1h shielder build help

[San]

I think you need at least 7 PS. It took quite a while to kill things on my 18/21. I also felt many other 1hs did negligible damage to me on my 25/15, until I ask and find out they have 8 PS. I hardly ever see low PS 1hs top charts. More athletics is definitely quite fun. My optimal melee build is 21/21 for high levels.

[Turboflex]

you are also dead the majority of the time round ends, cuz you wear paper mache armor and have no hitpoints.  you are also terrible in large or chaotic engagements because 1 hit kills you.  you also dont play siege at all and these 30+ str guys laugh at your damage

Too be fair to Rusty he actually does quite well on siege you might have him confused with some other AGI shielder (Matey?). Cuz Rusty is a very good shielder in terms of footwork/timing and like he said given these base abilities, could be drunk and racking up points on siege. I've usually seen him there usuing a military hammer tho not a sword. His armor all seems to be loomed too (must be in the mid to high 50s) which helps him live a while even in thick fights plus his shield is like 6-7 skill + loomed so it takes forever to break even with my axe.

I still think Rusty could do better as 24-15, given his talents he could be racking up kills like Manowar did with his italian sword.

[oprah_winfrey]

I think you need at least 7 PS. It took quite a while to kill things on my 18/21. I also felt many other 1hs did negligible damage to me on my 25/15, until I ask and find out they have 8 PS. I hardly ever see low PS 1hs top charts. More athletics is definitely quite fun. My optimal melee build is 21/21 for high levels.

Other then Rusty, there is Dan, Jrab and Palatro. I think I do pretty well with 18/18 (not counting the fact that I have riding).

[rustyspoon]

To put things in perspective...including alts I've done about 25 gens as a 1-hander. I've done everything from really high strength to really high agi and everything in between.

I used to think higher str builds were the way to go until I started to experiment with agi more.

First, lets look at some damage values:

Say I have two builds:
18/18 with 6 IF, 5 WM, 65 hp & 148 WPF.
24/15 with 3 IF, 2 WM, 65 hp & 125 WPF.

Neither are wearing armor.

Say I'm using my MW Italian (33 cut) vs a 21/15 build wearing 50 armor with 70 hp.

With my 6 PS, I'll average 17.5 points of damage per swing to the body NOT including speed bonus and held attacks. I'll kill him in 4 hits.

Now if I have 8 PS, I'll average 20.5 points of damage per swing to the body NOT including speed bonus and held attacks. I'll kill him in 3.4 hits, but as you can't do .4 hits, you'd have to bring it up one bringing your total hits to 4.

Now lets say I'm using my MW Military hammer (31 blunt) vs the same 21/15 build wearing 50 armor with 70 hp.

With my 6 PS, I'll average 25 points of damage per swing to the body NOT including speed bonus and held attacks. I'll kill him in 2.8 hits, which rounds to 3.

With my 8 PS, I'll average 28.5 points of damage per swing to the body NOT including speed bonus and held attacks. I'll kill him in 2.5 hits, which rounds to 3.

With higher speed and acceleration it will be easier for me to land those hits. Not to mention I would get slightly increased damage from speed bonus. Maybe 1-3 extra points per swing at best.

Initial weapon damage and damage TYPE are FAR more important than slight increases to PS. That's why 1-handers don't benefit much from increased PS. You're much better off being more mobile. Being more mobile enables you to dodge more hits, pick better fights and be better at assisting teammates.

Quite often I'll be fighting someone and I'll see an enemy with his back to me fighting someone else. I can quickly dart out, hit him in the back which opens him up for my teammate to hit him. I can then immediately go back to the person I was fighting.

As a 1-hander once you use a more balanced build and get used to it's advantages, you can perform much better than you could with a 21/15 or 24/15. If you get to 33 you can go 21/21, which is pretty damn ridiculous.

[Fartface]

Or you can see it like this , you need the extra powerstrike to make your low damage weapon do some more damage and let the shield cover you to make agi less needed. But as I said it´s about personal preferance.

[Turboflex]

Rusty I think you need to scale up your calculations a bit.

