Dual weapons skill - worth the points???

[justindavis]

I plan to start a new party, and I want to focus more on dual weapons skill for my Lord. She was worthless at this as far as I could tell. Is there a good way to judge if she is using both weapons in close combat. Example - she has the ivory blade as her primary and the vampire chain as her secondary primary, but she never uses the chain in close range combat.

Is there any way to judge if she is being a slacker, and could her skill points in dual weapons being around 60 have anything to do with this?

[Kakero]

In beginning, dual wield seems sucks becasue you'll always miss as your skills is too low. just make his dual weapon skill and respective weapon skills high. he'll be able to connect his hits.

[Morlac]

Originally posted by justindavis: I plan to start a new party, and I want to focus more on dual weapons skill for my Lord. She was worthless at this as far as I could tell. Is there a good way to judge if she is using both weapons in close combat. Example - she has the ivory blade as her primary and the vampire chain as her secondary primary, but she never uses the chain in close range combat. Is there any way to judge if she is being a slacker, and could her skill points in dual weapons being around 60 have anything to do with this?

I think we're talking about two different things here!

Dual weapons skill means using weapon A in the primary (right) hand and weapon B in the secondary (left) hand, during the same round of combat. Both A and B must be short-range one-handed weapons, and at least one of them (weapon B in the left hand) must specify that it's usable in the secondary hand in its description.

The equipment screen actually has up to *four* weapon slots. Primary/Secondary and Alternate Primary/Secondary (my manual has a picture of this with callout titles on p. 38 -- your mileage may vary). Within a pair, it works as I described above. However, you can also toggle between pairs -- and the game will do it for you if you set it to autoswitch weapons -- at the beginning of each round. Ordinarily this would be something like a sword/dagger and bow/arrows. In close range, you might swing the sword and dagger each during the round, but at longer ranges you'd switch to the bow and arrows and simply fire that.

What it looks like justindavis did was set the Ivory Blade as his weapon A in his primary hand and set the Vampire Chain as his weapon A in his *ALTERNATE* primary hand slot. He then switched back and forth between the two automatically after each round, but would never have gotten a chance to use both in the same round. (And besides, since neither is actually usable in the secondary hand, this wouldn't have worked as a dual weapon pairing.)

Usable secondary hand weapons include IIRC all daggers, most or all wands, only two swords (both samurai weapons), only two mace/flails, and only one axe

The way that dualing works is that a massive penalty is applied to both hands (more to the secondary than the primary). Each point of dual wpn skill erases a bit more of that penalty. Your 60 dual skill is pretty good, and you should be doing well with it if properly equipped and if you actually have decent skills with the weapons you're using and with close combat.

[justindavis]

So Morlac - How do I tell if a weapon is eligible to be in the Primary B spot? Is there a list? A designation in the manual?

The game normally won't allow you to equip a character incorrectly. Example - you have a spear, and you can't have a second primary weapon. However with this, I can fight with Ivory Blade in one hand, and Fang in the other. Both are primary close range weapons.

I understand the difference between ranged combat primary along side a close combat weapon and the auto-switch feature. I just want to see if my Lord is actually using the alt primary weapon in close combat. If not, it makes sense to replace that with a bow so she can hit ranged targets.

[the mighty stamar]

Justin you are confusing alternate weapons with secondary weapons.

The character will auto switch to a ranged or long alternate weapon if they cant hit with their first weapon


Ok from left to right you have your primary alternate, your primary, your secondary and your secondary alternate.

Fang will not go in any secondary slot. Neither will the vampire chain. The way you have it set up, is you character will auto switch to the chain when a monster is at longer range. The weapon you are dual weilding will go in the second slot, where ammo goes


Normally you will have your weapon set up like this box 1 bow, box2 sword, box 3 wakasushi or main gauche, box 4 arrows.

Once you have this figured out most of your questions will answer themselves.

Dual weilding is attacking in the same round with the primary (or alternate) and the secondary(or alternate) without dual weilding skill your attacks with your secondary weapon will miss.

[ 04-25-2003, 10:14 PM: Message edited by: the mighty stamar ]

[Morlac]

Originally posted by justindavis: So Morlac - How do I tell if a weapon is eligible to be in the Primary B spot? Is there a list? A designation in the manual? The game normally won't allow you to equip a character incorrectly. Example - you have a spear, and you can't have a second primary weapon. However with this, I can fight with Ivory Blade in one hand, and Fang in the other. Both are primary close range weapons. I understand the difference between ranged combat primary along side a close combat weapon and the auto-switch feature. I just want to see if my Lord is actually using the alt primary weapon in close combat. If not, it makes sense to replace that with a bow so she can hit ranged targets.

Justindavis --

I think you're getting hung up on the terminology. Duals don't involve what you called the "Primary B" slot.

You are putting the second melee weapon into the "Alternate Primary" box and thinking "hey, that works, because they are both primary weapons -- lucky for me!" What we're trying to explain is that you have to think of the "Alternate Weapon" slots (both primary and secondary) as if they were a big sack slung over your shoulder. At the beginning of each round, you can dump whatever you are currently holding in your hands into the sack and switch it for whatever was previously in the sack. To use your example, when you have Ivory Blade out and swinging, Fang is in the sack taking a nap, and vice versa. You could make those switches for a hundred years and it would have nothing to do with dual weapons...

In order to make use of the dual weapons skill, you have to have a weapon in the secondary weapon slot -- the one which you would ordinarily have a shield in, which would be crossed out if you were using a 2-handed weapon like a spear. To answer your question, yes there is an easy way to tell whether a weapon can be used as your secondary weapon -- right click on it to pull up the description and it will say something like either "Primary Weapon" or "Primary Weapon, Secondary Weapon"