Swords objectively best choice

[Expired porridge]

So I'm loving the new combat as a whole, but there's one thing that seems to stick out to me after seeing the streamer JFJ talk about it. Swords in this game are so much better as weapons than basically everything else. They can master strike, they do so much damage - especially longswords, and are much faster than maces or axes. You can't even craft or sharpen maces, and heavy weapons and polearms cannot master strike.

Master strikes are still basically guaranteed fight wins, assuming its a 1v1, and being able to do significant damage even to a bloke in full plate using them kinda makes the whole appeal of a mace a little... redundant. I do like how they made masterstrikes a little more difficult to pull off, but it's tipped the balance in swords' favour a bit much.

you'd think that the compromise of having less slash damage with an axe or especially a mace, would be the blunt damage. even so, my knights sword does 58 blunt damage, and can actually get past a highly armoured, competent fighter's guard, unlike an axe that just ends up a riposte loop forever because they perfect parry EVERY single strike. Unless I clinch spam.

I get you're supposed to judge what your opponent is doing and try and fight around it to an extent, but I haven't figured out exactly how to do so reliably with an axe and shield - the option of being able to just masterstrike them to death is still too inviting and yet I want more variety than just using longswords all the time. Anyone have any tips for axe combat? I've tried mixing feints in, and moving my direction around more (avoiding direct opposite strikes in fear of being masterstruck)

[Targaryen22]

Well I didn't read it all but the one thing I did get caught on was. Maces don't need to be sharpened. Their danger comes from crushing into armor not cutting through it. But the rest could definitely be valid lol

[Barrier]

I prefer blunt weapons, maces, hammers, you bonk them on the head twice and they die.
And for some reason they block less than if I use swords.
Just don't get stuck in the block/riposte loop. Block and move back, then hold attack on one side, move it to the other side, move it to the head and release. It usually goes through for me.

[Kabirbd]

In the recent dev stream, they have addressed this.
They also assured that they don't want to make sword weaker. But they will try to make other weapons better.
The stream vod is uploaded on youtube. It's a long video but it is a fun watch.

[Dregora]

Originally posted by Expired porridge:

I get you're supposed to judge what your opponent is doing and try and fight around it to an extent, but I haven't figured out exactly how to do so reliably with an axe and shield - the option of being able to just masterstrike them to death is still too inviting and yet I want more variety than just using longswords all the time. Anyone have any tips for axe combat? I've tried mixing feints in, and moving my direction around more (avoiding direct opposite strikes in fear of being masterstruck)

Because you can't reliably do this. It would work if every fight would follow a certain path on how they behave, but i'm fairly sure the further into the game you go, the more they input read. Which is fine, but it causes the problem you just laid out. Master strike essentially nullifies that.


Also not super related but everybody is saying master strike is harder to do in 2.. but I find it so much easier to do lol.

[Kabirbd]

Originally posted by Dregora:

Also not super related but everybody is saying master strike is harder to do in 2.. but I find it so much easier to do lol.

The reason why it's easier to do in KCD1 is because in KCD1, you just had to look at the shoulder to do a master strike. There was no reason to even look at the weapon animation or position, everything had similar animation be it shortsword, axe, mace etc.

Perfect block and master strike was the same button. Meaning even if you missed the master strike, you probably got a perfect block. There was really no punish at all.

Now block and master strike are seperate. That doesn't make it harder. But for some, KCD1 is easier with master strike success.
Especially since it was very to easy to bait an attack for a master strike. You had to keep moving backwards. The enemy would do a small dash towards you and attack and with one button press, we had the easiest master strike to do.

[Yakito]

The only way I found to successfully hit enemies often with a hammer is dodge and hit. Not block and hit.
Fake strikes also work but less often.

[qverty56]

shortswords are better because they are way faster and have better perks

[Krono]

The devs mentioned they want to balance the weapons in the game without nerfing the ♥♥♥♥ out of swords, polearms especially are supposed to be getting a buff in the patch in mid-march.

Personally, I think enemy armor should have much more effect on slashing damage. I do basically the same damage hitting them with a sword as I do with a mace, and masterstrikes seem to bypass armor to a large extent and guarantee damage.

My sword should also get more damaged when I’m bashing on heavily armored dudes, instead I’ll come out of a fight with 10 people and my weapon’s durability goes from 100 to like 98

[Etagloc]

Originally posted by Expired porridge:

So I'm loving the new combat as a whole, but there's one thing that seems to stick out to me after seeing the streamer JFJ talk about it. Swords in this game are so much better as weapons than basically everything else. They can master strike, they do so much damage - especially longswords, and are much faster than maces or axes. You can't even craft or sharpen maces, and heavy weapons and polearms cannot master strike.

Master strikes are still basically guaranteed fight wins, assuming its a 1v1, and being able to do significant damage even to a bloke in full plate using them kinda makes the whole appeal of a mace a little... redundant. I do like how they made masterstrikes a little more difficult to pull off, but it's tipped the balance in swords' favour a bit much.

you'd think that the compromise of having less slash damage with an axe or especially a mace, would be the blunt damage. even so, my knights sword does 58 blunt damage, and can actually get past a highly armoured, competent fighter's guard, unlike an axe that just ends up a riposte loop forever because they perfect parry EVERY single strike. Unless I clinch spam.

