Monks (WW/BrM) do comparable dmg with either 1H and 2H, why can't DKs/Warriors/Enh?

[Grubjuice]

Monks have been designed such that whether they equip one 2H-weapon or dual wield two 1H-weapons of the same iLvl and stats they do effectively indistiguishable damage. This is true for their tank spec and their melee dps spec.

For a long time Blizzard has tinkered with melee classes (especially Frost DKs) trying to make one 2H ≈ two 1H but always one has been better than the other.

Is not now possible to finally make the choice between one 2H or two 1H arbitrary for melee classes like Warriors, Death Knights and Shamans?

[Teriz]

Monks have been designed such that whether they equip one 2H-weapon or dual wield two 1H-weapons of the same iLvl and stats they do effectively indistiguishable damage. This is true for their tank spec and their melee dps spec.

For a long time Blizzard has tinkered with melee classes (especially Frost DKs) trying to make one 2H ≈ two 1H but always one has been better than the other.

Is not now possible to finally make the choice between one 2H or two 1H arbitrary for melee classes like Warriors, Death Knights and Shamans?

Because Monks are awesome?

In all seriousness, I don't know why. However, things like that is one of the reasons I swapped from a Shaman main to a Monk main.

[Strakha]

I doubt it will ever happen with shamans, but I could see it happening for DK and Warrior.

They seem to be pretty anti-2h-enh over the years.

[Verain]

Enhance is out because of the strength 2 handed weapon thing.

Not so much the thing where they couldn't balance you with it- they could- but more the thing where it would open up too many weapon options for enhancement.


Which, in fairness, isn't even a bad thing. But, it's not a perk they want to assign to the spec.



Now as for DKs, they get close sometimes. The problem is that whenever Unholy is on top, Unholy is on top, and whenever Frost is on top one of these ways to go is the correct one. But, frost knights are pretty close as dual wield or 2H. You'd expect dual wield to do a little bit more- they have double enchants, and it's harder to get two weapons than one.

Warriors this is a spec issue. Fury is a dual wield spec, arms is a 2H spec, and Arms needs buffs (and even Fury might).

[Holtzmann]

Game and class mechanics, plus design decisions.

Enhancement Shamans won't get a 2-hander spec because that's not part of their current design, thematically. They're meant to be dual-wielding magic-damage dealers.

Warriors and Death Knights suffer from having inherently tricky to balance mechanics that can't be changed without serious outcry from the playerbase, because they're already part of the classes' flavor and established mechanics. Arms has been the two-handed spec for a while now. Trying to give it a dual-wielding option would probably require major reworks. Fury goes back and forth, but Single-Minded Fury and Titans' Grip should be reasonably close for the vast majority of players (read: people not in BiS). As for Death Knights, Blood and Unholy have been turned into two-hander specs by design, like Arms. They've tried to let Frost DKs choose between both styles, but there was a considerable amount of fiddling required, and the number are still not exactly right.

Balancing stuff is more difficult than people realize. Numbers have to look good across a wide selection of gear levels, and when you have so many mechanics and procs muddling up the numbers (not to mention players doing unexpected things), balance gets even more difficult to pull off.

[Shamanberry]

Staves for Monks are as far behind as SMF and DW for DKs. Windwalkers will only use staves as temporary filler if the item level is significantly higher, and Brewmasters will choose to Dual Wield as well if given the choice for equal ilevel items, even if the two are closer for them.

Enhancement is a different story - Enhance is an inherently dual wielding class, like rogues. Without an offhand weapon, you're missing your second weapon enchant, you can't Lava Lash, mana regen is limited, and they would get fewer flurry and maelstrom weapon procs. All of that could be compensated for, sure -- but most likely, one would end up being mathematically better than the other, so it's not like it would help them any more than it helped Monks or Warriors.

[Deleted]

To be fair WW monks prefer dual wielding, it does do slightly more damage.