D&D 5E GWF vs. TWF Fighting styles

[Kryx]

So, yes, if you plan to play in the low-end (1st-4th) never go twf unless you like to roleplay more than to perform as a melee combatant; if you play in the top tier, then going for TWF is viable indeed, but only if you can find yourself critting regularly.

TWF is only viable in the bottom tier (1-3). People, including myself, have shown the math of that here.

Polearm is much better than TWF. So is GWM.

 

[juggerulez]

TWF is only viable in the bottom tier (1-3). People, including myself, have shown the math of that here.

Polearm is much better than TWF. So is GWM.

I can agree with you to a certain extent. Let me elaborate.

At levels 1-3 you don't have chances to exploit bonus attacks unless you can put your hands on a feat and use a particular fighting style.

• 2handers (2d6) + gwf averages 2*3.833 damage without BA, there is no BA available
• reach weapons (1d10) + gwf averages 5.9 damage without BA, there is no BA available
• two light weapons (1d6) average 1*3.5 without BA, with BA they go up to 2*3.5
• Sword and board (1d8) + duelist averages 6.5, which isn't enough to beat the competition but it ranks 3rd, but mounted combat and lance surely do, averaging at a whopping 8.5 damage!

this is only from dice perspective, which sees TWF second. This means that the "real deal" is all about stacking fixed bonuses.

• 2handers will never pop a BA, thus they will win only by increasing their number of swings
• reach weapons never pop a BA, thus it's more or less like 2handers
• duelist sword and boards pretty much follow through.

These 3 will never win against TWF because they simply can't double their fixed output. they *could* go on par if the fixed amount provided by stats overmatch the doubled fixed amount provided by TWF but it's a stretch.

So I can agree with you up to this point, but since we're filthy power players, let's introduce a single feat! we're humans after all :v

• The TWF duo upgrade to 1d8 plus an extra 1d8, thanks to Dual Wielder, going up to 4.5+4.5 thus whopping 9 avg damage! not bad!
• 2hander has an easy pick with GWM which boosts the output by 10 but imposes a -5 on hit. Let's assume that we're in a condition of Advantage to offset this and the avg damage ramps to 13.25! It gets disqualified, though, because we went to "on hit country" and it offends the judges.
• reach weapons (+GWF) will call for Polearm Master, which introduces a BA of 1d4. So our AVG ramps to 8.65 up to 5.9 (1d4 + GWF averages to 2.75) still not enough tho.
• Duelist sword and boards, though, go for a cheap shot, and go for Polearm Master as well! but with a sword!? no! with a quarterstaff!
  quarterstaff averages at 3.5, with duelist it goes to 5.5. It's BA averages at 2.5+2, which sums up to 10!
• Lance Duelists are still unable to pop a BA, thus they average at 8.5 falling short of half a damage. There are no feats to help the damage output there, so it rests.

But wait! What's that? a min maxer! W-whats he doing? he's using shillelagh as a MC druid? With Polearm Master and duelist?? it's otrageous!
1d8+2 + 1d4+2 goes for 11 whopping average damage, becoming King of the Hill

So as you can see, TWF is just the 3rd best option, 2nd best if you don't allow MC, but since my premisis was:

So, yes, if you plan to play in the low-end (1st-4th) never go twf unless you like to roleplay more than to perform as a melee combatant;

- and I'm a scummy min maxer, I'm compelled to consider everything else behind the "best choice" as "roleplaying"

 

[Kryx]

Note: I'm not really too interested in optimizing, just understanding the baseline. Though TWF loses in both categories.

Some of your math isn't correct.
2d6 with GWF is 8.33. It's AVERAGE(3.5,3.5,3,4,5,6)*2 in excel/google docs.
1d10 with GWF is 6.3. AVERAGE(5.5,5.5,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)
TWF actually benefits more from boosting dex than taking dual wielder. +1 to hit and damage is worth more than +2 to dmg.

