amount of damage.
- A Damage round is never skipped while dual weilding. Your attack bars wait in limbo if the attack animation is already in use and shoots immediatly afterward. No shot is ever skipped. This is where Tetra is wrong.
- Due to the attack animations holding up, especially the Phantom shots, you do NOT shoot 2x the amount of time in 30 seconds. You will never skip a round as Tetra said, but he was correct in saying you don't shoot twice as many times. For example, with 1 BBI Faithful I shot 8 times in 30 seconds. With 2 BBI Faithfuls I shot 13 times in 30 seconds. This would mean you get 1.5x damage using an offhand weapon of the same qlvl. I stand corrected. The faster pistols interestingly enough closed the gap slightly but I didn't get a chance to test them that much.
So here is what doesn't make sense and should be brought to Funcoms attention immediatly.
Problems with dual weilding:
Dual weilding a same qlvl Pistol will give you about 1.5x damage output. Now, in every aspect of the game, you can't EVER dual weild the same qlvl pistol.
Pistols damage is much lower then a 2h weapons damage. It is this way on purpose assuming you will make up for it in an offhand weapon.
Since you offhand weapon is always many many qlvls below your main, you don't get the advantage of even 1.5x damage.
The lower damage on pistols creates for more problems as the AC in mobs get higher. Pistols are attack rating dependant and have a hard time getting past the puny or min damage barriers.
Due to AC and animation that stops pistols from firing, you will more then likely end up with 1x damage over time using pistols. What I mean by this is due to the slow down of attack and lower offhand damage output, you would do the same amount of damage as if you were weilding 1 pistol.
Pistol damage is so puny for almost every pistol on the market, it would not be worth dual weilding them. You could get more damage from a 2h weapon.
The changes to Multiranged were unfounded and creating such a high multi-req for all pistols is not only counterproductive, but it basically kills the entire line all together.
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I'm shocked that it works like this, and that Funcom has let it go this far. I do apologize for giving out false information. I never tested it over a given amount of time. That's when the serious problems truely show.