Notes: This test was conducted only with mantakaya, no other venoms were used on any of the weapons. Nor were parrying or stances used in it. It should also be noted that Xenthos has only Capable Resilience that had a large effect on the results of the venom part of the testing. But at the time, I could find no other partner.

Info

Test Dummy - Me
Relevant Skills:
Transcendent Pureblade
Transcendent Resilience

Stats:
Strength - 17
Dexterity - 12

Armor:
Great Helm - Cutting Defense: 79 Blunt Defense: 96
Full Plate - Cutting Defense: 94 Blunt Defense: 106

Weapon:
Katana - Damage: 82 Precision: 329 Speed: 277

Test Dummy 2 - Xenthos
Relevant Skills:
Mythical Blademaster
Capable Resilience

Stats:
Strength - 13
Dexterity - 18

Armor:
Great Helm - Cutting Defense: 84 Blunt Defense: 88
Field Plate - Cutting Defense: 83 Blunt Defense: 81

Weapon:
Rapier 1 - Damage: 67 Precision: 224 Speed: 206
Rapier 2 - Damage: 68 Precision: 225 Speed: 206

Testing

Two Hander

01. You swing a vicious katana at Xenthos. You cut his right bicep and blood freely flows down his arm.

02. You swing a vicious katana at Xenthos. You cut his left leg, striking a major artery which splurts blood in all directions.

03. You swing a vicious katana at Xenthos. You cut his chest, leaving a small surface wound.

04. You swing a vicious katana at Xenthos. You cut his left bicep and blood freely flows down his arm.
Horror overcomes Xenthos's face as his body stiffens into paralysis.

05. You swing a vicious katana at Xenthos. You cut his right bicep and blood freely flows down his arm.
Horror overcomes Xenthos's face as his body stiffens into paralysis.

06. You swing a vicious katana at Xenthos. You cut his left arm, striking a major artery which splurts blood in all directions.
Horror overcomes Xenthos's face as his body stiffens into paralysis.

07. You swing a vicious katana at Xenthos. You cut his right bicep and blood freely flows down his arm.

08. You swing a vicious katana at Xenthos. You cut his right bicep and blood freely flows down his arm.

09. You swing a vicious katana at Xenthos. You cut his chest, leaving a small surface wound.

10. You swing a vicious katana at Xenthos. You cleanly cut off his scalp, revealing the bloody skull underneath.
Horror overcomes Xenthos's face as his body stiffens into paralysis.

One Handers

01. With a focused look, Xenthos strikes at you with a baleful rapier of darkened steel. Xenthos strikes powerfully your right leg, and blood fountains out in a thick spray.
With a focused look, Xenthos strikes at you with a baleful rapier of darkened steel. Xenthos strikes your right leg, striking a major artery which splurts blood in all directions.

02. With a focused look, Xenthos strikes at you with a baleful rapier of darkened steel. He stumbles forward as he fails to strike you.
With a focused look, Xenthos strikes at you with a baleful rapier of darkened steel. Xenthos strikes powerfully your right leg, and blood fountains out in a thick spray.

03. With a focused look, Xenthos strikes at you with a baleful rapier of darkened steel. Xenthos strikes your right leg, striking a major artery which splurts blood in all directions.
With a focused look, Xenthos strikes at you with a baleful rapier of darkened steel. You are feebly struck in your right leg with the blade.

04. With a focused look, Xenthos strikes at you with a baleful rapier of darkened steel. Xenthos strikes your right leg, striking a major artery which splurts blood in all directions.
With a focused look, Xenthos strikes at you with a baleful rapier of darkened steel. Xenthos strikes your right leg, striking a major artery which splurts blood in all directions.
A prickly stinging overcomes your body, fading away into numbness.

05. With a focused look, Xenthos strikes at you with a baleful rapier of darkened steel. Xenthos strikes your right leg, striking a major artery which splurts blood in all directions.
You shrug off the effects of the poison.
With a focused look, Xenthos strikes at you with a baleful rapier of darkened steel. Xenthos strikes your right leg, striking a major artery which splurts blood in all directions.

