It's not an easy class first of all. There is very little reason to go for a 1h without shield instead of just a longsworder or another fast 2h. The damage is rather weak compared to those. What is great about 1h though, is it's animations. It is very important that you learn to use those to their full potential, most people are rather bad at blocking them. Mainly because most shielders don't really use all that much feints or actually use the range that 1h has to its full effect, cause they can just walk up to their opponents. People are much more used to fighting 2h than a 1h without shield.
That is what makes 1h good in a 1vs1. In battle though it's rather though, with somewhat weak damage and low effective reach. You get the cav vulnerability that all 1h have, combined with no range protection because you don't use a shield. So if that doesn't scare you off, you're good to go. In the end it is a very fun class to play.
Build
Movement speed gets decreased due to weapon class, weight and length of the weapon you carry in your hands. The 1h class gets very little movement speed decrease compared to 2h or polearm. This is to balance out the movement speed decrease of having a heavy shield. Combined with the low weight and length of most 1h, and the fact that you don't use a shield, you move rather fast compared to other classes with the same athlethics. You notice this especially in sidestep speed and acceleration, not so much in top speed.
What this effectively means is that you don't need that high athlethics. Which is great cause you have weak damage and are going to want rather high powerstrike. This would be my recommended build for a level 30 1h no shield.
Strength: 24
Agility: 15
Hit points: 71
Skills to attributes: 8
Ironflesh: 6
Power Strike: 8
Athletics: 5
Weapon Master: 4
One Handed: 140
Please note that I haven't tried other builds. This one though gave me just enough movement speed to fight properly with heavy-ish armor (brigandine) while giving me rather high damage. I'm not saying 21/18 or 27/12 is bad, that is mostly up to preference, I guess I prefer this one. I wouldn't go below 7 PS. Dunno if you're going to level it from the ground up, but if you do, pay attention to how each athlethics level feels, and go up if you want. As soon as you think your athlethics is okay put the rest in strength, cause damage is important. I am level 32 now and I went for 24/18 and that is fast and strong. At 30 you'll have to pick either fast or strong. 7 ps and 5 athlethics are both okay.
Weapon Master and Ironflesh is all up to you. I have 4 and I get regular complaints that I'm so fucking fast and 70 hp is really sweet. You could go for 3 or 2 or a bit higher. Mostly though 2 hitpoints are more important than 8 wpp.
This build can be used with heavy armor. I have 65 body armor with loomed gloves and body, which is really awesome. Because a 1h alone is rather cheap, cause they are designed to be used with a shield, you should go for heavy gloves. Gloves give you a sweet weight/protection ratio. I wouldn't go really light armor, cause you are a very up close and personal class and those always get teamhit a lot.
Weapon
In battle you mostly fight in group vs group situations, this kinda leaves you with not that much to do. High range weapons are best for those. I recommend using a long 1h, which automatically makes it a sword. 1h stab is kinda messed up since recently, very unreliable, so stay away from the long espada. Everything with 100+ range is good. I use the nordic champ. Knightly arming, elite scimitar, arabian cavalry are all good. You need good swing damage and range. Still, because 1h are decently cheap you could also go for a cheaper sword and take a weapon on the side, like a pick for tincans or an axe for shielders.
The reach is so important because having a 95 reach weapon leaves you outranged by all the greatswords and the most popular polearms. Most shielders that use a sword also use longer reach swords, so that will leave you having to block all the time and not getting to attack much in regular group battle situations. Learning to use the rightswing with a 100+ 1h can make you outrange the most popular 2h and polearms.
I would actually like to try the arabian cav sword, it's just really ugly. 95 speed is no problem with good footwork, good feints and hitting early in the animations and 105 reach lets you outrange danishes and poleaxes with the rightswing. 35c is amazing. The 98 when loomed Nordic champ isn't that fast either and I can spam sometimes and get a lot of 'you're so fast' complaints.
There are some shorter 1h that could also work well, but you'll quickly notice how important range is. Military Hammer, Military Cleaver and Niuweidao.
How to play 1h no shield
The class is strongest in a 1 vs 1, where the animations and speed can quickly get you a lot of hits in. In battle you should try to single out opponents, stay at the flanks of the main group, not too far to not become a cav target. Your rightswing has great range, use it. Though as soon as there is a teammate on your right you can’t use it anymore, cause the swing arc is wide. That’s why you generally want to stay at the right side of a group.
A good trick is the fake glance. This trick works for every class though, so if you didn’t know it, remember it and use it with other classes as well. At facehug range you do a stab feint, when properly done the feint will actually make a glancing noise. This will lure the opponent into thinking you have attacked and he will release his block, allowing you to hit him with a quick second attack.
When an attack gets blocked, you get stunned for a while. This is to make spamming difficult. However, if you intentionally miss an attack you can do a second attack faster. This works great with the 1h stab. Stab to the right of your opponent and miss. Then do a leftswing to his face as quickly as possible. Same principle as the above trick, this one works on veteran’s as well though. Be careful though against other 1handers that leftswing, you might not be fast enough.
Overhead and leftswing look somewhat a like animation wise. Doing feints alternating between overheads and leftswings can confuse your opponent. Or circling your opponent while doing overhead feints will make it difficult for him to keep facing you because he needs to look up for the block.
Ye old leftswing spam also works sometimes, move to the right of your opponent and hit him with a leftswing and do a leftswing again and try to hit him as early in the animation. You can feint the rightswing until very late into the animation, get used to doing that. Doing holds while wiggling with both the leftswing and rightswing is a nice thing to do as well.
Key to doing good with any class is spectating good 1h players and steal their tricks. Me, Bjord, Renegat, Kansuke, Olwen, Mete Khan and whoever else you think is a good shielder.
Amazing wall of text, don’t worry took me about 15 minutes and I like talking about my class. Hope it helps.