Sword & Shield Armsman Ques

[old.willowywicca]

well personnally I would say go either hybrid pole/shield spec or even better pure defensive spec. Polearms are too slow, don't do significantly more damage than amethyst slash on average over time, and the penalty to your own survivability is too great to really make it worthwhile. I have fought numerous armsmen who were both s/s and pole spec (and some hybrids too) in 1 vs 1 fights and the ones who faired best were always the s/s ones. I've had a few fights vs gladiator (back when scale was weak to crush --he used a rush pole then, not sure bout now--, champs had no self buffs) and all have been pretty one sided towards me, I recently had a fight vs sagba in hadrians and it went down to the line, both of us used FA2 and I only won it by a small margin (well okay I still had IP ready but you know what I mean ).

also if you do decide to use poles, be sure to have a decent spec in it lol, I remember one fight vs 2 armsmen, 1 using slash/s other using a slash polearm and the s/s did more dmg on every hit than the polearmsman ever did on a hit rofl. Even those with good spec in polearms seem to have horrible variance tho, hitting pretty poor damage most of the time (200-300), with the occassional uber hit (500+) very very rarely. given how slowly they hit their damage over time on average is abysmal..

And hrodelbert, higher spec doesn't decrease variance (unfortunately got 62 (almost 63, then 64+ with SC) LW atm) it merely increase the range across which you vary (ie instead of 75-125%, it's 100-150% or whatever). Whatever the stat whih affects your weapon type (eg str for LW) is what reduces your variance, since higher str doesn't change cap, but your minimum damage is raised.. still even with 300str (ie capped) your variance is tighter but still there

EDIT: not sure since I've never had more than 1 str relic, but I think the 20% bonus is also a reduction in your variance like having more str.. since dmg caps don't go up afaik

 

[Danya]

Caps don't go up, my buffed am slash cap was 266 before relics and is still 266 after relics. Much easier to hit it now though.

 

[Sagba]

Originally posted by old.willowywicca
I recently had a fight vs sagba in hadrians and it went down to the line, both of us used FA2 and I only won it by a small margin (well okay I still had IP ready but you know what I mean ).

Was fun fight Had IP ready too, but didnt found it from my Quickbar

Diamond Slash is crap imo. Both Amethyst Slash and Diamond Slash have very high attack bonus, about the same damage (for some reason my Amethyst do more damage than Diamond slash 90% of time), but Diamond use way too much end. Using just Amethyst slash=more styled attacks=you hit more= you crit hit more than when using Amethyst/Diamond. Diamond Slash looks better tho

 

[hrodelbert]

Originally posted by old.willowywicca

And hrodelbert, higher spec doesn't decrease variance (unfortunately got 62 (almost 63, then 64+ with SC) LW atm) it merely increase the range across which you vary (ie instead of 75-125%, it's 100-150% or whatever). Whatever the stat whih affects your weapon type (eg str for LW) is what reduces your variance, since higher str doesn't change cap, but your minimum damage is raised.. still even with 300str (ie capped) your variance is tighter but still there

Posted in the latest Grab bag by Sanya

The amount of damage done by the weapon is determined by your weapon spec. As we’ve all discussed before, raising your spec helps you to do more damage in two different ways. First, it raises the damage ceiling, meaning the maximum amount of damage a single swing can do. Second, it lowers your variance, meaning the distance between the minimum damage you can do and the maximum damage you can do, by bringing up the minimum damage limit.

She seems to think it does but I agree I cant see it happening in practice

 

[Validus]

ok how about using brutalize, and amethyst slash as backup, when u run out of endurance, switch to pole

 

[Meatballs]

when you run out of endurance, the enemy has also run out of endurance, and without those +styles thats when you'll do most of your blocking

 

[Sagba]

Originally posted by Validus
ok how about using brutalize, and amethyst slash as backup, when u run out of endurance, switch to pole

Bugged atm, fixed in next patch. If you dont block(brutalize needs block to open) you will do Amethyst Slash with your shield which is crap damage

 

[Validus]

okok new idea, when fighting ppl with styles, engage for a bit untill u think they run out of endurance and then do that brutalize+backup amethyst thing. about the bug thing, u said it'll be fixed next patch, so not so far away innit.

 

[old.willowywicca]

Originally posted by Validus
okok new idea, when fighting ppl with styles, engage for a bit untill u think they run out of endurance and then do that brutalize+backup amethyst thing. about the bug thing, u said it'll be fixed next patch, so not so far away innit.

well a sensible person when fighting a shield user will be saving their end for reactive styles, since they tend to have higher bonus to hit, which is what you want to have to get through that darned shield.