GWM's can sometimes use a bonus action. At level 4+ they do more DPR than TWF.
Polearms can always use a bonus action and even have a reaction.

Shillelagh doesn't work on Polearm bonus

You're still saying TWF is not good at 1-4. That's actually the only point where it is competitive.

I've done the full math on DPR of Classes if you w ant to see it. TWF loses 4+

 

[redrick]

Oh look, I not worried about picking either. I generally am a little guilty of min/maxing, but at the same time, my build has to be fun too. I'm by no means a great mathematician, but I know some people here are pretty good and was more curious than anything. I wonder what you could house rule to balance out TWF...

First of all, I would be curious to see actual playtesting of TWF fighting style fighters alongside some of the other builds and see how it actually played out. The math is clear, but one never knows what will happen in play.

That being said, if I had a player who wanted to take TWF but felt discouraged by the fact that it would "start to suck" at higher levels, I would encourage him or her to take it anyway, with the promise that we would keep an eye on it at higher levels. My first instinct would be to add an extra off-hand attack for every 2 attacks taken with the Attack action. So, a character with 3 attacks under the attack action would be able to make 2 off-hand attacks with the bonus action. This would apply regardless of whether or not the character took the specific TWF fighting style, but would obviously be much better with the style. I might extend the same logic to action surge, or I might not. (Getting 4 attacks through action surge would might allow 2 off-hand attacks as part of the same bonus action.)

The main thing would be that a) I want the player to go for what is considered a "standard" concept and not have the rules shut that down. b) I want the player to understand that any re-balancing is a work-in-progress and that if I end up buffing TWF too far I might reign it in. c) I want the player to understand that I will be looking at the effectiveness of the character as a whole, not just balancing DPR against other builds. I do not believe that DPR needs to be comparable for a particular concept to be considered viable, and if a player is only willing to view the character through that lens, we might not find common ground on the issue.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Hi All. It was mentioned by someone in another thread that the GWF trumps 2WF significantly. Can I please ask by just how much this can be? I would have thought that they would have been fairly balanced in the grand scheme, given the 'extra accuracy' 2WF gives via a bonus action attack.

In my experience...totally balanced. When the GWF has his room, weapon, and single opponent in a stable situation, he is impressive. When the 2WF has terrain, weapons, multiple-opponents, all in a smaller and more contained space, he is impressive. Both have their strong and weak points. In the "grand scheme" of things...over the course of multiple sessions in a campaign...balanced well enough.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[juggerulez]

Some of your math isn't correct.
2d6 with GWF is 8.33. It's AVERAGE(3.5,3.5,3,4,5,6)*2 in excel/google docs.
1d10 with GWF is 6.3. AVERAGE(5.5,5.5,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)

ehm nope.

when you roll a 1 or a two you can reroll BUT you must keep the second value.
This means that you must also average the 1 and the 2 with the die's average.
1d4 becomes ((1+2.5)/2+(2+2.5)/2+3+4)/4
1d6 becomes ((1+3.5)/2+(2+3.5)/2+3+4+5+6)/6
1d8 becomes ((1+4.5)/2+(2+4.5)/2+3+4+5+6+7+8)/8

etcetera.

TWF actually benefits more from boosting dex than taking dual wielder. +1 to hit and damage is worth more than +2 to dmg.

You are mistaken.
Dual Wielder provides +1 AC, removes the mandatory "light" quality to use TWF and allows you to sheathe/unsheathe both weapons at the same time. Second and third are quite compelling, especially the second one, if you wanna perform properly as a dual wielder.
IF you stack dex with a feat, you'd better do so when you have an odd value and need to even it

GWM's can sometimes use a bonus action. At level 4+ they do more DPR than TWF.
Polearms can always use a bonus action and even have a reaction.

