Andor's Trail

Kindly share...

I am thinking about dual wield or weapon and shield...

because two handed focus on damage, and it's a gamble if our hit will land/crit, and bigger gamble on enemy hit.
and monk, while instantly good and save gold, i could imagine will lag behind later on.

but of course, i like to hear different thoughts.

It depends on what you want. That's why you have a choice. Dual wield is fun, because you get to choose different combinations of weapons. Same for sword and shield. With two-handed you only get to choose one thing, but that can have really high damage. Very good against big, brutish monsters, or ones with high DR. Way of the monk is more of a challenge. If it's your first play through, you might want to avoid that.

Dual wield. This had problems but after recent update it's fine.

Still balancing issues remain in other styles for its great potential for changing tactics. Some essential tweaks are required here.

rijackson741 wrote: ↑Tue May 03, 2022 12:19 am It depends on what you want. That's why you have a choice. Dual wield is fun, because you get to choose different combinations of weapons. Same for sword and shield. With two-handed you only get to choose one thing, but that can have really high damage. Very good against big, brutish monsters, or ones with high DR. Way of the monk is more of a challenge. If it's your first play through, you might want to avoid that.

what's your favorite?

I don't know I've done many different styles except the way of the monk. And have also done the shadow and feygard builds. I like weapon and parring builds better so far

magnus wrote: ↑Tue May 03, 2022 12:22 pm

rijackson741 wrote: ↑Tue May 03, 2022 12:19 am It depends on what you want. That's why you have a choice. Dual wield is fun, because you get to choose different combinations of weapons. Same for sword and shield. With two-handed you only get to choose one thing, but that can have really high damage. Very good against big, brutish monsters, or ones with high DR. Way of the monk is more of a challenge. If it's your first play through, you might want to avoid that.

what's your favorite?

Late game, dual wield, but only because there are more possible combinations of two weapons than there are of weapon and shield. But dual wield is very limited until you can get some higher skills. Early in the game, anything is better than dual wield.

Thank you all for sharing. (Future lurker feel free to post too)

I am killing shadow gargoyle now without much difficulties, so I won't make build decision until i get those rols. I'll keep a save, so if i want to try another build, i won't have to go through rols again. (lol, why the hell did i sell that mikhail's ring)

As for dual wield, i was starting to see some interesting weapons that have block as well.

I like two fighting styles. DW (DoSP + FP/BSS) because I don't have to wait for the monsters to finish their round. I finish them (two or more) in one round already. However, I have come to like 2H weapons (Skullcrusher/Xul'viir) because my damage stats are good enough where some 2H weapons give very nice 100+ damage per hit without crit (Skullcrusher really crushes nicely). Add some critical skill gears into the mix and even those Arulir monsters seem fun to kill in 2-4 hits only. Sadly, Olwyn's curse cannot give 2 hits per round or I would have preferred it.

So I use DW style everywhere except where I have 170+ HP monsters to kill. There, it is 2H style all the way. This way I get consistent fun. For small time monsters 1 round with DW finishes them off. For medium to big HP monsters a 2H weapon kills them fast.

But this consistent fun needs about 285 AC or more and base damage of 50 or more for both styles. Anything less and switching to 2H might become irritating. For example, to kill the toughest spiders and their masters on the way to Remgard my 2H weapon still miss attacks and irritates me while my DoSP + BSS destroys them instantly without ever missing and still leaves AP to attack again. So returning from Remgard the toughest spiders force me to switch my style so that I can still enjoy finishing them off.

Currently, I'm trying to increase more AC and DMG to become full time user of 2H style for every monster because more DMG per hit gives more fun. Ideally I would want to finish off Demonic Arulirs with just two hits.