Posted by Taithin on October 27, 2000 at 05:37:53:
In Reply to: question on parry posted by Backslider on October 26, 2000 at 17:13:07:
> I was wondering about the difference in effectiveness between weapons. It appears some weapons parry better than others... how are some methods of finding this out for myself? - or can any of you simply break it down? I was wondering about axe parrying specifically.
Much of this is roughly common sense, if you think about the weapon, and how easily it would be to block another weapon with it.
Staff/Spear - Two-handed stick. Pretty easy to block with.
Polearm - Another two-handed item, but it's more a small sword at the end, and tends to be designed more to point at someone, rather than sideways to defend.
Sword - Large piece of metal, entire weapon can be used to parry. Usually has a nice crossguard to protect your hand too.
Mace - Difference between it and a staff is size and using one hand. Can still use most of it to parry, but they are generally made more to harm than defend.
Axe - Small proportion of metal on a handle. Not much blade to parry with, and like a mace, you really don't want a weapon getting close to your hand if you parry with the handle. Awkward, but can be done.
Dagger - Well, uhm...it's a really small piece of metal. You can guess why it'd be alot harder to block that huge mace with your puny dagger.
Whip/Flail - *shudder* It's not even a solid item. Block something with it, and your whip/flail will just bend out of the way.
Exotic - Anything from a bar chair to a tree branch to an animal's claw (dragon claws are often seen in the MUD). These, in reality could parry at varying degrees (Chairs seem to parry rather well), but for the MUD's purposes, all exotic's tend to parry rather poorly, I think.
*Hand to hand - You can parry with hands, but only causing damage reduction, rather than no damage. I've no idea how well it works, and they also have ironhands to compensate parry, if you're a hand to hand spec warrior.
*Invoker's frost fingers, channel heat, shocking touch - I've not compared to other weapons, but you can parry without a weapon while using these spells, and it seems to be a moderately decent amount. Not sure where it fits on the list.
If you notice, the more defensively thought of weapons are up top, and offensive/maledicting weapons at the bottom. This isn't the exact order of effectiveness, but it should give a rough idea. Warrior's who specialize in a weapon type will sometimes get extra defensive abilities too. (See Dio's Warrior Specs section)