8 PS works better for someone using a higher damage wep, 38-40 cut like an axe or military cleaver. 34 blunt warhammer or 35 pierce pick.

Also 50 armor and 70 HP is a bit on the soft side. For harder targets 65 armor is more realistic and 75 HP.

Also I think you are not giving enough focus to speed bonus and hold bonus which are pretty significant %  modifiers that obviously scale better with the 5 highest damage 1h I mentioned and 8 PS than they will with a 33c italian sword and 6 PS.

[oprah_winfrey]

Rusty I think you need to scale up your calculations a bit.

8 PS works better for someone using a higher damage wep, 38-40 cut like an axe or military cleaver. 34 blunt warhammer or 35 pierce pick.

Also 50 armor and 70 HP is a bit on the soft side. For harder targets 65 armor is more realistic and 75 HP.

Also I think you are not giving enough focus to speed bonus and hold bonus which are pretty significant %  modifiers that obviously scale better with the 5 highest damage 1h I mentioned and 8 PS than they will with a 33c italian sword and 6 PS.

I think assuming the average player is 24/XX and 8 IF with +3 rus scale and +3 plate mittens is kind of high. Although for seige that might me accurate.

What I think is the biggest argument against rusty's calculations would be the head shot bonus. Since the left swing on a one hander is almost a guaranteed head shot, the bonus works in your favor the higher your weapon damage is.

[Zanze]

I think assuming the average player is 24/XX and 8 IF with +3 rus scale and +3 plate mittens is kind of high. Although for seige that might me accurate.

I don't think so. I run around with 65hp, loomed body and gloves and still get routinely one shotted by 2h's.

Anyways, to contribute, I haven't gone in depth as Rusty did with 25 gens. But I've done a few to test out 21/15, 18/18, 21/18, and 24/12. Keep in mind in each situation I have throwing. Except 21/18. My weapon of choice switched between the Nordic War Sword and the Military Hammer regularly as I was still working on my armor looms.

The most effective I easily found was 24/12. I am a proponent of light armor, so walked around with a total of maybe 40-50 armor. Now, the reason I enjoy this build over the rest is my general philosophy when playing as shielder. Which is that I want to be attacking almost twice as much as my opponent is. I want to kill him as fast as possible, not to butter my jolly score, but to preserve my shield. Unlike popular belief, a 4-shield skill heavy round(unloomed as well), did not break at first sign of danger. I've regularly kept it alive during rounds despite participating in multiple fights. It will break however to the new fad of 36/3 2h swordsman, so with an unloomed shield it may not be as effective at this time period. Regardless, the highest scores I have ever gotten in this game were when I ran 24/12. I headshotted every other swing, if not every swing, regardless of direction and things just fell down. The shield was a buffer, but my real defense in the build was an offense.

Also, no, I never got S-keyed in this build. Getting S-keyed is not a fault of your agi/ath, its a fault of you failing to note your range compared to theirs.

The 21/18 build however, radically different from the one above, worked perfectly as a sort of skirmisher / flank attack unit, or hell as shielder-duelist. I hadn't learned to abuse OP speed bonus to hell yet at the time, but it did well. The shield never died, ever. I was fast enough to avoid axes and laughed at 2h's with my 6 shield skill. No throwing though...I missed throwing.

21/15 is basic. To start a build I would definitely start here, then branch to what you want to do.

I never did 18/18, but I did an 18/15 Diggles build. I definitely felt as if I was hitting like a chump compared to anything else I've tried. I'd hitting a person 4-5x for him to hit me once and I'd explode. Then again, my weapons were +0.

[Turboflex]

Not really talking about average players who a skilled player can generally slice through no probs. It's when you run into a really solid 2h like Cyranule, Noodles, Tydeus, Shinock, kap10, Wesley, etc. they all seem to regularly wear over 60 armor even up to 70. It's already hard enough to land hits on them in fights, so you gotta make them count when you do.

[Pentecost]

Is the .ru calculator's algorithm bugged? I was running some tests with it, and with the settings at 5ps, 111wpf, 33c, no hold and no armor worn against a 65hp, 50 armor target, it's showing me that you actually lose a significant amount of minimum damage when going from 15 str to 17 str despite the PS being the same. Odd.

