I couldnt be arsed reading the rest of the thread, but this annoyed me a bit.
You say you are a new player. Ok, fine. You suck, deal with it. When you start a new game, especially one with such a unique combat system, you suck. Everyone sucked at it at some point.
As for 2H spammers and you not getting an attack in, grab a shield and a 1h. Most sword and boarders get attacks in on me that i have to block.
As for them being so much better, well they probably have been playing alot longer than you.
As for the STR requirement. It seems fine to me, i have a 15 21 build. Thats enough for my danish greatsword. True, its a strong weapon, but with 5 PS my damage is definetly at the low end of the spectrum and it takes me alot of hits to finish off an enemy in decent armor.
As for never having to block, well, then you are playing wrong. Its true that 2h/pole have a longer range meaning they get the first attack usually, but if you block that you can retaliate. As for swing away characters, tbh those are the easiest to defeat in a duel. They usually suck at blocking (me too, im a terrible blocker) and with good footwork you can get in alot of hits.
and @christo, cav is not shortcut
. Cav is target practice for archers and throwers.
2H spam is horrible. The people that are topping the charts in all matches are 2H spammers. I can not even get in an attack with any class I play except for an archer at range. They can put me on my heels the whole fight. And I just find that hard to believe. A Pole Arm and a 2H Sword should put some weight restrictions on a lot of things. Like I think there STR requirement should be a lot higher then it is so an Agility Build is just not going to happen and if it does go toward it then there is a hard cap. This is max blah blah.
15 STR for long 2H sword with 40 cut is to low imho.
The people that I see top the charts never block they just hack and slash and I would rather see it to where they have to block once or twice. But, as it stands now they never do.. they just swing away.
But, I guess that is the way of the game. Swing Away. I wanted to try this and try that but, I am going with the swing away build and its working for me as well. Just wish it were a little different. The game is a lot easier if you never have to block because you can speed swing through almost everything. =D