Spear+Shield vs Pike

[richaden]

Hello there,

On Matis Island my spear and shield served me well, I had a nice high parry, so parried a lot of attacks. My spear didn't do much less damage than the pikes available there due to its high attack rate. But, now I've reached the mainland I see the Pikes are starting to get much higher damage than the spears, and there dont seem to be any shields with a parry mod of over 19.

I'm not sure what the parry calculation is based on, but I get the feeling against higher level mobs there is less chance to parry, so, as I parry less and less, what are people's thoughts on the two different combinations? I've yet to see a melee player on the mainland who doesnt use a 2hander, so I wanted to know if the Parry ability just isn't reliable enough to warrant sacrificing half your damage potential?

Thanks for any help

-Yamcha

[philu]

Have to say I don't use parry at all. Not since I read somewhere it causes more dmg to your weapon. As far as I know, you can stil use parry even with a 2h weapon, you parry with the weapon instead of your shield.

I use dodge a lot, especially attack after dodge, great for reducing stam used. I also found 2h weapons much better at doing dmg, much higher dmg than the 1h ones. I only do 1h to gain some extra fight sp. When I do that, I still use dodge and a 1h sword/dagger combination to lvl both 1h and close combat.

[defalgar]

we have only one person in our guild who uses 1h but she combines it with CC.

so she dual hands sword and dagger and seems to do alot of damage and very quick damage. i tried out with shield and mace. i found the damage pretty ok and i could parry alot on top of that its an extra item with hp boost so i have more hp when using a shield. so my less damage is being compensated by higher defence and more hp.

if this is all gibberrish then im very sorry its 11am and i just woke up

[rakavich]

we have only one person in our guild who uses 1h but she combines it with CC.

so she dual hands sword and dagger and seems to do alot of damage and very quick damage. i tried out with shield and mace. i found the damage pretty ok and i could parry alot on top of that its an extra item with hp boost so i have more hp when using a shield. so my less damage is being compensated by higher defence and more hp.

if this is all gibberrish then im very sorry its 11am and i just woke up

With the recent changes to Shield stats Shield + 1 hander is now far more Viable than before...

[richaden]

I see. Well I've grown kinda fond of my Spear, so I'll continue to use this for now methinks.

One more thing, I read in another thread that if you target yourself, you can use "Shielding" on yourself, is this true?

Edit: Also, seeing as mobs don't hit you in the 'shield', do the armour stats on a shield only apply while using the shielding action?

[rakavich]

I see. Well I've grown kinda fond of my Spear, so I'll continue to use this for now methinks.

One more thing, I read in another thread that if you target yourself, you can use "Shielding" on yourself, is this true?

Edit: Also, seeing as mobs don't hit you in the 'shield', do the armour stats on a shield only apply while using the shielding action?

Your shield adds to your other armour only for the locations of Torso Arms head and hands ( or so i was told by a GM)
and its prot factor is somehow worked into the rest of your armour

Shielding is only for stopping a small ammount of damage to other players

[richaden]

Your shield adds to your other armour only for the locations of Torso Arms head and hands ( or so i was told by a GM)
and its prot factor is somehow worked into the rest of your armour

Shielding is only for stopping a small ammount of damage to other players

Thanks for the info, rakavich. Knowing my shield is actually doing something other than giving me a parry bonus is a good thing to hear.

[moboid]

I'am doing well with 1h weapons and shield but iam lvl 73 1h so things might change. Just started to not carry a 2h weapon but carry one of each 1h weapon (damage) and ive got a shield with + 22 parry. Wrote down the best dmg for each mob as i hunted and now swap weapon as needed.

most efficent way to kill? no idea but it works

and if all goes wrong i just pick up my 2h weapon again

[ahremark]

I'm a dual weilder that started using a shield with 1h sword/spear for soloing yesterday and the difference was major. I'd say i only took half the damage i usually do when fighting the same critters using 1h/dagger (Crafted with high parry mod). I could easily take critters that would have killed me without the shield.
So from now on it's 1H and shield for me when soloing and dual weild when i'm in a team.