Advice on change from THW to Board and OHB

[Kazner]

looking to get some feedback on changing my warrior up. I am getting tired of THW hunting. I was thinking about going to board and OHB or OHE. I currently am fully bonded to a katana hence why I am debating on changing to a OHB.

My warrior is level 40 master of COL. Here is my current training:

Skills:
Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Armor Use..........................| 226 126
Combat Maneuvers...................| 182 82
Two-Handed Weapons.................| 184 84
Multi Opponent Combat..............| 130 35
Physical Fitness...................| 182 82
Dodging............................| 182 82
Harness Power......................| 15 3
Survival...........................| 141 41
Perception.........................| 141 41
Climbing...........................| 96 22
Swimming...........................| 96 22
First Aid..........................| 141 41

I would still like to be able to skin effectively. I guess my question would be if I change to a shield, how should I train in Dodge? I was thinking 1x so I can fully train in shield and either OHB or OHE. If by doing this will the shield use offset the dodge?

Also what would be recommended for this build OHE or OHB?

Lastly for CM with a shield is shield bash the most effective or shield charge?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[Chaotic Tempo]

http://lmktfy.net/?q=shield

Might want to read up on shields. You have a ton of decisions and calculations to make to optimize your DS.

Basically you need to pick a shield size. You can choose not to put any points in dodge and 2-3x in shield use, which with larger shields will significantly increase your DS.

[tallkris3]

If you go with board and OHB/OHE as a warrior you should triple in shield and grab a tower shield.

On top of that make sure to max out block and parry mastery.

With that combo I bet I block/parry something like 50% of all swings at me for a like level critter, and while that drops off a little for over hunting it doesn't drop that far off.

I got 50 ranks of ambush and that's more then enough to hit the head/neck the majority of the time and with the AS you can generate as a warrior that's often enough to crit kill a lotta stuff.

Shield bash is pretty decent and I've only got 3 ranks... at 5 ranks I suspect it would own being I'm tripled in shield.

[Archigeek]

Shield bash is very effective against some critters, useless against others. I agree that you should train as much as you can in shield use, though at your level, tripling isn't really quite necessary. 2x shield 1x dodge is do-able at your level, then gradually inscrease the shield training as you can.

You will be losing what is really the only advantage of big weapons: big DF's, so you need to make use of the advantages of smaller weapons: easier to aim and mstrike with. Also, consider a secondary attack method, such as hurling or twc.

[Kazner]

Thank you all for the advice! Allot of good info!

[Chaotic Tempo]

Just poked my head into the rogue folder and thought to come back here and check your ambush training.

If you're planning to drop the slaughter power of THW you should consider snatching up ranks in ambush. Being able to aim at legs and heads will significantly decrease the time it takes to get kills.

What race is your warrior? What stats does he have? With enough AGI/DEX you could be open-aiming at the same RT as your normal attack using OHE/OHB.