Best Secondary Weapon

[mykomark]

For the first time planning to make my guys range (crossbows) primary and wondering which weapon is the best for secondary ? I'm not gonna cheese kiting nor switching weapons from inventory and etc. (it will be like 20 men squad). I want my men to be sharpshooters and able to be good at melee then enemies close out.

[bunny de fluff]

Guardless katana.

[Raymond]

Since crossbow will level up your dex anyway, (spiked) mercernary club will be great for late game enemies with tough armor.

[Shenji]

Imo Short Clever for armor piercing, Jitte for better defence and indoor bonus.

[Sigmund]

Guardless Katana is amazing. They seem to be rarer, It's not as easy to get Edge 3 quality, but, keep on trying to get it. They look really stylish.

I was running with 3 tanks, Full Masterwork Samurai Armor, Polearm/Heavy Polearm/ Desert Sabre (plus katanas on secondary), and other 10-11 men with Ninja Rags+Straw Hat with Crossbows+Katana. the goal is everyone with Guardless Katana as backup. As soon as the sharpshooters graduated from Toothpick training and you start issuing out Eagle Cross, Enemies start dropping fast.

I also run with 6 Garrus to haul a lot of loot+vast quantities of ammo/food/meds.

(so in total 14 men+6 garrus, for the max squad size 20, i don't like exceeding 20 units so that i don't need to keep switching squads to check if someone is being attacked)

Crossbows are great, but a few tanks can be useful to keep big packs from mowing down your Crossbowmen. a Large pack of Beakthings can hurt the lightly armored ranged units.

Samurai Armor is really strong.

One of the biggest plus of Guardless Katana is the low weight, means you can use it in any configuration. Other heavier weapons, (for example Anti-Robot high quality short cleaver is very heavy) might prevent you from carrying stuff, or limit you in choices.

With this setup, Crossbow+Katana , you got tons of weight left to do what you wish.

Guardless Katana has the high bonus, as well as very high bleed rate, it's truly the best Katana.


If you wanna find some of so so quality, try the Desert (northeast), sometimes there's some solo Ninja dude carrying two.

In theory Hackers/Cleavers are very nice, but they are heavy, and they look kinda ugly compared to the Katanas :)

[Raymond]

light weight is a trait shared by all katana, not exclusive to guardless katana. I am not sure the stat bonus is even worth it outside training your defense stat, from what I am seeing +6 atk does very little when you have 40+ atk stat.
Also, all katana only have cut damage while most heavy armor in this game hard counter cut damage. As you encounter stronger and more armored enemies even meitou katana (with or without guard) will struggle doing damage, sometime not even a scratch. You might as well use your fist. Katana light weight advantage also diminished greatly after you reach 20+ dex due to attack speed cap. Short cleaver is much more viable choice if you want your crossbowmen to actually stand a chance in melee.

[abundancebomb]

I use the longsword with crossbow because it has a defence bonus and better armour penetration than katana yet it's not too heavy.

[russmiller4445]

I used to arm my guys with long swords until the Dev's changed the specs on it some time ago. So much for the noble mans sword. I've been using the guardless Katana since their easy to get. I have to admit, Since they changed the long sword, I really haven't found a good over all hand weapon. To bad they don't make a smaller version of the Desert Saber.