Combat in this game is so UNBALANCED, testing and stuff for anyone interested in differences between ONE HAND, TWO HAND, AND DUAL WIELD

[xNightxxWingx]

After like 2 mins in the game, you immediately realize (if you are paying attention to damage numbers) that your heavy and light do the exact same damage, and I found this to be extremely weird and shrugged it off for a bit. Now I’m at a save point with an enemy literally 2 feet away that has a decent health bar and I can finally test some stuff.

This is what I found out:

Light vs Heavy Attacks

- Light Attacks and Heavy Attacks deal the EXACT same damage, and use up the EXACT same amount of stamina (if you are going by single attack presses, as a full light attack combo ends in a ‘finisher’ attack that uses up a decent chunk of stamina)
- Light Attacks are without a doubt faster (atleast on the weapons I tested; short swords, hammers, axes, spears, daggers, flails) in terms of attack speed
- They deal the EXACT same posture damage as well, and if there is a difference it’s extremely minimal to where you can’t tell, obviously heavy charged attacks deal more posture damage, this is just comparing regular attacks
- Most weapons have a 2 string combo when using Heavy Attack, and yes, these both do the exact same damage
- The only upsides I see to Heavy Attacking is on dodge attacks (dodge and hit heavy attack before dodge animation ends) deal significantly more damage than dodge light attacks however they are much slower so it balances out (which is the first thing that makes sense when comparing the difference), and also some have a longer lunge attached to them letting you cover a tiny bit more distance

To sum this up, heavy and light attacks deal the exact same damage, use the exact same stamina, and deal the exact same posture damage, meanwhile heavy attacks have a much slower attack speed, the only benefit I see to heavy attacks is that you deal much more damage on dodge attacks and some lunge a tiny bit further. The spear weapon has the most noticeable disadvantages when comparing heavy to light, as the heavy has no lunge attached to it, and is extremely slow compared to the light attack, and it has the EXACT same animations, making the heavy attack absolutely pointless to press.

Also to make sure that the damage numbers weren’t lying, I counted how many hits it took me to kill the enemy I tested on, and it checks out that the damage numbers are truly exactly the same.

One Hand vs Two Hand

- Daggers, Spears, Flails, Axes and Hammers all get a roughly 15% boost to damage when 2 handing, and hardly seems worth it with the attack speed loss, although spears seem to have the same attack speed, so seems worthwhile with them (although there is no reason to do that either as dual wielding is king, get to that soon)
- Now for some reason Short Swords get a MASSIVE 40% damage boost, tested with 2 different short swords to make sure (Perdam Falchion, and Hallowed Praise) that HP holy damage wasn’t causing the massive increase, but PF which has no elemental dmg (purely physical, also got the same 40% boost going from 81 dmg to 113)
- Also 2 handing a weapon does NOT offer any type of strength boost, or any stat bonus for that matter, like fromsoft games do
- Also 2 handing does not deal more posture damage
- Also every shield I’ve come across so far seems useless, making Sword and Board playstyles kinda obsolete, considering their physical mitigations are roughly the same as weapons, with only elemental mitigation being higher giving them very niche usefulness. Although if you get a good shield, I could see Short Sword and Shield possibly being worthwhile with how strong they are when 2 handed (use 2 handed for dmg, switch to one hand for blocking/parrying).

Dual Wielding

- Now as for Dual Wielding, this one was a little hard to test, but the gist is this; each weapon loses roughly 25% of their one handed damage but you gain the ability to strike twice which leads to much higher damage output, especially considering you consume roughly the same stamina if not less with some combinations (which makes absolutely zero sense in terms of balance)
- Daggers are slightly different and only lose about 12% of their one handed damage and use very little stamina, however, imo, this isn’t enough to keep them viable as for some reason dual wielding just about any weapon combo has extremely fast attack speed and low stamina usage (outside of heavier weapons like Long Swords/Grand Hammers), making daggers not even feel that much faster in comparison, maybe better daggers than the starters ones would change my mind.
- Also heavy attacks in dual wield follow the same rules as listed above, meaning same damage output, same stamina usage, same posture dmg, etc, with dodge heavy attacks dealing higher damage
- also, whats EXTREMELY lame (in my opinion) is that every single weapon combination of - daggers, short swords, spears, hammers, flails, and axes all have the EXACT same attack animations with heavy and light attacks when dual wielding, as well as the same block stance

