Agreed. As you mentioned, the damage output of 2H weapons has to compete vs. allres, + to skills, AR, IAS, CB, OW, etc.
if this is how you compare, you should also keep in mind that 2-handed weapons have much higher base damage, almost double.
Highest damage 1H axe (Ettin) has 49.5 average damage. Highest damage 2H axe (Decapitator) has 93 damage.
no mistakes but some superfluous steps 
you can just calculate a proportion of the skill-ED%: 1350/1250 = 1.08 (8% increase)
Overall, i still think that 1.5 strength bonus MAY be enough, because there are other areas need to be balanced too.
One of the bigger problems with 2-handed weapons is just the existence of Grief. A Grief Berserker Axe is not going to be that much weaker than a Grief Silver-Edged Axe because of the flat damage bonus. Same kind of calculation, really:
Average grief is +370
Berserker Grief = 417.5
Silver-Edged (matching speed and range) Grief = 456
So Silver-Edged is only stronger than Berserker 9%. Obviously it’s not worth sacrificing a shield for that.
If grief didn’t exist, 2 handers would have more purpose.
Maybe just doing a slight rebalance of grief, instead of flat +340-400, let it do +170-200 and +170-200%.
This is how it would work out with an average Grief roll:
Berserker Grief = 326
Silver Edged Grief = 430
2-hander stronger by 32%. Add the 1.5x strength bonus and it’s even better.
Much more fair, isn’t it?
It makes no sense for 2 handed to not deal 2x the damage of 1 handed weapon.
If 400 average damage Grief is best 1 handed weapon then best 2 handed weapon should deal 800 average damage is bare minimum!
And to remove Grief superiority all weapons across should have White base damage buffed by like ±33%.
Strength buff to twohanded weapons seems like a distraction from core problem. But sure it will help.
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It’s not just Grief, it’s all runewords in general. 2-H don’t suddenly become bad at end-game, they are bad the entire playthrough BECAUSE their higher base dmg does not usually compensate for their loss in stats.
There are very few exceptions, like a 2-H shapeshifting druid… but those are not even comparable to the top meta builds, so, does it even matter that 2-H actually work in them.
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There is also the issue most 2handers have lower IAS then 1handers in general. It’s one of the reasons why you don’t see barbs dual wield twohanders much at later levels.
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yeah
I like that kind of idea!
Grief is surley overpowered if compared to other weapons and there has to be some change…thats clear, but is a melee character with grief overpowered compared to caster builds?
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nerf grief, buff all weapon base dmg?
IDK if that’s the right way to go about it but physical is certainly weak.
Casters have a bad early game though, so maybe also increase starting mana, or decrease mana cost of all lvl1 spells?
Improving melee end-game and casters early game would go a long way to making the game more balanced.
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Wyrmheart, you have some very good points.
To avoid a majority of the players to get mad, the solution is to not nerf anything in the first place! Buffing everything that’s underperforming for the sake of balance and making the game harder by buffing the monsters afterwards, in order to maintain the challange! Thats the golden way i’d say 
can’t buff all weapon bases without nerfing Grief; otherwise Grief would be too ridiculous OP and it would still be the only used runeword for melee weapons, which defeats the whole purpose.
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it wouldn’t be very dramatic i’d say…adjusting grief just a tiny bit would suffice, because of the flat damage bonus, it won’t be as strongly affected of the change as other weapons (if bases would be buffed)!
it’s not about the change being dramatic or drastic or not. It’s about it being relative.
If you buff the base damage by 30, you have to nerf grief by 30. Grief remains doing the same exact dmg, but now other weapons are more viable.
If you only buff the base dmg by 30 but don’t nerf Grief, now Grief has also been buffed into more OP levels and other weapons remain unviable.
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Grief is simply too powerful with +340-400 bonus flat damage that no other weapon comes close, even Breath of the Dying and the very expense Last Wish. A possible nerf could be to simply reduce damage bonus by 30%.
I would like to see unique weapons such as The Grandfather and Messerschmidt’s Reaver see some love.
Exactly, the ‘problem’ (balance wise) with Grief is the high flat dmg. But at least as of right now, melee is weak and they’d be even weaker without Grief.
They can’t nerf Grief by too much and and that dmg to bases, otherwise we just jump from always needing Grief, to needing Breath of the Dying and Last Wish due to their enhanced dmg percentages.
It has to be tapered so all 3 remain viable, but also other weapons get some use.
