Hand-and-a-half / two hand weapons

[ripforareason]

Is it just me, or are these weapons not very useful in Sil? Artefacts aside, it seems like these suffer from a few problems:

- Greatswords are strictly worse than bastard swords due to having more weight but the same accuracy, evasion, and damage bonuses.
- Great axes seem to do almost the same amount of damage with 3 str (4d7 vs. 3d9) but are even heavier and less accurate.
- I don't use polearms all that often, but they don't seem that good. At least glaives have an evasion bonus.
- The Shield slot is very useful in Sil. Whether it's a resistance (shield of frost, kiteshield of hador), combat bonuses (shield of deflection +2,1d3), stat bonuses (kiteshield of fingolfin), or offhand weapons (narsil as a resist stick, galadriel, dagmor, deathblades), there are a lot of useful things that you can put in that slot.
-Without being wielded with 2 hands, the hand-and-a-half weapons seem to have poor accuracy, a little more damage than a longsword, and no evasion bonus.
- This could also be a critique of subtlety, but subtlety makes light weapons extremely good, especially deathblades, and branches directly into rapid attack.
- Many of the most dangerous Sil enemies, especially in the mid-late game, are either bags of HP with low evasion and low protection, or low-HP enemies with high evasion. In both cases a lighter, more accurate weapon will win out, in my experience. High-protection enemies are not all that dangerous. These essentially amount to serpents and kemen. Kemen are extremely annoying, but serpents are not fast, and do not open doors, so you can escape from them more easily.


This brings me to my point: I would probably like to use rapid attack with greatswords, but it costs so much experience to do so, since you have to take Follow-through and Opportunist, when greatsword users would probably prefer to skip this ability, which seems to act mostly as a prerequisite for other abilities/XP sink. I think it would be useful to have an ability that makes two-handed weapons more effective that acts as a prerequisite for rapid attack, perhaps one that gives an point of accuracy and damage side when using a "true" two-handed weapon. This could replace throwing mastery, which almost no one uses and can't really be seen as a viable investment of experience. Otherwise, I'm struggling to find much use for them outside of a utility item for kemen, serpents, and grotesques. And when I was playing around with subtlety and delmereth earlier, subtlety was actually pretty good against serpents...

[Infinitum]

Not just you; just pretty sure everyone on the forum have already given their two cents about it. Check out do something about greatswords? and balancing spears.

But yeah, the weapon classes should probably be rebalanced should half/Scatha decide to proceed to 1.4 eventually. My preferred solution is merging the various subclasses of weapons into plain "Swords", "Axes", "Spears" and so forth (acting as one and a halfhanders) and have the amount of weapon dice and damage per side tie into weight somehow.

EDIT: Aside; why not get Opportunist? 6 Stealth is a good number for not aggroing the entire map, and the free attcks are ridiculously good for hunting down archers, fleeing enemies and flitterers like serpents or wolves. Assassinate is a fairly cheap (1k xp) alternative to Follow-Through should you not want that, and the occasional ~+10 helps a lot when waking Dragons and the like.

[debo]

I think rapid attack was designed to be used with 1-handed light weapons, but we all started using it with 2-handers instead because it's the obvious way to get a second attack. If you think about it, quickly hitting with a greatsword like that is pretty nonsensical. I think it makes sense for it to be awkward to get for 2-hander builds.

Polearms seem fine to me -- all of them have a niche. Glaives are especially useful on low-str characters, and spears are useful in a bunch of ways.

I think greatswords are eclipsed by bastard swords now that momentum exists. Momentum is actually my least favorite addition to Sil -- I preferred it when light weapons really had a strong cap on how much strength you could put behind them, because it forced you to consider other weapon types on those builds. Stun wasn't a particularly brilliant ability, but I personally found it really fun.

There are a lot of niche weapons in Sil, and I think that's okay. I agree that greatswords are probably among the most useless; probably quarterstaves and sceptres are worse, but not much else.

This reminds me that I still really want to win a warhammering Hador some day.

Finally, I agree that opportunist is a good path to rapid attack if you're going for a 2-hander. You get a useful aux attack, and it's nice not to wake up the universe every time you go down the stairs.

[Infinitum]

Keeping that Sigmar dream alive huh? The lack of (sharp) artefacts hurt, but otherwise Warhammers are better than Greataxes. (-2, 4d3) 5lb > (-4, 4d4) 10lb any day of the week, and you get the shield option as well.