To sum up the one hand/two hand/dual wield. Short Swords are awesome when 2 handed and are the only weapons I’ve tested that seem worth using if you don’t want to dual wield. However if you want to be optimal there is honestly zero reason to never not dual wield, there is literally zero trade offs and zero downsides, only positives, you use almost the exact same stamina (less in some cases), attack faster, and do almost 50%+ more damage depending on the weapon.

-

I’m still VERY early into the game. But based on what I’ve tested here, this games combat is insanely unbalanced, dual wielding has almost no downsides, heavy attacks are useless outside of dodge attacks, meaning there isn’t much of a reason to do anything other than equip 2 weapons and spam R1, which is a damn shame because I’ve read that the combat in this game “amazing” when it’s honestly anything but. Now I know it’s mostly a PvE game, but PvP does exist, and even if it didn’t, balance is healthy for any games longevity, so hopefully some patches can be implemented that make heavy attacks more useful (ie, more damage, more posture damage) and they can add some downsides to dual wielding, like more stamina usage, higher equip load.. something, and maybe make 2-handing more appealing, such as higher posture damage, better block mitigations, etc, giving the player more options.

Anyway, hope this helps anyone that was curious about the differences of light vs heavy, one hand vs 2 hand, and dual wielding, as I like to know how damage works in any game I play, and I’m sure I’m not the only one, lol. Still want to shoutout to the developers as I think there is something very special here with this game, just wish they gave it a few more months in development to fully iron some more things out as the game feel kinda meh so far, outside of the world and exploration.

[xNightxxWingx]

Originally posted by Paragus:

Im a new player and was wondering something. Is it me or does running and attacking at an enemy do less damage than a normal hit? I would have thought a sprinting lunge or slash into a dude would hurt more.

you are indeed right, another strange addition, lol

good find

[Limp Squirrel]

I play exclusively with long swords and find there is purpose for heavy and light attacks.

Apart from charges, they also have different movesets. Mixing light with heavy attacks can be situationally very useful. I will applaud the animations team for managing to create such seamless animations when switching from one handed to two handed swings.

[scragglie]

i aint readin allat

[blueraven90]

no matter how much you try you still do like 3+ hits to kill anything lol I made a character with 2 long swords pure str sl50 and still can't 1 shot trash mobs in redcorpse village lmao

[Kashra Fall]

Heavy attacks can be charged, light attacks can't. Heavy does more stagger, light gets combos in. I figured this was self explainatory, but eh?

[Stray]

I think 2nd attack is more of a secondary attack, while if you hold it's the actual Heavy attack for Combos, because some moves are almost the same speed if you press Light and Heavy attack such as the Spear and Falchion (Has a slight wind up on normal attack and same with Heavy) some are maybe .2 seconds longer but some seem longer but actually not but it's hard to tell unless someone looks frame by frame and hits a wall to see exactly when an attack connects.

It would be pretty strong if Heavy attacks did big damage on taps because weapons like the Spear, if you do a heavy after the first light attack comes out REALLY fast

[Severian]

Light and Heavy dealing same dmg is good imo. You're more focused about HOW that sword will swing, rather than baby dmg numbers going up.

[mETAL]

I actually like how they did heavy attacks. If you want more damage you have to charge them but otherwise they're plenty fast and offer good moveset variety. A lot of weapons have wide sweeping heavy attacks so they're good against groups.

You can also mix them up with light attacks as you please so if you're fighting multiple enemies and don't want the 2h longswords 2nd normal attack (its a thrust) you can do a heavy and continue cleaving multiple enemies.

