400 attack is not weak, You don’t need “hardcore multipliers” (are you referring to Musketeer?) for it to be good.
If the damage formula is to be trusted, 400 STR on a target that’s weak against our dmg type will always add this to a skill (but can add much more):
Crit:
(400*1.5+400)*1.5 *2 = 3000 dmg
Non-Crit:
400*1,5 *2 = 1200 dmg
These numbers apply to every hit a skill does… if it hits 5 times, it’ll add 15k dmg, etc.
let’s assume we have a base attack of 1000 with 500 crit attack and 1000 skill dmg.
Crit:
(2000*1,5+500) *1,5 2= 10,500 dmg
now lets add our 400 STR to it
(24001,5+900) *1,5 2= 13,500 dmg = ~28% dmg increase
Non Crit:
20001,5 2= 6000 dmg
Add 400 STR
24001,5 *2 = 7200 dmg = 20% dmg increase.
Since mob defence is a thing in this game you have to recognize that having a low base-attack value means your multipliers will be extremely weak too, even if you crit 80% of the time instead of just 50%.
So a good mix of Dex+STR should be the way to go imho. And if you have low attack in general, you’ll want more of it as fast as possible.
Warrior has the luxury to get his defence from Block/Crossguard/Finestra/Guardian/pressing C.
If you are playing with Spears you won’t even lose that much damage compared to a 2-h Spear by using a shield.
I’d say the impact of losing the offhand +ele damage is alot bigger.
Crossguard for example doesn’t even work properly with high evasion builds, because you want to block to stagger them and to get that nice +100% pierce dmg modifier, and since the dodge chance is getting calculated before blockchance, you end up not blocking.
