Need a lot of advice, I am needy

Hello and thank everyone in advance,

1) Dual Wield, Sword and Board, or 2h Swords? Currently I'm dual wielding and I have yet to see another person doing this that actually has 50+ stats (my only metric for a veteran player). It could also be why I'm getting wrecked. More below.

2) I am getting wrecked by anything that is smart enough to use the pointy end. Mainly because my glyph attacks miss >60% of the time miss on yellow mobs. Now I know that dex is the primary player here, but I don't have the resources to dabble in enchanting just yet. Is there anything I can do in the interim? My adventurer level is 37 and I have 26 Str/Dex/Int.

3) I really like the passives on light armor. Naturally, however, I do not appreciate the squish that comes with it lol. If I'm planning on going light armor does that pretty well pigeonhole me into needing a shield or is it ok to sacrifice the 10% bonus by wearing half chain and half leather? Can I still use light armor abilities while wearing partial light armor..?

4) This one I'm mostly sure of but I'll ask anyway for completion's sake. When copper is used for the blade of a 1h sword you get a 5% crit chance increase. Is this an additive crit chance? IE Base crit is 13%, now with this it is 18%. If I have two swords with that 5% bonus, is my crit chance now 13+5+5 or is it weapon specific?

Just a disclaimer, I'm not complaining about getting wrecked as a newbie. I just want some concrete info on what I can do/be working towards to get it to stop lol.

Thank you all again.

 

I have no super insights, but some suggestions and a forward @Sara Dreygon who is often mentioned as a Swordmaster
1. no clue
2. Adv Level is afaik more important about hit chance - maybe stick to greens until you have better skill at all.
3. yes you can, but no you shouldn't i would say, but thats more of a "feeling" than knowledge. iirc Chest Armor is the things what counts in for armor skills.
4. no clue

have fun and lets hope some people with better insight will give you better answers

 

Not the greatest fighter here but at least I know some of the theory.

1
Depends on play style.
An aggressive DPS player who is fast at the keys with random draw and good at running around while dishing out attacks is better of dual wielding.
A player who is either using a locked bar or isn't moving as much is better at 2h.
However if ones primary is a magic tree then dual wielding can get more weapon bonuses from having two 1h than one 2h.

2
Yellow is a big span in monster levels early on. Since to-hit is very much affected by your adventurer level versus monster level you might simply be fighting the 'wrong' end of the yellow mob spectrum.
Other than that there are foods and devotionals and potions that add DEX temporarily.

3
It is the chest piece that determines if you are light or heavy, it is binary so chain chest=heavy.
Light with shield is good but optional. There are ways to mitigate squishy with mobility and DPS.

4
A hidden multiplier.

 

Regarding question 1, I am completely clueless when it comes to combat, but I seemed to have stumbled on builds that work for me. For closed spaces (mines, for example) I use 2H sword with heavy armor, and find that Body Slam, Knight's Grace and the blade skills are all I need to mine Elysium mines (5 skull) with zero risk of death. I have also successfully used sword and shield in the same locations. Body Slam is great for closing distance and dealing damage at the same time, Knight's Grace (I have that locked) is great for getting out of stuns, and the blade skills are reliable glyphs that continue to deal damage when I need them. In more open areas I switch to ranged (still in heavy armor so I can keep body slam), which I have also levelled up. When using ranged I will use body slam to stun an enemy before using rapid fire while backing up. I am currently adventurer level 84, but those builds have worked for me consistently as I levelled up. The cost is a huge amount of fizzle in most skill trees, so you have to be prepared to mostly avoid magic.

That is what I'm happy with. Your mileage may differ.

 

1.) Currently not really balanced and laughably I've never used a shield or double-wielded but I have seen others duel-wield fine. If you're after DPS I think two-handed is the way to go as I couldn't see doing more damage dual-wielding. I pump out crazy damage but also have good gear and very high blade, crit, str, etc. skills and adventurer level.

2.) I think you'd be fine against yellows of the dex was a bit higher although adventurer level does have a lot to do with hit rate. I'd start off getting str, dex, thrust, blades base skill and blade innates, body slam, and armor weak points to 80 but the thing that'll help you out the most is GMing defensive stance and glancing blow. Then GM thrust and vital points and start working up other blades skills some (rend for DOT, whirling for AOE). That'll keep you busy for a little while and yellows shouldn't be a issue anymore.

3.) I'd find losing out on the heavy armor innates tough if I were to switch to light armor. The biggest loss would be from losing body slam stuns and all the glancing blows I get as these mitigate a ton of damage. I'd go heavy.

4.) Never tested but 99% sure weapon specific. Would be amazed of Chris didn't program it that way.

