Like the title says, I'm not trying to cover all aspects of melee combat mainly because I haven't thoroughly examined all the areas of it and not going to make theories about what I haven't tested (not that much, at least), hence the subjective view. Guide being somewhat biased just comes with the territory due to it being subjective ;P
There are no factors taken account from other players by default, it's just you and the torbak with a big grin here >8-E=
Stanzas:
First of all, priorize your skill points on attribute pumping over stanzas, keep them at max, both the amount and regen, all the time. They are vital, I wouldn't suggest any compensations here. Might be a good idea to spend some points on metabolism and constitution using the skill points from your other skill trees, so you can keep your fight path updated or whatnot, having all the essential stanzas etc. all the time.
Use attack after dodges, or after parry/critical whatever suits you most. They'll remedy your stamina usage a lot, especially when fighting against even leveled mobs (you dodge somewhat often), let alone lower leveled ones. When fighting against mobs higher than you, use accurate attack. It's the only situation where it actually is somewhat useful (plus PvP). Steer away from feint! If you are an acquaintance of mine and you train that I'll see that you get properly smacked around all over Atys and beyond (remember the final fight from Monkey Island 1 here..). You don't wanna miss combat rounds just for the sake of preserving some stamina, there are already methods for that.
As for the weapon type specific stanzas, ignore armor is good, when combined with the credits like attack after dodge etc. Otherwise it's just an unnecessary stamina sink (as you can counter that by wielding another type of a weapon). Bleeding.. well, it used to be great and it really helped a lot, but currently I certainly haven't noticed that it would help all that much. Sure, every hp you get off from mobs health bar is great, but is it worth the stamina usage? Nope. Again, if compensated with attack after x credits it proves to be practical. What about slow for blunt weapons? I don't know, don't really care ;P
Never really used much of those aim at x stanzas. However, if you wanna spend your points in them (5 SP, big deal) go for the rear leg aim stanzas, if successful it'll incur a penalty for dodge on the opponent. That combined with accurate attack will let you fight against mobs way over your level with an additional punch. Sounds good, doesn't it? Unfortunately it doesn't make all that much difference in practical level. Still, of course, something worth to experiment with and it does help more than it hinders. Stamina drain happens a lot, but the goal here is just to take the mob down, not to prevent downtime ;) Headshot and front leg stanzas might be worthwhile too, but the benefit from stun and slow, respectively, isn't as much as from that dodging penalty thingy.
Circular attack is cool and flashy, so train that. As for circular attack 2 and 3 etc., you might wanna think about those. Meaning, that if you can afford to have more than 2 mobs around you ramming your char to hell and back, then you most likely won't need the circular attack upgrades anyways ;) (meaning, it won't save you there if you can't handle in the first place). The stamina usage is downright horrible when using those, so just the basic circular attack will get you far enough (and it does injur all the mobs around you, the damage done to those additonal mobs over the limit of 2 just decreases. Or your overall damage decreases, can't recall, but it doesn't really matter).
As for the berserker stanza.. I'll see that you get hauled under the keel as a result of training that (prerequisite for the keelhaul is, once again, that you're a friend of mine). Think about the skill points spent and the actual gain from the stanza here.
What about auras? Well, they do help both you and your group, so why not? 10 SP isn't that bad given the gain. That is, attribute auras. Don't know about those melee/ranged etc. protection auras. 50 SP and lasts so little time, so.. Did I mention already that 50 SP is a bit too much? Given that you have to keep your attributes maxed all the time (attribute upgrades available every 5 levels, they take about 40 SP from your 50 SP available)
War Cry. From the top of my head I recall it's 50 SP, so that's a bit of a problem here, once again, given the gain. The gain is very beneficial indeed, but the skill point cost and how long does it actually last makes it a bit of secondary choice. It's a good last resort when things go sour on a battlefield, or something unexpected happens. I wouldn't bother though. War Cry upgrades might be more worthwhile, but can't remember the stats on those and no clue about the costs, so..
Learn taunt. Be its uses to lure mobs or to keep your comrades safe, it doesn't matter. It's all good. And speaking of keeping people safe, shielding might be viable too, but all in all you and your group will do just fine without it (if there's some serious taunting going on already). Shielding needs a shield (no s***, Sherlock) to work effectively and thus I have not experimented with it all that much.
Finally, I believe I don't have to state the importance of self heal powers. If you didn't get the drift, train them! Self heal life power is the one you actually want, there's always a way to adjust stamina usage or to prevent it from running out on you, but not for hitpoints (not to same extent, at least)
Actions:
Keep three different types of actions all the time: one that drains your hp more than stam (totally ruled out when soloing), completely opposite to that and the third one should be balanced between those two. And you use them accordingly during a fight, depending on the situation. If you don't bother the downtime between fights and you just wanna mow down the mob you're facing (that's over your level probably), just go stamina all the way. You just make sure that you won't totally run out of it ;) I did mention the accurate attack/hit at mob's rear legs combo above. They won't prevent the staminqa usage, on the contrary, but will help you prevail. In a sense, though, they do preserve your stamina in a long run as the mob can't dodge that often.
Hp credits are good as they do credit a lot, you just have to find the ones that suit your metabolism rate well (not an issue if a healer is tagging along).
Also, if you have Q50 weapon, there's no downside of using increase damage 3 (doubles the damage up to Q30 weapons) for example. Of course, you won't do double damage with it, given your weapon, but you preserve your stamina and do a lot more than just poking the mob with your default attack.
So, for example, my action bar could consist of these actions, given that I have Q70 slashing/piercing weapon:
- Incr. damage 5 + balanced creds between hp and stamina.
- Incr. damage 5 + major hp creds, minor stm creds.
- Incr. damage 5 + minor hp creds, major stm creds.
