Fencer Archive

Dearest community, I am going to give some examples of ways that could be used to balance an issue with dual wielding IF it were to be brought up. I know I am no programmer or heavy number cruncher, these are just ballparks. Please feel free to comment (and keep flames down, my wife does a good enough job of that!)

Firstly, themost difficult change would be in the animations. I understand that would be a huge pitfall to overcome, but I have faith in the Art team that they can do it.

On to the balancing proposals... (these could be used in any variation)

HAM Costs higher than normal. ex.) (Weap1HAM + Weap2HAM) x 1.25

Accuracy Reduction. ex.) a 20% reduction in accuracy when dual wielding

Defense Reduction.ex.) a 30% reduction in defense (across the board or just dodge)

Damage Bonus. ex.) (Weap1dam + Weap2dam) x 1.2

Again all the numbers listed here are capable of being changed (and probably would be if implemented). Seeing as we have only one weapon with AP and for the most part damage is on the low end compared to all the other combat professions, the damage would be a little difficult to exploit. The damage on the weapons would be independent of the other, so you would see:

Vilentia Novaflare hits Bob with a Sai Cho for xxx damage!

Vilentia Novaflare hits Bob with a Sai Cho for yyy damage!

Thusly the different AP, if usingaVB with adifferent weapon, would come into play for its own weapon. The reason why there is only 1 Benefit listed in my example (Damage bonus) is due to the fact that with this idea, Dual Wielding would allow a Fencer to "front load" his damage, at the expense of being able to tank as effectively and will end up wearing him/herself out quicker.

Thank you for reading, those of you who actually did. I was bored at work and thought/dreamed this up.

(Be gentle...)

lets just say you even double damage, which would bring us to about Par with other melee in damage output.

double the HAM costs as well no def penalty accuracy penalty

not to flame or anythin, what about speed? would it be added to gether, or would each weapon keep its own speed?

"Defense Reduction.ex.) a 30% reduction in defense (across the board or just dodge)"

Dual wield is DEFENSIVE style. I don't know how people got to thinking it was offensive. It is not. Dual wield allows you to parry double as much. That is main advantage. Offensive it is weak because there is no power behind the two swords.

Dual wield should be an option that improves defensive modifiers by 30% while reducingdamage by 30%.

Andoryu -

I only posted that as a suggestion. You do bring up a good point, being much more of a swordsman than I. Perhaps it could be implemented to be more a defensive style then what I have here. I didn't mean to sound like a bonehead due to my lack of Fencing experience.

Keep the comments coming, and bring the correspondant next time!

I agree that duel wielding should put up defenses, but I don't see how it would make you do less damage. If you have a weapon in one hand your other arm isn't suddenly weaker. Since we only use one hand in the first place how would it take any power away from our attacks when we have a weapon in our other hand? Sorry if this sounds dumb, I'm not a fencer in RL, but I'm just saying what seems like common sense.


Orrykk
Master Fencer
Master Brawler
TKA 3/0/0/4 TKA
Swordsman 0/4/4/2
Medic 4/1/0/0

"I agree that duel wielding should put up defenses, but I don't see how it would make you do less damage. If you have a weapon in one hand your other arm isn't suddenly weaker. Since we only use one hand in the first place how would it take any power away from our attacks when we have a weapon in our other hand? Sorry if this sounds dumb, I'm not a fencer in RL, but I'm just saying what seems like common sense."

Well, you're sort-of right. My experience is in Kendo not fencing, where the choice is use one sword with two hands or two swords with one hand, where you lose power with the main hand.

From what I know of fencing, you would still lose damage using two weapons becausewhen you are using two different weapons you can't put all your power behind one, because it will unbalance you in the other. Sorry, my english is not perfect so this is hard for me to say. But for example, say you want to lunge at someone. When you use one hand one blade, that is fine. But if you are using two blades, then when you lunge fully with one, your other blade is useless because it is too far away. So basically to use both blades right you have to restrict to closer, less powerful attacks to be able to use the other blade too. Because power in sword means using your body, not just your arm, your power suffers when you have to split your bodies power between two blades, if you understand?

Now I must say I'm not entirely sure about this either, my experience is in Kendo, but it should be true for fencers too.

