Sword or Dagger?

[dan83m]

im trying to build a companion with sword/dagger and dual wielding, so which one is better as weapon??

[Lucius Kern]

For dual wielding Dagger, definatly. Dual wielding 2 daggers gives you a lot of dual wielding dps with high crit and armor piercing.

Slice is a free action, 2 uses per encounter: Attack once
One and Two is a attack action, 2 uses per encounter: Attack twice, can divide the attack to hit two targets, or both attack on a single target
Flurry is an attack action, 3 uses per encounter: attack twice, reduced damage but with bleeding
Parry is a defensive action. Increase parry and counter attack once

But if the companion has more strength than finess, then you should do sword and Axe or two axes.

[BloodyPork]

Ok so here's the thing with dual wielding.
If you dual wield sword and dagger you would need to put points into 2 different trees. If you stick with dagger only you only need to put points into dagger tree.

So I think dual wielder should be both dagger or both axes because I think you can't equip sword in your off hand.

[Yaz]

That's wrong to some point, in my opinion.
The off hand weapon is a stat stick, you dont need to waste any points on that weapon's skill. What you want from the off hand weapon is max damage, as that damage will be added to the main hand damage, as you increase your ranks in dual wield skill.
So, the best combo, damage wise, is a dagger in main hand, due to the multiple abilities that attack twice, and an axe in off hand, because it has higher base damage which will add to all skills you will use while attacking with the dagger.

The off hand weapon never attacks per se, it's a stat stick. You dont level that weapon's skill, you only level the main hand's weapon skill

[Cutlass Jack]

Originally posted by Yaz:

That's wrong to some point, in my opinion.
The off hand weapon is a stat stick, you dont need to waste any points on that weapon's skill. What you want from the off hand weapon is max damage, as that damage will be added to the main hand damage, as you increase your ranks in dual wield skill.
So, the best combo, damage wise, is a dagger in main hand, due to the multiple abilities that attack twice, and an axe in off hand, because it has higher base damage which will add to all skills you will use while attacking with the dagger.

The off hand weapon never attacks per se, it's a stat stick. You dont level that weapon's skill, you only level the main hand's weapon skill

This is very useful information. Thank you.

[BloodyPork]

Originally posted by Yaz:

That's wrong to some point, in my opinion.
The off hand weapon is a stat stick, you dont need to waste any points on that weapon's skill. What you want from the off hand weapon is max damage, as that damage will be added to the main hand damage, as you increase your ranks in dual wield skill.
So, the best combo, damage wise, is a dagger in main hand, due to the multiple abilities that attack twice, and an axe in off hand, because it has higher base damage which will add to all skills you will use while attacking with the dagger.

The off hand weapon never attacks per se, it's a stat stick. You dont level that weapon's skill, you only level the main hand's weapon skill

The off hand weapon should get bonus damage based on the actual weapon skill rank right? So yes, off-hand weapon's damage is added to the total weapon damage, but not before adding damage bonuses from the off-hand's weapon rank.So an off hand dagger could have lower damage but ended up higher than that axe because you have maxed dagger rank.

This would make the most sense, if someone is proficient with dagger rather than axe he should do better with using dagger rather than axe. Otherwise it would be a design oversight.

[deciBelle]

I'm trying to find the right dual wield build for myself on a main character as well, and can anyone confirm that the off-hand weapon skill does in fact add damage or open up extra attack skill options? I was thinking about using sword as mainhand and axe as off-hand if I can use both the sword and the axe attack skills that way.

[BrokenWing]

Originally posted by Silvah!:

I'm trying to find the right dual wield build for myself on a main character as well, and can anyone confirm that the off-hand weapon skill does in fact add damage or open up extra attack skill options? I was thinking about using sword as mainhand and axe as off-hand if I can use both the sword and the axe attack skills that way.

Off-hand weapon skill does NOT add damage.
Off-hand weapon damage is NOT influenced by Stat (STR/FIN).
Off-hand weapon Damge is just listed weapon damage in Inventory multiplied by Dual-Wield Skill percent (100% at skill lvl 5).

So a 2-5 Dam Dagger in offhand adds 3,5 Dam to Attack (statistically at dual-wield-skill 5).
A 31-39 Dam Axe in offhand adds 35 Dam to Attack (statistically at dual-wield-skill 5) regardles of your STR or axe Skill.

[deciBelle]

Originally posted by BrokenWing:

Off-hand weapon skill does NOT add damage.
Off-hand weapon damage is NOT influenced by Stat (STR/FIN).
Off-hand weapon Damge is just listed weapon damage in Inventory multiplied by Dual-Wield Skill percent (100% at skill lvl 5).