Also, my own experiences corroborate the findings of Turboflex and San. If you intend to use a 1h cutting weapon, I would advise against getting less than 6 or preferably 7 PS, especially if you do not have a +3 sword. Even if you are pretty good skillwise, the fact that you will go down in 2 solid hits from your average 2h and usually need 8 or more hits to take him down with a 15/21 build is stacking the odds against yourself. This weakness only becomes more pronounced when you are placed into situations where you will have problems using your speed well (ie indoor areas with sticky floors, hillsides, on top of a narrow parapet, giant melees that have everyone packed together like sardines, etc).

[San]

@Rusty, The only qualm I have with that is that a shield weighs you down too much. I feel like it's 7ath or bust, assuming the average ath (on NA) is ~6 and you're breaking even against other players. Without shield and 7ath I feel incredibly fast, however. 60-65 armor and 70-75 hp are good spots to test damage. 50 is light armor and light gloves. My main reaches nearly 60 armor with green tunic over mail.

I also highly don't recommend builds that sacrifice IF/WM for attribute points and a PS/ATH. 21/15 at 30, 24/15 at 32/33.

@Pentecost
The damage calculator is a bit bugged if you're fiddling around with weights and small changes in variables, but it still gives a pretty good indication of damage.

@Oprah- Yes, you did very well a few months ago when you were teaming with Dan on the servers. That was 6PS?

I assume Jrab is Malicious, right? He does do consistently very well. I thought malicious had 7PS? (Well, I asked him like in February or something though..) Dan also has 6PS? When I asked the best 1hers for their PS values, I was shocked to find out that they were consistently 8+ (mano, arowaine, best hosp 1hs, NH 1hs who have improved recently, and most others I can't think of atm), with surprisingly few 7-.


I feel that agi definitely pulls through at higher levels, due to achieving sufficient PS and acquiring as much agi as possible. I feel 21/21 is the sweetspot with getting sufficient IF/WM compared to 24/21 or 21/24, and I doubt I will feel much of a movement difference with shield betwen 24/18 and 24/15, could be wrong, though.

I have tried 27/12, 24/15, 21/15, and 18/21. 27/12 was usable even with the steel pick. I saw a pretty large performance increase at 24/15 and stuck with it. 18/21 is my alt, but he doesn't have sufficient armor/survivability. He attains a massive amount of points because he takes so many hits to kill foes (can get like 20 points from 1 tincan).

I am also intrigued by high WM, because at high levels, you have an abundance of attribute points. ~40 points  is equivalent to a PS point, in addition to the weapon swing speed increase, it's pretty nice at higher levels when you have nothing left other than becoming a cav hybrid. I agree that balanced builds are best, but the minimum PS required to be viable > minimum ath required to be viable.

[oprah_winfrey]

Yeah Malicious is Jrab, last time I talked to him I believe he said he preferred 18/18. Which is also Dan's build and the one that I use when I play shielder. In fact, I am 18/18 right now but because of the new retiring at 32 bonus I have riding as well (which kind of sucks because there are very few maps that are worth going on foot). I guess Huey could also be added to the list of players that do well with 6 PS, although he doesn't really use his shield on foot.

I can't comment on the NH guys or Hospitallers, but I believe Mano and Arow are both fairly high level, so they can afford to have higher PS while still having 6 ath (don't know for sure if they do).

I agree that balanced builds are best, but the minimum PS required to be viable > minimum ath required to be viable.

I agree, and I wish I could be 21/21, but that isn't really viable at 30-31 and I prefer to reitre. Its just that the PS that I believe to be required is 6, therefore I am able also get 6 ath.

I suppose another thing to consider is the weight of your armor and the shield that you use. When I used the huscarl, I felt the 6 ath was a lot more important then with the elite cav shield I currently use.

[rustyspoon]

Sorry it took so long to respond...people kept bothering me at work. Anyway for shits and giggles...

