1hand or 2hand, bard or cleric - Confused

[tankiller]

Hi,

I've read almost all the guides and suggestions for the warrior class with sub-builds. I have played on a test account up to lvl22 as a warrior using 1hand most of the time, then tried 2hand and found it to kill much faster and powerful, but you lose some of the really nice spells for protection.

I was going to make my real toon as a 2hand warrior sub-bard; but then noticed that almost all the 2hand "Guard Barrier" skill tree is for party's and never yourself, seems kind of useless to me, because I solo for the most part.

However the "Frenzy Buster" skill tree has awesome skills that can be used on yourself. Sadly however the 1hand is not nearly as powerful as the 2hand, and if you use a 1hand skill under "Frenzy Buster" skill tree, once you change back to 2hand..its gone..

So once again, I'm stuck ina rut. I could be the 2hand that I wanted to be, but never use a whole skill tree "Guard Barrier" but have alot of fun with the 2hand

-OR-

Go with the 1hand, use all of the "Frenzy Buster" but have a greatly less powerful wep.

Yes, I know, you can skill both, but really, how many do that? I guess I could, but it only seems like one wep is worth skilling for, so I can put the rest of the SP in either bard for 2hand or cleric for 1hand.

So my question would be, with the pro's and con's posted above, what do most of you all use, use as your main.

Thanks

[Psylonite]

Depends on what you want. 1h is generally better for parties, whereas 2h is more useful for pvp/solo-grinding.

Bard is better for soloing (speed and noise) and as a replacement bard (tambour and mp healing), whereas Cleric is useful in most situations (recovery division, bless spell, holy word/spell). You can also consider subbing in warlock (debuffs, sleep, stun, hp leeching, and maybe bleed DoT) to make up for the 1h's lower offensive capabilities.

Also, there's no stopping you from taking both 1h and 2h; there will be situations where one will be better than the other-- the only downside being needing more sp.

However the "Frenzy Buster" skill tree has awesome skills that can be used on yourself. Sadly however the 1hand is not nearly as powerful as the 2hand, and if you use a 1hand skill under "Frenzy Buster" skill tree, once you change back to 2hand..its gone.

I'm fairly sure the frenzy buster buffs stay on when switching between 1h/2h as long as you don't do something as switching from 2h to shield first instead of 2h to 1h then shield.

Also, at higher levels the gap in offensive power between 1h and 2h falls closer (mainly due to cunning stab and daring berserk), especially at with warlock sub.

I was going to make my real toon as a 2hand warrior sub-bard; but then noticed that almost all the 2hand "Guard Barrier" skill tree is for party's and never yourself, seems kind of useless to me, because I solo for the most part.

The Guard Barrier skills are primarily the reasons (besides tanking and aggression) why Warrior are wanted in parties. You should definitely take them unless you plan to so the entire time.


As for the pros and cons:

1h Pros

• more physical and magical defense
• shield
• knockback and dull in shield
• Faster attacks
• Low chance of receiving critical

1h Cons

• Overall weaker offensive capabilities than 2h
• Slower at leveling up than 2h
• Lack of knockdown
• More expensive to maintain (you have to buy/"alchemize" both Sword and Shield and repair more often)

2h Pros

• High offensive power
• Warcry
• Knockdown, knockback and penetration in skills
• Faster soloing
• High critical rate
• Damage return
• High aggression
• 2h durability goes down slower than 1h
• Cheaper to maintain

2h Cons

• Ridiculously slow attacks overall
• Lower physical defense (and magical defense from shield) than 1h
• Too much knockback in skills (meaning less useful for pulling parties)
• Penetration/AoE in attacks sometimes counterproductive with noise on or when grinding on non-aggressive monsters
• High aggression
• Higher MP usage in skills compared to 1h's skills
• The least wanted type of warrior, meaning you'll probably get banned from parties a lot.