So a 2-5 Dam Dagger in offhand adds 3,5 Dam to Attack (statistically at dual-wield-skill 5).
A 31-39 Dam Axe in offhand adds 35 Dam to Attack (statistically at dual-wield-skill 5) regardles of your STR or axe Skill.

Excellent, this is precisely the information I needed. Thank you very much!

It does look like dagger + axe is a more desirable option to use with high finesse, or sword + axe.

Now, the only thing that could make axe + axe more useful than the other combinations is if the off hand weapon does -not- enable you to use the associated weapon's skill. So if I had dagger + axe and 3 ranks in axe, could I still use the axe's cleave skill if it was in my off-hand, or does it need to be in my main hand for that?

Edit: Looks like your off-hand weapon does nothing but act as a stat stick as mentioned above. Bit disappointing but what can you do. This makes axe the obvious choice for off-hand since it has the highest base damage, but I also think axe as a main hand weapon has more utility overall.

[Meeky]

Personally, I think dagger > axe for raw damage in the right group. Daggers work REALLY well with unarmed fighters and anyone that uses stuns - you can deal amazing Deathblows with 'em. And what's nice is that a bow specialist can also train to be decent in daggers but would probably be worse off if using axes.

Frankly, I'm surprised Deathblow is the first dagger skill. It does so much damage. What's more, Grapple has never failed me vs. human opponents, meaning an unarmed/dagger buddy team is amazing. And against wolves, well... You can stun them just fine, so an unarmed combatant with stun and grapple and a shield = a solid tank that can disable foes and make them vulnerable to the shankfest at the same time.

Can you 'dual wield' with unarmed as your mainhand and an axe in your off-hand, or is that impossible?

[veevoir]

Originally posted by BrokenWing:

Originally posted by Silvah!:

I'm trying to find the right dual wield build for myself on a main character as well, and can anyone confirm that the off-hand weapon skill does in fact add damage or open up extra attack skill options? I was thinking about using sword as mainhand and axe as off-hand if I can use both the sword and the axe attack skills that way.

Off-hand weapon skill does NOT add damage.
Off-hand weapon damage is NOT influenced by Stat (STR/FIN).
Off-hand weapon Damge is just listed weapon damage in Inventory multiplied by Dual-Wield Skill percent (100% at skill lvl 5).

So a 2-5 Dam Dagger in offhand adds 3,5 Dam to Attack (statistically at dual-wield-skill 5).
A 31-39 Dam Axe in offhand adds 35 Dam to Attack (statistically at dual-wield-skill 5) regardles of your STR or axe Skill.

Can you at least use the off-hand weapon skills? Like having an off-hand dagger and being able to use deathblow because of that?

[BrokenWing]

Originally posted by Meeky:

Can you 'dual wield' with unarmed as your mainhand and an axe in your off-hand, or is that impossible?

Impossible.

Originally posted by veevoir:

Can you at least use the off-hand weapon skills? Like having an off-hand dagger and being able to use deathblow because of that?

You can´t (when in main hand not having a dagger).

[Bijat]

I have hard time seeing dual wield beeing worth it...the way i play i have 2 shield bearers with 100% block that often use the skill to make shield never brake nad behind them ppl with long weps and bows, the shield uses have axe so they can use the weapon hook (a stun that cant be resisted basicly, that also remove shield for bow pwnage).

[BloodyPork]

Originally posted by Bijat:

I have hard time seeing dual wield beeing worth it...the way i play i have 2 shield bearers with 100% block that often use the skill to make shield never brake nad behind them ppl with long weps and bows, the shield uses have axe so they can use the weapon hook (a stun that cant be resisted basicly, that also remove shield for bow pwnage).

It is worth it if you have alot of points to spare. Instead of weapon hooking you can just kill shielded opponents outright with one two or even normal attack (because of the huge damage bonus) so your bowmen can hit something else. Everybody will max shield anyway because that should be the default equipment for everyone in harder difficulty.

[veevoir]

Dual wileding is worth it for one skill alone. The basic one that lets you do off-hand damage to shield and main hand damage to health with one attack. Perfect hard counter to shield bearers.

[Time Crowdfunding for Elder]

Daggers are good for separating damage. For example, if you have 2 low health enemies near you, you don't have to wait for two turns to kill them off separately because you can use slice attack. The dagger critical bonus is pretty meh since critical chance is about 15% even if I tried focusing on a crit build. Swords are high damage but lacks shieldbreaking skills. Axes are slightly lower damage than swords but can make short work of shields.