I get you're supposed to judge what your opponent is doing and try and fight around it to an extent, but I haven't figured out exactly how to do so reliably with an axe and shield - the option of being able to just masterstrike them to death is still too inviting and yet I want more variety than just using longswords all the time. Anyone have any tips for axe combat? I've tried mixing feints in, and moving my direction around more (avoiding direct opposite strikes in fear of being masterstruck)

anything beside the sword is useless, because of the extra repost move you can do that is effective 99% of the time.

game is way to easy mid to late. it kinda sad 0 challenge in combat

[Expired porridge]

Originally posted by Targaryen22:

Well I didn't read it all but the one thing I did get caught on was. Maces don't need to be sharpened. Their danger comes from crushing into armor not cutting through it. But the rest could definitely be valid lol

I meant like, repaired without a blacksmiths kit in some way, of course you cant sharpen a blunt weapon lol

[Expired porridge]

Originally posted by Dregora:

Originally posted by Expired porridge:

I get you're supposed to judge what your opponent is doing and try and fight around it to an extent, but I haven't figured out exactly how to do so reliably with an axe and shield - the option of being able to just masterstrike them to death is still too inviting and yet I want more variety than just using longswords all the time. Anyone have any tips for axe combat? I've tried mixing feints in, and moving my direction around more (avoiding direct opposite strikes in fear of being masterstruck)

Because you can't reliably do this. It would work if every fight would follow a certain path on how they behave, but i'm fairly sure the further into the game you go, the more they input read. Which is fine, but it causes the problem you just laid out. Master strike essentially nullifies that.


Also not super related but everybody is saying master strike is harder to do in 2.. but I find it so much easier to do lol.

i guess easier in the way that you can do it on accident by attacking at the wrong time, but you actually have to pick the right direction. It's still pretty easy to do, but i occasionally ♥♥♥♥ it up if I'm not paying attention.

[Shawn]

I'm trying heavy weapons on my 2nd playthrough just for a variation. But it does feel like the game is very heavily weighted toward swords.

In my 1st playthrough a duelling longsword was insanely OP.

[Baron01]

Giving master strike capability just to swords is a mistake. This feature alone makes all other weapons inferior. Another issue is that swords are now much more effective against plate armor it seems. Trying to kill enemy in plate armor in KCD1 was exercise in patience. You were much better to whip up a mace/blunt weapons and smash some heads in. I can still use blunt weapons in KCD2, and they are better with combo attacks, but their damage output is much lower and they lack guaranteed hit in form of master strikes.

I believe that we need master strike option or alternative for other weapon types to bring them in line with swords. Halberds also need their attack speed increased and their durability increased as they are way too prone to damage/breaking.

[Expired porridge]

Update: I just ran into opatowitz. A town FULL of heavily armoured hostile soldiers. took 2 of them out with a crossbow and then waded in with a warhammer, ended up beating a crowd of like 8 of them just with hammer and shield, even managed to pull off a 4 hit combo. Survived just fine after chugging a couple marigold decoctions. in kcd1 this would have been impossible.

The fight was hard - a few of them hit me with masterstrikes, but i seemed to be able to bypass their perfect parries by just moving my directions around much more, or doing the feint trick every now and then.

Genuinely thought I'd ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up when I saw 8 soldiers emerge from what I thought was like a 5 person camp, and was fully prepared to reload a save, but through bucks blood, artemisia and marigold I pulled through very pleased with myself

[Wobblyshrimp]

Originally posted by Expired porridge:

So I'm loving the new combat as a whole, but there's one thing that seems to stick out to me after seeing the streamer JFJ talk about it. Swords in this game are so much better as weapons than basically everything else. They can master strike, they do so much damage - especially longswords, and are much faster than maces or axes. You can't even craft or sharpen maces, and heavy weapons and polearms cannot master strike.

Master strikes are still basically guaranteed fight wins, assuming its a 1v1, and being able to do significant damage even to a bloke in full plate using them kinda makes the whole appeal of a mace a little... redundant. I do like how they made masterstrikes a little more difficult to pull off, but it's tipped the balance in swords' favour a bit much.

you'd think that the compromise of having less slash damage with an axe or especially a mace, would be the blunt damage. even so, my knights sword does 58 blunt damage, and can actually get past a highly armoured, competent fighter's guard, unlike an axe that just ends up a riposte loop forever because they perfect parry EVERY single strike. Unless I clinch spam.

I get you're supposed to judge what your opponent is doing and try and fight around it to an extent, but I haven't figured out exactly how to do so reliably with an axe and shield - the option of being able to just masterstrike them to death is still too inviting and yet I want more variety than just using longswords all the time. Anyone have any tips for axe combat? I've tried mixing feints in, and moving my direction around more (avoiding direct opposite strikes in fear of being masterstruck)

Swords are definitely very powerful, but I'm not sure I'd say they are objectively the best. If you stick to something heavy like a mace from the get go, you'll easily be bonking people over the head for 1-2 hit kills later in the game. And this strategy may even be easier than a master strike.