I am no top player but do a lot of solo overland. I try all styles on my stamsorc -- 2H is definitely viable. You can solo dungeons with it (at least normal).

I don't personally like it as much as other options, but it can be highly effective, aprticularly with crit rush.

Nidro wrote: »

2h is ok for questing

2h is bad for everything else than just questing. just a bad idea, just bad dps lol

2 is vialble for pvp also

dual wield + bow - nothing can top that... just nothing

This.

I love two handed but sadly I have to agree with the folks above. Other than doing dungeons with friends I've learnt that the easiest way to get a group is dual wield and just stand near undaunted enclaves. I wish it wasn't true but the only reasons I'm ever given for being passed over or kicked is they don't want two handed...

The main reason I group is for the company, if I just want to solo normal dungeons one of my alts can do that herself... at least as long as they are normal.... and dungeon one not dungeon two... yes dark shade normal two I'm looking at you you vicious little sod...

I run a Stam sorc and initially loved the idea of 2 H. Sadly both in pvp and pve it's not the strongest. Slow and clunky and not always the best dps.

As the above have said, dual wield and bow are exeptionally strong on Stam sorc

Spaghettiknight wrote: »

Could a 2h stam sorc be viable in PvE (even if it's just non-vet)? I know Rending Slash and Rapid Strikes are incredibly important to stam sorcs, but are there any sort of usable 2h skills for stam sorc for similar damage output?

The answer is yes. All the the 2H skills are viable and useful for the content you're describing.

It is true that DW/Bow has more DPS potential than 2H/Bow, but that has more to do with high/max CP, endgame gear, optimized dungeon or raid groups, and Maelstrom weapons. You can do very respectable DPS with a 2H/Bow setup as long as you understand how to do a basic DPS rotation (Buff, apply DoTs, weave single target or AOE spammable with light attacks, rinse/repeat).

@Autolycus

These threads keep making me curious about off-meta DPS setups like 2H/Bow, Bow/DW, Bow/2H, ect ect...

Problem is no one seems to be making fair comparisons. Even in your case, your BS test was admittedly from awhile ago and you've probably gotten better sense then.

I'd love to see some combat metrics data with some weird, but viable setups vs. the DW/Bow standard. Also like I mentioned earlier, much of the DW/Bow setup's strength comes from CP (double dip with Thauma/Mighty), and Maelstrom weaps. Since Maelstrom weaps are out of reach for many players, they might do well with another setup, or at least come close to the DW/Bow standard. ./shrug

@The_Outsider You make a fair point. I try to be as open-minded and reasonable as possible when it comes to advising on stuff like this. I want the underlying point and overall message here to be this: For non-vet and overland content, there is no reason one cannot use a 2H as their main weapon. What we're getting into beyond this first paragraph is not entirely relevant to the OP's question, but is an extension of that concept that is really only applicable to vet trials. It's not as though a 4man vet dungeon group will be unsuccessful because someone uses a 2H.... that's not inherently true. The person with 2H will pull lower damage guaranteed, but the dungeon can still be completed. Thus, 2H is viable for vet dungeons. We draw the line at the word "competitive" rather than "viable."

That being said, I tried for quite some time to make a 2H work and to put it on the same level as DW and Bow dps parses. Part of the reason I've been unsuccessful is as you say: vMA weapons. But that's not all there is to it. Try putting Volley, Hurricane, Twin Slashes, and Cleave on the same bar with no other passive benefits, no gear, no CP, and no attributes, then compare the tooltip values (it helps to do this on a template character so you can guarantee you aren't buffing anything, and you have to make sure you convert each skill into damage per 1 second). What you'll find is that the baseline damage on 2H skills is below the values for Bow and DW skills. Adding in all of those other items, like CP, only furthers this disparity; it is not the reason the disparity exists.