I totally agree, that grief doesn’t need a buff! But as i indicated previously, melee characters with grief aren’t OP compared to casters and solely nerfing grief would just widen to gap between casters an melee! The only true argument, in my opinion, for nerfing grief is, that it is too good for the materials which are needed…
Still the easiest way is to buff bases themselves, which effect all weapons, like EnTaro said:
Hypothetical… how would the buffing of the damage of bases by 50% effect weapons?
(further balancing would be necessary thou…)
For grief it would mean:
phaseblade: improvement of 15-17 damage
berserker axe: improvement of 12-35 damage (which would be the best case)
And nothing more! This would be a minor buff, but is surely not needed and therefore could be nullified…
For other weapons it would be like they all have the values of the ethereal ones, while they could be ethereal on top!
For Death Cleaver:
to 136-404 damage (if its perfect)…this would be an average damage of 270 still far away from grief… if ethereal 405 average damage just like an average grief, but it would need zod of course! This would be ok i’d say!
For Messerschmidt’s:
it would be (lvl 90) 270-881 makes an average of 575 damage but its two handed…thats ok
If etheral 405-1321 and an average damage of 862…and its just like two good griefs…for a barbarian, but it is very rare and would need zod…
some weapons may be to good with these changes but they could be adjusted easily!
For Grandfather: (perfect)
1H 130-565 (for lvl 90) -->347,5 average damage
2H 304-828 → 566 average damage
no ethereal possibility thou, and still slow like the gradfather’s nature is…but at least useable somehow…
The extreme expample–>Breath of the dying berserker axe:
if perfect with 400% ed: 270-795 damage i admit this is somewhat scary for a onehand weapon…but average would be 532 damage, this is 25% more than a good grief… and thats not so scary anymore and much more rare to get…
Casters will still be better with AoE? But dependent of the situation melees could actually compete with them…
Thats the way to go in my opinion everything else is just superficial scratching!
The good thing is unique weapons would be buffed without being buffed one by one…
And for PvP… this has to be balanced separately as demanded many times!
(its just not possible to balance PvM and PvP at the same time with the same changes, thats an illusion…)
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An increase in weapon bases is already a nerf to Grief relative to other options, mathematically speaking. Let’s take a +400 Grief for example. (Also, anyone feel free to correct me on any incorrect calculations!)
• If your base does 50 damage, Grief does 450. Grief has multiplied the damage by 9x.
• If your base does 100 damage, Grief does 500, Grief has multiplied the damage by 5x.
More importantly, let’s compare this to %ED:
• If your base does 50 damage and a runeword adds 300% ED, it does 200. Grief would do 450. Grief is 2.25x (+125%) more powerful.
• If your base does 100 damage and a runeword adds 300% ED, it does 400. Grief would do 500. Grief is 1.25x (+25%) more powerful.
Grief is so broken because it is straight integer damage, and base damage tends to be very low in D2, so a large integer addition is a gargantuan boost. That’s why Grief in an otherwise weak Phase Blade is so powerful. The +Damage renders the base damage nearly irrelevant, meaning you just want to stack speed.
The higher base damage goes, however, the less Grief contributes to the overall power of the weapon, and the less powerful Grief becomes, on a relative basis.
Yes, Grief would still be the best in most scenarios, and the +Damage mod would still have other advantages over %ED (e.g. it works with Smite). Affixes are complicated and their interactions with skills even moreso, so there’s no one single rule we can apply to every situation.
But overall an increase in base damage makes %ED more competitive with Grief, not less, than it was before, even if Grief is left as-is.
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Good stuff!
I was doing a 2.4 PTR selffound Throwbarb playthrough and I noticed I am killing monsters much better than when I did Frenzy or WW playthroughs long ago.
I noticed that Throwing weapons on throw damage have on average higher damage than melee 1-handed weapons. Talking about White base damage.
And I enjoyed the playthrough as barb this way much more. Part thanks to being ranged, part thanks to having higher damage with blue weapons. (20-200 winged axe)
So what I wanted to say with my example is that buffing the base weapons damage makes playthrough not such a pain in the … for builds depending on weapon damage.
And it would make other runewords, uniques, rare weapons closer to grief power.
Thats where I somehow calculated around 33% dmg increase to base damage.
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Yes, exactly. I understand all that, but the idea is still to have more options. If you only buff the base and don’t nerf Grief, then Grief stays top choice and nothing was really done.
Unless you buff the base by a very large number, which would then make Enhanced dmg the better choice.
I agree that buffing the base damage of weapons across the board would make %ED more competitive vs. Grief. I also think nerfing the flat damage bonus of Grief would also move the needle and help make more weapons competitive vs Grief as well. Let’s do both options and meet in the middle.
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I would like to see a buff to slow weapons base damage, especially the elite ones which have such high requirements that most do not use them like.
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