Low Level Pally 1 vs 2 Handed
 

Hello everyone,

Long time listener, first time caller.

First time playing pally, and don't remember if there was nerfs in classic or not. But when you are in that level 1 - 15 range playing a pally. We all have crap weapons. Just curious if anyone has any feedback on better to be 1 handed with a shield or 2 handed with like forged 2 weapon.

Feed back super appreciated

Sword and board for groups and 2h for solo.

You'll want to keep your skills up in both because you'll run into weapons that use everything at one point or another.

The weapons to go for early on:
Bullsmasher
Shining Star of Light
Thunder Staff
Groflah's Stoutbite
Bloodforge Hammer
Deepwater Harpoon
Man-o-War
Screaming Mace
Minotaur battleaxe

As someone else said, it's generally good to keep your skill up in both if you can in order to give yourself some flexibility. However, for Pallys 1HS will probably be your go to the vast majority of the time. Since you have snap aggro spells, you don't really need a 2HS for the extra damage to help with threat generation in the way a Warrior does pre-dual wield. Better off having the extra AC and any stat boosts from a shield.

If you're killing oranges/reds consistently in a group.. sword and board it. If you are destroying blues/evens.. 2h it.

Use best ratio, adjust accordingly.
If fighting NPCs that are casters use 1H+Shield to interrupt heals/nukes/debuffs. Also strafe slide to use bash from their rear 180 arc, has better chance of landing.
If group has ENC haste and NPCs are not casters I recommend using 2H.
I usually prefer 2H as the ratio's are mostly better in classic, especially vs. blue/even cons. 1H tends to fair better vs. yellow/red+.

When you unlock the lvl 10 or lvl 20 dmg caps your 2H may see more potential.

Damage Caps
levels 1-9 - damage cap is 20 - (I used Bullsmasher & T. Halberd)
levels 10-19 - damage cap is 28 - (I used DWHarpoon)
levels 20-29 - damage cap is 60 - (I used DWHarpoon)
levels 30+ - damage cap is lifted, can do 2x weapon damage or more based on class - (I use Ghoulbane)

Side Note: On my 60 WAR I've landed a 1018 damage crippling blow on a Droga Goblin and i've landed a 987 crippling blow on Derakor the Vindicator. Not a Paladin but 2Hs are fun.

At teens levels you'll most likely use whatever magic weapon you can obtain. Later on you'll most likely end up using 1HS (ghoulbane), 2HS (deepwater harpoon, etc), or 2HB (man-o-war). 1HB is not used much until hateplane, and piercing is not generally used much until Velious.

I do not feel it's critical to keep weapon skills current. If you obtain a weapon you're unskilled for you can max it out relatively quickly in a group. The group won't care or likely even notice since they aren't inviting you for your damage anyway. Carrying around a bunch of (usually heavy) weapons for skill-up purposes when weight and carry capacity are real problems is not desirable.

Damage caps do not work exactly like the above poster suggests. You are not actually hard-capped to those damage values (ie, my level 16 Shadow Knight on "Teal" hit for 30). The way it works on melee classes is from levels 1-9 you are capped to the equivalent of a 10-damage weapon, during the teens it's the equivalent of a 14-damage weapon, and during the 20's you get the equivalent of a 30-damage weapons. There are few 30+ damage weapons in this game era so that last one is usually a nonfactor. The distinction is slight but it's something to be aware of. This tends to favor 1H somewhat at lower levels--especially 1-9--because it's difficult to get full performance out of 2H prior to level 20 and especially prior to level 10.

Danth

Oh so the damage caps do not work as listed in the Game_Mechanics on the WIKI... LOL. So okay, there are some more details, such as STR bonus, MH bonus... is that really necessary for this discussion of low level weapon choice? No MH bonus is not really important until higher levels 28+. STR bonus applies to both weapon choices at all times...

https://wiki.project1999.com/Game_Me...bat_and_Damage


MH Bonus

The dmg*2 formula for autoattack is true until lvl 28 where you get 1 bonus damage every 3 levels to your main hand attack. So at level 50 you get 8 extra bonus damage:

Role of STR

As for str, you will notice more effects at later level. It does increase my max damage when I go from 180 (unbuffed) to about 250 (shaman buff). In the end, my main hand 10/21 has a max damage of about 45, so from the formula:

(2*10)+8 = 28
I have an extra 17 damage, I would think that it is all coming from str bonus at my level? Not sure.

The other effect of str is that it raises your ATK (about 1 ATK for 1 str) and the more ATK you have, the more likely you will get high hits.

Two-Handed Weapons

[Main hand bonus] for two handed weapons is a higher value than for 1H that is also based on the weapon delay. See http://lucy.allakhazam.com/dmgbonus.html
Note that the above (live) table is likely incorrect for p1999. The 2H damage bonus was made "classic" (unknown details, ref).

Bullsmasher is like the best ratio DPS youll have until deepwater harpoon or other end-game (classic) items. 6/20 is no joke and smokes most magic weapons. 1HB + shield gets you better DPS than most any other set up (plus, shield and bash).