2 handed melee weapons, polearms vs swords.

[idbeholdME 387]

There are 3 types of 2 handed melee, one of which is exclusive to the Shadow Warrior (2 handed hafted). Which leaves the other characters with either polearms, or 2 handed swords. And it is about the later two that I want to hear opinions about.

Which do you prefer and why? I've been planning on making a non-Shadow Warrior character that would be 2 handed melee, but can't really decide between the 2 weapon types.

The main thing to me seems to be that there are many more polearms than 2 handed swords, so the polearm skill would cover a much wider selection of weapons. But do 2 handed swords have some advantages too? More damage or better mods? Any input from anyone with experience would be appreciated.

Edited May 22, 2022 by idbeholdME

[Flix 5,116]

My off-the-cuff remarks:

Go for Pole Arms.  They include a respectable selection of Halberds and Spears that any strength-based character would find useful.

In vanilla/PFP 2h swords are a joke.  Desert Saber/Officer's Saber or the like will outclass just about any unique/legendary 2h sword. Modifier/socket amount is the same as 1h (although values will be slightly higher), but animation speed is much slower than 1h.

Base damage of 2h swords is somewhat higher than 1h, but not enough to make up for the slowness and the lack of modifiers vs. a weapon/shield or dual wield setup.

Compare 1h sword modbasepoints = 1100, vs. 2hsword modbasepoints = 1400.

On the other hand 1h hammers modbasepoints = 1040, vs. 2h hammer modbasepoints = 1660.

EE/D2F includes a 2h sword rebalance that I found appropriate, of course it is subjective as to what is appropriate.  In this case it was improved damage scaling and either an extra modifier or extra socket on rare tier and higher.

[idbeholdME 387]

50 minutes ago, Flix said:

My off-the-cuff remarks:

Go for Pole Arms.  They include a respectable selection of Halberds and Spears that any strength-based character would find useful.

In vanilla/PFP 2h swords are a joke.  Desert Saber/Officer's Saber or the like will outclass just about any unique/legendary 2h sword. Modifier/socket amount is the same as 1h (although values will be slightly higher), but animation speed is much slower than 1h.

Base damage of 2h swords is somewhat higher than 1h, but not enough to make up for the slowness and the lack of modifiers vs. a weapon/shield or dual wield setup.

Compare 1h sword modbasepoints = 1100, vs. 2hsword modbasepoints = 1400.

On the other hand 1h hammers modbasepoints = 1040, vs. 2h hammer modbasepoints = 1660.

Seems to correspond with my observations when checking the 2 handed swords and polearms that drop when playing my ranged Shadow Warrior. I've found a couple somewhat decent rare 2 handed swords but nothing amazing. And the amount of usable polearms that drop seem to vastly outnumber them. 2 handed hammers and axes have the raw damage to compete with the 1 handed counterparts, but swords do seem to be stuck somewhere in the sucky middle ground.

And from checking my unique collection, I definitely like the Polearms more than the swords, not to mention that there is really not that many unique 2 handed swords in the base game (7 and 2 of them are from Blind Guardian). There are 3 Legendary 2 handed swords though (compared to one legendary rarity set weapon for polearms), but as I haven't found a single legendary item yet in my Sacred 2 career, I don't even consider legendary weapons when planning a build  

I mostly asked just to make sure there wasn't something I wasn't aware of that could make 2 handed swords a considerable option, but it seems like there isn't. I also checked the combat animations, and the polearms seem to have more "dynamic" and cool to look at ones more often than not. And on the Seraphim for example, a single Pelting Strikes has 3 hits with 2 handed swords, but 5 hits with a polearm. On the other hand, I like how some of the 2 handed swords look visually....

Will probably end up going with Polearms. Thanks for some of the specifics.

Edited May 22, 2022 by idbeholdME

[lacr 60]

Actually, for SW Sword Weapons skill are probably the best choice, not because of the swords, but thanks to "Community Patch makes this attribute increase the damage dealt by Lightsabers."

[idbeholdME 387]

3 hours ago, lacr said:

Actually, for SW Sword Weapons skill are probably the best choice, not because of the swords, but thanks to "Community Patch makes this attribute increase the damage dealt by Lightsabers."

I can see that. Thousands of Willpower from Grim Resilience, and Lightsaber damage scaling off of that. Sounds like a recipe for overpowered levels of damage 

Edited May 23, 2022 by idbeholdME