advantages/disadvantages of fighting bare handed

[allanon]

ok, so I've been experimenting with 'unequipping' my primary weapon, Flagstone's Pride and just fighting bare-handed.

Looking at the stats of the weapon:

AP4
At Ch 21%
Att Dam 1-6
Crit 10%
Crit Mult x 2

This all seems very good until you consider if you don't use any weapon at all, your AP is going to be less, therefore more attacks per round.
My AP is AP3 while equipped (due to jewel of Fallhaven) and AP2 when bare-handed.

I have 10 Action Points, so with no weapon I would get 5 attacks per round.
With Flagstone's Pride, I would get 3 attacks per round (possibly slightly more but I dont know how the logic of the code works dividing 10 by 3).

So, 2 extra attacks, each causing 20 damage (this is what my character does with no weapon).

I would lose the 21% bonus to Attack Chance and the 1-6 extra damage per hit and critical chance but have the extra 40 points damage to compensate.
I think 40 more damage (assuming I hit each time of course) more than compensates.

Is there really a worthwhile advantage to using a weapon at all?
I'm not so sure there is.

What do others think?

[Czar Kloos]

I tried going bare handed for awhile but the weapon usually wins out every time. But I haven't tried bare handed since i got the 6+ damage rings so it might be better Idk, I'm gunna try it out

[Dreia]

just FYI the quickstrike dagger is basically the same thing as barehanded with 20 points moved from defense to attack chance.

~D

[Cervando]

I have read all the discussions regarding best equipment and it would seem that the maths support barehanded. The only reason to use a weapon is if the chance of hitting is small or the damage resistance of the mob means that bare handed has difficultly in bypassing it. At higher levels it is far better to go weaponless. The small difference in damage and to hit is more than offset by the minimum 2 extra attacks.

[Dreia]

Glad to see I'm not the only one that feels this way The weapons are currently very unbalanced in terms of what benefits you receive. This is why some time ago I posted a suggestion to rebalance them here. With 0.6.9 going through it's alpha phase I'm hoping that weapons will be looked at soon.

[Cervando]

just FYI the quickstrike dagger is basically the same thing as barehanded with 20 points moved from defense to attack chance.

~D

However, +20 ac is worth 5 levels and 20 bc is nearly 7 so the trade off isn't worth it, hence barehanded is better. I liked some of your suggestions but I feel that your daggers have to high a critic chance and should never do 0 damage. But i do agree with a weapon balance and in particular boss drops should better than bought items, such as chainmail being better than the stone armour. Also the poisonous dagger is the best dropped weapon despite it being from an early boss. Flagstaff's sword should be much better than it is and do the same damage at least as the steel longsword.

[Dreia]

just FYI the quickstrike dagger is basically the same thing as barehanded with 20 points moved from defense to attack chance.

~D

However, +20 ac is worth 5 levels and 20 bc is nearly 7 so the trade off isn't worth it, hence barehanded is better. I liked some of your suggestions but I feel that your daggers have to high a critic chance and should never do 0 damage. But i do agree with a weapon balance and in particular boss drops should better than bought items, such as chainmail being better than the stone armour. Also the poisonous dagger is the best dropped weapon despite it being from an early boss. Flagstaff's sword should be much better than it is and do the same damage at least as the steel longsword.

The crit chance is high yes, but notice that it is only for 50% of your base damage instead of the existing 300%, thus the actual overall damage of the weapon would actually be lower. Gotta take in all aspects when it comes to balancing. Trust me I did quite a bit of work on those numbers.


As for the AC versus BC you are correct, my own mind though I feel it is better to finish a mob off in one round of hits rather than not so making sure I hit versus protecting myself was my priority, once you get to higher levels and can put more points into AC then yes I'd probably drop the dagger.

~D

[allanon]

thanks for the replies guys.
I can see the weapon would be an advantage to use at lower levels but as soon as your character starts getting to level 25+ then with a decent Attack Chance%, you dont really miss the weapon's 21%. Its only the critical you might miss and thats just a 10% chance. Perhaps if Flagstone sword had a 30% crit chance and more attack damage, then it be definitely worthwhile.

Of course the simplest way to make the weapon more effective would be to give it the same AP as bare handed. I know this wouldnt seem logical, but then again it is a 'magic' weapon so it could be made of some super light metal perhaps that doesn't cost any extra time to swing. Then you'd get the full benefits of its crit hits, damage etc.

Yes, hoping they look at weapons in this next release and how to make them more useful to higher level players especially.

[Dreia]

Just a note, versus the trainers you want at least 140 AC in order to land at all effectively, even then I can sometimes go 3 rounds (15 attacks) to land the 3 hits I still need to kill them (one more level and that drops down to 2 hits) If you can do it in 2 hits then the AP isn't *quite* as important though I'd still stick with at least 140. Also even at only 30% defense to their 90% attack I still see a lot of misses on their part so I haven't been particularly traumatized by loosing the 20% block. I am averaging now about 150ish large hp vials per 100 spent bonemeal potions, so I'm actually breaking even money wise just on those. Often I can clear an entire room on a single potion (and sometimes I need 2 potions on a single mob. . .)

~D

[Mino]

Interesting discussion, I'll have to give the barehanded fighting a try sometime.

I have a question for anyone playing the Alpha test version for 0.6.9...is the Heart Stone quest going to be complete-able after the update? The smith who talks about it mentions that it would allow for more powerful weapons, so I was just curious.

Thanks, if anyone can answer!