Double Strike

I'm really enjoying this skill with a 2 handed sword. Just entered Cruel as an Elemental focused Templar.

In most cases I can land the first hit, often outright kill a mob, before the next mob engages me.

I find it fun to use. Only at level 8 gem but it reminds me a lot of the Zeal skill in D2. I often use it as my main attack, or to quickly finish off low health mobs before they can engage me.

I find it a great combo skill in conjunction with Heavy Strike or Lightning Strike and Cleave.

Lighting Strike immediately followed by Double Strike...Awesome. its has a very good flow in animation doing that.

When using this gem, is the attack interval halved every other hit?
That would mean that the actual number of attacks/second is 1.5 times the listed value, right?

you literally strike twice via the skill and the dps listing accounts for that. attacks per second is more along lines of skill use per second.

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Fartfinder wrote:

Anychance this skill will eventually be viable with dual wielders? as in factor in off hand damage for the second strike?

This.

People who play dual wield characters do so because they like to attack fast.

It would be great if Double Strike would allow you to use two weapons, even if it was at a reduced damage.

Couldn't you just make Double Strike work with dual-wielding but have it be lower damage than Dual Strike?

Dual Strike would be there for max dual-wielding damage, but Double Strike would still be there for non-optimal builds that want to have super speed and on-hit effects. And of course Double Strike serves the 1h characters as well.

I thought this game was all about building non-optimal builds for funsies. 8D

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soul4hdwn wrote:

you literally strike twice via the skill and the dps listing accounts for that. attacks per second is more along lines of skill use per second.

What I'm asking is, does this make two attacks in exactly the time of one?

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zaktansAquarium wrote:

What I'm asking is, does this make two attacks in exactly the time of one?

yes, the animation even speeds up to match if you get speed boosts. it is two strikes within normal attacking speed.

I have 1 question:

Why would you chose Doublestrike over Heavy strike? Just curious.

Doublestrike does 2x70% while heavy strike does 1x150%


My assumptions are:

1, 150% is even superior to 2x75% because of Armor avoiding

2, Doublestrike does only hit 1 target, which makes the argument of "spreading the damage better" invalid.

3, enemies with low health die >earlier<

Point 3 is very minor, because I consider doublestrike as Single target skill and this means that enemies will have high HP.


So, how is doublestrike a viable choice over Heavy strike? I would really like to know, because personally I like the skillsytle of doublestrike more but there is nothing where I could say that doublestrike can be better.