GWM provides you the formerly known as Cleave feature, which is purely situational. When you theorycraft, you'd better stick to consistent mechanics

Shillelagh doesn't work on Polearm bonus

Shillelagh increases the die value of the quarterstaff to d8, it makes no change to the "back hand" of Polearm Master, which is d4 and always have been. The only thing affecting the backhand is that it is Magic Damage rather than bludgeoning damage, because all the effects of which the main attack benefit, are transferred to the back hand as well, i.e. if the polearm is magic +3, the backhand will be magic +3 as well.

You're still saying TWF is not good at 1-4. That's actually the only point where it is competitive.

I've done the full math on DPR of Classes if you w ant to see it. TWF loses 4+

It was never competitive to a min maxer's eyes. To a roleplayers it is because they often don't give a frack if a stle performs better than the others, they just go for the badassery (something I respect much)

 

[juggerulez]

First of all, I would be curious to see actual playtesting of TWF fighting style fighters alongside some of the other builds and see how it actually played out. The math is clear, but one never knows what will happen in play.

The fact is simple: one can boost his damage by increasing the swings or by stacking fixed bonuses.
TWF can increase its swings by exploiting a BA to deal one extra attack but loses terrain to the other styles because, simply put, since the quantity of swings of an action is the same for all the stiles, thus the single extra BA don't offset the quantity of stacked bonuses of those fighting stiles that can't provide a BA by themselves (e.g. GWF) and especially don't offset those of the stiles that actually *can* also exploit BAs (like the case of 1handed quarterstaffs).
In my humble opinion, they should increase TWF output without going to stack too many fixed bonuses but rather by increasing the quantity of swings, which is more "flavor oriented" too. If they allowed to stack extra attacks per BA - I'd say by doubling the Action's (so at level 5th, you'd do 2 base attacks with your Action and 2 in your BA) - things would already be better.

The point at hand is this: TWF is a versatile style rather than a specialist one: mixes defense with offense, thus it will never be as effective as other styles which specialize in one of them.

There is little to playtest: everything is in the numbers. Playtesting introduces the RNG, so a TWF "lucky" guy can impressively dispatch an "unlucky" GWF guy, but that's not science, it's religion.

That being said, if I had a player who wanted to take TWF but felt discouraged by the fact that it would "start to suck" at higher levels, I would encourage him or her to take it anyway, with the promise that we would keep an eye on it at higher levels. My first instinct would be to add an extra off-hand attack for every 2 attacks taken with the Attack action. So, a character with 3 attacks under the attack action would be able to make 2 off-hand attacks with the bonus action. This would apply regardless of whether or not the character took the specific TWF fighting style, but would obviously be much better with the style. I might extend the same logic to action surge, or I might not. (Getting 4 attacks through action surge would might allow 2 off-hand attacks as part of the same bonus action.)

warning! you're fudging with the rules here. I'd suggest you didn't. Keep calm and a manual with some love for TWF will show up eventually, you don't need to expose yourself and your group to this kind of pressure.

The main thing would be that a) I want the player to go for what is considered a "standard" concept and not have the rules shut that down. b) I want the player to understand that any re-balancing is a work-in-progress and that if I end up buffing TWF too far I might reign it in. c) I want the player to understand that I will be looking at the effectiveness of the character as a whole, not just balancing DPR against other builds. I do not believe that DPR needs to be comparable for a particular concept to be considered viable, and if a player is only willing to view the character through that lens, we might not find common ground on the issue.

I completely agree with you, but honestly TWF performs grossly at about 50% of the top notch styles, so unless you go "all in" with a full revamp of the style, I'd rather not fiddle with the game's mechanics.

Hiya!



