Lance or Maul?

[Jelten]

I have a 6x (+30) maul that will be T2 on Thursday.
I have a 6x (+27) lance that is T2 now.

Both are perfect forges.

In the long run, as a warrior, is there a practical or mechanical difference between Maul and Lance? I'm in Voln if that matters.

Just looking for thoughts/suggestions before I bond to and spend the money to make one of them T3+ and, in effect, hitch my wagon to a weapon type.

[Astray]

Race is important.

[Jeril]

I think it depends on your goals. I used a maul because Jeril is a giant and he just isn't going to be ambushing with a lance in 6 seconds. When picking a weapon having the lowest possible ambush rt is something I want.

[Jelten]

Ah, right, race.

Dark elf.

[Whirlin]

Race is important.
Racist... But you're right, all depends on what RT you can handle. Whatever you can swing in the minimum time, typically.

As far as the weapon, it's dependent on target, aiming, etc. I wrote an app for that...
http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?98570-Whirlin-s-Damage-Crit-Comparing-Spreadsheet

[Jelten]

Thanks folks.

I think I'll probably just stick with the maul since there does not seem to be an overly compelling reason to go either way. Tired of migrating skill points and starting the bonding process over and over, too.

[Tumbadoo]

Charge is one of the best maneuvers in the game (in my opinion anyway). It requires a poke arm. This ability alone would sway me.

[khorpulent]

If your AGI/DEX is 53 or higher, consider the lance. The lance has a min RT of 9, and the maul 7, so the lance is much slower. Still, with a 53 AGI/DEX you'll be able to swing either 5. The maul will have a significant advantage if you want to mstrike or ambush. With a lance, you'll have a 10 sec rt to ambush 2 targets at that AGI/DEX threshold and I think maybe 12 for 3? Can't quite remember, cause my guy is an elf and gets the full -5 from the AGI/DEX bonuses.

If you like to berserk a lot, use the lance. It's pretty slow when mstriking in normal combat, but since there's no roundtime, a lance is absurdly effective when berserking.

Charge is nice, but it costs 20 stamina and has a 7 sec rt. I almost never use it any more, except when I'm trying to show off.

The lance has as significantly higher DF against all armor types, although you'll probably want to learn that CM that lets you specify the damage type. I just have rank 1 to get 75% crush.

My warrior has used a lance all the way from 0-100 and I love it, but there are definitely pros and cons. I think polearms also give you a slight DS boost, but it's not a really significant amount.

[Jelten]

Don't feel like making a new thread, so I'll just ask here and if someone sees/replies, then great.

How viable is sword+board warrior now? I've been THW or Polearm warrior literally the entire time up to 62 (current level) because sword+board was, in my estimation, painfully slow back in GS3 when I actually made my warrior.

With shield maneuvers and such these days, can you actually kill things quickly as a sword+board warrior? I'd consider giving it a shot if it isn't going to slow down my killing of mobs to a crawl. (Voln, so no warcamp considerations if that even matters.)

[Astray]

Shields have a fuck load of cmans now and warriors get all of them. I think they get all of them. If not, they get a majority.

[Donut]

How viable is sword+board warrior now? I've been THW or Polearm warrior literally the entire time up to 62 (current level) because sword+board was, in my estimation, painfully slow back in GS3 when I actually made my warrior.


Sword and board can be very effective, and pretty quick. My recently capped warrior has been using a shield with a katar for many levels, and i used shield with 1handed spear before that. Get enough ambush so that you can reliably ambush eyes and both wind up being very effective at getting quick kills.

A warrior with 3x training in shield gets lots and lots of shield maneuver points, which makes the build pretty fun.

[Nahkaev]

germane to this thread-- my warrior took up shields/poles. it gives me the option of using a trident (a highly underrated base) with a shield, while also giving me the option to whip out a lance when i don't need any defense or access to shield maneuvers. I don't really ambush things I just rely on a stupidly imbalanced trident, but I can see where stabbing shit in the throat would be fun too.

the build can't really afford to 3x shields as Donut mentioned (at least, i can't find a way to make it fit), but I find that at 2x I still have access to everything I want.



Shields have a fuck load of cmans now and warriors get all of them. I think they get all of them. If not, they get a majority.

they get *almost* all of them. there are some rogue-oriented cmans that are rogue only i think. For small shields if memory serves

[Gnomad]

The lance has as significantly higher DF against all armor types, although you'll probably want to learn that CM that lets you specify the damage type. I just have rank 1 to get 75% crush.Unless they changed Precision to work with AMBUSH, it's really only useful against creatures with a damage resistance. I guess that's not bad for 4 CM points, but it's not really a priority.


