difficulties with my 1h/shield char

[Thomek]

Attacks do have different range. You can see it in practice by trying to hit a tree. Left swing is generally faster but shorter, and right swing is a bit longer and slower. Overhead is slower still.

[kinngrimm]

@MrNicklebe i also noticed that from a higher position in rare cases the overhead attack goes through the shield, does it go through 2h overhead blocks , too?
I love to jump kamikaze style into a crowd(prefered from a building while i havent been spotted), perhaps i even kill someone while spamming attacks(wakasashi any short weapon), but even more important
you harrases them to a point that they blindly attack and i had the situation of 3 provoked tk's that way
sometimes i even get out alive and get an e******** 
Is it a good playing style? Perhaps not, but take one for the team and i heard, in love and war annything goes.

@Thomek ok, thanks for the confirmation

[MrNicklebe]

@MrNicklebe i also noticed that from a higher position in rare cases the overhead attack goes through the shield, does it go through 2h overhead blocks , too?
I love to jump kamikaze style into a crowd(prefered from a building while i havent been spotted), perhaps i even kill someone while spamming attacks(wakasashi any short weapon), but even more important
you harrases them to a point that they blindly attack and i had the situation of 3 provoked tk's that way
sometimes i even get out alive and get an e******** 
Is it a good playing style? Perhaps not, but take one for the team and i heard, in love and war annything goes.

I enjoy the occasional roof-jump-into-crowd tactic too. Mainly pre-patch though when I was a tin can and could take the hits a bit better though. Now I usually find myself surrounded when I come off my horse (I'm half light-cav, half sword and board footman now) and the jumping tactic is very useful to stay alive and be generally annoying that much longer. And yes short weapons are for the most part better in this situation because you need to be very close to the enemy to get one of their teammates to hit them :p

[Diomedes]

After a few days of disaster I finally figured out a way to use 1h effectively.  It's counter intuitive, especially as I used to play polearm, but it's gotten me to the top of the stat list a few times: rush in.  Fighting a polearm?  Rush in.  Fighting a 2h?  Rush in.  Fighting a 1h?  Rush in.  Once you get in close the differences in speed between weapon types can be adjusted for by your striking position.  This is why, most of the time, I get high athletics and lighter armour so I can get into my preferred position quite easily.  Rushing in also changes the engagement psychologically in your favour.  Polearms and 2h players rely on striking at medium range opponents who are too frightened or cautious to get up close.  With a shield you can get right up next to them and, sometimes, completely neuter their ability to block because they can't switch block directions so fast as you can threaten one side or another. 

What I also learned was patience.  If you have a good shield and know how to take care of it then you have a good friend helping you for an entire battle.  The value of a shield comes from the fact that you can dance a little bit and block a few times while just waiting for your preferred opening.  Your unshielded opponents, on the other hand, often must to end the fight fast because they know they're very vulnerable to projectiles and fighting two people at once.

So in short:
1) rush in and get in close while making sure your back is safe
2) wait for your enemy to strike first - it really doesn't cost you anything to wait
3) as soon as you hear their weapon hit your shield move to the right and forward while swinging from the left side.
a) this is the fastest possible 1h swing
b) this is the time when your opponent cannot block you
c) this move hampers their left-to-right swing ability and neuters their right-to-left swing
d) I find this strike results in a head shot about 60% of the time
4) (optional) fight with a friend.  One of the best things about fighting 1h+shield is that you can closely circle an enemy for a while without much danger.  Even if you don't get the opportunity for #3 you can easily turn an opponent's back towards a friend of yours and leave them open for the quick 1 2 KO.

[Thomek]

Very good advice from Diomedes there.

Another thing.

Shielders usually need less armor, because their shield can defend so well, and suck up more hits than any black armor no-shielder.
This makes you faster, both in terms of wpf weigh penalty, and moving faster.. I don't understand why shielders would wear any heavy armor actually, unless very high level. You are more dangerous with light armor, and it is a great exercise in awareness from ranged + horses etc.

Highly theoretical from my side of course, as I rarely tried a 1h char but: :-)

But to me the best shielder build would be a somehow light armor, only 6 PS and rest Agi, high shield skill and athletics. Carry a scimi for cloth, a pick/hammer for armor, and a pike/spear of some sort. (no polearm wpf though)

[audax]

On reason for heavy armor: My build is purely strength for throwing, I am a brick. 2 athletics here ;)

[Ironclaw]

All those tactics are very useful but still if you meet equally skilled 2h/pole player you are dead most of the time.
If you meet player with hammer you are dead if he blocks your first hit.
Always bare in mind that you are slower than most of them, you are doing less dam, you have less range, you glance a lot when facehug.
There are some more advantages witch has not mentioned in previous posts. Most of 2h underestimate you. Especially when fighting with several enemies simultaneously. Just change your moving direction and quick swing at some killgreedy bastard who was hoping for easy kill.  Also you have advantage when fighting in tight spots, bottlenecks and clusterfucks. For instance most 2h cant sideswing in corridors.

Bottom line is that you lose 2h/pole in every aspect. Best thing you can do is choose who and where you fight with.


And you are right about Thomek being one of the deadliest ninjas out there.

[Ishar]

But to me the best shielder build would be a somehow light armor, only 6 PS and rest Agi, high shield skill and athletics. Carry a scimi for cloth, a pick/hammer for armor, and a pike/spear of some sort. (no polearm wpf though)

Well 6 PS means 18 str. That's a balanced build at best, with the softcap at level 30.

[balbaroth]

being a sword and boarder is not hard by itself , but you need to know how your opponents are playing , like a good pitcher in baseball , you have to get info on all your enemies , their feints , their tactics , what they do to get you offguard , also learn to fight calculating the length of the weapons ( very important )  so you can hit and move away from the range ( with decent athletics )

[Gorath]

being a sword and boarder is not hard by itself , but you need to know how your opponents are playing , like a good pitcher in baseball , you have to get info on all your enemies , their feints , their tactics , what they do to get you offguard , also learn to fight calculating the length of the weapons ( very important )  so you can hit and move away from the range ( with decent athletics )

Or get a scimitar and spam left attack like you've never spammed it before.   



j/k <3 u

[Lordark]

Yeah choose your battles wisely and always have the min power strike, ironflesh, agil, wpf, for ur character and his weapon. Also chadz made weapons for all types of scenarios so keep a full inventory when in battle or bring 2 shields.

[Ishar]

Yeah choose your battles wisely and always have the min power strike, ironflesh, agil, wpf, for ur character and his weapon. Also chadz made weapons for all types of scenarios so keep a full inventory when in battle or bring 2 shields.

Ironflesh is a luxury. If you play a pure sword and boarder, imo you should just get PS, Athletics and WM as high as you can, shield skill to whatever you/your shield desire (personally, I go with 5), and turn as many skill points into attributes as possible. If you can squeeze in another level of the aforementioned skills by level 30, you will have an undeniable advantage.

[zagibu]

I recommend a pick and do the right circle, left slash move. You can even down tincans fast this way, because as was said above, every second hit will be a headshot. A warhammer works, too but I found it to be a bit too short. I missed many of my left strikes with warhammer.

[Diomedes]

Besides +1 health and its application to gear requirements what does Strength actually do?

[zagibu]

It's also a requirement for the power skills and iron flesh.