How to build a well balanced 2H

Inspired by the impressive stats shown in the "show what you have thread", I figured that it would be a good thing for those of us who don't quite measure up to have a place to begin to figure out how to get there.

Most of the big end gamers who show off these impressive stats start with their might weapon.

It used to be swords with 2 lines of dmg and 2 lines of dmg%. Since 155 kind of warped things, I'm not sure what would be considered best any longer.

Now assuming this is based on other gear, that is where I think we should begin.

Certain sets can boost crit (dark set) and some boost hp (keens).

Now most in the game think if you're going to go 2 handed, you must begin with the Warlord set which gives the boost to weapons. Kind of hard to argue with that logic.

So what about the other items that don't come in sets? Do you go legendary or maybe the draken/frag bought items?

If you are building a nice 2h DK, what about rings, amulets, weapon adornment, torso.

When do you look for items with resist, hp, armor, crit and dmg?

What about gems? It's a given that rubies go into weapons and sapphires go into adornment, but what about cyanites, amethysts and diamonds?

Then there are the wisdom points that have to be considered.

I would think that 2 handed must put as many points into the dmg boosters as possible 10 + 25, and the other 15 into speed?

Finally there is the target stats for a nice well built 2H for PVE (not super OP like some, but nice enough to not sweat any map).

Now I would think it would look something like this, but I may be way off here (I'm only guessing on what I would love to reach realistically one day). If I'm way off (high or low) please let me know.

Base dmg: 2800-3600
Att speed: 1,77
HP 12K
Armor: 65%
Crit hit: 25%
Crit dmg: 125%
Resist: 50%

I (and I'm sure many who are building their DK's) would love to know from those who have been building these characters for a while what does your ideal 2h look like.

What are the pieces you want/have and why? Do some items simply make better sense to use than others?

 

Well, in my opinion you have to have painful and fatal set.

For painful:

lower higher

Base dmg: 3200-5100
Att speed: 1,3
HP 10K
Armor: 55%
Crit hit: 33,4+%
Crit dmg: 125%
Resist: 30%


Warlord set, leg torso (13% dmg), keen gloves and boots on right side, on left side leg amulet and ring (with 3*chr 1*cd), bloodtooth, leg belt (now) with 2*crit 2*dmg. I use this items cuz i don't have better one. I have pink weapon andoerment with full chr, also have leg one that I colud get 3 lvl up (on 53) that would have 950 chr but only 2 spots
In items i am looking for chr & cd on left side, torso with dmg %, gloves att speed and dmg, boots run speed and dmg
my knowled point are 3 att speed, 25 dmg, 12 hp, 10 behemot
My gems are left side amethysts (amulet, ring and belt are empty, to lazy to transfer) on the right side diamonds.
There is no need for some op defensive stats to farm painful. All dk should go for as much as possible DPS

for fatal:

lower higher

Base dmg: 2800-4300
Att speed: 1,3
HP 14K
Armor: 70+%
Crit hit: 25%
Crit dmg: 125%
Resist: 50%


Warlord set, leg torso (2k+ armor and 450 hp), full keen set on right side, on left side leg ring (with 3*chr 1*cd), bloodtooth and dragon shackles. I use this itmes cuz i need better armor and hp.
my knowled point are 3 att speed, 25 dmg, 12 hp, 10 behemot
My gems are left side amethysts (except leg ring) on the right side diamonds.
In my opinion DK stats for fatal must be well balanced, even more defensive. You need to live but you still need to keep argo.
It is never endless struggle how to bring balanced DK.

I never look for ressist on items. All my ressist comes from gems.
And in the end, weapon... I would always go for mace but if every weapon with op, close to max, stats is perfect, as well "Bearch set" is very sweet too

 

Well u may need to see my 2 hand.. besst ever i got

http://prntscr.com/a6j6cm

 

I think getting 1.77 for 2H is tough these days. Without a pet, I'm at 1.28 now that I have 5 jewels of rage. Speed pet takes me to 1.32. I need to recheck the breakpoints but am to lazy right now.

