babaloui wrote:I in the 50s level range. I want to specialize in close combat. I was wondering if anyone else was doing that and had any tips. The main issue isnt killing a mob (although I can solo higher mobs with my 2h weapon), its the time it takes. It takes me 3-4x longer to kill a mob with 2 daggers. I am in Mod ql heavy armor atm which consumes Stamina a great deal but I get around that with Attack after dodge 4. I want to try light armor(inc dodge rate and dec. drain on stam, sap, etc) but havent purchased it yet I am a little concerned about the beating I will take but I will see if there is a way to offset that. I have really good ql80 daggers. I mod my attacks (one that drains stam and one that doesnt require any stam.) with inc damage 5, acc attack 1 and ignore armor 1 (which doesnt seem to do anything that I can see). Anyone have any close combat tips/suggestions? As it stands now my 2h melee is 3 levels higher than my close combat and I am not really even trying to level that.
Thanks
Well, I use medium armor (QL70) and dual wield a 1handed sword and a dagger (both QL50). My 'main attack' is Increase Damage 2 because I can use it all day long and never run out of stamina. The damage per hit with ID2 is limited, but that is ok as long as it does more damage than the "default" attack action. For my "special" attacks I have ID4 and a ID4+Bleeding3 attack. The plain ID4 attack uses After Dodge 3 and 0 stamina. The ID4+Bleeding attack uses After Dodge3 + Stamina (15 or 30 i think). I'm only lvl 47 in the fight tree, but my combination of weapons and armor allows me to take out stuff that I never thought possible. Also, using the lower ID skill as my "main/normal" attack allows me to reserve the stamina over a MUCH MUCH longer time that many of the other fighters that I have grouped with, and my stamina pool is only 450. I do have 800+HPs though, and with my armor it's quite a bit higher. Also, the final factor that i believe plays a major roll in my solo'ability is the fact that i made my own armor using only Choice mats that "max out" my dodge ability.
While testing my character's fight ability, I found that with my current setup I was able to take out a Hard Kipee with a Moderate Kipee joining half way through the fight. That particular fight was the first time that I found myself nearly empty of stamina at the end, but it was an incredibly long and drawn out fight. I fought a Wary Render recently and found it to be a much more challenging fight, and drained nearly all my stamina trying to make the silly thing bleed (incase you don't know Wary Renders are lvl60+).
You could go with Light armor for the 0 action penalty, but Medium seems to offer the "best of both worlds" in that you get better protection than Light, and alot less action penalty than heavy.
Also, a thing to remember, while you are working on your close combat and such you'll want to scale your attacks accordingly. The Increased Damage attacks tell you what QL weapon they work with optimally, so you should choose the attack that best matches the weapon.
One last thing, the damage you get from your weapon is directly related to your level. For example if you have 40 skill in fight and you have QL50 weapons then you will not be able to exact the maximum amount of damage out of your weapon. Likewise, if you have 51 skill in close combat, and you are using QL80 daggers you will not beable to get the maximum damage out of that weapon. That is why when you look at the weapon stats you see 2 damage fields the first "Damage" is the maximum damage that YOU can deal out with the weapon with the "Default Attack". The second field "Max Damage" is the maximum amount of damage that the weapon can deal out with a "Default Attack" period. The only time that "Damage" is ever equal to the "Max Damage" is when your fight skill is equal to or greater than the QL of your weapon.
Personally, I don't give it that much attention since I use my stuff for MUCH longer periods of time than the average fighter in my guild. Then again I harvest and make all of my own weapons and armor and my advancement through the skill trees shows me as a Harvester/Crafter/Mage.... I've only recently started to seriously work on the mage part, because i found it to be excedingly difficult to level as a lowby. I advanced fight instead of magic as a lowby due to it being more familiar to me, and my ineptitude to figure out to advance my magics early on.