So I'm playing a new save on 1.0.6 on realistic, working my way up in the arena in Revyl and the final fight is a Spear and Shield duo.
I dropped my spear and shield [discarded in the top left of the screen] and proceeded to beat the spearman to death with my bare hands and came out on top.
He was wearing some decent gear and punches don't do much damage [see the blunt damage log in pink on the screenshot] - so he got got 2 stabs in on me (each taking about 1/3 of my health off), one on the neck area the other in the gut before I KOed him.
Now this is a weird case, sure, as I doubt anyone is going to go onto a battlefield just using their fists (Unarmed skill line when? lol), and you can get inside a spear's minimum stab range easily with fists, but it does illustrate what a weird state spears are in:
- Polearms and Glaives are disgustingly strong, you can glide through a battlefield atop a horse decapitating scores of enemies - but they do poorly in enclosed areas like castle sieges.
- Thrown weapons (and bows) can one-hit-kill in some cases whilst giving you the safety of distance and most can be flipped to use melee as a last resort
- (though I've just discovered in the practice arena that you cannot use Throwing Axes as melee axes, too, for some odd reason?)
- Lances, on a fast horse, when couching, deliver a blow so strong they can set off a small mushroom cloud on impact, and they let you mow down out-of-position infantry.
- Most 1H and 2H blunt and blade weapons swing in a wide arc letting you guarantee a hit or can be thrusted in confined areas - and they can do a lot of damage with each swing. Just like spears they benefit from shields.
- (2h Axes are particularly deadly, both on foot and horse - I havent seen many 2h maces/mauls at all yet? so cant comment on them).
- They're really only deadly en masse - and it feels like their damage has been balanced so that they need to be used en masse too, unlike most other weapons - it can take more spear thrusts than I'd expect to kill sometimes, even against low-tier enemies, not sure why - this is probably (as I'm not a military historian) historically faithful...
- but it feels crap to use the most precise non-distance weapon in the game and only score a "30" damage (If I miss with my thrust it's less forgiving than a sword whose arc will probably hit them anyway).
- They have one of the longest "vulnerability windows", if you miss your thrust you are exposed for longer than most of the other weapons (even a polearm can horizontally thrash around if you screw things up)
- And they seem to have a minimum stab radius, get close enough to a spear wielder and they just cannot seem to hit you at all. Maybe this is an AI issue, maybe its crap people on MP - so not 100% sure on this one, but it certainly feels like it.
Anyone feel this way - or otherwise - about spears?
Edit:grammar
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