Off-hand Blade - What's the value?

[n3ctaris]

I have had a few officers set up with both pistol and blade skills and have tried to use an off hand blade a couple of times.

However, in combat you can only choose to use one or the other, and it does not appear that there are any talents that allow you to attack with both at the same time.

So is it just an extra piece of equipment that can give you a little bit of +parry strong dice?

Or is there some value to this set up that i'm completely missing?

[JoeyJoeJoeJabadu]

Second this question. My assassin/Spy officer is able to do this... but I don't really see the value.

[Trese Brothers]

Increases parry. A "little bit" seems dismissive, considering the available weapons you can get.
Gives you a low initiative off-hand option
Allows you to multi-class Jobs in exciting ways
Mix and match Talents for best result. Swordsman Talents with knockback or debuff, pistoleer talents stealing initiative, etc.

It's an option to be more adaptive in combat. They were just talking about it on Discord 10 minutes ago. Some of the players swear it is the best for your frontliners.

https://discordapp.com/invite/TreseBrothers

[n3ctaris]

I see now, the combination of different skill types to create a super solider, pistolier avoidance plus swordsman self healing and +parry for instance... that becomes a very tough nut to crack. plus the parry dice is nice. lol

Clearly I need to make more combat focused officers, most of my officers are focused on the crew, through keeping them in line or in health. Doctor seems to be one of the hardest skills to get in a "good" place with.

[davea]

The plague breaker unlock, which only occurs a pretty long time into the game, has a nice bonus, which is the ability to recruit doctors from a starting contact.

[Lazarus Long]

Originally posted by Tripp:

I see now, the combination of different skill types to create a super solider, pistolier avoidance plus swordsman self healing and +parry for instance... that becomes a very tough nut to crack. plus the parry dice is nice. lol

Off-hand weapons are not something I have played with yet, but I did want to say that it would be cool if a Swordsmen/Pistoleer combo is in battle if they chould be able to switch between s sword or a pistol for 20 initiave points.

Originally posted by Tripp:

Clearly I need to make more combat focused officers, most of my officers are focused on the crew, through keeping them in line or in health. Doctor seems to be one of the hardest skills to get in a "good" place with.

I have a Doctor/Combat Medic/Pistoleer that goes in every fight. She heals, buffs, and debuffs. Not a lot of damage, but her Cleansing Purge...that makes her priceless. I haven't stacked many levels of Pistoleer yet because I can't make up my mind about spending talents there or in one of the healing classes.

[Bariel]

Originally posted by Lazarus Long:

I have a Doctor/Combat Medic/Pistoleer that goes in every fight. She heals, buffs, and debuffs. Not a lot of damage, but her Cleansing Purge...that makes her priceless. I haven't stacked many levels of Pistoleer yet because I can't make up my mind about spending talents there or in one of the healing classes.

Getting the pistoleer level 1 talent Raining Steel can be useful for healing builds as the extra 3 init potentially allows you to heal earlier and, possibly, more often in each combat turn.

[Grigsey]

I do this w/ my current Captain (Assassin, Mil Officer, Pirate) and he rarely gets hit. I end up using blade skills primarily and using the pistol for finishing shots on slot 3. They both use up so little initiative that it works rather well for a high Stat character and gives you some nice flexibility.

It'd be neat if there were some combat talents that utilized the style (like the blades talent that gives you a counter attack, same deal, except counters with pistol ala the classic sword block and pistol to the gut move)

Originally posted by Lazarus Long:

Originally posted by Tripp:

Clearly I need to make more combat focused officers, most of my officers are focused on the crew, through keeping them in line or in health. Doctor seems to be one of the hardest skills to get in a "good" place with.

I have a Doctor/Combat Medic/Pistoleer that goes in every fight. She heals, buffs, and debuffs. Not a lot of damage, but her Cleansing Purge...that makes her priceless. I haven't stacked many levels of Pistoleer yet because I can't make up my mind about spending talents there or in one of the healing classes.

Doc/Combat Medic + whatever you feel like is amazing. I personally focus more on combat medic for some cool abilities in combat, and Doc at least to 5 for crew healing talent.