Swords suck?

[Dr. Rockenstone]

Often I find posts here claiming that magic or staves are ineffective or just bad.

I recently did something different of what I usually do in Dark Messiah: do a playthrough where I use pretty much just swords. Even though I had difficulties at times (which I pinned on lack of practice) It went decently. This was on hardcore. I always play on hardcore. It went allright up until to the point where in the last chapter you have to drop down in a great hallroom area of sorts that has a lot of vampire knights and black guards in it (just before the fight with the liches) It was sooooo hard to fight them all at once. I felt like the ability to crowd control enemies with the sword is lacking. They killed every time and all I was doing was running away desperately trying to get some clean hits without getting shredded.

But then guess what? I whip out my trusty staff of the firelord and literally wipe the floor with them. Yes I used the word literally correctly here, they stood no chance.

I was just wondering how people feel about that aspect of the weapon balance because yeah I think that a staff should be pretty great at fighting multiple opponents but daggers? Naah. But even with daggers I felt much more comfortable. You can hit 2 enemies with one powerstrike with them and that already gives you better crowd control. Plus their forward/backward power strikes are much easier to hit and I found them to be better at stunlocking a single enemy. The sword thrusts I almost never used. Mainly because they don't slice off heads and chop off limbs :)

So what's your opinion of the swords? What weapons do you prefer?

[Donye]

Swords for 1v1s, Staff for beating up a group of enemies, Knives for stealth, Bow for range attacks, that's how it works, you don't have to only use the sword, of course you're gonna have a tough time if you use it while a group of vampire knights run at you while you're in hardcore mode, I used stealth to kill them, you should try it

[Dr. Rockenstone]

I just found stealth a bit boring. You find all these nice daggers but if you play full 100% stealthily you one shot everything no matter what daggers you use. Feels like such a waste.

[General Income Tax]

Use more jumping overheads. The game calculates your falling speed into extra damage which can result in even vampire knights flying off if you drop from high enough. Of course you have to go finish them off once they're on the ground, but it's a very amusing way to play the game.

[Dr. Rockenstone]

I didn't know that bit about the leap attack damage. Thanks :D

[GDSpectra]

I suggest ya to try use the right horizontal chop (I think it`s set like that when you`re moving left from the enemy) more as well, since in my own playthroughts, I noticed that with it, you can slice through multiple enemies when they`re standing side-by-side. Nice for lopping off those heads w/o Adrenaline as well. ;)