1 hand no shield. Mostly Cons and some Pros.

[Teeth]

The  2 hand reach, speed and animation married to a guy who knows how to move his char will leave you open to be hit when you throw the right hand swing.  You have to be careful when you throw the right hand swing, you simply cannot just throw it and not worry about your opponents relative position like a 2 hander can.  You have to keep your position and your opponents relative position in mind when you use the right hand swing.  Its another thing you have to keep in mind that a 2 hander simply does not have to worry about, that is why the right hand swing is a con.  Sure it does give you extended reach, which is nice but that reach is no where near a 2 hander so really no big deal there.  The slight delay however is a killer it leaves you vulnerable against a good 2hander.

I am not sure what 1h you use, but with the 100+ 1h, which seem an obvious choice for 1h no shield, your right swing has to ability to play the range game against twohanders. Exactly because of this slight delay, you can use your movement to get amazing reach with the rightswing. It has about 120 comparative 2h reach, but it greatly depends on your movement. Also, it is not at all that slow. You can actually hit it decently early in the animation, nothing like a leftswing, but pretty fast. You just need to use your movement and turning to swing right.

When talking battle, reach is of the utmost importance. Maybe you're NA where lone wolves seem more common, but in EU there is barely any 1 vs 1 fights in battle, it is always groups vs groups. Which is where the rightswing is easily the best swing, because it gives you a change to deal damage without hugging your opponent. Ofcourse in a duel the leftswing, overhead and stab all come in handy, but you use that rightswing the most.

That said, on battle 1h without shield is not the best but viable to say the least. I was able to maintain a k/d only 0.4 away from my longspear build now, arguably one of the strongest battle weapons. In siege and duel though, 1h without shield measures up to any other class and any buff would make it too strong.

I did one full 1h without shield gen and leveled one from 1 to almost 33 later on. I have duelled tons of 2h and never was afraid to rightswing in those duels.

[Grumpy_Nic]

isnt 1h supposed to be with shield. if you use only one half of the granted weaponry thats your problem

[BlindGuy]

Warspear is only good with shield too huh?


No, 1hander is a good class, but shielder is a different class. Shielder is a master of making enemy numbers work against them, forming a decent fighting line on a obstacle such as a narrow bridge, facehugging longrange weapons so they cannot make the most of their gear.

1hander no shield is a different class, an assasin, fast to punish enemy mistakes, good at capitalising on a succesful attack and with enough damage to speed to take down most others: sometimes too early in your build you can be easily bullied by armour crutchers, but in that case just grab a blunt: left seldom bounces off, and if the enemy falls you can get 2 hits in no problem, and easiest to get a free kick on the guy since you are already close to him, and we all know: kick a guy and you get another free hit, if its another knockdown your laughing all the way to a multi

[Grumpy_Nic]

1hander no shield is a different class, an assasin, fast to punish enemy mistakes, good at capitalising on a succesful attack and with enough damage to speed to take down most others: sometimes too early in your build you can be easily bullied by armour crutchers, but in that case just grab a blunt: left seldom bounces off, and if the enemy falls you can get 2 hits in no problem, and easiest to get a free kick on the guy since you are already close to him, and we all know: kick a guy and you get another free hit, if its another knockdown your laughing all the way to a multi

well that sounds great actually, no need to improve anything for 1h no shield

[BlindGuy]

If they did it would it make it OP and it would only be temporary untill its gets nerfed hard.

[Kafein]

If they did it would it make it OP and it would only be temporary untill its gets nerfed hard.

This. 1h no shield needs to be realm of the l33t. There's a demand for a melee "class" designed to show others how pro you are. This demand is clearly not as big as that for showing how many kills you can get with a EZ mode setup, but it exists.

[rustyspoon]

I decided to hijack this thread and turn it into a love letter for 1-handers.

You can tell that when the original developers worked on this game, they put the most thought into the 1-handed playstyle.

1-handed animations are drastically different than both poles and 2h. 2h has good animations that go at a relatively constant speed. Poles have a fast, short thrust and a fast right swing, but everything else is kinda "meh".

1-hand animations have a slow chamber, but a lightning-fast swing. They have a short, fast left swing that often hits the head, and a long right swing that is good at taking people by surprise. Both the overhead and the stab originate from the right side of the player model. Because of that, each 1-handed attack has a better side to be attacking from. It's not some bullshit, cookie-cutter animations. You need to know where the enemy is in relation to you, which way they are moving and which way you should move in order to select the best attack for each situation. There are pros and cons for each attack depending on a million different factors. When you really get into 1-handers, you realise that there is much more depth than with 2-handers & poles.

Shields add another layer. For some situations they are great, for some they are terrible. When dueling, you're better off without a shield as shields telegraph your attacks. When fighting a shield breaker it's also good to put it away since the stun from getting your shield broken sucks. Not to mention the fact that they slow you down a hell of a lot. Also, depending on what shield you have and the strength/weapon of your opponent, you can even get shield stunned. However, shields are great utility items. They're great for blocking hits for teammates, for pushing through held points on siege, blocking ranged, blocking multiple people at once, etc. Shields themselves could use a bit of diversity, but I doubt that will ever happen.

Now if you look at 1-h weapons, they are the most balanced set of weapons in the entire game. Once you get past the peasant weapons, you can make a valid argument for pretty much any weapon in the set. Each one has its pros and cons.

If you're fighting with or without a shield, there's just so much more that goes into it than with any other weapon type. That's probably why I've stuck with it for so long. I could go 2h & crossbow and min/max my character to hell, or I could play a fun, interesting class with almost limitless depth.

Yeah, 1h is the best.

[Lannistark]

Just don't make it for the masses. It would lose all it's fun 

[Osiris]

it can be pretty fun to wear very little armour and just run around with a 1h weapon

[Byrdi]

I was the best swashbuckler, now I am the best Longsworder.

Come at me, bros.

Good for you that I called my self a 1h no shield and not swashbuckler. And that I am using a Heavy Bastard Sword

Also, there is no need to buff (or nerf) 1h. It is very effective and you can easily go lightweight gear 1h hybrid or dedicated no shielder and perform as well as other classes.

And 1h no shield is great for duels. Dont know whoever said otherwise, but he is rather ignorant.

[Kajia]

I mostly agree with the OP.

Right to left is slow so you have to be careful using it.

I found that many don't expect its relatively long reach though. 2h- and polearm-users always seem kinda surprised when I hit them with the tip of my sword in the face.

I also wanted to point out that 1handers without shield rely HEAVILY on good footwork. you can't just spam somebody with a longer reach than you have.
I personally am not the best blocker too, or at least I am a bit too slow to keep up with all the feints or faster weapons (miadao, katana), so I always try to stay away and use my own feinting, a good save distance and a general calm attitude to lure them into believing I'm helpless. then I hit with 7ps and hold left-swing attacks, or a fast right-swing, while turning into the swing = they often don't know what hit them. speed is not all that matters, timing is, I guess.

my 2 cents.

[ThePoopy]

most underrated class

[Casimir]

2h cav is far more underrated.

[Lannistark]

2h cav feels like an old bear-drunk bard singing: slow and heavy

[dreadnok]

Right hand swing outreaches its swing on any weapon. Your just not expecting it from a 1h. Also overheads with 2 are atrociously out of range. The great maul overhead reaches so far its disturbing.