Two weapons, two handed, weapon and shield

[chattius 2,536]

We all read or did discussions if we should use two-handed ,two weapons or a weapon and a shield. And to add more headache, there is even a fourth way to use a weapon slot. In case of a Combat Art with a single hard hit (Ravaged Impact, Demonic Blow) it used to be like:

 

weapon and shield: a single weapon hit with the protection of a shield

Two Handed weapon: A single hit with a high weapon class

two weapons: 2 weapon hits

and now number 4:

weaponless and shield: 2 quick punches/kicks with the protection of a shield.

 

So why would anyone but a few crazy Kungfu fans would actually play weaponless? There is no unarmed skill so no base attack value, no doublehits from mastery, no attack speed. You have to get all this by socketing and you loose sockets by not having a weapon.

 

So let's see what are the advantages:

The unarmed playstyle is more defensive than two weapons or two-handed. So let us compare it with a weapon and shield character:

Kungfu will do 2 hits in one attack. Kungfu Attacks are quick, Ravaged Impact and Demonic Blow can be modified for explosion. Both can be modified for armour piercing or armour reduction. So the idea will be to gather a horde of enemies, stay mid in them and spam explosions.

To do this we need Reg Per Hit to reach high Combat Art levels to increase the chance to spread explosions. But since we do a double-attack we need only half of the RpH.

We do a double attack: Deathblow is useless if you do one hit kills. But weaponless and doing a doubleattack the second half of the Combat Art may already have the target in deathblow range and doing double damage.

Kungfu attacks are already quick. But to reach higher weapon-Combat Art speed you have to socket spell speed.

So Kungfu is a good way if you plan to play hybrid: You recharge with RpH very quickly and you have spell speed socketed to speed up 'spells' you have no lore, or no lore which would speed up a spell (tactic lore).

So in case of the Spidergirls you can spam twisted torment quickly for head hunting.

For the shadow warrior: Belligerent Vault has fast speed and can be used to stun and damage. You can use it in a combination with demonic blow and it's reg time will be no problem because of demonic blow and RpH.

There is no unarmed weapon skill and you have to get the hit chance from items. But this also means that you hit equally good with every weapon, if you decide to do so. You have one free skill which is nice for a hybrid build.

The character I used to test a Kungfu-Shadow Warrior:

Visible Astral Lord

I just took away constitution and did tactic lore. Able to modify all 15 Combat Art's in a single character. Because of life leech and high buff for hitpoints I can take tactics lore instead constitution as it was in linked build.

Different weapontypes get different base damage from their main attribute. Kungfu gets only 20% of base damage from strength than a two-handed sword would get. So my Shadow Warrior is an all intelligence build, outch. I try to get as much damage from the shadow warriors spells as possible, but I can kill normal mobs and champs weaponless without spells. (Dryad detheya with its x% life leech is nice againszt bosses).

 

Conclusion:

if you plan to play a dryad or shadow warrior as weapon and shield or a hybrid, consider not taking a weapon skill at all.

 

This is for the AddON.

Consoles still have deathblow on spells, which makes this idea even better if played as hybrid. But I don't know if spell speed is raising Combat Art speed on consoles.

Edited March 29, 2010 by chattius

[colif 36]

Spunky reported that the explosions can cause lag and he lost 2 levels because of said lag.

 

Consoles also have access to unarmed weapons (the same ones from S1) but as you said, there is no skill to use them. Still an added advantage I guess.

[chattius 2,536]

We life in a third world state named Hessen, germany. When the telephone monopole was broken by european law the law that demanded that every village had to be handled equally was also cut away. So the few people here would have to pay all the cable and digging on themself, no big companies around.

And with 4800 baud at home we play only LAN, with no LAG luckily. But I have to admit it is very very spammy sometimes at small but many rats, goblins:whole screen full of damage numbers, life leech, life leeech and RpH lines.

 

How can you loose 2 levels? No save in 3 hours?

 

p.s.: Well third world if it is internet access to the countryside. Even radio or mobile phone stuff is not working. Too many hills around.

[Spunky 16]

Well, I had 200% XP, and levels kept flying in fast while fighting Goblin Riders that all exploded and caused some major lag that made me loose 2 levels.

 

Played with a Inquisitor with Clustering Maelstrom and some Raving Thrust now and then.