06. With a focused look, Xenthos strikes at you with a baleful rapier of darkened steel. Xenthos strikes powerfully your right leg, and blood fountains out in a thick spray.
With a focused look, Xenthos strikes at you with a baleful rapier of darkened steel. Xenthos strikes deep into your right foot, pinning it down with a baleful rapier of darkened steel. You involuntarily crumple to a crouch and can think of nothing but freeing your impaled foot.
A prickly stinging overcomes your body, fading away into numbness.

07. With a focused look, Xenthos strikes at you with a baleful rapier of darkened steel. Xenthos strikes powerfully your right leg, and blood fountains out in a thick spray.
A prickly stinging overcomes your body, fading away into numbness.
With a focused look, Xenthos strikes at you with a baleful rapier of darkened steel. Xenthos strikes powerfully your right leg, and blood fountains out in a thick spray.
You shrug off the effects of the poison.

08. With a focused look, Xenthos strikes at you with a baleful rapier of darkened steel. Xenthos strikes deep into your right foot, pinning it down with a baleful rapier of darkened steel. You involuntarily crumple to a crouch and can think of nothing but freeing your impaled foot.
A prickly stinging overcomes your body, fading away into numbness.
With a focused look, Xenthos strikes at you with a baleful rapier of darkened steel. Xenthos strikes your right leg, striking a major artery which splurts blood in all directions.

09. With a focused look, Xenthos strikes at you with a baleful rapier of darkened steel. Xenthos strikes powerfully your right leg, and blood fountains out in a thick spray.
You shrug off the effects of the poison.
With a focused look, Xenthos strikes at you with a baleful rapier of darkened steel. Xenthos strikes powerfully your right leg, and blood fountains out in a thick spray.
A prickly stinging overcomes your body, fading away into numbness.

10. With a focused look, Xenthos strikes at you with a baleful rapier of darkened steel. Xenthos strikes deep into your right foot, pinning it down with a baleful rapier of darkened steel. You involuntarily crumple to a crouch and can think of nothing but freeing your impaled foot.
A prickly stinging overcomes your body, fading away into numbness.
With a focused look, Xenthos strikes at you with a baleful rapier of darkened steel. Xenthos strikes deep into your right foot, pinning it down with a baleful rapier of darkened steel. You involuntarily crumple to a crouch and can think of nothing but freeing your impaled foot.

Results

2H Wound Affliction Rate per Swing: 8/10
2H Wound Affliction Rate per Round: 8/10
2H Venom Affliction Rate per Swing: 4/10
2H Venom Affliction Rate per Round: 4/10
Number of Shrugs: 0

1Hs Wound Affliction Rate per Swing: 18/20
1Hs Wound Affliction Rate per Round: 18/10
1Hs Venom Affliction Rate per Swing: 6/20
1Hs Venom Affliction Rate per Round: 6/10
Number of Shrugs: 3

Conclusion

This just highlights the fact that the 2H weapon specs are weaker than the 1H specs in our ability to afflict. It is also the cause for the perception that alot of skills in both 2H skillsets are weak, which they wouldn't be in the hands of a 1H.

I want to point out I'm mythical blademaster as well, which doesn't affect any part of this test (Have legtendon and pinleg, and was hitting his leg).

Hm, question though- wasn't dex supposed to give an increased chance of getting weapon afflictions? We don't have as much of a different in affliction ratio than I would have expected (afflictions per swing, 8/10 versus 18/20). But going into the actual point you're trying to make, most of the afflictions you can give are not going to stack up, pop one herb or sip one vial and I've got that balance back before you attack again.

Your katana is much weaker than your rapier. Find a rapier with around 150 precision for a better comparison to that katana.

That wouldn't really change much, since it wasn't a wound damage comparison test. And even if I had dealt out wounds 10/10, I still would have had a inferior affliction rate compared to the one handers. Also precision has no effect on venom affliction.

This is correct. Wound rate for two-handers is supposed to be less. They should focus on heavy wounding. Thus beheading, for example, should be more common for two-handers than one-handers, which is the trade off for a lessened wounding rate.

That's another problem with 2-handers. Wound afflictions (with the exception of amputation and behead) can be easily dealt with by a simple herb or sip whereas the same afflictions are much more useful for 1-handers because they can stack them.

Well, it just does not balance out. Our wound damage is not significantly higher than the damage that one handers can dealt out with similar precision stats in a combo, tested that awhile ago. There is also the fact that we have nothing like Lunge/Crush to bypass rebounding, parry, or stances. And most of our wounds are swings, which can not be targetted reliably.