 

1) Fortunately, all of these options use the same skill line - sword. So you could experiment with a shield to see if that ups your survivability, or a 2hander to see if that ups your damage, and you're still using the same "sword" skill. Shield has its own skill line, but even with very little investment in it having the shield "on" will bolster your defense a bit. I don't see a lot of dual wielders, I think the prevailing sentiment is that for damage, you want a 2hander as your abilities damage increases based on your weapon damage. Dual wield does have some interesting parry bonus /offhand attack skill but there's no real feedback from the game about parrying so not sure how useful this is. I don't know that having a weapon in your offhand does anything to boost your damage unless you're using this 'offhand attack' skill - could be wrong - obviously you do get more "stats" from having a second weapon (or shield) though

2) Raising your weapon skill has a lot to do with this, as well as dex. Aim to unlock the "train dex" "train str" "train int" abilities. These get really expensive in terms of xp quickly, but getting them up to lvl 40 or so can help matters early game. Also, find me in game (Shimizu Kitoku) and I can put you in some better gear that's got some stats on, if you want.

3) You can certainly make light armor work, use dodge, and use defensive abilities (defensive stance, fortify defenses in tactics tree, evasion and dodge in light armor tree). Mixed set can also work, personally I prefer heavy chest/light elsewhere but I use a lot of magic and want to keep fizzle down. Which "skill tree" you access depends only on the chestpiece you have on - the rest can be mixed but you do get a small bonus for matching. If you're PURE melee, I'd go heavy (or at least chain) for the following reasons:
- Heavy Armor tree has both an active and a passive strength skill, as well as other good melee suitable skills. As strength will help both your damage and HP, this is a no brainer. It also lets you carry more loot which is not to be ignored. The attack speed/movespeed bonuses in the light armor tree are a lot less useful, in my opinion.
- Metal armors benefit from the bronze material bonuses increasing your damage output with physical weapons. Hardened leather also buffs weapon damage, but is a LOT more expensive to make because it requires beetles and every time someone crafts beetles into leather (as opposed to cloth), a mage somewhere cries himself to sleep lol.
-Heavy Armor has much higher resistance/avoidance making you die less

4) Each weapon type has its own base critical rate- ie, daggers is higher than longswords. Material bonus adds to this, but the exact formula is just speculation. I know if I put on a dagger and whack a training dummy I crit insanely more often than with a sword but the base damage on it is a lot lower. There's a few skills that buff this - one's in swords, one's in subtlety - there's a lot of passives you'll pick up along the way that will affect this in different ways.

If you need some starting equipment feel free to contact me, even half-decent crafted gear makes a huge difference over the shop bought stuff.

 

I like you like to dual wield weapons, on the tactics tree go down the right-hand side of the tree to get the most out of your second weapon.
you are not going to be able to defend against arrow, polearm and magic attack so keep training your health.
using ignite weapon helps add extra damage.
I choose to use iron augmented chain mail as a balanced armour type.

if you would like to see me play click on the video below and I hope it helps you

 

2-handers seem best vs monsters. People dual wield some or use shield in PvP (for the shield bashes or extra poison). But as someone posted, whatever Sera Dreygon says =)

Also, if you do go light armor, Dodge is incredible and a must-use.

 

My advise to you is to pick up a magic school. Its great to have a melee wep as a back up, but this game is magic centered. Especially if you want to have the best PvE experience, you should move to death magic. With your swords, you could start firing up Earth magic which complements it. You will hit far more often and far harder with earth or death then with the sword. Keep the sword as your secondary skill, it is still useful.

I have always been bludgen but my alt is swords (nearing gm). The simple fact is melee in this game has always been weak, *especially* at lower levels where you just whiff everything. But as you get into the 80's on all primary skills it gets a lot better, but that does not help you much as a new player.

Look at your magic tree, take on "stone fist" and then go for "stone arrow". Raise up those earth passives, they will make you powerful and "str" is needed for both your swords and earth magic so they work together.

*if* you stick with swords and earth, go load up on chain armor (heavy), you need it. Heavy armor is actually really powerful right now. I have to admit that the only mobs that even hit me now are boss mobs.

 

Would you prefer it over Evasion???

 

if you want to go with a light chest and heavy elsewhere, i sugest you also go with light gloves. what's on your hands has a disproportionate effect on fizzle; what's on your feet is less important.

also, as a someday thing: bone armor is classified as light but has protection closer to heavy. the parts for it take a lot of boss farming, though.

 

Really?
The next Death, Fire, Sun, Earth Knight?
No offense, but If everyone goes death, Fire, Earth i forsee a buff for Air, Moon, Water, Life.

 

evasion does the same thing as fortify defenses, only fortify defenses does it more, has an extra proc possible, and is focus-free.

