Why would you chose a two handed weapon with no Increased Reach?

[Matt516]

 

 

I really with the Estoc weren't such a no brained choice... The ludicrous DR pen combined with the Poleaxe in the weapon focus means the Greatsword really gets shafted. Estoc needs to be toned down so players who want to play reasonably optimally have at least some choice in which 2H weapon to take. :/

 

I totally agree. 3 DRB should be enough for estoc, 2 for stiletto.

 

I also think slashing weapons should be buffed a bit. Slash/Pierce (Best) is an almost non-existent benefit over plain Pierce, as there are very few enemies that are more vulnerable to slashing than piercing.

 

some of those enemies are actually pretty significant though...

 

Adra Dragon comes to mind.

 

but yeah, it's a short list including, completely:

 

spore monsters, revenants.

 

yeah, that's it.

 

is it worth focusing on a weapon that has both slash and pierce?  nope.

 

but at least your great sword becomes useful to chop mushrooms and dragons made of soft rock.

 

 

oh, and the reason the estoc has dr bypass (armor piercing), is, as someone mentioned, that Sawyer likes the history of weapons, and the Estoc was specifically designed to be a superior weapon against armor.

 

I very much doubt that he will want to change that.

 

you *might* be able to get him to agree to add range to a poleaxe, or increase the base damage on a greatsword slightly though.

 

 

 

 

 

I don't want either of those things - I just want the DR bypass reduced. I'm fine with the Estoc bypassing DR in principle, it's just completely unbalanced as currently implemented. Adding range to a poleaxe makes the issue even worse because then A) the poleaxe is the best reach weapon period due to double damage type and B) the Adventurer weapon focus becomes even MORE dominant, shafting the Greatsword even more. And the Greatsword doesn't need more base damage, all the 2H weapons have the same base damage and there's no reason to change that. Just reduce the DR bypass on the Estoc by 1 or 2 and think about shifting the Poleaxe and the Estoc out of the same weapon focus. Either/or would fix the issue.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Matt516

[Katarack21]

Yes, just sidestep my request for naming your sources.

 

As for that picture that you continue to clam as a legend. It comes from Chronik des Johannes Stumpf, and Johannes Stumpf was not a fairy tales writer, but a perfectly respectable historian.

 

You have a full scan of it here:

http://www.e-rara.ch/id/1525949

Yes, he was a historian from the middle of the 15th century whose work had some really amazing woodcuts, and like a great number of historians in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries his work was based on the limited sources available to him at the time. Specifically, that's the Battle of Kappel. I'm surprised your not pulling out the Pavia work, either, considering that it *actually* shows a dude with a great sword hacking at a dude with broken pike. Seems that would be even better for your claim.

 

But then there's artwork like the frescos at the Sala de Giovanni Delle Bande Nere, that show two-handed words fighting pikes using a guarded stance where sword blocks the hit, and the slides along the shaft while they charge forward. The myth--and that's all it is, myth and legend--of two-handed swords being used to chop down walls of pikes comes, via your historians, from one sentence written in 1522:

 

""...stood in the first rank, swung his sword and fought like a woodsman who was felling an Oak in the forest..."

 

Edited April 13, 2015 by Katarack21

[Ichthyic]

 

 

 

I really with the Estoc weren't such a no brained choice... The ludicrous DR pen combined with the Poleaxe in the weapon focus means the Greatsword really gets shafted. Estoc needs to be toned down so players who want to play reasonably optimally have at least some choice in which 2H weapon to take. :/

 

I totally agree. 3 DRB should be enough for estoc, 2 for stiletto.

 

I also think slashing weapons should be buffed a bit. Slash/Pierce (Best) is an almost non-existent benefit over plain Pierce, as there are very few enemies that are more vulnerable to slashing than piercing.

 

some of those enemies are actually pretty significant though...

 

Adra Dragon comes to mind.

 

but yeah, it's a short list including, completely:

 

spore monsters, revenants.

 

yeah, that's it.

 

is it worth focusing on a weapon that has both slash and pierce?  nope.

 

but at least your great sword becomes useful to chop mushrooms and dragons made of soft rock.

 

 

oh, and the reason the estoc has dr bypass (armor piercing), is, as someone mentioned, that Sawyer likes the history of weapons, and the Estoc was specifically designed to be a superior weapon against armor.

 

I very much doubt that he will want to change that.

 

you *might* be able to get him to agree to add range to a poleaxe, or increase the base damage on a greatsword slightly though.

 

 

 

 

 

I don't want either of those things - I just want the DR bypass reduced. I'm fine with the Estoc bypassing DR in principle, it's just completely unbalanced as currently implemented. Adding range to a poleaxe makes the issue even worse because then A) the poleaxe is the best reach weapon period due to double damage type and B) the Adventurer weapon focus becomes even MORE dominant, shafting the Greatsword even more. And the Greatsword doesn't need more base damage, all the 2H weapons have the same base damage and there's no reason to change that. Just reduce the DR bypass on the Estoc by 1 or 2 and think about shifting the Poleaxe and the Estoc out of the same weapon focus. Either/or would fix the issue.