[debo]

Keeping that Sigmar dream alive huh? The lack of (sharp) artefacts hurt, but otherwise Warhammers are better than Greataxes. (-2, 4d3) 5lb > (-4, 4d4) 10lb any day of the week, and you get the shield option as well.

They're super fun. The biggest problem I have with them is that you basically have to forge one, because you're never going to reliably find a fine one in any given game. I might wizmode myself a good-weight 4d2 one someday and run a 5111 Hador with it

[ripforareason]

Not just you; just pretty sure everyone on the forum have already given their two cents about it. Check out do something about greatswords? and balancing spears.

But yeah, the weapon classes should probably be rebalanced should half/Scatha decide to proceed to 1.4 eventually. My preferred solution is merging the various subclasses of weapons into plain "Swords", "Axes", "Spears" and so forth (acting as one and a halfhanders) and have the amount of weapon dice and damage per side tie into weight somehow.

EDIT: Aside; why not get Opportunist? 6 Stealth is a good number for not aggroing the entire map, and the free attcks are ridiculously good for hunting down archers, fleeing enemies and flitterers like serpents or wolves. Assassinate is a fairly cheap (1k xp) alternative to Follow-Through should you not want that, and the occasional ~+10 helps a lot when waking Dragons and the like.

Dunno, I guess I just never bother training stealth unless I want to get cruel blow, which I actually like. But then that has the Assassination prerequisite, so I'm already at another 1500 XP for Opportunist, just to chase down fleeing enemies and occasionally get an extra hit on wolves. I almost always use something at least as heavy as a mail corslet so I'm not going to get any stealth stabs on dragons, which don't even pursue you in the first place. I also usually prefer charge to follow-through, since I only carry a 2h to kill serpents and kemen, and Follow-Through doesn't really do a ton for you aside from being an overused prerequisite.

With that said, maybe I'll try getting opportunist in a game. I do like Rapid Attack for the throne room nowadays. I also don't really understand how sil stealth checks work, since apparently you can wake up offscreen monsters when you go down the stairs, which I never knew. It hasn't been much of a problem.

[ripforareason]

I think rapid attack was designed to be used with 1-handed light weapons, but we all started using it with 2-handers instead because it's the obvious way to get a second attack. If you think about it, quickly hitting with a greatsword like that is pretty nonsensical. I think it makes sense for it to be awkward to get for 2-hander builds.

Polearms seem fine to me -- all of them have a niche. Glaives are especially useful on low-str characters, and spears are useful in a bunch of ways.

I think greatswords are eclipsed by bastard swords now that momentum exists. Momentum is actually my least favorite addition to Sil -- I preferred it when light weapons really had a strong cap on how much strength you could put behind them, because it forced you to consider other weapon types on those builds. Stun wasn't a particularly brilliant ability, but I personally found it really fun.

There are a lot of niche weapons in Sil, and I think that's okay. I agree that greatswords are probably among the most useless; probably quarterstaves and sceptres are worse, but not much else.

This reminds me that I still really want to win a warhammering Hador some day.

Finally, I agree that opportunist is a good path to rapid attack if you're going for a 2-hander. You get a useful aux attack, and it's nice not to wake up the universe every time you go down the stairs.

How low is low-str? 0 or 1? What kind of archetype are we talking about, here?

A lot of my guys start with 2 str, and I haven't felt much desire to switch to a polearm. Of course you can throw spears to kill fleeing enemies, and Aeglos, Gaurin, Ogbar are really nice, except I've never seen Ogbar, but the last time I tried a glaive char I had a (-2,2d9)[+2] glaive Naugrim with Parry, and it didn't go very well, as my accuracy was terrible. Maybe that was due to Naugrim being Naugrim. To me, the shield slot is just too useful when there are round shields of deflection, frost, kiteshield of hador, and so on.


Yeah, with quarterstaves and scepters, I have no idea if you're actually suppose to use them or if they're just there for flavor and identification XP. Doesn't one of them grant you Majesty? I guess that could be useful for a pacifist. If scepters were one-handed and a scepter of grace<+1> existed it could be useful for smithers, at least. Though, apparently there is a Graceful Smith build that was/is overpowered that uses Song of Mastery. I haven't tried it yet so I can't speak to how good/bad it is compared to a warrior that uses smithing.

[wobbly]

One thing I do like about the bigger weapons are that even though they're sub-optimal they can be a straight forward build. Particularly for belegosts where accuracy & evasion don't come cheap but str/con is inherent. Something nice about gear decisions being - get str, get more str, get even more str, rest will/con/protection/vital resists.