There also still remains the lessened venom affliction rate, and lessened overall gain from forging runes, moon/night aura, and artifact stat runes.

The sad part is the higher end precision of 2-handed weapons are not on par with 1-handed ones. It is perhaps most feasible to just use two weapons even as a Pureblade or Axelord to deal out wounding and afflictions, then switch to Claymore or Axe to hope that you can inflict the higher wounding afflictions. If you are even able to hit the desired limbs.

Except...the heavy wounds for two-handers aren't more common at all, beheads or any other critical afflictions are in fact much harder to get with two-handers than with one-handers, since we don't have lunge or crush.

Our wounding is FAR lower than one-hander wounding due to the increased randomness of swings compared to strikes, and more importantly: the lack of lunge and crush.

Everything is lower:

-wounds output is lower.
-wound afflictions are less.
-venom afflictions are less.
-accuracy and control is less (randomess of swings).
-damage output is lower, cause if we miss or get dodged or get parried, all effect is lost, since we don't have a second hit to at least get half of our offense's effect upon our target.

As you can see, the view on two-handers is very skewed, but I'm sure we can manage to balance it.

i have a moderatly fast axe with good woundning and good damage and against anyone who knows how to cure, i just get slapped around, right now as it stands with axelord marcalo is about 1/4 the fighter he was from when he was a bonecrusher, i did more damage and more wounding, i don't really know how to fix this, just figured i would bring it up.

I must say, after playing around for a while with Claymores, I'm noticing that they're pretty paltry in the wounds department and meager in the wounding totals compared to what I was used to with my flails. I have to agree with a lot if not all of the negative feedback regarding their balance vs one-hand equivilants. This coupled with the fact that they forge lower, still appear to have a damage curb on them, and have even less of a chance of inflicting poisons really concerns me.

Had I gone pureblade purely for power purposes, I would be incredibly disappointed.

First, I will freely admit I don't use blades. Love m'staff too much for that.

However...after watching alot of battles, and getting stomped on a few times....two-handed weapons seem to be alot easier to deal with. They don't hit for as much cumulative damage, their wounded is rather easily healed if you just pay attention, and I get more afflictions from the two one-handers than I do the bigger blades. It seems to me that if you plan on these weapons being used adequately, and fairly, they need some kind of upgrade.

I like the idea of increasing the affliction rate alot, they hit half as often as a one-hander does, so they should afflict more often. Besides, think about it. If we go by Roark's thing, where they hit harder/more wounds, that means that whatever poison is layered on the two-handers should be theoreticaly being put deeper into the body. More likely to take effect.

Just my two gold

Silly people taking the shiny new skill before finding out if it's really any good!

Another funny and constructive post from Ceres.

Going back on topic, I think it is not as simple as doubling the affliction rates of 1-handed weapons for 2-handers (although it is a start). This is because most poisons and wound afflictions can be cured easily by a simple herb or a sip of purgative (the exceptions would be charybdon and amputations). Any one with triggers can cure them and get herb/potion balance back before the 2-hander regains balance and strikes again.

What now makes blademasters so much more powerful over other specialisations is that they can stack afflictions as well as having useful and crippling critical wound afflictions to all bodyparts.

AmputateLeg/AmputateArm.

Reeeeally not useful.

I feel sorry for you guys.

I had Athalas hack up my kneecaps and I'm still able to walk, sprint, dance. I think that should be remedied.

I agree that one-handed weapons (duality!) is better than going with the two-handed ones. I don't think that the affliction rate should be increased though. What would be the difference then between bm/bc and al/pb? Style? However, there should be more devastating effects. They should hit slow, but incredibly hard, with more of a chance to end you. I think that is what the admin had in mind in the first place.

Agreed. Personally, I just think they should make Axelords and Pureblade, the damage knights and BC and BM, the afflictions ones.

It does make things rather uninteresting to just kill with pure damage, the dealing out the afflictions should be the main key of it all. The amputates are a good start, because they can only deal out one affliction a 'round', they can hack off a limb that requires three delayed regen cures, isn't it? Good, but severing is quite difficult as it is, difficult to build up those afflictions unless your opponent isn't deep curing in the slightest... just from observation.