I inflated my 25k parse slightly to be more conservative (in favor of 2H). Originally I clocked ~22k but I bumped it up to account for better gear/skill since then. I have been actively toying with combinations since then, but I feel I have a thorough enough understanding of stamina dps on the whole to know that 2H will not be in a competitive state for pve without being reworked (or perhaps a new "masters" weapon that buffs Uppercut?). I consider myself to be a good dps (and have no problem admitting others are better), and I am confident when I say that I am at a complete loss at this point for improving that 2H parse. Sad part is, I actually know what I can do to improve my DW/Bow parse, but cannot say the same for 2H.

When it comes to putting together a solid dps build for pve content, both bars are required to maximize the damage potential of the build. Since volley is the best single-target dps skill in the game, bow is required as one of our weapons, plain and simple. That means we have to choose between DW/Bow, 2H/Bow, and 1H&S/Bow. For obvious reasons, we cannot dps in pve with 1H&S, which means the comparison is only between DW and 2H. Even a seamless 2H rotation that uses all of the same non-weapon DoTs (Hurricane, Rearming Trap, Volley, Poison Injection, and assuming Dawnbreaker instead of Rend) cannot keep up with the damage on Flurry and Twin Slashes, with or without vMA weapons (again I refer to tooltip values with no gear, CP, attributes, or passive buffs).

Your point comes into play here. With no access to vMA weapons, comparing a dps parse on a 2H/Bow stamplar might not be that far off from a DW/Bow stamplar, simply because their 2H and DW are used for passive weapon damage values, rather than the skills from each respective tree. For example, a Stamplar in this case would not be using Flurry or WB, he/she would be using Biting Jabs. Unfortunately, stam sorcs have no class-derived spammable damage ability, so there is no comparison to be made anyway. We have to get our bread&butter skill from either DW or 2H.

You certainly don't have to take my word for it, but I sincerely doubt you're going to see any "fair" comparisons between 2H setups and the meta. The reason? Because 2H is designed to favor utility (pvp) over damage (pve). The meta favors whatever clears vet trials the fastest, because that's how competition is measured in ESO (top leaderboard spots = fastest run = moar dps).

The_Outsider wrote: »

This is kind of what I mean though. That dudes issue wasn't the weapon setup he chose.

Take the fabled 50k+ DPS parse that every DW/Bow DPS is shooting for. There is a very small number of players that can actually hit that number. I've got my Flawless title and my Dro'mathra skin, but I can't come close to that. I wonder how the numbers would look if a player capable of that mark used the DW/Bow setup and then compared it to a 2H/Bow setup self-buffed. On my Stam NB I've had very respectable parses in the over 30k mark with 2H/Bow, so I wonder what a better player would be capable of?

That 50k parse is undoubtedly in a buffed environment. There is absolutely no chance that this is a parse done by a single person with only self-buffs on Blood Spawn, and their dps parse when allowed only Pierce Armor and purely self-buffed thereafter is probably closer to 42k. This is still very good, mind you, but it's important to be realistic when we break our builds down like this. My parse sits at 35k, which is 7k behind our example. I can boost that 35k to 38k by replacing my precise weapons with sharpened weapons. I can probably get as far as an additional 1k by continuing to improve upon my rotation (give or take, this is probably a stretch tbh). And the remaining difference is either the difference in class, or due to having a couple of minor gear pieces not gold yet.

The outcome wouldn't be much different if that person decided to use 2H, because while said player (who is clearly very good at dps and can achieve those values in a trials setting) might have seamless ani-cancelling and attack weaving, perfect timing on refreshing DoTs, etc., they cannot change how the weapon is designed. The weapon is designed with inherently lower baseline damage (and we get less weapon damage with a 2Hander than we do by dual-wielding too, don't forget that), and gear/weapon options for DW and Bow are vastly superior relative to the options we have for 2H.

As always I stand to be corrected by anyone with relevant and credible information, of course. Like I said, I try to be as open-minded and reasonable as possible. Just because I consider my own experience and testing (and I guess my discussions with others counts too) to be adequate doesn't mean I haven't missed something. I openly welcome being proven wrong when it comes to 2H dps in pve.

2h can do most non vet pve content.

But for anything more, its DW or GTFO.