Are heavy weapons good in this game?

[HalloweenSax]

On the official forums I found a guide to classes, and one of them said that heavy weapons are bad in comparison to light weapons, while some other guides said to pick heavy weapons for your melee characters.

How good are they? Are they really worse than light weapons or was that just a personal opinion of the first guide?

[Elendil / Redshift]

I don't know, maybe if you superoptimize your character build, you can achieve higher damage with ligh weapons. But you don't need to worry about that. You can play through comfortably by just using whatever weapon hits harder at the moment and improving both heavy and light weapon skills. Or pick one skill to improve and just check the the weapon shops a bit more to make sure you always have a good light/heavy weapon.

And of course there is always spells/potions/wands/scrolls and enchanting to help you through. :)

[HalloweenSax]

Thank you! :) I love Might and Magic series, so I'm looking forward to getting your game!

[Wraith_Magus]

Heavy weapons do slightly higher damage in general, but they weigh more, as one would expect.

The major difference seems to be the key stat: Heavy Weapon uses Strength, while Light uses Dexterity. Heavy Armor uses Endurance, while Light uses Dexterity. Both block and dual wield use Dexterity.

There may be a case for light just to make your character Single Attribute Dependent.

[HalloweenSax]

Thanks for the explanation'

[Ichthyic]

yup, the extra damage from using heavy weps in a strength build is far otuweight by using light weps in a dex build, since you get so much more out of dex than strength. ranged weapons, thrown and bow, shields, dual wield, armor, even carry weight all affected by dex.

you get more bang for your buck.

that said, the game is easy enough that you can go heavy weapons and strength build and get by just fine, and you have that satisfying feeling of doing the most possible damage with your melee weapon.

but still... if you don't plan to block... two light weapons will always do more damage than one heavy.

[GlassDeviant]

The thing with Heavy Weapons is that they rely on Strength as the base attribute. Strength is completely useless, except that it boosts Heavy Weapons damage and gives you 5 points of weight carrying capacity for every 1 point of Strength.

Alternately, Dexterity boosts your weight cap (2 per point) and gives you Accuracy, Block, Dual Wield, Light Armour, Light Weapon, Lockpick, Repair and Stealth.

Endurance boosts your weight cap (4 per point) and gives you Heavy Armour, Hitpoints/Health and resistances to disease, poison and paralysis.

For every class in the game, you get the most benefit from Heavy Armour and Light Weapons because you can let Strength be a throwaway stat and still have good armour, attack ability, carrying capacity and ressitances.

Also if you plan to Dual Wield, remember that only certain weapons can go in your offhand, there are no dual longsword builds in this game (they will specifically say "can be dual wielded" in the description). On the plus side you can put a dagger enchanted with Accuracy or Light Weapons in your offhand and it will boost any throwing weapon in your main hand, possibly bows too but I haven't tried that. Come to think of it, an offhand weapon with Light Weapons enchantment will boost a light melee weapon in your main hand too.