Andor's Trail

Hello I'd like some advice on what weapon proficiency I should take, or if it would be worth taking more than one... This is my first ever playthrough and I'm basically using it to get to grips with everything. My build is sort of jack of all trades, dual wielding, not reliant on criticals, aiming for Taunt eventually. See sig for current stats using 2 Balanced steel swords. I am putting one level up into AD at the same time as I get a skill point (so at level 40 I will have 10 base AD), the rest goes into AC and BC. At the moment, I am trying to raise my BC closer to my AC and will keep them fairly even afterwards.

I will not be grinding for any legendary items as they require too much time/luck. I have not done Trial by fire, Blackwater area quests or visited Remguard yet.
As for weapons, I find BSS x2 does the best job against most stuff. I have 2 points in FS:DW which gives me full power on both weapons, 12AP and JoF so 4 attacks per turn. I recently went through the green maze (level 37) and beat that horrible thing, the Hira'zinn. However, the BSS x2 was not working there as they just couldn't do enough damage. Instead, I had to resort to absolute brute force. Specifically, Brutal club x2. Even on critical immune mobs, they still do silly damage with normal attacks. I do enjoy using these things, very much so, but I get the feeling that 2 attacks per round is not really a relevant tactic during late game. Then there's daggers, which have some nice added actor conditions thrown in, but do even less damage per attack than swords. The option of the quickstrike dagger means they do have one up in terms of speed though.

These are my options:

Sword Proficiency: 2x BSS or 1 BSS and Flagstones Pride, high AC, moderate AD, 2x criticals possible, 3 or 4 attacks per turn, also enables efficient use of Blackwater iron sword and gear.
Useful against everything, may struggle against high DR stuff due to my build or simply require me to over-level to compensate. Then again, high DR might not be a problem now seeing as Hira'zinn has been dealt with.

Dagger Proficiency: Moderate AC, low AD, lots of choice for criticals, 3, 4 or 6 attacks per turn, also enables efficient use of Blackwater daggers and gear.
Useful for grinding levels thanks to the Blade of the Defiler (have not yet acquired) and also fun with criticals via DotSp (have acquired).

Blunt Proficiency: 2x Brutal clubs, Moderate AC, very high AD, criticals, 1 or 2 attacks per turn.
Useful for tough high HP mobs and general amusement. Makes up for my rather low AD.

Multiple Proficiencies: Any combination of the above! However, requires more skill points to master more skills.

Sword + Dagger: DotSp for criticals with BSS to add some nice AC and a bit more damage. Or, BSS combined with BotD to heal, still moderate damage and offers 2 CM criticals

Blunt + Sword: Clubs for tough high HP stuff, swords for general use, never used together.

Blunt + Dagger: Again, clubs for tough high HP stuff, daggers for grinding, never used together. Probably the best mix but is it worth spending twice the skill points?

So yeah I need some advice. My current skills are IF3, Regen1, Dodge1, FS:DW2, CS2, LAP1. Future skills are basically IF, S:DW and Taunt plus prerequisites.

Loads of people wet Unarmed, Unarmoured.
I can see your dilema, and only twiddle my thumbs over armour spec choice.

It's all up to you in the long run, but if it's any help, I went 1H Sword & Light armour because that's what I use on this build, 2H sword & Heavy on my previous build - before my previous device had an unfortunate decelerarion...

Still think Xul'viir is teh pwnsauce. But that's my opinion.
Best thing for you to do would be go Un... or work out which works best for you.
Not much help, but 'tis thine role to but hinder thee. I think. Maybe. Or should I get some sleep?

Edit: Go 1H Sword & Light armour would be my choice as light has the best Crit stats, and maybe decide whether the price is worth adding Daggers.

I have 2x fight style sword and shield and speacialization
And and taunt skill with flagstone pride
I'm going very well see my stats below

I think if you are going for taunt, dual wielding the blackwater daggers and using the blacwater gear set would be a perfect fit. and with the huge bc boost from that gear, you could put more level ups into AD instead of BC.

I went with both dagger and sword, because for a dual wielder it gives a lot of options.

Definitely like the Blackwater idea, with the swords or either of the daggers, just need to decide which side I want to go with in that area first. I suppose BWS would be easier as far as getting hold of BW gear is concerned.

I think for now I will leave weapon prof until I have actually acquired a bit more equipment and been to more places. I've decided to start a new completely neutral base game to make playing with different builds easier in the future. I'll continue to use this 'main' to explore all the current content though. Also starting to think it really needs more AD, especially if I do go with daggers. My current method has been fine so far but feels a bit weak at times. Maybe I just like those clubs too much... I would really like to hear from someone who's used one or two Brutal clubs as their main weapon of choice (if such a person exists).

I think you think too highly of those clubs. With 2 x BSS you get 4 hits per round, so your maximum damage per round is 60-120. If you switch them out for the clubs you get 13-58 damage per hit, but you only get 2 hits per round, so your maximum damage per round is 26-116. In other words, worse, and that's not the whole story. Your average damage per round, which is what really matters, depends on your chance to hit, and the BSS has a 12% higher AC. When dual wielding them, with the appropriate skills, that 12% difference gets multiplied a lot.

Your AD is kind of low. Looking at your AC, AD, and BC, I would put a lot more into your AD (in which case the swords will have an ever greater advantage over the clubs, because you get 4 x the base damage, rather than 2 x the base damage).

^What Mr. Jackson said.
AC and speed are the 2 main things I look at when deciding on objects to poke things with. If you go the dual wield route, get the QSD and use BWIS/BWD (Poisoned would be a giggle) or keep Flags and go be beastly to the wildlife.

From experience with a low AD char, it's a pain in the posterior to kill anything with DR, so add less BC. But most of my chars have had good investment into HP to act as buffer for defence that extrudes harder than a jet engine intake.

Dual wielding QSDs does not work very well. See the following:
http://www.andorstrail.com/viewtopic.ph ... =10#p41610
http://www.andorstrail.com/viewtopic.ph ... 163#p40628