"I only posted that as a suggestion. You do bring up a good point, being much more of a swordsman than I. Perhaps it could be implemented to be more a defensive style then what I have here. I didn't mean to sound like a bonehead due to my lack of Fencing experience."

Sorry, I didn't mean to be mean. It's just becomea standard idea in the West that two-blade fighting is somehow a aggresive technique, but in reality it isn't. That's all. Nothing you said particularly. Sorry for getting annoyed.

Fury-

I don't think we would need to double the damage of the two weapons total, mostly because the effect of the dual wield in my "vision" is the shear number of attacks on a target. This will allow more hits to land and thus doing more damage than we currently do while not really unbalancing the profession. I haven't done alot of PvP, but in PvE I deal enough damage to be noticed and personally don't mind not being up to par with the other professions. As to the double the HAM costs... that would probably kill a non-buffed player in 2 styles. I DO appreciate the comment though, as it shows others out there are still interested in this!

mrmark2000-

I didn't think of that at the time, but I would say either use the slowest of the 2 weapons or the average speed of the two weapons for simplicity's sake. Otherwise the animations would be all screwed up for styles, though it would be nice if the weapons could keep their regular attack phases, but that would seem to be a coders nightmare (again, I have no coding experience).

I really appreciate your guys' responses. Maybe we can get Raph read this and comment on it! Then I will feel really special and get a warm-fuzzy!

Thanks for the attention!

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Andoryu wrote:

It's just becomea standard idea in the West that two-blade fighting is somehow a aggresive technique, but in reality it isn't.

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It could be because there IS a style of florentine that is based upon being extremely aggressive in order to function. It is a technique often seen nowadays in Medieval/Renn Fairs, and so it seems to stick in the minds of those that attend such activities. These types of fairs are quite popular in "the West", so that could be why this vision persists. I have great respect for the Eastern fighting techniques... but they aren't they only ones that exist.

Andoryu-

I didn't mean to suggest that you were mean, on the contrary, you pointed out a good misconception of mine. I appreciate the correction, honestly! I am not one to deny that I can be wrong, as I am quite frequently it seems... both on forums and at the house.

Raphayl-

Nice to see you make an appearance! What do you think of this idea to balance the possibility of dual weilding? I also wantthank you for showing me that my misconception of dual wielding isn't as misconceived as I thought.

As always... thanks for your input.

"It could be because there IS a style of florentine that is based upon being extremely aggressive in order to function. It is a technique often seen nowadays in Medieval/Renn Fairs, and so it seems to stick in the minds of those that attend such activities. These types of fairs are quite popular in "the West", so that could be why this vision persists. I have great respect for the Eastern fighting techniques... but they aren't they only ones that exist."

Hmm, interesting. Thanks for clearing that up. Does that use a sword and a dagger then? That's the only way I could see an offensive two-weapon style working, because the dagger is the only weapon manageable enough in the left hand to allow for the full committment of the right/main hand needed for proper offense.

Some very good insight from a few people.

As it was said, dual wielding is purely defensive. It allows you allow you to parry attacks and slowly cut away at your enemy. Usually the attack is blocked by one sword and with the other you attack a vitial area thatwould hurt your opponents wielding ability. For an example: One sword block other sword slices his arm to make it harder to wield the enemies weapon or a slice to the leg making their mobilty drop. So bascially you defend untill you see an opening and attack a critical area. Another technique with dual short swords is the ability to fake an attack. This allows you to trick an enemy to thinking you're attacking in one way when you're striking with the opposite weapons. The only problem with this is that it leaves you significantly open so it is best to stay defensive.

With wielding dual short sword/weapons you drop strength for speed and defence which is vital. So bascially, this would become the bestso called "tanking"melee character. I'm not good with calculating stats but here arebroad ideasthat might help:

a defensive mode- this mode increases defence/block/dodge a large amount but while in this stance the ability of dishing out damage decreases. When successfull parrying there is an increase chance of hitting your opponent

offence mode- more attacks per round but your defence largely drops

cripling strike- a successfull attack to a critcal area will result in the loss of acuracy and the movement of your opponent

bleed will be your best friend - the abiity to block alot of the incomming attacks will certainly make bleed your best friend since battles will last long in defensive mode

I would think dual wielding would mostly use up your mind pool and action because having a sword in each hand takes quite a bit of focus and movement/stamina

Just some thoughts. Always open to critiques.

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