 

I am light armour + sword(s), here's my take:

1. I started off with 1H sword + shield but switched to 2H because I didn't feel like I was doing enough damage, mostly happy with it ever since. Currently experimenting with a dual wield but I haven't got all the skills unlocked yet.

2. Get Adv Lvl and dex buffs from devotionals, use food and potions as folk have suggested.

3. If you want to stick with leather armour: unlock the innates Sympathy of Stone and Bulwark of Earth on the Earth tree; build up some fire attunement/resistance because this game has you fight a lot of fire mages (also, get Douse); if you're going for crit damage Fireflies is really good; be aware that you'll be particularly weak against things like spiders compared to a full plate wearer; try to avoid ever having an enemy archer behind you.

4. Don't know, but we be interested in getting a definitive answer.

 

I'm beginning to feel you on that idea @Wintermute of CoF It feels like I'm just not doing enough damage with single hand. The action is taking way too long which leaves me always wondering when more monsters will show up because I've been in a single battle so long.

Good advice for me!
~Time Lord~

 

Thank you everyone for your time and advice, although I wish heavy armor wasn't so popular! Such is I suppose. To *help* combat the fizzle problem, is it worth using gems add affinity and is that skill at the bottom of the right hand side of the focus tree worth a damn?

 

Just answered one of my own questions and that is affinity has nothing to do with fizzle chance, herp derp.

@Sara Dreygon : Are you a purist with sword skills or do you dabble in magic too? If so which magic? My intuition is that ignite weapon would work just as well with 2h as it does with D/W as successive hits simply refresh the DoT. How much/which type of heavy armor do you sport?

@kaeshiva : Thank you very much for the kind offer of shinies. I'm going to try to craft up some stuff myself once I get an idea of *what* exactly I should be making. Here's to being glad I never skipped a metal node, right? This is what I'm thinking for crafting as far as materials go, please correct anything terribly wrong : 2h Sword - Bronze Hilt, Copper Blade (maxing the living hell out of crit); Tentatively an Augmented Chain Chest (If fizzle hate is real) - Hardened Straps, Bronze Bindings, aaand I have no idea for the wire because I don't have that much bronze.

@Wintermute of CoF : Where can I find a Love Devotional? I found the Courage one no problem, but I didn't see a devotional in Ardoris. I still have to eat food to heal since my healing spells suck, terribly, so food is probably not a good plan but what exactly is this dex adding potion called?

@2112Starman : Is there a particular benefit to staying DW with regards to spells? Is that more of a 2 weapons to enchant benefit? How effective is death magic "healing"?

Once again thanks everyone, this has been a lot of help.

 

1) I started Dual-wielding... low damage until you get off-hand tier 3 at least unlocked. Use a 2h and get Parry up to get offhand attack unlocked. Then dual wield and use that attack like crazy. I would suggest using it locked until you get three cards for it. Then you can use it unlocked. Need higher dex than strength to dual wield. But getting STR up is good. Focus on all crit chance -damage stats when using dual. Works better with light armor.

Magic you want Air - Air's Embrace, Earth - Strength of Earth, Sympathy of Stone, Bulwark of Earth, Ice and Flame Fist (for your combos, and to get your resists)

Subterfuge - Dexterity and armor Weakpoints

Stick with longsword in mainhand and shortsword in off-hand (or two short - more crits from short), until you get offhand attack... then equip a dagger for faster procs and more crits

2) At low levels prepared to get you ass beat unless you are used to dodging... lock dodge and evasion until you get a bunch of cards on each. lock Strength. Use these before every fight.

3) use harden leather with supple straps, to dual wield in heavy is harder than light. This guy is heavy... my new character is light (Blade Savage) using the above techniques will keep you alive. Strafe / Circle fight always. When overwhelmed... use Dash... and heal techniques.

4) Copper blade with iron hilt will suffice. Reis is level90, Savage is level29. Have dual wielded with both. Heavy definitely not the way to go... is possible, but light is better)

If you need gear I have stuff I can give you cheap. I will not be providing exceptionals... not need until later. The gear will keep you alive. I'm running around I na wolf-hat, leather leggings, and leather gloves with two daggers (Savage is a rogue) Boots and Armor are normal Shogun guard gear. I have not died yet.

Hope this helps...

Chrystoph Reis
Blade Savage

 

You could also go water, ice arrow is comparable to stone and the cc from water tree is great I.m.o. Solid elemental too.

 

Nope... no magic that's not an innate (like fire proof, earth innates, etc.). Ignite would help as would strength of earth but... would require me to be a witch . I actually prefer to keep my deck as small as possible so I don't water down the good damage glyphs with random stuff which I'd end up doing with various magic buffs.

I play a lot and craft my own stuff so I have top end 3 enchantment / 2 masterwork bronze plate.