 

seems the more logical choice would be to reduce the base damage on the Estoc slightly, to make it still more valuable against armor, but the others doing more base damage agains tthings that don't have any armor... except there really isn't anything that doesn't have armor in the late game IIRC.

 

no easy answer.

 

 

[Rumpelstilskin]

 

I'm actually a bit confused about the purpose of all 2-handed weapons. Ranged weapons clearly outdamage them

That depends on the Ranged Weapon, And it depends on the class, And it depends on the Talents, And it depends on the Enemy.

 

First, The only ranged weapons that 'out damage' 2-handers are the super slow ones (the rifles and X-bows). And that being the case, we'd need to start discussing things in "DPS" before we could determine whether a specific ranged weapon is really doing more damage than the specific 2-hander it's being compared to.

 

Second, there are some classes who are built to do LOT more damage in a melee situation than in ranged, and vice versa. (Rangers, for example, are designed to do a ton more damage with ranged weapons, than, say, Fighters. But nothing does more weapon damage than a well built Rogue using a Pike or Esoc. (and someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but a Barbarian's carnage does not work with range weapons at all)

 

Third, there are more Melee-only +Damage talents than there are ranged only +Damage talents. Savage attack, for example, grants +20% melee damage, and it stacks with every other general +Damage talent

 

Fourth, 2-handers offer a wider variety of damage types than the high damage ranged weapons. And those high damage range weapons also suffer critical damage penalties.

 

Fifth, it's hard to sustain effective range weapon use in those situations where you have enemies that teleport right to you. I'm not sure what effect that has on Damage output, but the popular playstyle in this game is typically: Open up an encounter with your Big guns, then switch to melee when the enemy is on top of you.

 

Crossbows outdamage 2-handers (18-26 vs 14-20), while both are "slow" (not sure if it implies that their speed is exactly the same). War bows do almost the same damage (13-20), but at "average" speed. Arbalests and firearms totally outdamage them, but yes, they are the ones that are slower.

Edit: crossbows' reload time probably does make them slower, and I think it might even be interrupted. The point about war bows still stands though. 

 

Most talents are duplicated for ranged and melee, so sure, if you picked up the melee versions, melee would probably be better for you, but no one forced you to do so in the first place. 

 

Pierce resistances would be a very valid reason to use melee, but I haven't yet seen any monsters that were heavily resistant specifically to pierce. It was like that in IE games, (skeletons, oozes for instance), but seemingly not in the Pillars. I actually miss it a bit.

 

And I'm not sure if there are any penalties for using ranged weapons at close range, except maybe lack of engagement. 

Edited April 13, 2015 by Rumpelstilskin

[peddroelm]

still unclear on DPS difference between DW and 2H weapons (I would think DW handily win especially since the speed boosts affect all the damage modifiers - will get clearer results in a few days..) .. But there is the factor of damage types and Weapon specialisations - if the current enemy is very resistant to the damage your DW weapons dish out, you can always use 2H to hit a particular damage type weakspot , especially if in the same weapon focus group as the main weapons . 

[dododad]

 

Yes, just sidestep my request for naming your sources.

 

As for that picture that you continue to clam as a legend. It comes from Chronik des Johannes Stumpf, and Johannes Stumpf was not a fairy tales writer, but a perfectly respectable historian.

 

You have a full scan of it here:

http://www.e-rara.ch/id/1525949

Yes, he was a historian from the middle of the 15th century whose work had some really amazing woodcuts, and like a great number of historians in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries his work was based on the limited sources available to him at the time. Specifically, that's the Battle of Kappel. I'm surprised your not pulling out the Pavia work, either, considering that it *actually* shows a dude with a great sword hacking at a dude with broken pike. Seems that would be even better for your claim.

 

But then there's artwork like the frescos at the Sala de Giovanni Delle Bande Nere, that show two-handed words fighting pikes using a guarded stance where sword blocks the hit, and the slides along the shaft while they charge forward. The myth--and that's all it is, myth and legend--of two-handed swords being used to chop down walls of pikes comes, via your historians, from one sentence written in 1522:

 

""...stood in the first rank, swung his sword and fought like a woodsman who was felling an Oak in the forest..."

 

 

 

Exactly what you see effectively done in modern medieval reenactements.

 

I don't know if you got your info from some outdated history book or equally outdated history teacher somewhere, but current views on the matter have changed considerably. And that book is just one of the components in supporting the view of twohanders used in battling pike walls. Comparative representation of arms used in battles in no small way comes exactly from those depictions. For example, Bayeud Tapestry is still the standard for Norman weaponry of the time. And it was made couple of centuries before any of your King Arthur etchings became popular. Even religious frescoes offer amazing insight into the period. They often show arms and armour from the period they were painted in, and are one of the rare visual representations of the time, so I stay firmly by my assessment of Chronik as representative.

 

Anyway, since you still refuse to quote a single modern article, I'll consider this discussion closed. I'll only offer this last article written by an expert on the period, to maybe shed some light on your ignorance. I assume you read German, otherwise just autotranslate the last part into English:

 

https://portal.dnb.de/opac.htm?method=simpleSearch&cqlMode=true&query=idn%3D994645821