Katanas v Longswords

[Echo]

Katanas have
- longer reach
- better base damage
- better scaling
and bleed to top it off?

Honestly, what's the reasoning here?

[Melchiah]

Originally posted by Twice Dead:

That's another Katana bias though. Straight Swords are swung around like clubs, no balance no spacing no stance, meanwhile katanas have something resembling a stance and proper spacing without over-swing.

Oh but guess what, Dark Souls 2 had animations that were very different from this AND swords were swung with style; and there my favorite weapon was (and will forever be) the Blue Flame.

God I will never get over how they ditched all those animations.

[Dis Lexic]

The latter. Very much the latter.

[frowningmirror]

Katanas don't really have higher base damage, they are about the same, its just theres a few short swords mixed into that catagory. Uchigatana is higher than most and its the same as lordsworn longsword.

If you gush over getting things like seeing high AR, the long swords are the superior weapon

[Twice]

Originally posted by Melchiah:

Originally posted by Twice Dead:

That's another Katana bias though. Straight Swords are swung around like clubs, no balance no spacing no stance, meanwhile katanas have something resembling a stance and proper spacing without over-swing.

Oh but guess what, Dark Souls 2 had animations that were very different from this AND swords were swung with style; and there my favorite weapon was (and will forever be) the Blue Flame.

God I will never get over how they ditched all those animations.

Blue Flame gud.
Hold up wasn't DS2 made by the B-Team? Get them back on animation work!

[Melchiah]

Originally posted by frowningmirror:

Katanas don't really have higher base damage, they are about the same, its just theres a few short swords mixed into that catagory. Uchigatana is higher than most and its the same as lordsworn longsword

That pretty much depends on your build. As a DEX player my best choices are Uchi on katanas and Noble or Warhawk on swords; these three have A scaling on DEX and Noble has 110 crit while Warhawk has a special strong attack... but that doesn't matter cause the Uchi does like 20 more damage and has bleed.

Originally posted by Twice Dead:

Blue Flame gud.
Hold up wasn't DS2 made by the B-Team? Get them back on animation work!

And just to make it worse, the current model on the Flamberge (It was very different in DS1) was introduced on DS2, and again two handing a greatsword was stylish with a proper stance and all.

[FTZ35]

Well at least back when durability was a thing in the Souls series, the devs acknowledged that katanas had a crappy durability.

[Stheo]

One notable drawback is that katanas deal slash damage while straightswords deal standard damage. Any enemy with armor or scales is usually resistant to slash, so katanas will do worse vs those. Most katanas do have a pierce R2 stab, but it's slow and not spammable.

[Melchiah]

Originally posted by FTZ35:

Well at least back when durability was a thing in the Souls series, the devs acknoqledged that katanas had a crappy durability.

On DS1 I could spend half a playthrough without even repairing my Iaito, while on DS2 everything was as durable as a wet cookie and was auto repaired when resting on a bonfire so there was pretty much no difference.

I'm glad they finally got rid of durability honestly.

Originally posted by Stheo:

One notable drawback is that katanas deal slash damage while straightswords deal standard damage. Any enemy with armor or scales is usually resistant to slash, so katanas will do worse vs those. Most katanas do have a pierce R2 stab, but it's slow and not spammable.

In my experience that resistance is not a big deal, and they can always be bled anyway.

[Monk]

The knights have a black bladed great sword that has a nearly proper two handed attack chain, it's, just a rare drop.

[Unseen]

Originally posted by Stheo:

One notable drawback is that katanas deal slash damage while straightswords deal standard damage. Any enemy with armor or scales is usually resistant to slash, so katanas will do worse vs those. Most katanas do have a pierce R2 stab, but it's slow and not spammable.

This.
I also went for a katana at first because it seemed like an all-around better weapon, but in the end I switched over to a sword because of the damage type.

[ImHelping]

I accidentally stumbled across on the wiki the fact a Wakizashi, a small katana... counts as a dagger class weapon... but you can't power stance it with daggers, you power stance it with katanas... so why even class it as a katana? dagger specific ashes?

[mblurch1990]

Originally posted by Taramafor:

Originally posted by rtos:

Fromsoft being salty that japanese swords historically sucked compared to european made ones.

Except they didn't. In the east people didn't make it a habit to wear heavier armor/chain mail. So katanas, weapons designed for slicing, work well over there. They're not fighting knights.

why Europeans didn't use long swords knight vs knight and usually killed one another with maces/hammers. a Katana or Long sword wouldn't do much vs a knight in full plate. Knock him unconscious with a club. then stick him with a dagger.

[Monk]

Knight's in full plate were also fairly rare on the battlefield given the cost of buying the armour, plus needing multiple people to help them equip it and maintain it.

As for katana vs European sword, Europeans dudnt need to gold the steel 10k times, we (I'm English, do part of the European side) simply had better ore and production methods, neither sword was really any better than the other for the jobs they had to do.

With that said, in general the Europeans had better armour (on average) which promoted the thrusting design to better counter chainmail etc. While the Japanese were more cloth, leather and paper armour (remarkably strong) for the most part, which the katanas curved blade was great at slicing through.

If a European Knight from the height of the development were to ever fight a samurai from the height of theirs, while I suspect both would be as skilled as one another, the European longsword would win out due to its ability to punch through armour far better than a katana.

However, this is a game and a Japanese one at that, so the katanas seem to have a bunch of really strong attributes, namely bleed, though I feel straight swords bunch off armour less.

[Nerevar]

the answer is silly NIPPON PRIDE affecteing the games balance again just like ds1. this game is japanse. katanas are aswell. go figure. so they get everything with no downsides.

but atleast the bleed crap will soon come to an end. as if they dont nerf that crap into the ground the game is done for. you already see bleed builds on every 2nd player you encounter now.

[Endarion]

Originally posted by Echo:

Katanas have
- longer reach
- better base damage
- better scaling
and bleed to top it off?

Honestly, what's the reasoning here?

because it's from a japanese studio that never seen how a european sword work

and you have no idea how much it pisses me off

there is like 3 greasword with not retarded animation in the whole game