1 hand no shield. Mostly Cons and some Pros.

[Formless]

And now you know why 1handers are the boss: with a 2h bastard sword I walk left and forward, spamming right, and win. With a poleaxe I do a sideswing followed by an instastab and win. With a 1hander I must follow u as you fucking cowardly hold S key, I hit you over and over with something ugly and blunt then pull my shortsword and slit your throat. 1handers are the most stylish and coolest way to play. Its like using Scout or pumpgun is CS: its shit but puts nubs in their place once they realise they got owned with a gimped weapon.

BlindGuy said it best.  I laughed so hard when I read this.  Its so TRUE.  Big props to BlingGuy for verbalizing this so well. 

I use 1 hand no shield almost exclusively.  As much as I like 1 hand for its stylish and cool looks , sometimes using 1 hand makes me cry.  For the following reasons:

CON LIST

1.)  Short range of the weapon
Which leads to: 
a.) Always must keep range in the back of your mind       
b.)  Loss of initiative. Almost always start the fight with a block first and except that you will not be setting the pace for the fight.
c.) Forced to give chase and play in an aggressive head on style.  Can't play range games like a 2 hander or pole can.   

2.)  Low damage output, it takes much longer to kill a guy with a 1 handed weapon then it does with a 2 handed weapon or a Pole.  Killing with a 1 hander is taking more and more time as the average level of armour is going up in Crpg.  This leads to lower K/D scores, gives enemy team members more time to pitch in and help to kill you, allows your opponent more mistakes. 
3.)  Stupid amount of bounces even wit 7 ps -- I even bounced off a naked guy once with 7ps and a Tempered Elite Scimitar. I alt-x out of the game then and had a quiet lie down.  Allows your opponent more mistakes.
4.)  Right to left swing is dead slow.  (Have to be really careful using right to left swing against 2 handers as they can get an extra hit in breaking the ATTACK-BLOCK-ATTACK-BLOCK turn mechanic).
5.)  Stab does not work close up to the opponent.  It bounces close up.  Only useful at long ranges, but then you are outranged by the 2 hand stab so there is really not that much use for it.
6.)  Overhead misses allot. You can't turn with the opponent so tagging someone with Overhead is a 50/50 sort of thing.


PROS
1.) Stylish and elegant look of play makes me think of the old Hollywood movie dueling sequences.
2.) Left to right swing is fast
3.)  Good feint mechanics.

Summary:

1 hand no shield only has 1 completely effective swing, left to right.  Right to left is slow so you have to be careful using it.  Stab and overhead are not fully reliable.  Overall,  Don't bother using 1 hand no shield unless you really like the animation and are willing to take on all the Cons or unless you are bored and need a challenge when playing Crpg.

P.S 

Since I did not touch on board and shield my take on is that the attack animation for board and shield are too obvious given how good the player base has become.  I noticed that I do  much better without the shield then I do with it.

 

[Casimir]

I don't see the point of this thread? What discussion is there to be had?

Im fairly sure everyone agrees playing 1h no shield is self nerfing and is a weak play style used mostly for the expression of skill or indivuality.

Maybe if you were to have put this in the beginners section or formed it as a guide i would understand but you've really just asserted a basic understanding of game mechanics and balance, and presented it for discussion.

[San]

Another pro is that a chamber with a left swing or overhead (of a stab) is nigh unblockable without very good athletics/movement. I also think overhead is better than what you give it credit for. It's pretty reliable if you can follow the enemy. Shield gives players tincan movement. Going from 14 (overall light armor) to 20-22 total weight is huge.

I think right swing just needs to be sped up very slight amounts. I shouldn't be able to guarantee spam a 1h no matter his swing speed/positioning if I see the beginning of the right swing animation coming out.

[Kafein]

I shouldn't be able to guarantee spam a 1h no matter his swing speed/positioning if I see the beginning of the right swing animation coming out.

This. Most good players nowadays start to swing after being blocked once (yes, don't fear the word, it's spam) and block only if actually needed. If you add to that how easy it is to move forward and sideways to glitch into the other player's model to make following you very hard, that adds up to spamming right swings with a 2h/pole while circling a shielder to the left = almost autowin.

[Rebelyell]

4.)  Right to left swing is dead slow.  (Have to be really careful using right to left swing against 2 handers as they can get an extra hit in breaking the ATTACK-BLOCK-ATTACK-BLOCK turn mechanic).

just stop, it is better for you

[Tibe]

....... glitch into the other player's model to make following you very hard, that adds up to spamming right swings with a 2h/pole while circling a shielder to the left = almost autowin.

