It is good.
If your are a smart player and position/face well, you don't need extra athletics. Athletics are a bit like training wheels, they give you more margin for error when it comes to footwork, but if you're not making those errors in the first place why do you need it? Also I don't think you need more than 5 shield, by the time your shield is broken there will be new shields to pick up all over the ground.
Take Rustyspoon's build to cut down Iron flesh and wep master for extra stats, but try 24/15 instead of 21/18.
In mail armor you're not getting the same advantage from iron flesh that someone in plate does, and I guarantee you will enjoy 8 PS, really makes a difference in killing heavy armor guys (and ripping through lights).
Another sword you might wanna try is Nordic War Sword. It is very fast, it's a bit shorter than the top swords which actually gives it better sweetspots, so you glance less.
Funny, I say the same thing about strength.
The differences between 18 str and 24 str are minimal, especially when considering held attacks, speed bonus and the low initial damage values of 1-h weapons. Poles and 2h benefit from PS much, much more than 1-handers.
The benefits of high athletics are:
1. You get to pick your fights. You won't ever be stuck somewhere you don't want to be.
2. It's hard for people to surround you. With my 7 athletics and light armor on NA, I can run backwards faster than most people run forward.
3. Surprise hits. I can close distance between opponents much faster than they expect. Great for right swings and stabs.
4. Moving around people's defenses. It becomes pretty easy to circle around other shielders and hit around their shield.
Now, the point about you being able to pick up another shield when yours breaks. First you have to survive the breaking of your shield and you have to survive the process of finding another one. If you're fighting two people and your shield breaks, you'll get another hit on you before you can even block. Then if you manage to kill those guys, you'll still have to find yourself another shield. With higher shield skill, your shield will pretty much never ever break. Couches can't even break my shield unless someone else beat the shit out of it first. Also, higher shield skill lets you block faster. Shields already block slower than manual blocks. A higher shield skill makes it easier for you to react to chambers.
The differences between 18 str and 24 str are minimal, especially when considering held attacks, speed bonus and the low initial damage values of 1-h weapons. Poles and 2h benefit from PS much, much more than 1-handers.I disagree. There is a huge different between 6 and 8 ps. Regardless of your class, 2 ps is still worth 16% more damage. It will still take you 16% less hits to kill even with a torch. There is also a damage bonus for the 6 more strength, this is absolute, so 1h benefits just as much from this as 2h. Especially because the low base damage from 1h, having high ps is important to minimize the chances of glancing.
I disagree. There is a huge different between 6 and 8 ps. Regardless of your class, 2 ps is still worth 16% more damage. It will still take you 16% less hits to kill even with a torch. There is also a damage bonus for the 6 more strength, this is absolute, so 1h benefits just as much from this as 2h. Especially because the low base damage from 1h, having high ps is important to minimize the chances of glancing.
The mentioned held attacks and speed bonuses will stack with your ps. So doing a perfectly maneuvered held hit will get even more bonus with more powerstrike. Still the increased speed bonus from having more athlethics does not at all make up for less powerstrike, it is not that significant.
Rusty, when you add holds and speed bonus it stacks with PS, so it should increase the spread between 6 & 8 because everything is magnified, not lower this spread...
Also even if that italian sword hit a "fluke" threshold, it still shows how tough a time a finesse low damage slash weapon has with guys at 55+ armor. Usually it's better vet players wearing 55+ armor too (Kuyak weight armor + gloves heirloomed tops 55+), and it gets tougher to lay 4-5+ (assuming hold + speed bonus) hits on them when they maybe need to hit you 2-3 times with a beefy 2h or polearm. If 8 PS can cut that that down to 3 hits, that's at the very least 33% better at killing hard targets, a significant difference in a tough fight on a chaotic battlefield.
IMO you want 6 ps and 6 ath, anything more on either of those is just gravy. So if you dont plan on retiring, or dont think max IF/WM are worth it, go ahead and get an additional ps or ath, but I would suggest not going below 6 ps or 6 ath.
21 str.
15 agi
Power Strike - 8
Don't listen to him,there is hudge difference between 6 and 7 ps,not to mention difference between 6 and 8 ps.
With 8 ps you will kill everything in 2 hits,heavier guys with 3 hits,str whores 4.
go 21/18 build and make it like this.
5if,shield
6athl,7 ps
114 wpf in 1h.
This is build i will try this gen i already rage respec 3 times.
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