2h Sword vs. 1h weapon + shield....thoughts?

[lillaryn]

I'm just curious about this.

I'm currently a 1h spear user. I went this route to be a true 'tank,' higher HPM + shield(lotsa parry) to me = better hold on the agro and more chances to not get killed by it.

With the patch, 2h swords can now have an up to 20 parry modifier. The current max on a large shield is 30.

With bleed, 30 hpm max, plus the bonus of up to 20 parry.......did the 2h sword just make us one-handers obsolete? Or does the protection from the shield, the 8hpm more, and the ignore armor with my lance make still make a better 'tank?'

Just curious on your take on this.

[jinnear]

I would guess that a 1h-wielder using a 1h-sword and a shield would get the highest parry mod... havent tried it yet though. If this holds true though, this would be the best "tank".

If we are talking dmg-dealer... well, thats a completely different thing.

[iphdrunk]

I would expect dodge and parry modifiers being implemented somewhere in the future for 1h weapons too.

[jinnear]

I would expect dodge and parry modifiers being implemented somewhere in the future for 1h weapons too.

I thought they were in this patch... oh well.

[sidusar]

I wondered about the same thing when I saw the new parry modifier on swords. "Oh great, all that 1h training for nothing." Well, that may be a bit exagerated, but if +20 is the max, then a 2h sword user in good heavy armor can now have +20 from the sword plus +12 from the armor is +32 parry, while 1h figher with a shield has +42 parry. And it's my understanding that the effect of more parry gets lower the higher you get (ie. the difference between +0 and +10 parry is larger than the difference between +30 and +40 parry). So I'm not sure if the 10 extra parry is still worth the smaller damage and the heavier stamina drain.

Ofcourse, as soon as I also get +10 parry on my 1h sword, that'll be fixed again

[sehracii]

I hope the dodge and parry mods on 1H weapons ARE implemented soon. You'd think while they were working on the 2H it wouldn't be hard to do.

Also, some differentiation between piercing/smashing/slashing like with the new 2H stats would be nice as well.

Unfortunately, the protection from a shield is all but useless. Testing naked except for shield against a creature that gives me good XP, I never saw ANY damage absoroption. Testing on something 150 levels lower than me, it absorbed ONCE IN A WHILE, maybe 25%-50% of the time at best.


From a certain point of view, a meleer in all heavy and a max parry shield using a 60hpm dagger would be the best "tank" - that would sure get a creatures attention while taking the least damage

[mrshad]

My testing tracks with sehraci's.

150 in both 1h and 2h. Dressed in heavy armor. Fighting an equal-leveled mob.

1h+ shiled would take a couple of minutes longer, require my self-heal and leave me nearly dead.

A 2h battle would kill the mob quickly and and leave me only half way depleted, without the use of self-heal or aura's

The higher damage output of 2h weapons, combined with thier new bonuses, means the enemy will die before he has a chance to really hurt you.

Shields seem pretty pointless.

Of course, the Nevrax way will be to increase the stam cost of all 2H weapons by 20% in order to nerf us into balance.

[iwojimmy]

unless i use my Aen suit (not replaceable at present), my heavy armour penalises my parry to the point that Im better off dodging. while I appreciate the extra HP in my shield, the action penalty from using it is probably causing more damage than the mobs themselves. (fought a couple of crabby gibbai.. depleted stamina.. went to default attack and killed 4 more before running away as they kept spawning on me )
the low damage from 1h weopons is another negative. My char was designed specifically as a speedbump.. to keep mobs occupied so the nukers could do the heavy work. this means I am in trouble - or at least up for a long fight - if I am supposed to kill things on my own.
How many lvl 250 1h melees are out there?

[aelvana]

For a larger party, where you'd want one person to be able to take damage better and tank at the expense of some damage, 1h blunt using max slow + shield + armor would make the best tank :)

[sumoman]

lill showd me i was wrong