[chattius 2,536]

Ahhh, we speak of 2 different explosions then. Mounted enemies which explode and explosion modifier for hard hit. Rider explosions are really terrible lagging.

[Spunky 16]

Indeed, usually also get some nasty graphical errors too after awhile with the explosions.

 

Sorry for off topic-ness

[Llama8 8]

Out of curiosity, has anyone ever tried an unarmed Temple Guardian?

[chattius 2,536]

I did the easy ones first: weaponless/shield with a doubleattack exploding hardhit. The Dryad was easiest of them and had better animations so oi tried her first. When finding out that a kungfu Dryad can really be played I tried to adapt the playstyle to another class. Closest was the the Shadow warrior.

My Kungfu Shadow Warrior is a compromise: I lack time to play so I did a Shadow Warrior which had all skills needed to play Kungfu, but who was also able to modify all 15 Combat Art's each with 3 modifiers.

 

For the Temple Guardian: I always hated the time it took to have the arm transformed. Would you play him just with normal attacks?

[Llama8 8]

I'd assume that you'd probably play with either Battle Extension or Dedicated Blow, though BE's (sword/axe) animation is criminally slow.

[essjayehm 58]

Out of curiosity, has anyone ever tried an unarmed Temple Guardian?

 

A little.

 

I was Dedicated blow spamming. This was before I knew about the mounted Battle Extension double-hits 100%. That would be better, I think.

The animation was very blah, nothing special with the punching, and no kicking 8(

 

Since not even shield can be equipped, you lose a lot of slots. Also, a lot of base damage on DB since no weapon is equipped.

 

Hrmm...

Without a weapon lore, which is faster, unarmed or with a dagger/knife? On console, mounted BE doublehits is a little tricky to use with anything, so I only played with it a little, just enough to be annoyed. But if I chomped a bunch of runes into BE so the regen time was very, very high, I had some promise that spears recharged with mounted BE doublehits is not too bad a strategy. We don't want to activate a BE, just use the exploit/feature. This is solved on PC with the mouse (right-click BE just after spears to activate the extension, then left-clicks for RpH).

Unarmed hitchance should be no troubles with combat alert (maybe some attention to add base atk value in armour).

 

Yes, spears and/or Furious Emblazer may be the Combat Art's to try unarmed. Jolting Touch for bosses, obv. Source Warden is mostly cooldown, so no uses there (maybe for Primal Mutation with singe-helpless-helpless mods in combo with DS and JT for bossfights)

Edited March 29, 2010 by essjayehm

[Llama8 8]

It sucks on the PC too, since Battle Extension is a special melee-only animation & so it's always the same regardless of what you're wielding.

 

Without a weapon lore, which is faster, unarmed or with a dagger/knife?

Not sure, I couldn't really tell much of a difference (probably due to the specific animation).

[essjayehm 58]

It sucks on the PC too, since Battle Extension is a special melee-only animation & so it's always the same regardless of what you're wielding.

 

Without a weapon lore, which is faster, unarmed or with a dagger/knife?

Not sure, I couldn't really tell much of a difference (probably due to the specific animation).

 

Llama, I had meant regular left-click attacks, not the BE animation... which is what I think you tested. Sorry for the muddy water.

 

I was thinking of using BE only for the passive doublehit effect (100% chance for dblhit while mounted), not the actual Combat Art (which is glacially slow on console, as well!)

[Llama8 8]

Llama, I had meant regular left-click attacks, not the BE animation... which is what I think you tested. Sorry for the muddy water.

Yeah, I couldn't see much difference in the left-click attacks either (though I would assume that daggers are faster than other weapons, per the other classes).

[essjayehm 58]

Llama, I had meant regular left-click attacks, not the BE animation... which is what I think you tested. Sorry for the muddy water.

Yeah, I couldn't see much difference in the left-click attacks either (though I would assume that daggers are faster than other weapons, per the other classes).

 

Groovy. That would mean there is no "advantageous" reason not to use knives over barehanded. Weaponless just for flavour...

[chattius 2,536]

For the hard hits of the classes who have such a Combat Art, can take a shield and could choose two-weapon-combat: the weaponless/shield is a very quick double attack while having a shield. For most other combat arts it has no specials except being quick, its just less damage.