Sword, Axe, Hammer ??

[Progenie]

Im utterly enjoying my ikkle Norse Skald and having considered all the specs and stuff I haev decided to go with 50 BS, 39 Weapon and 18 Parry. I have heard that I should go 50 Weapon and the rest BS but I fancy trying out full BS.

Basically what Im after finding out is which weapon is best suited for this spec, I'm currently using 2 Handed sword but can obviously respec at 40.

Cheers Guys and Gals.

 

[old.Jeriraa]

I refined some data I found on the webbie and made this little spreadsheet.

To understand it you gotta know what the term "growth rate" means. Gonna quote from Wyrd’s Style Spreadsheet InfoFAQ v.1:

Simplified, a damage style is a DPS (Damage Per Second) based addition to the base melee damage of an attack. It adds damage via a multiplier based on the Growth Rate of the style, weapon specialization in the style’s line, and Effective Speed of the weapon wielded. Higher weapon spec and a higher growth rate will both lead to a larger style multiplier, while higher quickness, a faster weapon, and more haste will both lead to a lower style multiplier (though a faster swing rate on the same speed weapon will always have a higher damage output over time in spite of a smaller style multiplier).

To walk through a basic example, let's assume a player used a style on an opponent and saw the following output in his chat screen:


You perform your Test Style perfectly! (+50)
You hit your test subject for 150 damage!


We immediately know two things from the above lines: The style added 50 damage to the attack (shown by the style bonus, which is the +50 on the style line), and the attack would have done 100 damage if it had been unstyled (by taking the total damage of 150 and subtracting the 50 style bonus from it). Anyone that regularly attacks with melee styles understands that the style bonus and the base damage both tend to vary constantly - the same style might add +50 on this attack, but might add +70 on the next. What most players don't realize is that currently in DAOC, there is only one random roll where variance is seen, and that is on the base damage of an attack. The ratio of the style bonus to the base damage will always remain the same, thus when players see the style bonus fluctuating, it is only due to the fluctuation of the base damage (as long as effective speed and weapon spec remain the same) – note that this also means it is critical to overall style effectiveness that the base damage be as high as possible, as the higher the base damage is, the higher the style bonus will be.

Looking at the above example, we can determine what we call the Style Multiplier, which is the relationship of the style damage to the base damage. To do this, we take the total damage dealt, and divide it by the damage that would have been dealt if the hit was unstyled. In this particular example, that leads us to 150/100 = 1.5 – this is our Style Multiplier. This means that any further hits we perform using that style (again, as long as spec and effective speed remain the same), the style will always increase our base damage by 1.5 times. The following is another example of a typical melee hit, where the base damage is slightly lower (due perhaps to the target being a higher level mob), yet the style multiplier will remain exactly the same:


You perform your Test Style perfectly! (+30)
You hit your test subject for 90 damage!


Thus, we see that while the base damage varies, the connection between the base damage and the style bonus (the Style Multiplier) will always remain a constant as long as no changes are made to the equipment used - regardless of the target being attacked. More base damage means a higher style bonus and more overall damage, while less base damage means a lower style bonus and less overall damage, yet the entire time the relation between the style bonus and the base damage will be exactly the same.

Using the spreadsheet I made you can compare the damage of the styles and chains of different weapons. Basicly the higher the growth rate of a style is the higher damage you do with it.

50 Hammer for a Skald is a waste since the lvl 50 style is part of the block chain. You get a high damage pos back chain but the anytime styles suck.

Sword has the most damaging parry chain of all 3 choice + you get a high damage pos back style when spec'ing 50. Assault -> Ice Storm is a very good anytime chain.

With Axe you get a stun in the parry chain but it consists of only 2 high damage styles. (Sword parry chain is 3) The lvl 50 style chains of a pos front. (The 2 styles of this chain do less average dmg than 2x Ragnarok but I guess they are easier to get off) The pos back chain is also doing good damage.

