At first glance dual wielding two weapons and two handing a single large weapon seem to be competing to fill the same role of martial damage per round. However, I have the feeling that like in past systems each fills its own niche and neither is better than the other for every situation. For example there was a tendency for rogues to prefer dual wielding to sneak attack as much as possible.
I'm currently playing a dwarf cleric with the war domain using the play test rules. Our DM is letting us tweak our characters when we convert them to the using the PHB. I currently wield a maul but was wondering if it would be beneficial to switch my weapon of choice. My highest stat is WIS (16) followed by STR (14) then CON and DEX (both 12). I want to be able to hold my own in melee combat while also casting spells when needed. The rest of my party is a rogue, a dual-wielding, dexterity based fighter and a bard.
What are the significant differences between dual wielding and two-handing for a cleric?
Best Answer
It really depends. for a cleric, they are functionally identical.
Here are the damage expressions:
Two hander: 2d6 + str
TWF: 1d6 + str, 1d6
Literally exactly the same when you factor in that your to-hit is going to be the exact same number for both. You only get your Divine strike (I think War domain gets that at 8 and 14 like the Life cleric does) on the first hit so that does favor TWF slightly at 8 and more at 14.
The next thing to look at is the action economy. TWF uses your bonus action every round. Whereas GWF leaves it free. You've got some bonus action spells you might want to use.
Lastly, there is feat selection. A melee cleric is MAD (Multiple Ability Dependent) so you might not want to actually pick up a feat and let both your stats run up to 20, but if you could settle for an 18 str, you might want to pick up the feat related to your fighting style. The GWF feat gives you extra attacks, but the TWF feat lets you wield one handed weapons rather than only light weapons and boosts your AC a bit.
Really, looking at the numbers, the decision is entirely up to you and how you want to play the character, they are quite similar. I give the damage edge to TWF, and the action economy edge to GWF. Ultimately though, at high levels, your cantrips might end up doing more damage than your weapon attacks anyways.