Dual wielding should REWARD having two powerful attack weapons.

Currently, duel wielding gives the following:
10% more Attack Speed while Dual Wielding
15% additional Block Chance while Dual Wielding
20% more Attack Physical Damage while Dual Wielding

Realistically it makes sense that you can move more freely while duel wielding so your movement wouldn't be impaired and hence you'd be able to move faster and block more easily. The issue I have is that you can get damage for only using one weapon while dual wielding if your other weapon is ANY weapon. That's illogical and yes this is a game, however in the current game it's also a balance issue.

Firstly, the more damage should not classify as physical but rather damage as a whole. This unfairly rewards physical builds that already get massive benefits from shaper stat sticks.

Secondly, while it is hard to get a good stat stick, even a normal weapon from the twilight strand when put in the off hand, if it the right type it will tell the game that it is equivalent to your main hand and effectively duplicate the type and stats of your main-hand onto your off-hand. This is absolutely ridiculous. This should NOT happen. Look at two hand weapons, do they get anywhere near that dps of duel wielding? No they don't (except in special circumstances, like ngamahu cyclone).

Thirdly, a stat stick on the rarity if a top end dps sword should give the same effective dps as using a second top end dps sword that is just as hard to obtain, in that hand. This is fairness, why should you not at all be rewarded for being able to have 2 top end swords in a dual wielding build, that is simply unfair. For example, if I have 2x 380pdps swords then I should have the same dps as if I used an offhand weapon that has 80% extra damage as elemental and 27% crit multi, since both are about the same rarity (the sword is probably way rarer actually, but I'm just going off poe.trade prices).

Fourthly, to elaborate on the first point, elemental conversion builds are rewarded while pure elemental weapon builds are not. This is quite biased towards phys weapons and in my opinion should be reconsidered so that is is 20% more damage with weapons rather than specifying physical damage. Currently this is offset by using weapons like doryani's catalyst to get a large amount of increased damage.

Fifthly, skills that only use the mainhand while dual wielding should be treated in the same way. These builds should consider that you are meant to be using a stat stick and so they shouldn't get the rewarded 20% more phys damage from dual wielding; perhaps they should be adjusted accordingly. Skills that forcefully use both weapons to attack, like frost blades, should definitely be getting the bonus because they are actually using two weapons to attack.


Thanks for reading, to summarise I am unsatisfied that stat sticks are so heavily rewarded and that struggling to get two great main hand weapons isn't rewarded in any way.

:)