In my experience...totally balanced. When the GWF has his room, weapon, and single opponent in a stable situation, he is impressive. When the 2WF has terrain, weapons, multiple-opponents, all in a smaller and more contained space, he is impressive. Both have their strong and weak points. In the "grand scheme" of things...over the course of multiple sessions in a campaign...balanced well enough.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

you're adorable <3

 

[redrick]

The fact is simple: one can boost his damage by increasing the swings or by stacking fixed bonuses.
TWF can increase its swings by exploiting a BA to deal one extra attack but loses terrain to the other styles because, simply put, the quantity of stacked bonuses doesn't offset the quantity of swings of other fighting styles, especially if matched with those which can exploit BAs as well (e.g. Polearm master's).

The point at hand is this: TWF is a versatile style rather than a specialist one: mixes defense with offense, thus it will never be as effective as other styles which specialize in one of them.

There is little to playtest: everything is in the numbers. Playtesting introduces the RNG, so a TWF "lucky" guy can impressively dispatch an "unlucky" GWF guy, but that's not science, it's religion.

warning! you're fudging with the rules here. I'd suggest you didn't. Keep calm and a manual with some love for TWF will show up eventually, you don't need to expose yourself and your group to this kind of pressure.

I have no concern messing with the rules if it is to achieve a specific result. If a "standard" build is un-fun in play, I would rather tweak it to make it work than just say, "don't play two-weapon fighters because they're not as fun in this edition." That is the purview of the DM. Now, the caveat is that I would be tweaking as I go, and I wouldn't be willing to promise a specific rules change to a player. I think some players are cool with that kind of work-in-progress approach, but some players are not willing to cede that to a DM. What I consider balanced might not be what a given player considers balanced, and I could be wrong! But it has to be the DM's call. If a player isn't willing to have their class features in flux in that way, that's fine, but they should try to play something else.

We have no idea when a manual might come out with changes to TWF. Wizards might not consider it broken. It might not be broken. But, again, if tweaking it makes play at the table more fun for players, and it doesn't overpower a class or a build, and it doesn't screw with the assumptions of the game world, I say tweak away.

 

[Kryx]

when you roll a 1 or a two you can reroll BUT you must keep the second value.

A d6 averages 3.5. So if you have to reroll a 1 the new options are 1,2,3,4,5,6 which averages 3.5 which is exactly what I put above "=AVERAGE(3.5,3.5,3,4,5,6)"
The numbers you just outlined assumes half the time you roll a 1 and half the time you roll a 2.5 (for the d4 example)- that's entirely different.
The numbers I posted are the commonly accepted numbers posted everywhere. They have been validated by many people on many forums - they are correct.

Dual Wielder provides +1 AC, removes the mandatory "light" quality to use TWF and allows you to sheathe/unsheathe both weapons at the same time.

+1 Dex provides +1 AC as well. The only difference is +1 damage on two weapons vs +1 hit and damage on main hand and +1 hit on offhand. +2 dex is better than Dual Wielder for DPR.
Drawing weapons doesn't matter for DPR - one can simply have weapons out all the time (besides a town). Plus a Ranger will cast Hunter's Mark on the first round anyways.

GWM provides you the formerly known as Cleave feature, which is purely situational. When you theorycraft, you'd better stick to consistent mechanics

GWM is dependent on several things sure. But that doesn't matter. Even without the cleave part GWM is 93-95% of TWF 1-4. From 4-20 it scales from 115%-130%. GWM wins even if you ignore that "theorycraft" feature.

Shillelagh increases the die value of the quarterstaff to d8, it makes no change to the "back hand" of Polearm Master, which is d4 and always have been.

Good, you're not trying craziness. The option you've presented however only does 1 more damage than normal Polearm. Not worth the 1 level dip imo.

roleplayers .. they just go for the badassery

And it should be badass - at least a competitive option.

 

[bid]

a champion twf that crits on 18-20 is an absolute mean machine
a champion gwf that hits regularly has the best ingame output of consistent damage

TWF has more consistent damage be cause of the law of average. And at level 15 gwf (3d12+15) does consistently more damage than twf (4d6+20)

Improving crit on twf/gwf results in the same increase to DPR, twf only comes ahead if it has riders such as smite.