All the numbers you posted are somwhat doable. Warlord set is probably the best all around set if you're F2P or poor cash, as it allows you the option of switching from 2H to 1H and shield if you're into pvp or need to aggro tank.

My DK is here: https://board-en.drakensang.com/threads/show-what-you-have.7899/page-56#post-640704

Main differences are that i traded an 8hp regen skull for a jewel of rage and now have a 2nd sacred ruby to push my 2H hammer to 1160 or 1170 dps. Very close to getting my hammer to level 51.

Long run, I really would like to go dragonache set, but doing that at the moment would reduce my crit as most of it is from the dragan ring (600 crit) and seal of death amulet (335 crit). I might just do the single 990 hp/25% crit ring in plaxe of my rong of death and swap out my 1267 hp belt for a 775 hp/405 crit belt that I have stashed as that might get me to 23 or 24% crit and allow me to glyph up my hammer to level 51.

 

Good grief, that is impressive.

Considering going 2 handed isn't that great for pvp anymore, are speed boots still important for the build? If so, what % should you look for?
What about speed gloves? What percentage should you look for?
Should you also look for hp or dmg in the boots or gloves?

For left side items would everyone agree to look for items with dmg, crit and crit dmg only if possible? (except maybe belt if going for keens).
For right hand side is this where players should look for items that only have armor and hp? Do you give up the armor or hp line if it has a dmg line?

It seems that any build has to begin with the right weapon, so is the hammer with big dmg or the axe with big crit the better choice now?

 

Yeah, you need a good weapon to start with, and that typically means a 3-1 weapon, or a 2-2. 3-1 2H axe is probably the best option if you have bloodtooth or helmet of darkness, as the 1387 base crit works really well with those multipliers. But a 2-1-1 (last line being crit hit value) hammer or sword can work well if that crit line is high.

I have the armor of darkness torso, gloves, and boots, as it gives me 5% crit and 10% increased damage set bonuses and 15% attack speed and travel speed on the gloves and boots. Keens would be nice, but i only have level 40 gloves stashed away.

Going legendary for the torso, gloves and boots is also popular - a good 2x armor and 2x % damage torso is probably the best option if you find one, and 3x or 4x attack speed gloves would be nice, but you need good luck finding those.

 

I see you baiting me Rhysingstar.
I'm on on my lunch break at work, but when I get home I'll take the bait and write one of my mini essays.

 

If you chum the waters long enough the big sharks come to play

There is so much to be learned about DK's here on the forum, but with the changes done by 155 some of it isn't perfect. Then there are some questions that haven't been fully answered. So I figured if we do a complete thread on 2H and then one on 1H, maybe we could get all the good info in one spot.

Yes, I want to learn more myself also. My DK relies almost totally on gems and that is not the proper way to have a good balanced character. Gems mask mistakes to a point, but they do not make up for choosing the wrong gear.

From what little I have learned, most of the build revolves around finding the right weapon. (of course this isn't class dependent).

An axe with a huge crit line can help determine what other needs you have. A hammer with huge dmg also makes a major difference.

It's amazing to see DK's with 4K + base dmg, but no one really talks about the supporting gear that got them there.

What does that perfect amulet look like? What does the perfect torso contain? What items do you spend your gops on first? Should you really forgo searching for rings and save up the drakens to buy a blood tooth?

Is the warlord set really the must have when going 2 handed?

There are several of you long term DK's that have tried so many different combinations that you know "why" to build in a certain way. Most of the rest of us do it haphazardly and rely on getting lucky. That's why we end up with a high hp ring that we are afraid to get rid of. Even I am guilty of relying on the dso calculator for my dps and forget that other factors besides dmg effect my character. Nothing ruins a mood like finding out you built a glass tank.

 

Oh yes please, even though my main is a Spellweaver, my couple plays a Dragonknight and I show your posts to him very often, also I use them for my noobie lvl 40 side DK, who's on his way to a 2H PvE build, which also was my first toon ever, and they help a lot, looking forward for it!

 

We all love Doctor analyse. That is why he is dr.dk. Baragain

 

OK, here we go!

