Hand to Hand

[grendel1]

I'll have to disagree with you, at least about dual daggers. I can't comment on Sprite's statement, as I've not dueled an AoD with 'em. However, nothing else I've found holds aggro like dual daggers. Sword+dagger is right behind it. As you say, not for the same reasons, eh?

HtH, on the other hand (ahem) is, well, useless. Unless you're trying to shock a newlie. (You _punched_ it to death?) Or you're in a naked boxing match.

[kashius]

Yes, dual daggers hold hate well. To be able to take the damage that is coming your way, heavy armor is favorable. Heavy armor malus + attack speed of daggers + skill usage = crazy HP/Stamina drain. That drain on top of the damage coming in puts more strain on a healer. A 2h user is much better suited to tank, and does better damage as a bonus.

Don't get me wrong, I love dual wielding daggers. Dagger will be my first 250 skill. I just think that they need more utility in groups and in PvP. I would go into more detail on that, but I think I've derailed this particular thread enough. That and no one really cares all that much besides me it seems.

Back on topic:
I don't know what H2H is good for. I also don't know what they could possibly do to it to make it better with the current game system. I guess it is mainly for magic users to have some form of defense if someone manages to get to them. In most cases they just keep using magic, so again...I don't know what it's good for.

-Kash-

[grendel1]

Heh. Well, Kashius, I tank great Kinchers in Void in medium, and survive just fine. Generally, the hard-hitting special attacks on the tougher mobs ignore armor anyway, so might as well keep the malus down. 42 beats 138 by a pretty nice margin. The only real disadvantage is that you get more hp off a set of HA than you do from MA. But, if your casters are competent, (which not all are, dammit) having 5K+ hp is more than enough against anything but purple named/bosses, anyway. For those, yeah, you need heavy, and that does get ugly on the energy consumption.

Oh, and derail away, some of us do care. It's just that some of us (okay, me ) have a different opinion.

Dagger's my second melee, not far behind my 1h sword The one thing I'll point out is it seems you focus a lot on damage per hit as being the important thing. Sometimes what you need is a predictable place for the hurting to land, and daggers give you that in spades. And while 2h does more damage per hit than 1h/dagger, don't forget that dual wielding a sword and dagger hits faster, and the damage over time is pretty close. As fpr PvP, I don't duel much, but I have tried it on a couple of nukers, and the combo of disruption from 2 hits at a time and damage is pretty effective. Of course, against a HA 2h user of equal level, you're toast.

Actually, a guildmate of mine had an interesting idea. Allow the user to throw his daggers. I'm not sure how one would implement such a thing, and you'd have to do something about getting them back (Ok, I just tossed a pair of 250 sup daggers at that mob/AoD/whatever. Well that was expensive...) but it's a thought.

[rushin]

hey hey i love daggers as well. and there are lot's of the pale skinned ones who enjoy showing me just how good they get at later levels

Nevrax quick and easy thing to do: enable stanza's on second dagger. currently it just does the default attack, would make a nice improvement if inc dmg, etc were active on both weapons

[sehracii]

Could improve HtH in sort of the same way - make it a double hit insted of the single it is now - with stanzas applying to both hits of course.

Currently holding a shield doesn't impair your damage at all, but it should.

Edit: The change should double HtH damage when shieldless, and count it as two separate attack for interrupt/holding aggr. Don't cut current damage in half if shield equipped of course, that would be silly.

[kashius]

I guess somewhere in one of my ramblings I gave the impression that I want Dbl. Daggers to match the DPS of other harder hitting weapons. That, however, is not my view. What would shut me up for good (most likely) is two words: More critical.

Let me explain...As I'm sure you're aware, criticals place a series of debuffs on whatever it is your fighting depending on where the hit lands. What better weapon to make use of a) melee debuffs b) "Aim at" stanzas than daggers? When I think daggers I think quick/precise strikes. Upping the critical rate of daggers would fit this perfectly without all of a sudden making them the ultimate weapon for any situation.

How:
First - Daggers have an exclusive stat on them +Critical. A value from 1-5. Each level of that stat adds 3/5 percent to the base critical rate (depending on what base crit rate is now...don't want it getting ridiculous). This stat is dependant on the level/quality of the materials used to craft the daggers.

Second - A stanza exclusive to daggers, Critical Hit. That's right, a guaranteed critical IF it hits. To be fair, this needs a timer associated with it (say 15 - 20secs), be attained well into the CC tree (150ish) and have a respectable action cost. It would be editable like any other stanza.

Why this would be good:
PvE - Although I'm still not up to par damage-wise on mobs, now I have the opportunity to stun it/slow its attacks/reduce its combat ability/etc... for short periods of time, all of which lead to a smoother battle. (If only mobs had stamina, this would be even better) Our role in a group can become that of melee debuff/DD support. It also works with HA if you wish to tank (after critical attack chains for reduce stam/HP usage)

PvP -
Vs. Melee now we can stand a chance against those big 2h brutes and 1h + shield defensive types. By using strategy in where you aim/when you use Crit Hit you can have more control over the flow of the battle as they try to Inc Dmg you to oblivion. Vs. Mages you are an effective mage lockdown tool (moreso than now). He who has more AoDs wins is no longer true. You still have to close the gap, however, and a mage is always dangerous if they have room to cast.

Hi Rushin, I'm still using those wonderful stabbies you made me a while back. Haven't broken them just yet =) And yea, off hand dagger stanza application is a must.

Tried to keep it semi-shortish
-Kash-

[rushin]

noticed my contribution to this thread had nothing to do with H2H sooo, hand to hand weapons might be fun. knuckle dusters, etc (etc 'cause i can't think of more off the top of my head lol).

oh and kash u might be interested to know what the outpost melee crafting plans do, its not much but +5% chance to critical strike is better than nothing