Dual wielding does seem overpowered for anything that doesn't change to the much slower animation set. I don't think dual longswords or polearms is really worth it though since they swing so slow.

Shields aren't amazing but they definitely aren't useless. You can't die from withered dmg and most attacks dont drain your stamina that much. So you literally can't die from normal dmg while blocking until you run out of stamina. Also later you can slot runes in your shield for nice stat boosts or other effects.

2handing light weapons does seem kind of pointless compared to dual wielding unfortunately I do agree on that. I think for heavier weapons with slow dual wield movesets you are better off mixing 2handing with sword and board though.

Daggers do seem pretty bad since realistically you're going to want to dual wield and they have the same moveset as dual wielding swords which is just strictly better stat wise.

[mETAL]

Originally posted by xNightxxWingx:

Originally posted by Paragus:

Im a new player and was wondering something. Is it me or does running and attacking at an enemy do less damage than a normal hit? I would have thought a sprinting lunge or slash into a dude would hurt more.

you are indeed right, another strange addition, lol

good find

Running attacks do less damage in dark souls as well.

[Cryemore]

Originally posted by xNightxxWingx:

yeah that all sounds fine and dandy, but its all useless, there is zero reason to be switching from one handed to 2 handed mid combo, or ever for that matter, or switching from light attack to heavy attack for any reason whatsoever, unless your goal is trying to style on enemies that can already be easily defeated without doing any of that and just pressing r1, or better yet equipping any 2 weapons and pressing r1, because dual wielding is so beyond better than anything else in this game

Then dual wield and R1 I guess. I was just explaining how the movesets can be mixed and varied.

Originally posted by xNightxxWingx:

also you are wrong about shields, they do not give a bigger parry window, and unless you are much later than me in the game and have found a shield with a higher physical mitigation, they have zero use where I'm at. also if you are using a grand sword, you probably have close to 50% physical damage mitigation when blocking, and you, for some reason are using a 'light shield' for blocking/parrying, that most likely has far less than 50% mitigation just makes no sense, you switch to a worse weapon to block attacks that your actual weapon can deal with better? i understand you don't "min-max", i dont either, but atleast read the numbers..

Lighter shields and weapons absolutely have a better parry window. The developers have stated this and I've experienced this myself. You've said that you are early in the game, have you even seen a grand sword, hammer or axe yet? With a grand sword a shield in the offhand makes parrying easier. The only time I bother is if I specifically want to use the parry system to break posture on a boss that uses fast combos, like crimson rector Percival. Trying to parry him with the grand sword alone was stupidly frustrating. With a shield parrying his combos and even his radiant clones is simple. If I don't have a shield on I do not block, ever. I dodge.

Originally posted by xNightxxWingx:

anyway, i'm out of this thread, last 5 people i responded too, either didnt finish reading the post, tried telling me heavy attacks deal more damage than light attacks, tried telling me a light shield has better mitigations than a grand sword, while the rest of you can't fathom somebody giving criticism towards a game you enjoy, which is why most games now a days suck because nobody knows how to give proper feedback

I never said heavy attacks did more damage. It was known that the damage was the same before the game released. I like the way the combat works, as you can string together combos tailored to your situation and the number of enemies you're facing.

I don't get why you came at me so hard in your reply. I wasn't inconsiderate, rude, condescending or arrogant. I didn't kick your dog. In fact, I very deliberately avoided kicking your dog. I get it, you dislike the way the combat is designed. I like it. Different strokes for different folks. If you dislike it that does not mean it's bad design. I thought Zelda BotW was hot, stinking trash for example. My opinion doesn't matter.

[Limp Squirrel]

Originally posted by mETAL:

Originally posted by xNightxxWingx:

you are indeed right, another strange addition, lol

good find

Running attacks do less damage in dark souls as well.

Probably cause it's super abusable.

[mETAL]

Originally posted by Squidcake:

Originally posted by mETAL:

Running attacks do less damage in dark souls as well.