Btw LW has 2 styles, one after enemy parries you (ultimate recovery, chains to devastate), one after enemy blocks you (shatter) which are very nice (shatter not as good as ultimate recovery) and better than using celtic fury. Most LW users don't even have these styles quickbarred since they think they won't get to use em much at all, but whenever you have a 1vs1 with a s/s you can use em most times. In my fight vs sagba I was doing just over 200~ dmg with celtic fury (anytime style) whilst my ultimate recovery -> devastate chain I landed each hit did over 300 dmg without crits. so uhm, save your end for reactionary styles in 1 vs 1s with shield tanks as you'll need ever single bit of it for the long fight

also hrodelbert, sagba contradicts herself in every second grab bag so bit hard to know what really is the truth (the variance moving from 75-125% and 100-150% is also from one of her grab bags ). However think what I said is right, atleast it is from my experiences of hitting stuff. altho polearms work differently to other weapon specs too in that speccing pole *does* increase the minimum damage and reduce the variance lol, maybe she was refering to only them in that post and she didn't even realise it

 

[Aravis]

Originally posted by Validus
ok how about using brutalize, and amethyst slash as backup, when u run out of endurance, switch to pole

If you've gone full S/S it might make more sense to switch to a two-hander. Base dmg can be 1.5 to 2.5 x higher than 1-hand and, in my experience, you don't hit that much slower...

I've started carrying a 2-hander for keep raids as, with the lag, you don't usually get much opportunity to use styles and as you are, more often than not, just dealing with guard pops you're not desperate for the shield.
The damage easily beats what I'm doing styled with the 1-hander and uses no endurance...

 

[hrodelbert]

when i have tried using two handers for fun the dmg is pathetic and in RvR i'd probably miss with everyhit, or be blocked.

 

[erl]

Originally posted by old.willowywicca
also hrodelbert, sagba contradicts herself in every second grab bag

You mean Sanya I hope?

 

[<Wels>]

One thing about damage caps, I don't get what increases it, I think nothing. Tried amethyst with 39+5, 39+10, more str, less str (yes I use slash 100% str), more weaponskill, less weaponskill, its always the same. Ofcourse Backlslash had higher damage cap but thats not the point, how do you increase your damage cap for a specific style, seems purely level based, I know CS cap go up 9 for each point in it, but normal melee spec doesn't ...for me atleast.
AfaIk +str, +slash only makes me able to get closer to cap?
Anyone?

EDIT: I might have mixed things up, now that I think of it cap maybe wen't up from +slash but not from +str and DPS didn't change cap either(think SPD did though, bigger punch with slower weapon), have to check it tonight again

PS: Oh and for you minstrels out there 50+4 instr DD caps = 276, 343 and 50+15 instr DD caps = 276, 343, charisma didn't change that either(have to check that too again tonight, was a long time ago I tested it )

 

[erl]

The factors that change the cap are:

Clamped dps (the one after level caps are in but before qual and con and such factors in).
Weapon spec
Weapon speed
and for styled caps, your quickness (may be affected by some attack speed buffs, not really sure).

So you should really have seen an increased cap when you increased your weapon spec. At least I do . Try again . Your weaponskill has nothing to do with the caps.

Probably missed something here, but something like that it is .

 

[old.willowywicca]

Originally posted by erl


You mean Sanya I hope?

erm yep lol, I got sagba on the brain clearly

wels, it's been told to me that 1 handed weapon specs (this probably doesn't include any midgard specs then..? ) do not increase cap with more +spec items, 2 handed weapons (such as LW) and non weapon specs (CS, CD/LA DW) all increase cap on styles. I personnally have only been able to test LW spec, and I can confirm that caps do increase with greater spec in it, can't rememebr by how much but it wasn't very much.. +6 per spec or something naff. anyway, yesterday my cap with annihilation was 624, now I'm rr7 (hurrah!! ) the cap should have gone up, so I'll post after I get a chance to test what new cap is.

 

[<Wels>]

Ok I did what I could, wish I had 2 equal weapons though but I didn't.

Tests 1

Slash: 39+5
Str: 176
Weaponskill: 843
WeaponDam: 1633
Weapon: 16.5 dps/3.6 spd/99% Qua
CAP: 291

Test 2

Slash: 39+10
Str: 176
Weaponskill: 895
WeaponDam: 1473
Weapon: 16.2 dps/3.5 spd/91% Qua
CAP: 289

Same cap with less Str as above in both, and I used amethyst slash style, when SC goes in I can try with same tests with same weapon and 39+5 and 39+10, see if that makes any difference.
Looks like the added weaponskill brought the less dps weapon up to almost same cap as the 16.5 dps weapon. Then again i do need these tests with same weapon just change the +slash since str does nothing cap wise

PS: Shout cap was same as I mentioned above, Charisma didn't affect it.

 

[<Wels>]

If its clamped dps as you say erl, then shouldn't a change from 16.2 to 16.5 be more than 3 damage?

 

[erl]

Originally posted by &lt;Wels&gt;
If its clamped dps as you say erl, then shouldn't a change from 16.2 to 16.5 be more than 3 damage?

Yes, I would think so. Seems to me you're broken Wels .

Or it could be something like Male says, because with my bow it works as stated, and I assumed it was the same for all weapons, but it sems I was wrong