There are extreme builds with 2H DKs and there are the well rounded ones. Earlier Mario_Boss pointed out that it is good to have multiple builds; one for farming Painful and one for farming Fatal. While this can be nice, it requires having more items and glyphs/gems invested in each set to best be able to switch back and forth between the two. I don't have enough gems/glyphs to do this so I go with a well rounded build that I am satisfied using anywhere. In my opinion, a powerful/endgame "Well Balanced" 2H DK needs to be able to solo anything except the most difficult bosses with no more than blue ess for mini bosses, and needs to have enough DPS to do it at a reasonable pace. Yet he also has to be durable enough to survive as the tank for a group of SWs, RAs, and SMs while having enough DPS to hold agro. It is a fine line to walk.

I will used my build as a frame of reference and I'll give you the example of what I could look like with nicer gems than me (Sacred/Royal) and slightly lower gems than me (Polished/Radiant). With the exception of my weapon gems (Which is where I've put all my resources since I achieved full flawless) and a handful of Sacred defensive gems that I've scraped together, all mine are currently Flawless. I'll leave that rolled up in the below spoiler. A believe that even with the lower gems, the build would still be viable which goes with what Rhysingstar was saying about being gem independent.

Spoiler: Current stats, gear, and gems

Total gem count:
6 Sacred Amethysts, 12 Flawless Amethysts
3 Sacred Diamonds, 17 Flawless Diamonds
5 Jewels of Rage
2 20% Armor torso gems
1 Crystallized Solstice Stars
1 Concentrated Solstice Crystals
1 20 HP/sec Onyx Skull
1 8 HP/sec Onyx Skull
1 Sacred Sapphire, 4 Flawless Sapphires
1 Royal Ruby, 4 Sacred Rubies

The only item that is not 5 slots is the cape... I really don't want to pay nearly 65k Andermant for one more slot when for 65k Ander I could gain "tons" of HP or resist by improving one of my defensive gems.

There is a total of 42 million glyphs in the gear seen here and 5.9 M stuck in items in my locker and the 5.3M saved up waiting to be spent.

With no glyphs and gems downgraded to Radiants, my stats would look something like:
2900-3800 damage
1.3 Attack speed
12750 HP
5000 armor
3300 crit
1000 resistance

Boost all my gems up to royal and I'd have:
3437-4338 Damage
1.64 Attack speed
15730 HP
5380 armor
3645 crit
3780 resistance

As a threshold, I'd say that the minimum stats that you'd be able to pull of fatal solo while using blues for bosses would be:

2400-3000 damage
1.3 attack speed
10k HP
4500-5000 armor
1500-2500 crit
20%-25% crit damage
1800 resistance

These can swing a little bit either way to compensate for each other. More damage/DPS means that you regen more HP per swing so you might be able to get away with less armor/resistance.

Now, it is easy to just list stats and say that it should be your goal, but the question becomes what gear choices make this work?

I already did a lengthy look at gear choices for the 2H Crit based DK, and much of that still holds true. I'll just give a little bit of recommendations based on a more rounded build as opposed to going for DPS like what I talked about in that thread.

For a well rounded DK, I'd say that the Witch set is not your best choice due to it's generally poor defensive characteristics. Similarly, the Darkness set isn't the best choice due to the lack of HP without some serious gems.

For a well rounded DK, the Black Warlord set is the way to go for a couple of reasons.

1. Armor: The high armor of the set and the 15% for 2/3 makes it easy to get 60%-70% damage reduction from armor
2. The little bit of block: I've always used the metric "Effective HP" when discussing blocking characteristics since it applies equally to all types of damage. The warlord set at LVL 50 offers 6.09% effective HP. 6.09% of 10K is 609HP meaning that the 10K acts like 10609 HP when you average out all the hits. Every little bit helps.
3. The 30% Weapon damage: This is applied before the normal % damage and this can be a blessing and a curse, but in my opinion, the good outweighs the bad. The good... Because it is applies before the % damage it gets multiplied by the % damage. On the other hand, it is applied in the same step as the % weapon damage on the weapon so the nicer the weapon, the less significant the 30% is to the total. This is in contrast to all other damage boosting set bonuses like the Legendary Kings set, the Essence set, the Witch set, and the Darkness set which have their damage boosts added after the weapon damage.

