Thoughts, feelings and Opinions on the Valenar Double Scimitar

[Witty Username]

Is the Valenar Double Scimitar a good idea, bad?
Is overpowered, under?

Is the Revenant Blade feat welcome among the likes of Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master, and Dual Wielder?
Are double bladed weapons stupid?

All thoughts are welcome.


Note: this is a effort to avoid thread necromancy of this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?564921-Double-bladed-scimitar).

[nickl_2000]

So, it's a good weapon, especially if you take the feat. It ends up being about as good if not better than PAM, and it lets your be a Dex character.

It does have a solid negative though, unless your DM is very, very nice you will never see a magical one. Whereas all the other players who are focusing on normal finesse weapons or normal strength weapons will likely see a drop they can use and enjoy you probably won't.

[Man_Over_Game]

It's kind of how Two Weapon Fighting used to be: A bit crappy at first, overpowered with feats.

I don't like it. It doesn't fill a different niche than Two Weapon Fighting. And if it's not much different, why bother? They can just add more spamming support for TWF, or some new light finesse weapons.

It feels like treating a fighting style like the new Iphone. "It is like the one you just bought, only better!"

[Rukelnikov]

I like double bladed weapons in general, like Illidan's Warglaives.

Currently 2W is viable at early lvls but falls off fast, once Extra Attack enters the picture, 2W is not much more damaging than S&B, has 1 less AC, and requires a feat and the expenditure of your BA. Once magic items start dropping, the gap in damage closes, and the gap in AC increases.

This weapon allows the 2W mechanic to stay relevant further, the downside is conventional 2W fighting keeps underpowered for most classes.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Nothing's happened to change my opinion from a year ago or whenever it was. It's just better than TWF and locked behind a racial requirement, which I tend to think is pretty bad.

[Mikal]

I like it, it's a fun weapon, allows a good alternative for PAM users, gives a good dexterity weapon in melee for rogues with the feat, and actually makes GWF as a fighting style use since rerolling on 2d4 is much better than 2d6 or 1d10, and works on both the regular and bonus action attacks.

[Griswold]

If you've got a Double Scimitar + the Revenant Blade feat, then you've got three things you can compare it with: Polearm Master and Dual Wielder.

Compared with Dual Wielder, you get basically the same damage, that same +1 to AC, and a +1 to Dex. In addition, you don't have to take the two-weapon fighting style, you're also getting approx. +2 damage (Great Weapon Fighting) or +1 to AC. This makes it waaay better than two-weapon fighting. But two-weapon fighting isn't very good.

Compared with a Polearm Master build, you get +1 to AC, +1 to Dex, and an additional 1d4 damage on your offhand attack. In exchange, you lose the attack of opportunity when opponents move into your threatened range (and your threatened range is also presumably smaller).

I think in both cases what puts it over the top is that it's a half feat (that +1 to Dex). This makes it especially great, since you're playing an elf so you can easily start with 17 Dex with point buy. This gives a massive power boost at 4th level compared with everyone else.

Without that +1 to Dex, it's better than two-weapon fighting (which needs to be improved), and is about on par with Polearm Master.

[Witty Username]

It's kind of how Two Weapon Fighting used to be: A bit crappy at first, overpowered with feats.

I don't like it. It doesn't fill a different niche than Two Weapon Fighting. And if it's not much different, why bother? They can just add more spamming support for TWF, or some new light finesse weapons.

It feels like treating a fighting style like the new Iphone. "It is like the one you just bought, only better!"
Would I be correct saying that you would have preferred if it used the existing two-weapon fighting instead of its own stuff?


Thinking on it this has a weird few levels before you can take the feat for dex builds, since you need the feat for finesse. Would it be better if the weapon had finesse on it and didn't have the special? Or is using a rapier before that fine?

Edit:

Compared with Dual Wielder, you get basically the same damage, that same +1 to AC, and a +1 to Dex. In addition, you don't have to take the two-weapon fighting style, you're also getting approx. +2 damage (Great Weapon Fighting) or +1 to AC. This makes it waaay better than two-weapon fighting. But two-weapon fighting isn't very good.
...
Without that +1 to Dex, it's better than two-weapon fighting (which needs to be improved), and is about on par with Polearm Master.
I think I am sold on the +1 Dex being unnecessary on this.

Edit2: does great weapon fighting apply to the second swing of Polearm Master and Revenant Blade?