Keeping that Sigmar dream alive huh? The lack of (sharp) artefacts hurt, but otherwise Warhammers are better than Greataxes. (-2, 4d3) 5lb > (-4, 4d4) 10lb any day of the week, and you get the shield option as well.

Yeah greataxes are super awkward, though they're fun if you finally get 1 to work. If you get enough str behind a 4d5 great-axe you eventually start 1 shoting ancient serpents on the charge which is kinda satisfying. Trouble is you have to smith to guarantee decent hammer or axe & the difficulty means you're constantly thinking about how you could have a much nicer battle-axe which would be better to start with.

Yeah, with quarterstaves and scepters, I have no idea if you're actually suppose to use them or if they're just there for flavor and identification XP. Doesn't one of them grant you Majesty? I guess that could be useful for a pacifist. If scepters were one-handed and a scepter of grace<+1> existed it could be useful for smithers, at least. Though, apparently there is a Graceful Smith build that was/is overpowered that uses Song of Mastery. I haven't tried it yet so I can't speak to how good/bad it is compared to a warrior that uses smithing.

Sceptres are 1 handed & you can put grace or song on the artifact versions (which are 1/2 cost). I've still never bothered to build 1, but there's possible tricks here. Occasionally I'll use a sceptre of fire against snow trolls or shadows if I find it at the right time & lack a better weapon.

[taptap]

Almost killed Morgoth with a Hador hammerman (4221 competition one) once. Very fun. Hammers are one of the niche weapons that did profit from momentum though, without momentum 4d8 or 4d9 w/o sharpness option does not look really endgame viable. Or make momentum a blunt weapon only ability. (Or remove it completely. It would certainly help two-handers.)

One way to help two handed weapons would be to give them less AT penalties (think: better reach) instead of more compared to 1.5 handed weapons.

[ripforareason]

The weird thing with rapid attack is, it feels like my damage output actually decreases when I turn it on when using it with subtlety, even when using a deathblade. It seems that I get a lot fewer criticals from the -3 dex penalty. Using it in the throne room with +25 slaying is another matter, of course...

[HugoVirtuoso]

In my Sil hey days, I was definitely one of the few who almost always favored the Greatswords in the early game. The accuracy isn't great, I know. The fact that I lose the Shield slot, you probably couldn't stomach that either. Greatswords or any weapon that can be wielded two-handed and had a 3d(n) or 4d(n)), etc weapon dice were the hallmark of my all-out-melee playstyle. Check out some of my top characters on the Sil ladder (search for HugoTheGreat2011). You'll kind of see what I mean.

[ripforareason]

the way I look at it is, I can give up my shield slot for a greatsword that misses a lot and is only good for killing Kemen, or I can give it up for a deathblade that can hit 30-40s with subtlety and some help from Concentration (which is viable in mpa since it has no prereq) at 700' and will melt the throne room easily. To me, it's not even a decision. In my last game before i rage-quit I was hitting shadow spiders for 50s, while running an XP defecit from smithing.

[Psi]

I've got this very quandary going on right now. I have a mastery build which has just cleared out the Chambers of Thu and so is more or less set, however I am not yet decided how to approach V.

At the moment I am switching between Glamdring for low protection and Glend for ancient serpents. The only melee ability I have taken is finesse and so there is plenty of scope in that tree.

I think in an ideal world I find a blackblade or Saithnar (assuming certain Mithril longswords don't pop). But assuming the weapons carried, how would you approach it?

[Infinitum]

Unless I smith I usually just hold off melee decisions until I find an endgame weapon to build around (usually the first sharp one in my way). After a certain point its all academic unless you want to kill V anyhow.

[ripforareason]

My last winning char was swapping between the +2 deathblade and Glamdring while doing the 950' circuit and they didn't seem too far off one another, though the difference could be in Glamdring basicalIy having an autocrit on almost everything at that depth. I had a ring of damage<+1> for most of the game, so with subtlety and momentum I had 1d14 with 6/crit with a deathblade and 2d10 with 7/crit with Glamdring. If I had a bit more strength I could have had 2d12 with Glamdring. My strategy is basically to build song of slaying + sharpness + woven themes at 950' (no song before then), then weave them for the throne room.

Since you already have Anguirel I would probably go for dual-wielding Anguirel and Glamdring. I'm not really sure how the throne room works with mastery, to be honest - do you weave it with slaying, or just poke morgoth until he dies, or what?