UO Second Age

Hello! I have seen a lot on the forums about fencing vs swords for a combat skill. When I first made my character I was just "remaking" my fav. character from osi so long ago with fencing/parry/anat./heal and archery(I don't remember my other skills, I changed them as patches changed things..I know at one time I had archery, at another time I was working magery.

What I am wondering is if fencing is even worth it for a mainly PvM character here? I made the character previously to use kryss and hit fast and add up the damage, plus to keep DP daggers ready for any pks but I am confused by what I am reading and don't know if fencing is the way to go. Should I just switch over to swords before working to get GM?

I would appreciate any input or knowledge about this all.

Sulta wrote:Hello! I have seen a lot on the forums about fencing vs swords for a combat skill. When I first made my character I was just "remaking" my fav. character from osi so long ago with fencing/parry/anat./heal and archery(I don't remember my other skills, I changed them as patches changed things..I know at one time I had archery, at another time I was working magery.

What I am wondering is if fencing is even worth it for a mainly PvM character here? I made the character previously to use kryss and hit fast and add up the damage, plus to keep DP daggers ready for any pks but I am confused by what I am reading and don't know if fencing is the way to go. Should I just switch over to swords before working to get GM?

I would appreciate any input or knowledge about this all.

As a PvM template, Fencing would be okay. The major difference between T2A OSI and this shard in regards to fencing, deals with PvP.

Despite the best and most ernest of efforts of the staff, the fencing mechanics will seem a little off. We Dexxers can remember how things played as much as we want but unless someone wrote something in 1999 that can be referenced or have Richard Garriott step in and vouch for us, there's little real prospect of correction.

The Kryss and daggars will not be as fast as you may remember them and partially because of that things feel just a little more tilted towards magery than what you may have experienced. That’s to be understood as most players here only know of era Tank Mages and the spell-insta hally hit combos. As long as that’s working as well or better than production OSI then everything is A-OK.

Example of memory of real OSI vs current shard mechanics: You mentioned DPed daggars for PKs... unless you are talking about newbied DP daggars you can use upon ressing or for multiple weapon switch-outs to increase your chance of landing a DP spike, there's no benefit to using a daggar over a kryss. The Kryss if faster here and always hit harder. For the fastest speed though just use a katana.

Yeah... I know... Imagine that. The only advantage a fencer had was fast interruption and poison delivery. Swords now has that advantage. How does that compare to your recollection?

For PvM you may be okay with Archery but you should think about magery. That way you can get around and pull off a couple emergency heals, poison, para, recall when you need.

If you are thinking PvP, then picking up the sword will be a good idea. You’ll be competing for magic weapons but it’s what gives you the fastest and hardest hitting weapons here so that’s the trade off. You may not find a vanq hally but you'll have a 40+ HP poisoned pole arm and what could be better than that?

For me.. I'm kinda tore. I have a 7xGM dexxer just like my OSI character, just different name. I play mostly for nostalgic reasons so I'm having a hard time switching weapons. It kind of reminds me of how my PvP characters became obsolete overnight with UO:R. Even then I didn't want to change them and you know what? I didn't.

for pvm fencing is fine, but swords will give you many more weapon types to chose from and will be a lot easier to get quality magic swords than fencing weapons

I dropped swords for fencing...and of course I have archery. Course, in my case I can't use a katana because orcs dont' use katana's and I roleplay an orc (www.bloodrock.org) and fencing's speed gives me the mage disruption I need.

Also, ill sign my name to the list of people who still feels fencing isn't quite right.

Fencing was faster, but not much.. it's a .2 difference or something from a kryss to kat. I personally have never had a problem with katanas, they've always handled mages in the same way fencing does.

Thanks for all the information! I really appreciate the help. I'll have to think about which way to go with the swords vs fencing but I am pretty sure I am going to train Magic instead of archery (I'm glad someone mentioned that!)

Thanks for the input it's given me a lot to think about!

I still believe those that think fencing was different continues to mistake the pre t2a fencing for the t2a. Here are the exact statistical values for a Kryss and Katana in the '99 table.

---------
'99 Table
---------
Katana
Speed: 58 "100 Dex = 1.3s, 25 Dex = 2.0s"
Damage: 5-26

Kryss
Speed: 53 "100 Dex = 1.4s, 25 Dex = 2.2s"
Damage: 3-28
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The trade off for the both of these weapons are quite obvious. The kryss can deal more or less damage than the katana and swing slightly slower. It was the complete opposite in the previous table.

Faust wrote:I still believe those that think fencing was different continues to mistake the pre t2a fencing for the t2a. Here are the exact statistical values for a Kryss and Katana in the '99 table.

---------
'99 Table
---------
Katana
Speed: 58 "100 Dex = 1.3s, 25 Dex = 2.0s"
Damage: 5-26

Kryss
Speed: 53 "100 Dex = 1.4s, 25 Dex = 2.2s"
Damage: 3-28
----------------------------------------

The trade off for the both of these weapons are quite obvious. The kryss can deal more or less damage than the katana and swing slightly slower. It was the complete opposite in the previous table.

This is the sticking point Sulta. There's a stratics table that the mechanics here are based off of that seems to go against the memory of every T2A fencer I know of.

Looking at Faust's data, you can see that in 10 seconds the fencer loses an entire swing to a katana swordsman, and about 5-26 HPs accordingly. I think we ALL who had Fencers on OSI would have noticed this muy Pronto don't you?

Also, with the wider spread, there is a chance of causing more damage with the kryss than kat, but that's tempered by equal chance of casing 2 less dmg points. So basically, the kryss is slower AND less consistant.

Probably of importance here is for you to clue us into when you played your fencer? Was it before or after May '99? That's the milestone Faust is speaking of when he said...

Faust wrote:I still believe those that think fencing was different continues to mistake the pre t2a fencing for the t2a.

There is reason to believe the '99 table was also introduced in late '98. The reason for this is discussed in a thread that I started in suggestions to test out the '98 table that I spoke of in this thread. Here is that thread below.

http://forum.uosecondage.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3177

Kaivan explains the details for that reasoning. I'm still on the fence for the whole topic. However, the '99 table is probably more than likely to be the accurate table. The evidence based on the patch notes back it up pretty good. I also personally thought the Kryss was faster. However, I'm more than likely mistaking my pre-t2a experiences for this reasoning. I'm sure a lot of people always assumed a kyrss was faster when they made it dex based on your swing speed, since that is when it became so popular for its speed.

Oh wow, ok the fencing vs swords speed thing is way beyond me ...I have no idea why I thought I was supposed to be getting slightly lower damage with more hits that pretty much equaled out with a katana but would interrupt more often. I can't even remember which year I started playing but I do remember that the first time I bought and installed UO the "Lost Lands" that came on my cd were brand new to the people who had been playing a long time.

So what I am reading with things the way they are is that Katana are faster and more constantly hit the numbers, sword weapons have more options meaning wider range of magic weapons available but there are more sword players making magic swords in higher demand?

Also is it the same no matter what your stats are at? I mean, If I decide to work magic and resist raising my int with some points from dex will that affect swords differently than fencing?

Thanks for all the info guys!

Ronk wrote:I roleplay an orc

cute