Well, that takes care of the Head/Shoulders/Cape... Now for feet/hands

Ideally, for "Well Rounded" there is nothing better to recommend than Keen's. The 750 HP is huge and the little bit of offensive characteristics of the 3/3 is a nice compensation if you chose to use Keen's belt over a more offensive belt (think crit/crit damage) for the defensive characteristics but unless the PRNG loves you, that could take months... or longer .

If Lady Luck is not on your side, you may be tempted to go for attack speed on the gloves and travel speed on the boots, but these are traps. While attack speed is important in any 2H DK, the ability to take damage is still important.

As long as you have enough damage to recover 40-60% of your HP per spin in the middle of a good size mob, attack speed is much less relevant than attack speed. While gloves with 15% attack speed may help you over the next speed breakpoint or two, that isn't likely to be a matter of life or death when there is a mandatory 3 second cool down on MWS anyway. On the other hand, 700 armor (approximately 600*1.15; very easy to get on gloves) and 1000 HP (690*1.45; Not impossible) could be the difference between serving and looking at that darn re-spawn screen.

Same story with the boots. Sure, running from mob to mob a little faster speeds the farming process up a little, it is still an almost insignificant amount of time in the farming process, especially if you are farming the higher difficulties. 90% of your time is spent standing still and getting whaled on while surrounded by mobs. If you are building a speed farming build for Painful, then sure, use speed boots. Other wise, go for a blend of HP and armor like the gloves I recommended.

Side note:
You'll notice that I never said anything about damage on either of those items? That is because the damage gained from armor items is insignificant compared to the weapon. It only goes through the % damage modifiers, so a line of 35 (max) is only worth 52-60 damage. If you have 2.5k average damage (rather low considering what a good weapon can do for you), that would result in a 2% increase to your DPS where as one line of 8% attack speed can improve your DPS by one speed breakpoint's worth of DPS (Math gets wonky when you actually consider break points). For that reason, if you are looking at "Offensive" stats on gloves, go with attack speed over damage.

So, on to the belt. I already talked about Keen's, but as said, Fate is a fickle friend. Here is one of those items that can go either way, even if you have Keen's boots/gloves in use. You can't get Crit/crit damage on armor items easily, so the belt is where you can make it up. If you already have enough defensive stats and can sacrifice the ~380 armor and ~530 HP (~430/~770 with % bonuses), you stand to gain significant DPS in the form of crit/crit damage. I have a belt with 635 crit and 34 damage (which I wish were an equivolently high crit damage line of 15%-16%). I switch that belt in when I am farming Painful, but I also lose (ironically) 635 resistance due to the gems that I am to cheap to move over (but it is only Painful, so who needs 635 resist ). If I were willing to move the gems, I could probably get away with using the belt in Fatal, but I prefer to err on the side of caution when I'm in Fatal. So, a wrap up of your choices... Keen's to make 3/3, a crit/crit damage belt, or a mix of HP/armor... it it is all dependent on what your build can take and still be viable.

Jewelry:
Top for "Well Rounded" goes to the Dragonache set... Huge HP line, huge armor line, awesome 25% crit line, nice attack speed line, OK damage line and a couple nice to have lines like travel speed and a huge fire resist line... Oh, did I forget to mention the 165 (240 with %s) damage that you get on the side? On it's own, no one piece it particularly useful except the HP/Crit ring, but that is dependent on having nice crit elsewhere, but all together with the damage, the set is very impressive.

Here it is broken down, just looking at the lines that you could get on individual rings/amulets (Skipping % travel speed/Fire resist all together):

• 215 damage... takes at least 7x30+ damage lines
• 760 armor... takes at least 2 nice armor lines
• 990 HP... 2 super lines will get you close, but most likely 3 lines.
• 7.5% attack speed... This is worth at least 1 Crit damage line
• 25% crit... This is worth at least 2 good crit lines.