Body Hits

24str/8ps		18str/6ps
40 cut		40 cut
50arm/70hp 28/swing = 2.5(3) hits		50arm/70hp 24.5/swing = 2.9(3) hits
65arm/75hp 19.5/swing = 3.8(4) hits		65arm/75hp 16.5/swing = 4.5(5) hits

24str/8ps		18str/6ps
34 blunt		34 blunt
50arm/70hp 32.5/swing = 2.1(3) hits		50arm/70hp 28.5/swing = 2.5(3) hits
65arm/75hp 25/swing = 3 hits		65arm/75hp 22/swing = 3.4(4) hits

These next groups are accurate mathematically, but will be slightly different from in-game values as I had to ignore randomized damage and I'm not sure if I used the current soak/reduction values or the old ones. I don't have access to the better calculator at work (it's blocked for some reason). But, for comparison purposes these work fine.

Head Hits

24str/8ps
40 cut
55 head armor/75hp
base damage against 0 armor = 73
after 1.2 head damage increase = 87.6
87.6(base) - 32.175(soak) = 55.425 - 23.6(reduce) = 31.8/swing = dead opponent in 2.4(3) hits

18str/6ps
40 cut
55 head armor/75hp
base damage against 0 armor = 67
after 1.2 head damage increase = 80.4
80.4(base) - 32.175(soak) = 48.2 - 20.5(reduce) = 27.7/swing = dead opponent in 2.7(3) hits

For this next group, again results are accurate mathematically, but slightly different from in-game values. Still fine for comparison purposes. Due to the differences in athletics, I'll give the 24/15 build a 10% speed bonus and the 18/18 a 13% speed bonus.

Held Attack & Speed Bonus + Head Hit

24str/8ps
40 cut
55 head armor/75hp
base damage against 0 armor = 73
after perfect held attack (25% dam increase) = 91.25
after 10% speed bonus = 100.4
after 1.2 head damage increase = 120.5
120.5(base) - 32.175(soak) = 88.3 - 37.6(reduce) = 50.7/swing = dead opponent in 1.5(2) hits

18str/6ps
40 cut
55 head armor/75hp
base damage against 0 armor = 67
after perfect held attack (25% dam increase) = 83.75
after 10% speed bonus = 92.1
after 1.2 head damage increase = 110.6
110.6(base) - 32.175(soak) = 78.4 - 33.4(reduce) = 45/swing = dead opponent in 1.6(2) hits


A few things:

1. Since calculations in this game are percentile-based, armor reduces higher damage more than lower damage.
2. Speed bonus & held attacks are MUCh more important than a few points of PS.
3. Damage values of 1h are too small to see that big of a difference. Initial weapon damage and damage type are FAR more important than a few points of PS.
4. PS really becomes good when stacked with a high damage weapon. It's great for 2h & poles, not so much for 1h.
5. How many hits it takes to kill someone has sooo many random factors. Other than the fact that both damage & armor soak/reduce are randomized, the exact armor and hp of your opponent really matters. Damage over the hp threshold doesn't make any difference.
6. You do slightly more damage with higher PS, but it's easier to land hits with higher athletics.

These are all things I've been saying for a while. That's why for 1-handers, I think balanced builds are best: 18/18, 21/18, 18/21.

You don't really lose anything as far as damage, but you lose a lot in mobility when you stack more strength. Higher strength can be beneficial as a 1-hander if you're fighting a lot of terrible opponents, but against skilled players more mobility is much more useful.

The actual mobility gains depend a lot on the amount of gear you carry. There's a sweet spot for every combination of gear and athletics.

[sharker807]

Cheers for that rusty, very helpful 

[Smoothrich]

I did pretty damn well as a 15/24 shielder for a gen, had some WPF for polearms to use an awlpike in groupfights when I needed it, but eventually adapted just fine to a sword primarily.  Used a MW Nordic Champ sword and killed everyone in 2-3 hits, little more for heavy armor.  Honestly not that different from 27/12 shielder, except more fun to play (and insta death by ranged and cav).  Higher athletics is much better for 1vs5'ing groups because you lunge at random targets with held swings and pick them apart.

Note that 8 athletics light armor and a shield is still too much of a strength build to fight kiting archers