Two Weapon Combat

Training in Two Weapon Combat (TWC or 2WC) allows a character to swing a weapon in his or her off-hand.

Ranks and Training Point Costs

Type	Square			Semi			Pure
Profession	Rogue	Warrior	Monk	Bard	Paladin	Ranger	Cleric	Empath	Savant	Sorcerer	Wizard
Max Ranks Per Level	2	2	2	2	2	2	1	1	-	1	1
Training Point Cost	2/2	2/2	2/2	3/2	3/3	3/2	9/9	12/12	-	12/12	12/12

Pros and Cons

The biggest benefit of two weapon combat is the extra swing that the character gets. There are a few things that are different when a weapon is swung in the off-hand, such as roundtime, attack strength (AS), and defensive strength (DS).

Roundtime

Roundtime is calculated based off of the Base RoundTimes of both weapons. The basic formula is as follows:

TWCBaseRT = Weapon1BaseRT + (Weapon2BaseRT - 2)

• Weapon1BaseRT is the Base Roundtime for the weapon in your right hand
• Weapon2BaseRT is the Base Roundtime for the weapon in your left hand
• TWCBaseRT is the outcome of the formula, and is the Base Roundtime (Not necessarily the actual swing roundtime) for your TWC attacks
• (Weapon2BaseRT - 2) cannot be less than zero. This means that if you are using a dagger in your off hand (Base Roundtime of 1) then you will add 0 to the Base RT of your main weapon, instead of taking away time to prevent you from swinging your main weapon faster with a weapon in the off hand than you normally would be able.

There are also penalties applied to your roundtime for having a weapon in your off hand heavier than your strength bonus would normally permit, as well as for using slower weapons in the off hand to prevent you from swinging faster by using specific combinations(Example: Dagger/Main Gauche combination results in a 2 second Base RT instead of 1 Second)

Note that in all the formulas above Base RT is used instead of swing RT. Swing RT can be calculated from the base RT as it would be for a normal weapon.

See the Roundtime article for more information on how swing roundtime can be reduced.

Attack Strength

The AS of a swing takes into account the character's skill with the weapon itself, and their skill in TWC. 3/5ths of one's skill in the weapon type accounts for the character's AS, while 2/5ths are the character's training in TWC itself. Also, if a character's strength bonus is higher than the character's dexterity bonus, the off-hand attack will be limited by the character's dexterity. More often than not, this comes into play when a character uses the combat maneuver, Surge of Strength.

Additionally, a character that trains in TWC twice per level has no chance of "not finding an opening for the off-hand strike" when swinging at a target up to five levels higher than themselves. Less training reduces the chances of the off-hand strike from occurring. Training in TWC 1.5 times per level reduces the level of the guaranteed strike to like-level with the swinger, and training only once per level reduces the chances to 80% when swinging at a target that is the same level as the swinger.

Defensive Strength

A character's DS when using an off-hand weapon is calculated similarly to the DS granted from their primary weapon training. While the primary weapon grants DS according to the following formula

Parry DS = (Weapon ranks+(STR/4)+(DEX/4)) × (0.20 + stance/2) + (stance × 50)

Off-hand weapon DS is calculated by the following formula:

Off-hand Parry DS = (TWC ranks+(STR/4)+(DEX/4)) × (0.10 + stance/4) + (5 or 15)

Where stance is 0.00 (in OFF), 0.20 (ADV), 0.40 (FOR), 0.60 (NEU), 0.80 (GUA), 1.00 (DEF), and STR and DEX refers to the bonuses given to the Strength stat and Dexterity stat. The +5 at the end of the formula is +15 instead if the user is wielding either a main gauche or a sai in the off-hand.

A character's DS with an open off hand is calculated slightly differently:

[(TWC Ranks + trunc(STR/4) + trunc(DEX/4) + enchant bonus/2) * Stance modifier] + (5 or 15, depending on training)

Stance modifiers for empty off hand are 0.10 (in OFF), 0.15 (ADV), 0.20 (FOR), 0.25 (NEU), 0.30 (GUA), 0.35 (DEF). The +5/+15 at the end of the formula depends on your TWC training; a character with at least 0.5x TWC per level receives the +15 modifier.

Weapons That Don't Work or Have Restrictions With TWC

whip-blade	Cannot be used in TWC
leather whip	Cannot be used in TWC
ball and chain	Cannot be used in TWC
one handed spear	Cannot be used in TWC
pilum	Cannot be used in TWC
bastard sword	Cannot be used in TWC
katana (new-style)	Cannot be held in off-hand (left). When held in right hand you suffer -10 AS for TWC
katana (old-style)	These are falchion based, can be used without restrictions in TWC

Resources

• http://www.play.net/gs4/info/skills.asp#twoweaponcombat
• http://www.play.net/gs4/info/combatguide.asp#factors
• Two Weapons Combat Officials folder
• Nilandia's guide on archive.org