Is there any reason not to go swords on a PvP toon? Excluding archery and weapon specials, it just seems like theres no logical choice to go macing or fencing. Katanas do the most DPS for one handers, halberds have the highest damage range for a single hit, and the broadsword, the warfork, and the golf club are all tied for damage and DPS. I know there are a few exceptions. An axe in a lumberjackers hands will have more one hit damage potential than a halberd and do more DPS than a katana. Also, a war mace on that rare hit where you get a high damage roll AND a high range crushing blow you can do one insane hit. Id like to stress just how rare all those things line up though. Anywho, moving on. Fencing is neat and has para blow. Para blow alone is almost enough to take fencing. The damage is just abysmal... I know of the divine awesomeness that is the warfork. Other than that though spears do less damage than a katana.... ...and are TWO handed. I can see it being ok in groups. 3 or 4 fencers vs one target would absolutely obliterate that target. They would probably not be able to move and get henpecked to death and the last thing they would see is a flurry of single digit numbers floating above their heads. Macing is a close contender to swords damage wise and has some pretty top tier weapons. The Quarterstaff is a mean, green, (brown) DPSing machine. The War hammer can do some surprisingly big hits although they are SUPER RARE. The ability to wreck armor and stamina is neat at best. Total Refresh potions, turns out, actually do exist. It IS always nice to do some damage to the pricey to repair invuln leather armor. ...oh, did I mention you cant poison a macing weapon? No? Well you cant. *Frownface* One final thought on macing, its SO unpopular, that high end macing weapons are usually pretty cheap... Swords(ing) has the best DPS one hander that also just happens to be the fastest weapon in the game, the biggest on average hits, can be poisoned, and its special is... ...Ill say TIED with parablow for usefulness. Why choose anything else? Really, Im asking. I REALLY want to take fencing or macing but I dont want to gimp myself.
Katanas only have the best DPS against an unarmored foe. Against anyone wearing armor (read: everyone), they are one of the worst DPS weapons in the game. I was just discussing yesterday in IRC how I think the halberd is pretty underrated, both for pvp and pvm. Swords are nice because of the large range of weapon choices, the potential Lumberjack bonus, the high-end power of the halberd. They also can be poisoned, which is 50% of the stuff that makes fencing worthwhile. Oh, and the concussion blow is pretty nice too. Macing is kind of the third wheel here. The war hammer, when you factor in its crushing blows, has about the same damage profile as the halberd. It's a little faster to swing than a halberd, but that's not as important in pvp. And as you mention, stamina sapping is kind of wasteful. The only nice part is the momentary disarm if a person is using a 2H weapon. As it currently stands, I'd say swords the best for most situations. Followed by fencing and then macing.
I literally have swords AND fencing GMed on my PvP hybrid. One will go down when I train up magery/resist/med Is there any quirk to fencing on this shard that makes it good? How is a bronze runic spear (GM +3) for damage vs Leather clad opponents?
I think you're really underestimating the power of the para blow for fencing. Fencing hybrid is gonna beat the swords hybrid 9 times outta 10 assuming same player skill level simply do to para blow. Concussion blow from a hally is never going to directly lead to your opponents death. Para blow on the other hand...... All that being said, go swords on your hybrid Mage and I hope to see you on the field!
A swords mage is a ton of fun. You'll want to invest in some good hallys and also some nice dp'd one handers. Broadswords arent to shabby. I played a sword mage here for a long time and really enjoyed it for 1v1's. Fencing is also very useful but in a 1v1 you'll find yourself relying and waiting on a high damage para blow.
Haven't tried it here, but on years ago I use to smoke people with this: 100 Swords, Tactics, Anatomy, Magery, Med, Eval, Healing. Stats were close to 75/75/75 - changed often. Go heavy on offense "like a dexer" and use magery for added defense and occasional dumps. Concussion hits were brutal against warriors (to ensure max damage mind blasts), and crippled mage's ability to drop you. However, concussion blows work differently on UOR, so this template is not nearly as powerful here.
on OSI servers a concussion blow halved your intelligence (ie 50%, not 50int) Here it takes half of your int or 25, whichever is lesser. So a dexer with 25 int goes down to 13. A mage with 100 int goes down to 75. This is effectively a nerfed mechanic. But why? In my opinion - this mechanic is not desirable because it does not realistically lead to kills, it just prolongs fights. In the case of it's use on a dexer you can manipulate it to do more damage with mindblast - this is desirable. But against a mage you just incentivize the player to run until it wears off and their mana has returned. this is supporting koncept's post There are other merits to swords, though. You can use both a poisoned one hander and a two hander that will do more single hits than fencing. It also seems to just have more weapon types and ranges so you're more likely to find high end magic weapons for it. But my pick is typically fencing as well...UO is a runner's game and para blows/stun punches can beat that sometimes.
