axe vs sword

[Darth Jimmi]

which do you prefer and why?

[Chaoslink]

Sword. For combat obviously. Faster attacks and the stab, while slow, deals ridiculous damage, especially on critical hits. The ace is basically the same thing but slightly weaker but doubles as a gathering tool. I always have an axe as a backup weapon but only use it when my other weapon breaks.

[The Big Brzezinski]

Ax, but mainly as a backup for an atgeir and bow. I'm always going to have an ax anyway. The added utility of a shield justifies its slot.

Swords are weapons for petty nobles squabbling over who gets to sit where at the feasting table. They use swords because they never have to fetch firewood.

[Kao]

Definitely mace.
No kidding, the stagger and swing pattern is brutal. Mace for life.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Kaozium:

Definitely mace.
No kidding, the stagger and swing pattern is brutal. Mace for life.

That has me intrigued. I haven’t used one yet, been maining the spear mostly with the polearm as a backup and the axe as a shielded backup. So far none of my group has used a mace despite one being crafted. I’ll have to give it a go sometime.

[Monokuma]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Originally posted by Kaozium:

Definitely mace.
No kidding, the stagger and swing pattern is brutal. Mace for life.

That has me intrigued. I haven’t used one yet, been maining the spear mostly with the polearm as a backup and the axe as a shielded backup. So far none of my group has used a mace despite one being crafted. I’ll have to give it a go sometime.

Mace does blunt damage, which does bonus damage to things like skeletons.

[Kao]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Originally posted by Kaozium:

Definitely mace.
No kidding, the stagger and swing pattern is brutal. Mace for life.

That has me intrigued. I haven’t used one yet, been maining the spear mostly with the polearm as a backup and the axe as a shielded backup. So far none of my group has used a mace despite one being crafted. I’ll have to give it a go sometime.

I started out with spear, a silex one, leveled it to about 40/100.
Then I took some time to compare numbers at the workshop/forge and I realized that spear was the worst weapon ever : equal damage (i think?), lowest stagger, garbage parry, and the range isn't even superior. That's when I also discovered that the only good thing about spears is that you can throw them, but there are bows for that, and I don't want to be empty handed in a fight.

I switched to maces, the bronze one, then the iron one, and I'll keep maining maces as long as I can. It has the highest stagger of all one handed weapons, by far. The damage is equal to sword/axe but oriented towards killing skeletons or swamp blobs. Leveling mace is a good synergy with Stagbreaker if you use it (very useful weapon).
Hitting mobs with an axe just doesn't do it for me, and my axe is for trees anyway.
I didn't try swords but I don't see why I should relinquish half my stagger power to get the same damage and another type of damage bonus.
Mace pattern is right left down, and the feel you get when shattering the brains of a staggered enemy is pure joy.
Also I'm the tank of our duo so staggering is priceless.

[Buck Fell]

Hmm, I guess I need to try other weapons. I took one look at the stats and decided since I have to use an axe anyway, and a bronze axe is needed for chopping that I'd just use that all the time.

[Monokuma]

There's nothing inherently wrong with using the axe as a weapon in the meantime, as it's more resource efficient to make the axe first so you can speed up your harvesting + get fine wood.

[Vexov]

The axe needs to change: Combat skill and Harvest skill being to different things.

The axe probably just ends up being better, cause its skill is already so high.

I haven't tried a blunt other then club, and hardly used that cause the axe was just seemingly doing so much more damage. I tried the sword and it was working fine. You're not always going to get enough swings in with a club to knock back or it even work, and the shield seems to be better for that reason to cause a stun/knock back.

I also gotta say that im seeing the benefit of no shield: Faster movement and timed rolls evade even Troll attacks. I just never gauged the stamina costs, but blocking high damage hits has to be more costly. The best move is to move-in-range to trigger an attack from enemy and back out and counter: which faster movement clearly wins. So i guess real warriors don't use shields.

I think just go with what you want, but im sure there are enemies with weapon types that are more effective on.

[Torment]

Sword and Shield, pressing "R", puts them both on your back at the same time, pressing again brings them both out so you're ready to fight. It looks good too.

Also the sword has a secondary power attack (middle mouse button) that you can charge whilst your shield is blocking.

[Ontrose]

Excuse me, but the axe has 2 related skills, doesnt it?
One Axe-Skill one Lumber-Harvesting-Skill or somethin like that?
So axe skill isnt going up just by harvesting.
I personally use my axe for skeletons (seems to be counting as blunt, at least does way more dmg then the spear i used, even with lower skill) and for other stuff i encoutnered i use the Bronze Polearm. I like it, cos it got a gigantig 360 attack, nice to clear the stupid waves attacking my base. They can get a bit annoying from time to time

[Monokuma]

Originally posted by Ontrose:

So axe skill isnt going up just by harvesting.

Actually, it does.
The same reason you can train any weapon skill just by smashing some abandoned structures, you still train your axe skill by damaging the trees.

[Ontrose]

Mhhhm, i gonna try that tomorrow, maybe i just didnt pay attention and just assumed, that since there are 2 skills, they dont wprk in that way.

[Buck Fell]

Originally posted by Monokuma:

Originally posted by Ontrose:

So axe skill isnt going up just by harvesting.

Actually, it does.
The same reason you can train any weapon skill just by smashing some abandoned structures, you still train your axe skill by damaging the trees.

For folks who played Wurm it's like leveling long sword to 20 skill on trees.

I think I'll just try the different weapons. I'll be very happy if each has it's clear role, so far in the early game (bronze age) they don't seem all that differentiated.

I've been pondering the utility of shields. In 4 man co-op my fights with NPCs I'm typically focusing on 1 mob at a time and shield or no shield doesn't matter. In solo it's not uncommon to be facing 3 or 4 dwarves. The AOE effect of the Axe (and maybe other weapons) means I'm usually just spamming attack if I get them all in front of me since I can whittle them down fast. So shields aren't so great there.

Against brutes block is a dicey proposition, you have to time it right, you can't simply preset block. Since you have to time it you might as well dodge. Really you don't even have to dodge, you can just side step them so shields aren't so great there either.

I may try no shield, maybe dual wield torches and just run around yelling.

[The Meowdalorian]

Originally posted by Vexov:

The axe needs to change: Combat skill and Harvest skill being to different things.

The axe probably just ends up being better, cause its skill is already so high.

I haven't tried a blunt other then club, and hardly used that cause the axe was just seemingly doing so much more damage. I tried the sword and it was working fine. You're not always going to get enough swings in with a club to knock back or it even work, and the shield seems to be better for that reason to cause a stun/knock back.

I also gotta say that im seeing the benefit of no shield: Faster movement and timed rolls evade even Troll attacks. I just never gauged the stamina costs, but blocking high damage hits has to be more costly. The best move is to move-in-range to trigger an attack from enemy and back out and counter: which faster movement clearly wins. So i guess real warriors don't use shields.

I think just go with what you want, but im sure there are enemies with weapon types that are more effective on.

I'd rather parry them and get some free hits in, over risking getting dunked on because my dodge roll didn't register for a milisecond too late.