Hackers best overall weapons?

[Socrates Johnson]

They have a bonus vs robots and robots seem to be a lot of the endgame. Katanas are good vs bandits but at a certain point you don't worry at all about them. Not sure about heavy weapons.

My next playthrough I'm going to attempt nothing but hackers. I'm already in this playthrough giving every new recruit a hacker.

[wordwaster]

overall? eh. they are good... but they don't match up to someone that is properly trained to use heavy weapons. every weapon class has an advantage though and i wouldn't reccomend just focusing on one class unless you are playing a 1 character game.

except blunt. blunt is really only good for NOT killing.

[Ishan451]

Originally posted by wordwaster:

blunt is really only good for NOT killing.

Strip them of their possessions and be on your way, so they can go and find you more loot.

[Socrates Johnson]

How does heavy do against robots though? I'm wondering if their overall damage offsets the hacker bonus? And if it does, what exactly is the point of the hacker class besides not requiring as much training?

I haven't yet felt like I needed a katana or light cutting weapon (except in slot 2 for indoors).

[TehOuchies]

Falling Suns are ridiculous at end game, due to the fact that they do heavy bleed and blunt damage.

[Bedelguese]

From most useful to least.

Heavy Weapons (Especially Falling Sun) > Martial Arts > Hackers (Especially Paladin's Cross) > Sabres (Especially Desert Sabre) > Blunt ( Especially Heavy Jittes) > Katanas ( Especially Toppers) > Polearms (They suck)

Heavy weapons - Can 1-Shot multiple people with a single swing and can smash through armor
Falling Sun is for your Heavy Weapon master of both Dex and Strength does massive amounts of cut and blunt together but means it gets a damage nerf when wearing dex penalty armor. Best for masterwork samurai wearing off tank (masterwork samurai doesn't have a dex penalty like other heavy armors).
Fragment Axe is for main tank, the dex penalty is completely negligible as 99% of all damage is blunt, good for high strength low dex characters or pure meat sponge tanks in crab armor.
Planks are high dex low (compared to the other two options )strength variant used for people moving from katanas or other high cut weapons into heavy weapons, need to wear masterwork samurai armor to get the most out of planks, eventually obsoleted by the Falling Sun once your skills are up to snuff.
Martial Arts - Can 1-Shot people individually but difficult to fight while outnumbered and can smash through armor
Hackers - Decent damage and can hit multiple people, causes bonus damage to robots which helps with end game content but eventually obsolete due to the insane damage heavy weapons due
Sabres - Best weapons for starters due to desert sabre having no stat penalties, rewards decent strength and dex per hit for the newbies obsoleted by both hackers and heavy weapons once strength and dex are skilled
Blunt - Barely any dex training but will allow you to punch through armor still and is good for tanks wearing dex penalty heavy armor, good for main tank niche but eventually obsoleted by frag axe as it is mostly blunt damage as well
Katanas - Train dex very quickly and attack fast with super fast bleed per hit but sucks against armor and the defense penalty means you'll be on the ground even more
Polearms - Bonus vs animals and has an easier time hitting multiple people but damage sucks and the bonus vs animals can easily be outdone by raw damage output of both hackers and heavies

[Socrates Johnson]

Ahh you are the first to say martial arts is really useful. I've actually heard the opposite.

I'm not thrilled with polearms either and it's a shame. A good polearm user should be extremely dangerous. Massed polearms should be the most dangerous enemy formation you can face.

Question: does your dex train when you use falling sun, or any weapon that does cut damage? Or do I have to spend time with a katana before using it? My heavy weapon users have been using fragment axes (all I can find and only recently crafting planks for them).

Maybe next playthrough I'll focus on heavy and a few martial arts. If dex trains when using a plank maybe I'll use planks until I can find decent falling suns. I haven't found a single one yet.

[Tovarisch Vasin]

Well martial arms have ridiculous damage on high level skills, on standard damage settings it is 90% instakill anyone you hit. You basically rip peoples heads off, but because dodging animation is so slow, it is hard to use aganist large groups of even weakest enemies - they just make you constantly dodging and eventually landing a hit on you.

[Larus]

Originally posted by Thulsa Doom:

Ahh you are the first to say martial arts is really useful. I've actually heard the opposite.

I'm not thrilled with polearms either and it's a shame. A good polearm user should be extremely dangerous. Massed polearms should be the most dangerous enemy formation you can face.

Question: does your dex train when you use falling sun, or any weapon that does cut damage? Or do I have to spend time with a katana before using it? My heavy weapon users have been using fragment axes (all I can find and only recently crafting planks for them).

Maybe next playthrough I'll focus on heavy and a few martial arts. If dex trains when using a plank maybe I'll use planks until I can find decent falling suns. I haven't found a single one yet.

If you're looking for a meitou grade blank can you get one relatively easy from the gorillo bandit boss. Falling suns are harder to get, Cat-Lon himself has one though.

[Socrates Johnson]

Originally posted by Tovarisch_Vasin:

Well martial arms have ridiculous damage on high level skills, on standard damage settings it is 90% instakill anyone you hit. You basically rip peoples heads off, but because dodging animation is so slow, it is hard to use aganist large groups of even weakest enemies - they just make you constantly dodging and eventually landing a hit on you.

Yeah that's what I heard about martial arts - it gets you locked into dodge animations.

[No gf]

You're correct that hacker is more suited for late game, and if your stats is high enough you're going to one-shot unarmored opponents regardless of what weapons you're wielding with.
But until that point, katana is still the primary weapon when against humanoid bandits and lightly armor opponent. You'll have to put into consideration where most 2 handed weapons required at least 30 strength to start become effective, and one handed weapons is much better for your recruit until they can carry something larger without penalty.

[Bedelguese]

Originally posted by Thulsa Doom:

Question: does your dex train when you use falling sun, or any weapon that does cut damage? Or do I have to spend time with a katana before using it? My heavy weapon users have been using fragment axes (all I can find and only recently crafting planks for them).

Your dex trains when you use any weapon that does cut damage, but the smaller the amount of cut damage a weapon does the smaller the amount of exp you get, fragment axes barely reward any dex exp, Falling Suns do lots of cut damage so they'll give good dex but at the same time they need lot of dex in the first place to use efficiently.

Having an army of heavy weapon users you're eventually just going to be able to cut through anyone like a scythe through wheat.

[Socrates Johnson]

Ok so hmm does the actual damage you do determine the dex XP you get? I'm not opposed to training with a falling sun with low dex characters because it will eventually train up, but if that low cut damage I'm doing means I'm not getting much XP I might need to change that.

[Bedelguese]

You'll still do all the blunt damage with your falling sun but the cut damage you will be doing will be lacking compared to if you already had it leveled till you get your dex trained. A plank would be better for leveling dex as it does less blunt damage.

I worded it incorrectly earlier, my apologies, it's not the amount of cut damage you directly do will increase, it it's the amount of the damage you do overall being cut damage.

[wordwaster]

damage doesn't determine exp, it is a per hit thing.

and polearms aren't THAT bad.

[Bedelguese]

Originally posted by wordwaster:

damage doesn't determine exp, it is a per hit thing.

and polearms aren't THAT bad.

It's the amount of damage you do that is cut damage compared to blunt not the amount of pure damage you do, I misworded what I meant to say.

To most effectively train dex you'll want something that does damage that is nearly all cut, as blunt damage takes away dex exp you could be earning. Wakizashi are best for min maxing dex exp, planks would be good for training it while using a heavy weapon as they have the least blunt damage out of all the heavy weapons.

They're not bad but they're easily obsoleted by pretty much anything else.