Regular Bardiche

[Commodore_Axephante]

With light armor, and the new weight increase to arrows, I'm noticing that my new build's 7 athletics makes me faster than the majority of people. This is helping me a lot, because my natural combat style often involves trying to juke in and out of people's weapon reach, IE dodge instead of always blocking.  So, I'm curious about weapons with a little more reach than my beloved Great Axe, hoping that I can use them to get away with snapping off some of those "you missed me" counter-swings with a little less precision.

That's why I'm looking at the Bardiche. The regular one, not the Great Bardiche. 2h, not polearms. Does anyone ever use this thing? Compared to the Great Axe it's almost identical - 3 speed slower, 6 reach longer.

Looking for some guidance here. Is it foolish to trade that much speed for that little length, as a rule? The Great Bardiche is, compared to the Great Axe, -5 speed +10 length... the same speed/length trade ratio, just at a greater scale.

What do you think? Bardiche: worth it? Do you think I would miss my Great Axe's speed, or is the difference so small I wouldn't even notice?

[Macropus]

What do you think? Bardiche: worth it?

Totally worth it on horseback because reach is very important there, but on foot with 7 athletics I'd choose the axe because of it's speed.

[BadooN]

You should just try it out and see how you like it, assuming you're not talking about a loomed one.  I mean if you didn't end up liking it just switch back to your good old Great Axe 

(click to show/hide)

Miss you in Frisia btw

[Malaclypse]

Length is king stat, followed by damage. Low speed + good footwork = may as well be high speed.

[Osiris]

Regular Bardiche, the Great Bardiche or two handed war axe the other axes just stupid to me

[Commodore_Axephante]

You should just try it out and see how you like it, assuming you're not talking about a loomed one.  I mean if you didn't end up liking it just switch back to your good old Great Axe 

(click to show/hide)

Miss you in Frisia btw

That's part of my hesitancy - my Great Axe is loomed, so if I am testing out the unloomed Bardiche the difference will be even greater, during the trial period.

And, don't cry for me, Frisian Freedom. I'm sill Fimbulvetr until the end!

[Sandersson Jankins]

That's part of my hesitancy - my Great Axe is loomed, so if I am testing out the unloomed Bardiche the difference will be even greater, during the trial period.

And, don't cry for me, Frisian Freedom. I'm sill Fimbulvetr until the end!

Had a clanmate swear by an unloomed great bardiche. He used it on horseback for a gen with the nasty 24-15 build, but he also used it in pure melee str builds. Having just struggled through a 2h gen, I learned some nice tricks with it. It seems that if you're using an unbalanced (or really any 2h that isn't a HBS, Longsword, or a few others) you can perform very nice holds. For example, a held leftswing while wiggling insanely back and forth can act as a sort of feint. With a longer weapon, which your bardiche certainly would be, jumping is actually very effective. Try a jump with a left or right swing while looking straight down. Almost certain headshot if you land it, it can go over shields, and it looks fucking awesome.

It's also worth noting that since the cutting surface of the bardiche is curved, you will get a marginal amount of nice "ghost-reach" on it. I do not say this out of some empirical testing, but out of anecdotal experience and reliable advice. It's not going to be a huge amount like on a scimitar or something, but you can often throw out an unexpected shot to someone's face with it that spurs them into complaining in allchat.

[Joseph Porta]

Had a clanmate swear by an unloomed great bardiche. He used it on horseback for a gen with the nasty 24-15 build, but he also used it in pure melee str builds. Having just struggled through a 2h gen, I learned some nice tricks with it. It seems that if you're using an unbalanced (or really any 2h that isn't a HBS, Longsword, or a few others) you can perform very nice holds. For example, a held leftswing while wiggling insanely back and forth can act as a sort of feint. With a longer weapon, which your bardiche certainly would be, jumping is actually very effective. Try a jump with a left or right swing while looking straight down. Almost certain headshot if you land it, it can go over shields, and it looks fucking awesome.

It's also worth noting that since the cutting surface of the bardiche is curved, you will get a marginal amount of nice "ghost-reach" on it. I do not say this out of some empirical testing, but out of anecdotal experience and reliable advice. It's not going to be a huge amount like on a scimitar or something, but you can often throw out an unexpected shot to someone's face with it that spurs them into complaining in allchat.

Im sure you cant use a great bardiche on hb? But it's amazing on foot, try it i'd say! Even unloomed, i got 7 ps, it wrecks.

[Sandersson Jankins]

Im sure you cant use a great bardiche on hb? But it's amazing on foot, try it i'd say! Even unloomed, i got 7 ps, it wrecks.

You're damn right you can't. It must have been a regular bardiche, then. My mistake, but I guess good news for the newly clothed friend here.

[Joseph Porta]

You're damn right you can't. It must have been a regular bardiche, then. My mistake, but I guess good news for the newly clothed friend here.

Normal bardiche is great on hb though, 1 hits a buttload of players, if not too heavy armored. 

[Smoothrich]

I used one as 2hand cav/infantry for a while (+3).  It kind of sucks.  Too slow.  Makes CQC horse combat awkward, and its pretty shitty in close up melee, only good at ganking.  Damage is nice and feels fun to destroy people/cause rage but swinging the weapon itself in any situation isn't fun.

[Joseph Porta]

I used one as 2hand cav/infantry for a while.  It kind of sucks.  Too slow.  Makes CQC horse combat awkward, and its pretty shitty in close up melee, only good at ganking.

just backstab 1-hit the shit out of medium armored players! 
I did a heavy cav build
24/15
5if 8ps 5rid 3wm 2shi
Using a cathapract was great fun, when i hit a player it usually did a buttload of dmg, allthough im not that good a cav. 

Edit: also the slow swing makes for some funny moves to be possible.

[Commodore_Axephante]

I used one as 2hand cav/infantry for a while (+3).  It kind of sucks.  Too slow.  Makes CQC horse combat awkward, and its pretty shitty in close up melee, only good at ganking.  Damage is nice and feels fun to destroy people/cause rage but swinging the weapon itself in any situation isn't fun.

By your summation would you say that the Great Axe sucks, too, for all of the same reasons?

[Joseph Porta]

Great axe is fast as hell

[Smoothrich]

By your summation would you say that the Great Axe sucks, too, for all of the same reasons?

No, its different.

The thing is its based on your playstyle.  I like fighting groups of enemies by myself 1 vs 4 etc so a long but slow weapon fails me a lot.  Medium length medium-fast speed is great though.  Great axe is a bit better for me.  Pretty much will always prefer a sword though, or a bar mace.

Bardiche fills a niche as a 2hand cav weapon, but I'd definitely recommend one of the Persian axes or hell the Great Bardiche over the regular Bardiche.  Frankly, the polearm Long Bardiche and the various long axes are way more fun to use then any of the 2hand axes.  And I'm biased to 2handers generally.

Either way its cheap as dirt so just play with the different 2hand axes and see what fits your playstyle best.  They all have decent stats now since they all got some extra damage second to last patch.