'

Im inside you, ihihihihi.
This is the main reason this gameengine is.....not so good.

[rustyspoon]

Right-to-left swing is fine. As long as you're out of hiltslash range, you won't be outswung.

[Miwiw]

Playing 1h without shield is as clever as playing a pure 2h/pole without either shield or throwing skill. There are so many builds that can be improved by going hybrid but people are ignorant and prefer to complain instead. : ))

[Kafein]

Right-to-left swing is fine. As long as you're out of hiltslash range, you won't be outswung.

With the wonderful footwork abilities a shield allows you to have, this is not that easy to acheive. Also, having by far the shortest reach of the fight means you constantly have to be on the offense and using your w key a lot, making a backward move slower to start.

[Dezilagel]

When I use my 1h the only thing that gets me spammed are my own stupid mistakes (unless it's randomspamming, but random is random).

Yeah, with a shorter wep you often have to block more against longer wep opponents if they have any skill with footwork, but it's still predictable and if you can see it coming you can often surprise them.

This. Most good players nowadays start to swing after being blocked once (yes, don't fear the word, it's spam) and block only if actually needed. If you add to that how easy it is to move forward and sideways to glitch into the other player's model to make following you very hard, that adds up to spamming right swings with a 2h/pole while circling a shielder to the left = almost autowin.

Only really bad shielders die to this. I'm not a very good shielder (getting used to the playstyle) and I've never been in a situation where I've felt that my opponent "autowon". Many people seem to enjoy trying it though, and I really enjoy leftswinging their faces of. C'mon, it's not hard.

And why would you block when it's not needed? 

[BlindGuy]

But a nice rightswing with a long 1hander can properly surprise ppl who think they arent in range

I believe Red and Teeth (dont know if they are still 1handers) abused that right swing bigtime, love it!

[Kafein]

Only really bad shielders die to this. I'm not a very good shielder (getting used to the playstyle) and I've never been in a situation where I've felt that my opponent "autowon". Many people seem to enjoy trying it though, and I really enjoy leftswinging their faces of. C'mon, it's not hard.

I know that and I usually see it coming. Personally I die to this way too frequently because as I consider it super lame, I don't want to play with it, and end up not reacting as I should. Psychologic barriers . I also don't like moving my camera as fast as some people force me to do this way, headaches -_- . I don't like that this forces me into a super dull direct attack cycle, at least for one round. If I feint or hold or do basically anything but attacking as fast as possible while turning my camera like a madman, I die. I'd like some choice on the matter. Finally, sometimes those people completely dissapear and pop in my back and that's just retarded. When people like Vibe or Cyber kill me, it's because they bait me into making an attack without actually having the time to complete it before they hit me, and that's the way I kill people too, although with less success.

From an objective point of view now, way too many players only rely on that cheap move to get kills. I will not throw names but really if you watch people playing it's evident they can hardly do anything else. Learn to block, get a long and damaging weapon and voila. Especially considering that player collisions should not be that glitchy in the first place, it's way too easy to pull off.

[Artyem]

Oddly enough,  this thread makes me want to re-roll as a one hander, but that would require leaving behind my precious flamberge again (I can never trade it away, it's too glorious).  Only downside is that I have DSL and I live on a tiny peninsula that sticks straight out into the Pacific Ocean where we tend to get lots of storms (sup 500 + ping).

[rustyspoon]

Oddly enough,  this thread makes me want to re-roll as a one hander, but that would require leaving behind my precious flamberge again (I can never trade it away, it's too glorious).  Only downside is that I have DSL and I live on a tiny peninsula that sticks straight out into the Pacific Ocean where we tend to get lots of storms (sup 500 + ping).

That's the glory of STF. I'm constantly switching between a long maul build and a 1h no shield build. Good fun.

[San]

Right-to-left swing is fine. As long as you're out of hiltslash range, you won't be outswung.

If the enemy constantly strafes mostly to your right, it can be difficult unless you have a sizable movement speed advantage. In those situations, I mostly overhead.

Backing away and starting a right swing, then properly moving in is pretty great, though (esp without shield). Right swing also has some weird broken sweetspots early sweetspots for the blunt/pierce weapons or a held attack if you're strafing properly, way to your right side. Right swing has some neat tricks, but that's pretty much it.

I think the range on 1hs are fine. I actually prefer the 88-90 length ones the most, since I don't feel unwieldy in group fights. You just can't play distance, and instead get close and move away from their swings.