Basically, you are getting 14-15 lines worth of good stats in three items... and 3 items can only give you 12 lines total... and that was with me ignoring the "nice to have" stats of run speed and the fire resistance... I'll let you draw your own conclusions from this.

Best thing about the Dragonache set is that it can be gotten with nothing more than patience... but that is also the problem. A new (less than 8-12 months) character is unlikely to have the 13k Draken needed for this beauty. That means that they need something to hold them over until they can get the set. To fill the gap using legendaries I'd recommend mixing a little HP, a little armor, a little damage, and a little crit damage. With a little luck, you could also use a decent Ring of Life, a decent Ring of Death, and a mixed amulet that is well rounded.

Three last pieces of gear and if we thought luck was a factor in getting Keen's items then here comes when you really ought to go looking for four leaf clovers, keeping an eye out for shooting stars, and avoid walking under ladders because these last three can make or break a 2H DK.
Torso
Decoration
Weapon

Torso:
You can get huge HP, Armor, or damage (in the form of % damage... ignore that stupid +damage crap) and if you get too much of one, the others will hurt. I'd forgo getting HP from a torso because armor is so easy to get from it and with a bit of luck and patience, you can get the armor stones that will make the torso even more impressive. Personally, I have 2 of the 20% armor gems (1 from saved up clovers and 1 from the golden present). That means that a torso is an opportunity to make a huge amount of armor. If you have 1k armor, than each of those 20% stones is worth more than a Royal Cyanite! On the other hand, armor experiences diminishing returns and by the time you hit 65%-70% armor, each extra bit of armor becomes less and less important and you begin missing out on the damage you could be getting, so for a well rounded DK, I'd recommend 2-2 armor and % damage. I've seen people use Exo torsos with 3x lines of % damage, but the base armor is only 206. Compared to a torso with 2-2 and an armor stone or two, you'd be missing out on 1k or more armor for only a couple % more damage. Unless you have a near perfect exo 27%+ damage torso, I'd say that you are probably doing yourself a disservice by ignoring your armor... remember, we are talking about a "Well Rounded" 2H DK, not the "How High Can I Get My DPS" 2H DK.

Decoration:
Never ever go for damage on a decoration. Crit or crit damage are the only things that you should care about on the decoration. Each of those improves DPS by a % of your total where as damage is a flat amount which is almost always underwhelming. And of course, the old guidance of only putting speed gems still applies. They have made crit gems better these days to the point where I won't laugh at someone for using them, but I would never buy crit gems and I'd only use a Sacred or higher. I have 2 flawless and a radiant and if I ever manage to make a sacred, then I'll consider replacing one of my speed gems with it due to the fact that the 335*1.39=465/110.96=4.19% chance of crit.

Weapon:
This is the part that you've all been waiting for and I'm going to say something shocking... Sword, Hammer, Axe... it doesn't matter. They all have their positive and negatives. Axes and Hammers are sooooooo slow compared to swords (especially once you have nice speed gems)... Hammers will let you hit damages that you could only dream of with the other two... axes can give you a much needed crit boost that is tough to get in a DK, particularly a 2H build. The key to remember is that we are talking about a well balanced 2H DK and these items all have potential in a well balanced build.

Spoiler: Side note

I'll tell you that if you are going for pure DPS, you probably want a hammer if you have nice crit items or an axe if you have nice crit damage items and that you ought to avoid a sword all together if DPS is your goal, but that is for another discussion.