Shields have a fuck load of cmans now and warriors get all of them. I think they get all of them. If not, they get a majority.
I haven't used it, but I've heard really good things about Shield Trample.

[Jeril]

Trample always looks like fun but I can't justify to myself spending the points on it. I am also in voln and for me symbol of sleep > trample.

Warriors might actually have access to all the shield maneuvers but they are also somewhat divided into the small sizes(small and medium) and large sizes(large and tower) as far as requirements to use them go. Some are also just better when using a particular size of shield.

Sword and board has always been viable but with shield maneuvers it is a lot better. The biggest issue most people have is that it isn't that great in the low levels. Once you get up there you can easily aim your shots and pile on some extra MoC for those focused strikes to quickly dispatch foes. I use a shield and spear but it is something I've done postcap and I don't always use the shield either. Kind of useless in the scatter with destroyers having sunder shield and on plane four I'd rather have that little extra power from using the spear two-handed. I do use the shield in OTF and Nelemar often enough. It has also came in handy during invasions.

[Lord Orbstar]

My warrior is OHB and Tower Shield. Pretty unkillable and very fun. Doing CMANs is for flavor and not all that important for the kill at high level of cap . Just fun. Lots of it.

[Jelten]

My warrior is OHB and Tower Shield. Pretty unkillable and very fun. Doing CMANs is for flavor and not all that important for the kill at high level of cap . Just fun. Lots of it.

What shield "maneuvers" do you recommend, based on your experience?

And thanks for the replies, everyone.

[Vorpodu]

Seriously with shield maneuvers, combat maneuvers, and warrior guild, warriors have more options than most to keep combat interesting. Its what makes them so popular.

[Jelten]

With 3x shield use and a tower shield... 1x dodge? 0.5x? 0x? What's the current conventional wisdom?

[Donut]

I dropped dodge to 0x to go with 3x shield and haven't missed it.

[Astray]

With 3x shield use and a tower shield... 1x dodge? 0.5x? 0x? What's the current conventional wisdom?

1x 4 lyfe

[Jeril]

I'd say to go with 0 dodge and spend those points on other things like armor, moc, magic skills for spell burst off the top of my head. I'd likely consider dodge a postcap goal for a shield using warrior unless you were deciding to forgo magic skills altogether.

[allen]

Didn't want to start a new thread with this question. Can someone remind me the AGI/DEX needed to swing a lance in 6 seconds?

[Carsyn]

Lance base speed is 9 seconds... https://gswiki.play.net/Lance

You'd need to cut 3 seconds off so that's a minimum of 38... https://gswiki.play.net/Roundtime

[allen]

Great links, thank you!

Makes me almost want to switch to a maul until I'm able to swing lance in 5 seconds.

[Carsyn]

I don't swing a lance, but I believe they're popular AIMed with their high fatality rate on head, neck, and eye shots. That adds an additional 3 seconds though, but that too can be trained off with higher agidex. So higher the better!

[allen]

Lance is definitely superior when it comes to crits as opposed to maul but until I master berserk or can swing one in 5 seconds, maul might suit me better. But I just got the chaos lance and it's so fun..

[khorpulent]

I don't swing a lance, but I believe they're popular AIMed with their high fatality rate on head, neck, and eye shots. That adds an additional 3 seconds though, but that too can be trained off with higher agidex. So higher the better!

The problem is that, because the lance is the biggest and slowest weapon in the game, it is also the hardest to aim. Even with a 70 AGI/DEX my warrior ambushes with a lance in 7 seconds, and maybe hits his target 60% of the time.

Why aim when you can berserk?

(Of course, there are plenty of situations when berserking is maybe not the best idea, but I pretty much just hunt warcamps and bandits so maybe my view of this is a bit skewed).

[Ososis]

Just a minor point. But precision rank 1 give you 75% controlled damage type. But you can still get that damage type in the remaining.

Lance, 33% crush 66% poke with 1 rank of crush precision would put you at 83% crush
Falchion 66% crush 33% slash with 1 rank of crush precision would put you at ~92% crush

It should be noted that precision does NOT work while ambushing, but DOES work during MSTRIKES.