The stab issue is way more complicated than people think and will never be perfect. That is mostly due to the fact that the original Warband engine sucks. Instead of stabs only occuring at the point of a weapon, they occur at any point along its hitbox. Because of this and how sweetspots work, it is always best to "drag" your stab into someone instead of doing a real-life stab.
Back in the old days, the 1h stab glanced at both close range and long range. Due to the fast animation and short weapon length, the sweetspot on stabs was very small. The ONLY way to successfully stab was to turn really far into your opponent. That's what everyone did. Then turning speed was nerfed.
It made 1h stabs incredibly difficult to land unless you were really familiar with your weapon length and the animation timing. Turn speed was unnerfed slightly, and people who could already do it well could stab again. Still, it was just about impossible for people without a lot of practice.
What Tydeus did was change the timing of the sweet spot. As far as I remember, he moved the timing of it slightly later. So damage ramps up later, (meaning its glance window is a bit longer at the beginning) and falls off later (making it active longer). That change makes it a hell of a lot easier for a stab to land, as it gives you more time to drag the side of the sword into your opponent.
Some people say that ALL 1h swords need a stab damage nerf and that 1h sword stabs outclass 2h swords. That is not true. There's only a FEW swords that have more stab damage, but they all have significantly less swing damage. The biggest difference between 1h stab and 2h stab damage would have to be (in my opinion) fighting style. As 1handers are so short, you are almost always moving forward when you fight. 2-handers usually strafe more when fighting as it's easier to use your longer weapon to attack opponents in unblockable areas. As the 1-hander is almost always moving forward, they utilize speed bonus more often. Speed bonus adds a significant boost to damage. Especially when combined with a held attack, you can do a FUCK-TON of damage even with low PS. This combined with pierce damage (which bypasses most of your armor) makes stabs hurt a lot. That is also why awlpikes (and all long, stabbing polearms) are so effective. As a support role, you're usually running at someone with a held attack and doing a fuckton of damage.
If it was a perfect world, this problem could be mitigated by having damage types effected differently by different types of armor. So pierce would be more effective against certain "types" and less effective against others. It's a way better model than the current where it basically ignores armor.
One question I have, is how come 1h stabs weren't seen as a problem way back in the day when everyone could do them, but they are such a huge problem now? My 1h actually does less damage at MW then it did back then. My only guess is that the playerbase is overall more skilled now than they were back then, and every decent 1-hander knows that it's all about abusing held attacks and speed bonus.