Much more important is the stats on the 2H weapon. For max damage, you want 2-2 or 3-1 (%damage/+damage), but as was pointed out earlier, you can still do well with 2-1-1 (%damage/+damage/crit). However, beyond the types of lines, the importance of the magnitude of the lines can not be understated. % damage can vary from 25% all the way up to 80%. Damage can range from 40, all the way up to just over 100. Crit can go from 800 up to over 1700. You could get all the right stats, but with all the wrong magnitude and the weapon is worthless. As a general guideline, you want 100%-150% weapon damage (between the two-three lines), 80-160 (in the 1-2 lines) damage or more, or 1400 crit or more.
I hope you weren't looking for some sage wisdom here, but this comes down to luck and tons of farming. I used a LVL 43 that I leveled up for over a year (19Jan15) before I got a replacement earlier this month... But that is luck for you. A little bit of luck can make a mediocre player look like a god and some bad luck can make a good player sit in the corner and cry. You can have all the perfect versions of all the gear I mentioned above and still be an underwhelming 2H DK. If you are looking for a starter item to get you a foot in the door, you can use the Steam axe from Andrakasch (very cheap to upgrade), or you can use the 2H sword from Yaltepetl. If you have some powerful friends, you could also farm Bearach for his new 2H hammer. It has a lot of promise if you get the 2/2 set.

Finally, you may notice that I largely ignored Crit damage and only placed a moderate amount of emphasis on crit, and that is on purpose. A well rounded DK needs to be able to put out a predictable amount of damage output . You may have high DPS with crit and crit damage, but if you do a MWS and expect to heal 8k, but luck isn't with you and you only get back 3k because of how your crits worked out, you might be dead before you get to try again, especially at the higher difficulties. I've said before that any build that ignores these two facets is making a bad decision, but there are times that it is of lower priority.

That being said... I think this calls for a thread about a glass cannon, sky's the limit DK where DPS is the only thing that matters. I've never made such a DK, but it would be fun to figure out what is possible... Don't you think?

 

All I can say is wow... It will take a while to digest all this information, but you have given so much direction on where I (and I'm sure others) can follow.

 

Thanks for posting! It gives me the post break that I can use to start another idea (shorter than the last) without getting two thoughts merged into the same post by the mods and this one getting swallowed up in that other monster I wrote.

Another question asked was with regards to where to spend glyphs.

When LVL 40 and 45 were the cap, it was easy enough to spread glyphs around because nothing was too crazy expensive, but now that even the first upgrade of a legendary/unique is about 2.5 M for a non weapon/offhand and 13M for the first level of a 2H, it isn't quite so clear.

I'll start with this rule of thumb:
Every 2H DK wants DPS and the best place to get it is by upgrading the 2H, but if you are too squishy to survive, you'll never get to use that damage. If you have solid defensive stats, then I'd aim to improve offensive stats by using glyphs on items with crit (relatively inexpensive) or by saving up big time for improvements on the weapon (crazy expensive). If you still need work in the defensive realm, spend your glyphs there.

Eventually, as you get better defensive gems and find better items to replace the ones you've spent glyphs on, you can recover the glyphs from those items and then save them to apply to the offensive side. There is nothing quite so satisfying as getting a new item that is better than one you have and then being able to belt the existing item to get 2.5-5.2M back to be put towards the offensive side. That being said, be careful about putting the glyphs into anything that you've spent ander on to open slots or is a unique that you might not be getting a replacement for for quite some time. I put 2.5M into my shoulders, and I regret doing that a little because extra block/armor is nothing to me right now compared to being 2.5M closer to being able to upgrade my weapon to 53. I did that without thinking when I melted my old LVL 45 (Glyphed to 48) versions shortly after LVL 50 came out. Hind sight is 20/20.

See, I told you that this one would be short

P.S. 10 more posts and I'll reach the forum rank for Forum Freak... I only hope that #2500 is a well written helpful piece like these as opposed to dealing with the forum trash.

 

A huge thanks to Mario_Boss, Novadude, and Baragain for sharing their knowledge. I think this thread will be quoted for a long time to come when players ask what it is needed to go 2 handed. I have learned so much, and now I (and others) have a clear path on what to farm for.

In a couple of days, I'll start one for 1h and then one for glass tanks so everyone will have the definitive guides on how a DK can be built.

Edit to add:

I guess with upgrading values now, the hope is to get a good drop instead of what it may become. 13 million gops to upgrade a somewhat okay sword is a bit much, so I can't imagine what a really good one costs to lvl up.