Sword or Axe... my guess a Skald doesnt parry often enough to get a big advantage from the sword parry chain (I dont play skald so I might be wrong here! so my choice would be 50 Axe.

 

[Progenie]

Thnx for the quick and informative reply.

Judging on this I think I'll stick with Sword, parry rate is actually pretty good with decent buff.


Thanks again.

 

[Hyuga Hinata]

Originally posted by old.Jeriraa
Assault -> Ice Storm

Problem is that in 1.65 Ice Storm gets changed to chain off evade. So unless you have at least 34 Sword spec to get the Polar Rift anytimer you're stuck with Assault -> Baldur's Fury combo.

 

[old.Jeriraa]

Originally posted by Hyuga Hinata
Problem is that in 1.65 Ice Storm gets changed to chain off evade. So unless you have at least 34 Sword spec to get the Polar Rift anytimer you're stuck with Assault -> Baldur's Fury combo.

Raider from Axe gets changed too, no? That equals it out.

Btw, just to break with another mystery (and bcz this Info fits nicely to the spreadsheet )I'll qoute myself:

I've been talking to quite a few people and noticed that there is alot of theories about this. Many people say "Dont use penality styles!", "The penalities add up!" or "You can mess up a whole fight by using a single penality style." Thats nonsense.

1st of all: A defense penality style does NOT give your enemy a higher chance to hit you! Instead it lowers you chance to "respond" to the next enemy attack after you used that style. Your chance to evade/block/parry will be lowered.

On the other side +def styles will increase your chance to "respond" to the next enemy attack. I have not yet done testing on how much bonus these styles give (nor if you can go over the caps using them). I'd like to have some duel logs where 1 opponent detaunts (med def bonus) and 1 hits unstyled but you will need most likely 100 or more swings to get decent results.
If the bonus from +def styles is big enough you might be able to "enforce" a block/parry chain by detaunting your enemy once.

 

[Harm]

And.. level50 hammer style will be changed to a parry followup, removed its high penalty to defense, and given a medium bonus to hit. That style has a serious haste debuff effect.

I would have chose hammer any day. The taunt style has a low end cost. Quite handy as the shouts also happen to drain your endurance.

Back style has a snare, in case you don't wanna give your enemy snare immunity by using the shout.

(Edit: Well if you're going 39 weapon - hammer is an even better choice)

 

[Progenie]

Even more info thnx...


now Im torn between Hammer and Sword
.....oh! why can't like be simple.

 

[old.Jeriraa]

Using hammer taunt as an anytimer in RvR means giving up almost any chance to parry due to its medium defense penality.

Try spamming a med def penality style in duels and see how much you block/parry/evade compared to spamming a style with no defense penality. You will be surprised!

 

[Harm]

Rvr is mostly about frontload damage, so I wouldn't have based my statements on what's nice in duels. I'd say running out of endurance is much worse than being able to parry once or twice more than usual.

Additionally, alot of hib tanks/support are using reinforced armor as an option to scale armor. Scale armor is weak vs slash, and that's what the largest part of the weaponspecced users have. This leaves hibs with the option of going with a cheaper set of armor which also mostly grants its wearer extra protection. With your hammer and some luck that leaves about all hibernians weak to your damagetypes, as well as half of albion classes.

Then again, this is my point of view.

 

[Virr]

go for hammer imo, provoke is nice, conquer is very nice, and if u parry u got lamblast which is v nice too :>

 

[tasslehoff]

Kobbies with Small swords looks alot better

But, if hammer is better take that =P

 

[Animus_SC]

Originally posted by old.Jeriraa
50 Hammer for a Skald is a waste since the lvl 50 style is part of the block chain. You get a high damage pos back chain but the anytime styles suck.

50 Hammer for a skald is not a waste although the level 50 style is a after block style. You get one of the *best* anytimes around, namely Provoke. Lambast for the parrying with bleed on it, not to mention the Conquer (with snare) for backstyle and Sledgehammer at 44 as followup.

So Hammer at 50 is not gimped - imo.