- Incr. damage 5 + bleeding/ignore armor + balanced creds
- Incr. damage 4 + minor hp creds, "major" stm creds.
- Attack after dodge + incr. damage 5 + accurate attack/weapon type specific stanza + balanced creds.
- Attack after dodge + circular attack + increase damage 5 + (accurate attack, maybe) + balanced creds
- Circular attack + incr. damage 4 + balanced creds
- Circular attack + incr. damage 5 + accurate attack + (maybe bleeding/ignore armor) + balanced creds
About the attack after dodge: the stanza description in-game is somewhat interesting (or was, don't know about the current state), but I'm not sure that does it work accordingly, thus I've added the increase damages there too.
Anyways, don't hesitate to create million + 1 actions with only minor changes. Fine-tuning during the fight does make a difference, especially when soloing.
Weapons:
Always keep two weapons of two different damage types available (well, make it three if you want). One slashing and one piercing type will get you far. Only mob so far that I've encountered that resists both of those is Psykopla (blunt, of course, works here). There might be others as well, but my knowledge from the bestiary in Ryzom isn't all that up to date when scraping facts from the memory. Anyhoo, if you don't wanna keep two weapons in your inventory, for some strange reason or just that you don't have access to another good one, then your choice would be a piercing weapon. Mostly because of ignore armor stanza. Depends on what you hunt though, if only raguses and kipees catches your bloodthirsty attention, better stick to slashing then. People do say that blunt weapons are overall more efficient against mobs (at least in Verdant Heights), as small number of mobs can resist the blunt damage. Don't know about that. Haven't tested, haven't tried.. don't really care ;P (you can keep your wussy maces..)
Having 2-hander or 1-hander, or just dual-wielding, is just a matter of preference. True, most do favour only 2-handers and after the lvl 51, there's no turning back. Or of course you can turn back, but your choice really. I wouldn't.
As for the weapon reach value.. I don't know. Basically, if it works as intended (and is implemented in a first place), it should be either for your favor or totally the opposite, totally depending on the mob you fight against and the reach of your current weapon in use. There should be a malus (penalty) calculated when your reach is much shorter than the mob's reach and other way around if you have greater reach than the mob in question. How exactly is the malus calculated and how does it show? I don't know. I don't even know that has the feature been implemented yet. If so, I haven't tested it thoroughly to give any conclusions.
Armors:
Don't even consider light armor, no matter how much it'll have hp boosts implemented. For supporting fighter, the one that won't take hits and when does so runs away (better just stick to ranged then, wuss.. if you can afford the ammo! *dies out of laughing*), it might be a viable choice. Meaning, that the said fighter can dish out actions that have it all constantly, without running out of stamina too quickly. But group efforts are a different thing, sometimes a fighter wants to solo (aww..) and you know what happens to a solo fighter wearing light armor? My thoughts as well.
As for medium armor, it's a matter of preference again (and lack of common sense, if you're haywired enough to solo that on). It's a common fact that medium armor usually looks cool, but if I were to make decisions I would've boosted the protection value to 30% instead of the current 20%-ish to make it more efficient in practice. In any case, you'll make a somewhat good lightweight fighter wearing that, but you won't be standing between the mob and supporting/nuking casters, not as effectively as a heavyweight fighter, that is (if there's a healer around, it's a different thing to be able to than to be able to do it efficiently). Medium armor for a fighter/mage hybrid? Possibly, but it's your choice to be a fighter/mage that can't do efficiently what a pure fighter does nor can you be a mage without worrying that you'll run out of sap quickly.
Maybe there's some special combo between magic and melee that favors medium armor well (maybe now when casters are having gloves instead of that staff?). Be that as it may, I wouldn't know. It's a common fact that people dislike medium armor to great extent and when it's a pure majority that thinks so, you can support your own conclusions about it very well.
To me medium armor would be a casual "clothing" just for the looks and mediocre protection (very secondary in this case).
Heavy armor. Self-explanatory almost. The downside is, as everyone knows, the penalty it'll inflict on you. But, with proper action credits adjustment, stamina usage isn't exactly something to worry about all that much. Your only choice if you wanna be the one taking hits efficiently for others. Or just trying to survive out there alone, once again, efficiently.
Oh and, lose those heavy/medium gloves. You aren't seeing too many mobs hitting your hands, now are you?
Shields? If they works as intended a large shield should give about 10% protection overall, and some say that it'll increase your chance to parry more often, but can't really comment on that. If you use 1-hander, shield should be more than a good choice to accompany that. But: it doesn't necessarily mean if you wield 1-hander types it would be beneficial to have shield there too. Given the fact that large shield adds 50 points to your total penalty and how quick the 1-handers usually are, you'll run out of stamina in 1 second (translation: you'll have more penalty than a fighter with 2-hander). Buckler would be a nifty choice here then, but even then you consume as much stamina as a 2-hander (only a lot faster) and do less damage in a long run. Though, needless to say, bucklers are a true definition of the commonly known adjective: wussy.
Conclusion about shields: great for medium armor types (and those types should be the only ones actually using 1-handers). Good for tanks with heavy armor, but the fighter's efficiency there will be limited to that only, to tank, pretty much that is (if your taunt fails, think about shielding here).
That's about it. I do not claim to be some sort of know-all, most of these arguments comes through personal experience and I've seemed to manage very well so take that into account (or don't, someone's funeral anyways). I'm not blasting opinions here just based on theory (and if I do, I'll blame my prejudices and the lack of ability to change them ;P)
Feedback is appreciated, do comment if my facts are totally out of place. At times, I wouldn't wonder if they were ;) I hope that this helped at least some of you. If not.. well, my coffee maker still makes coffee so all is good. Run to the hills!
