1h animations
Its actually better then any 1her, even those that cost up to 10 k gold! Just look at any crossbowman and what he carries - MACE.
The sad thing is that the alternative - 1hers as 1slot weapons and ranged sidearms are an EXCELENTLY balanced class. Hardly any 2 good 1h players use the same one, either of the 5 most expensive 1hers is a viable option, there are piercers, blunt, cut, stab, short, long etc. etc. Making people use 1hers instead of everyone ranged using this would add so much diversity of builds since there are so many viable choices in 1hers (some better, some cheaper etc. etc.)
2h animations are only superior when your weapon has a thrust, the Mace, doesn't. 1h animations can be thought of as a clear advantage in this situation
due to the left swing tendency to head shot.I see plenty of people not using the Mace, though nearly every duelist uses it. From a hybrid perspective, nerfing the mace to make it less viable would only hurt versatility. Currently you're able to bring the mace, a stack of bolts and an Arbalest one round, then the next round you can bring a German Greatsword, Crossbow and bolts; both are equally as effective. A one-hander can hybrid with a shield when he wants a lighter crossbow and when he goes with a heavier one, he has a surplus of weapons to chose from, many of which are faster and longer than the Mace. The only issue I see, is that polearms are the exception here, there isn't a good 1 slot polearm as far as I am concerned. Very rarely do I see a ranged hybrid (that isn't a fresh STF or low level character) using a 1 slot pole as their melee weapon.
tldr; Versatility is being hampered, not by the Mace being too good, but because there isn't a good polearm equivalent. Thus anyone desiring to hybrid melee (without shield skill, the would-be polearm+ range hybrid guys) with ranged or simply someone trying to maximize damage, will pick a mace. And nerfing the mace will kill off 2h + ranged hybrids in the same way that there aren't any pole + ranged hybrids, currently.
Edit:
No matter what you do... People will flock to one specific weapon type if playing range... Look at the "Diversity" in what people choose for 0 slot archer backups.
I agree the thing seems slightly too powerful, but a simple small tweak will fix that, say simply remove knockdown and it would be fine.
Remove the knockdown and you remove 20% of what versatility two-hander's have; all the greatswords have the same exact playstyle (the faster two-handers like the longsword have almost exactly the same style); you have three crushthrough weapons; the unbalanced, thrustless weapons (Which arguably, many of which could be the same play style as the greatswords); the Flamberge with its own style; and then the Mace and the marginally useful Goedendag, which suffers from low numerical damage and only 2.5 weight. Compare it with a War Spear that has, pole stagger, a range advantage, and much higher pierce damage that makes an even larger difference when you factor in speed bonuses.
Polearms on the other hand, have quite a bit of versatility to them. Pikes, Swiss Halberd + English Bill, Awl Pikes + Ashwood, Hoplites, War Spear + Red Tassle + LHSM, Great Axes + Bardiche's, Long Maul, Glaive+LHB, Bec, then the Poleaxes. Each one has a distinct playstyle due to the large differences in weapon range, speed, weight, damage and modifiers like unbalanced and knockdown.
You can argue with how I break down the playstyles, but I don't think it's really arguable that they have the same versatility. One-Handers by the way, having an equal amount of versatility with polearms due to pole's generally being terrible to hybrid with for anything other than cavalry (and even then, I play lancer cav with 1 pole wpf).
