Fighting Styles.

J

Joel Mathis

Artisan
So, I'm new to the whole melee fighter deal, and was wondering what everyone thought about the various fighting styles. I used a sword and shield at my last event, but am thinking that I might switch to sword and spear(using two weapon skill.) What's everyone's opinions on varios waepons and fighting styles?
 
The quality of fighting styles depends entirely on two things :

1. How they fit your character's style.

2. Your OOG skill at fighting.


I've see pretty much every sort of style imaginable, and really none of them have any major advantage over the others beyond the skill of the person using them. Find something you're comfortable with, and fight that.
 
I'm not a skilled fighter but I've been playing a while and I've fought sowrd and spear / sword and board. First, whatever matches your character concept and is fun for you the player. Second, look at your skills and determine if you are on offense or defense when fighting from the front. Generally defense = shield.

If you have profs then that spear becomes an offensive weapon and if you want to fight kind of aggressively 2 weapons could be your thing. Consider long sword, short sword as well for an offensive style. However, there is a reason most big fighters in the game use a shield - that offensive fighting style is real tough when fighting monsters with carrier attacks and such.

If you have backstabs, you should be doing your damage from behind. I like sword and board on my rogue but I have heard many times that 2 weapons is better. You dish out damage quicker (if you say your damage verbals fast enough to keep up with 2 swords which I never do) Spear would not be one of them though - you'd want 2 swords I think.

If you don't have profs or backstabs, you probably need to block more than do damage. Take a shield.

If you have archery or wands, shield becomes a pain - you need to drop it to use your wand or bow. Plenty of people do this but I would go 2 weapons in this case because I don't like taking my shield off and then putting it back on later.
 
Simple if ur a fighter/templar go sword/board, if ur a scout/rogue use two weapons. Its that basic.
 
If you don't have profs or backstabs and you're in the market for something to block with, and you have a wand and high magic, spend the four build on a staff. Shield is much more expensive, build-wise.

Staff/short sword is kinda fun too, tried it as an NPC and people had no idea what to do with me :) Then you just do the "templar tuck" (tuck your sword under your non-throwing arm) and away you go with wand damage.

I'd suggest NPCing an event and trying out as many weapon combos as you can, find what feels comfortable and how you can avoid carrier attacks while still doing damage, and go with it!
 
Also keep in mind when talking about longsword/shield there can be several different ways to use this style. For example most fighters I know go for a "tank" type sort of shield. Something that gives them good left side coverage in the normal holding position and is maximum size for defense, even for catching packets because its better for them to eat the affects than the scholars behind them who can fix the fighters.

I mention this because I play a Celestial Adept and recently picked up shield to use with longsword. However I use a VERY different style of shield for a very different style of combat. Its not at all maximum size and both the shield and grip placement are designed for speed and maneuverability. I can use this type of shield to cover nearly any part of my body, however if I wasn't actively moving it around it would be a lot less effective at blocking, but I love it. (I must also note that I cannot personally take credit for this design, I believe respects must be paid to Will Kinkaid for the concept that many folks have taken up.)

I say this just because in my opinion, especially with ultra light longswords, longsword and shield is probably the "strongest" "most powerful" style in the game for survivability and power. However that said 2h weapons can get up to some pretty awesome damage.

I am looking at build for a 46 build character that can fire 8's with a heavy x-bow... lol
 
On a related note, when is the next Monster Database revision coming out? :p
 
phedre said:
Staff/short sword is kinda fun too, tried it as an NPC and people had no idea what to do with me :) Then you just do the "templar tuck" (tuck your sword under your non-throwing arm) and away you go with wand damage.
Click to expand...

You can not use the tuck method with Staff and short sword and a wand. Wand is a 2HW. You would have to put down the staff and then tuck the SS.
 
Gilwing said:
phedre said:
Staff/short sword is kinda fun too, tried it as an NPC and people had no idea what to do with me :) Then you just do the "templar tuck" (tuck your sword under your non-throwing arm) and away you go with wand damage.
Click to expand...

You can not use the tuck method with Staff and short sword and a wand. Wand is a 2HW. You would have to put down the staff and then tuck the SS.
Click to expand...

Oak of the Arcane.
 
Dan Nickname Beshers said:
Gilwing said:
phedre said:
Staff/short sword is kinda fun too, tried it as an NPC and people had no idea what to do with me :) Then you just do the "templar tuck" (tuck your sword under your non-throwing arm) and away you go with wand damage.
Click to expand...

You can not use the tuck method with Staff and short sword and a wand. Wand is a 2HW. You would have to put down the staff and then tuck the SS.
Click to expand...

Oak of the Arcane.
Click to expand...

Yes you are right...we all start with that rit... :lol: I just went on the fact that Joe is new to the whole melee fighter idea
 
That's why I said "...and you have a wand and high magic." OotA is the way I'll go until I get that awesome +3 throws-all-elements wand that I want to build but will never find everything for :) I admit, I should have specified OotA in the "templar tuck" statement.

If you're playing a character that has no profs and no backstabs, either you're low level and are saving up build, cross-class that focused on spells first, or you're a scholar...for scholars, shield is around 10 build (I don't have my book on me, but I know it's expensive), and one handed edge is 10 build; that's another spell column (minus a spell or two) for two skills you probably won't use enough to justify the build expenditure.