Probably cause it's super abusable.

Yep. Its already a good move generally and allows you to be mobile and attack from a further distance so the lower damage balances that. If there needs to be a realism excuse its probably way harder to get the angle right and a proper swing when you're full sprinting.

[ir3b3ld3i]

I have felt everything the op says in the first hour of play, especially the running hit which is one of the ones I like to use the most in these games, well, in this game that hit is useless, it makes much more damage do normal hard hits, you have the same animation cd as with fast attacks, the combos leave you too exposed to receiving damage and you cannot cancel the animation, this makes the combos totally useless, which is the best thing in this game then ? hard attack button spam.

Equipping two weapons reduces your damage, but how is this possible? I am sure that the person who had this idea is the same person who had the brilliant idea of not leaving bonfires in ng+

The game needs a balance in many things.

[Kurague]

Originally posted by xNightxxWingx:

you quoted the light vs heavy section where i make zero mention of the difference between one hand vs two hand, if you scroll slightly more you'll be able to read exactly what i wrote about short swords, where i plainly state that short swords are the only weapons worth 2 handing because they give a massive 40% dmg boost compared to everything else i tested which only gave 15%

also, i stated the SHIELDS i came across seem pointless, as i have not seen one with substantially higher mitigations when compared to my weapon, and the difference they make between grey health when comparing a weapon with 27% physical mitigation's to a shield with 30% mitigation's is almost non existant

edit: just checked, i have 4 shields, and not one can be equipped in my "main hand", i'm assuming you mean the first slot for main hand, yeah?

Ah, sorry about the misquote, I actually erased a huge bunch of the text so it wouldn't be huge in the quote.

About the shields, there's shields with upwards to 80% defenses, so yes, shields are better for parrying than swords. Not because they have a bigger parry time, but because they reduce your health less when you block or parry.

I do also admit I did not read your post throughly, just the points I thought were directed towards the things I played in the game(Since I can't provide feedback on Two hander swords, I won't, so I skipped that. This means it is likely I skipped the 40% damage for Shortswords.)

Shields still remain relevant for parrying and blocking however. Light and medium shields are meant for classes that have weapons with really bad parrying on the main weapon stat, but use tactics that require being close(Poison, burning...), where the person could choose to sidestep but they rather parry.
Heavy shielfs serve for someone wanting to be incredibly tanky, for they reduce all the cost of blocking by upwards to 80% for heavy shields(For physical, 90 for elementals), and upwards to 60% I think for medium shields. Sword with the highest parry is 48% and it's only on one of the stats.

Maybe you prefer to dodge, but there's people who played Elden ring repeating the literal same move over and over(Frosthoard stomp or Shield counter attack), so if you find parrying boring, that's good, but it's far from useless to do it with a shield, specially since all greatswords have 33% stability, while shields have much higher stability. This means stamina reduction is minor when using a shield, while with a sword you will lose 76% of the attack's damage when parrying or blocking, making it uneffective for bosses that attack rapidly(Since they'll block break you and attack you), or bosses that have more than one enemy attacking.

[Cryemore]

Originally posted by ir3b3ld3i:

I have felt everything the op says in the first hour of play, especially the running hit which is one of the ones I like to use the most in these games, well, in this game that hit is useless, it makes much more damage do normal hard hits, you have the same animation cd as with fast attacks, the combos leave you too exposed to receiving damage and you cannot cancel the animation, this makes the combos totally useless, which is the best thing in this game then ? hard attack button spam.

Equipping two weapons reduces your damage, but how is this possible? I am sure that the person who had this idea is the same person who had the brilliant idea of not leaving bonfires in ng+

The game needs a balance in many things.

A running two handed heavy attack with grand weapons pancakes most enemies, it's great fun.

I can't think of a single game that doesn't reduce the damage of one or both weapons when dual wielding. Usually the offhand weapon has it's damage reduced by 50%. If you want to find the guy that came up with the idea, he's likely retired by now.