I say that from experience. My primary is a scholar with OHE and staff, but my character history says I have to have it. The upside to having OHE is that a DA or a slayer and a 30 pt suit of arcane effectively turn me into a build-cheap (but IG expensive!) templar :) I'd love that 10 build back to put in my spell column, but c'est la vie.

I suggested NPCing to try out weapon styles because you don't have to spend the money to build all the reps, you get to fight a variety of people, and you don't have to spend the build on weapon skills you'll stop using.
 
Shield is 15 build for a scholar OHE is 10. Thus both of those cost you a whole column. :p

Florentine/Two Weapon is also 15 build for a scholar so OHE, Staff and that is actually 29 build... :?
 
Joel,
It really depends on how you like to fight. I would assume this is for your Ogre?

My personal experience as a fighter is it's depending on a handful of situations (in no particular order):

1. What you like to do on the battlefield.
2. What your weapons are made from.
3. Where you plan on going with your character classwise (ie staying fighter, going scout, going templar/adept).

My fighter presently has OHE and style master. I've used both longsword/shortsword, shortsword/spear, shortsword/shortsword, dagger/dagger and Longsword/Shield. My fighting styles however are VASTLY different however depending on the situation.

1) If I'm going frontline or teaming with another shield buddy, and am essentially 'tanking', I'll go longsword and shield. Being a lefty gives me the advantage of mirroring my buddy 9 times out of 10, as well as giving us a nice shield scover for a healer to hide behind or shoot arrows over. To me (with some exceptions) this is the 'less mobile style' where i will often pull this if i know I'm not going to be chasing after a lot of things, and am going to be a slower moving target for most of the fight. I also have to be aware of what packets are being thrown at me. At the same time, my shield is also made rather light, and the handle grip makes it easy to get it out of the way of spells (its the 'pointing down' grip, as opposed to the cross grip).

My normal tactic is usually Short sword and spear, because its rare that I'm a front-liner. The character I play is essentially a fighter who fights like a rogue, and usually fights with a rogue or adept buddy. Short sword and spear makes this easier for me, because, at least for me, they are more mobile type of weapons and are easier to run with (pumping arms to get speed with a shield on can sometimes be taxing for smallish people). Spear is exponentially more defensive than longsword, and for me is easy to use given my size (I'm 5'4" on a good day.). So long as you're careful about protecting your chest from the 'point of shame', you're usually good to go regarding defense with a spear. The one thing you lose in this combo however, is the reach of a long sword, unless you are of the school of Toepoking. Which I am. :)

Longsword shortsword was only used early on, and was double offense. You have to really, really know what you're doing with this style to make it effective. I couldn't, hence the switch to shortsword and spear.

Shortsword/Shortsword I now mainly reserve for claws, which is where dagger/dagger came from. Usually this was in times of emergency, and I usually make sure to have an alchemy buddy coat them with vorp serious coatings. This is also an incredibly hard style and should really be reserved for more knowledgable/advanced combatants, or the more mainly opportunistic fighting, as you lose an exponential amount of reach.

My scholar uses a bow, and my rogue will end up being shortsword and bow.
As far as 2H weapons (polearm, 2H sword, or otherwise), I don't usually use them, so I don't really have much to say regarding them, except I have seen them used with scary proficiency (ask any one about a character named Lupiticus sometime :) )


2) Depending on what your materials are for your weapons also helps. if your shield is heavy, this adds to the 'not moving quickly' variable, as opposed to UL shields or weapons. So taking into account the maneuverability of your weaponry is also a big thing.

3) Depending on your eventual class (yay fluid classes!) is another thing to consider. I know a lot of templars who usually go for sword and shield - this allows you to put scrolls on the back of shields, or place potions on the back or other things that are handy for you. I know adepts who mainly go shortsword and spear because it allows for them to stay pretty mobile to get behind someone , and then packet the crap out of them when they turn around.

Fighters on the other hand come in all shapes and sizes..and scouts often choose weapon master/style master so that they can choose to be mobile or not mobile as the case may be.

Again, all of these are just suggestions, and there are exceptions to every rule, but these are my experiences regarding combat in the game. My best advice would be, in the offseason, get a bunch of people together and try them all out, and see which one you take to the easiest. Then, start with that one.

Hope this helps,
Ali
 
I have a different fighting style for each of my characters both of which fit nicely to my lack of fighting skills.

My fox Wylderkin, Semaj, has two short sword and Celestial magic.

He usually starts out with casting binding spells, then starts using hit and run strikes against enemies.

My biata, Argus, is a rogue and carries a long sword, usally having a second one on him in case his gets destroyed or someone else needs it. He is poor with fighting someone face to face, but if someone if attacking a monster from the front, he'll slip behind and deal damage that way.
 
Please, by all means, go for the 'Templar Tuck'. Weapon hilts sticking out of your body are great targets. :D
 
Adepts can tuck too... Yay Adepts! *foolishly underloved class of awesomeness...* :p
 
In the "Templar tuck" case, I would say the sword falls under the definition of "garb," and I wouldn't take weapon damage from it being struck (unless my sword wouldn't have deflected the blow). If you are barely grazing the tip of my weapon with the tip of yours, I call cheese. Spells and gasses yes, weapons no. If the sword was in a frog I wouldnt take the damage either.

This arguement has been made in NH, and while it's cheesy, if you're so close you can tap my sword, you should be going for body hits.
 
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