Alternatives to Long blades

[Balyn Mantear]

I've been looking at a lot of weapons other than long blades, but none just seem to give me the same kind of edge. (Bladeforms aren't a factor, yet)

Polearms sounded nice, but I haven't found one that gives anywhere near the same defense or the damage.
Flails are obviously not as good afaik.
Clubs are interesting, but obviously not suited to anything but armor. I'd consider them if I changed gear.

Those are the only weapons i have experience with. What do other people use and why?

[Ganelon]

Just pointing out - you're not seeing all the capabilities.

Polearms can dismount riders.
Flails can multi-hit everything you're engaged on
Etc.

[Joim]

I myself have been looking for other alternatives to long blades.

Flails are nice because they have the chance of hitting multiple opponents. This chance seems fairly low though, it doesn't roll to hit all your opponents every time, and even when it does there is still a decent chance of it missing. From what I've seen long blades are better. More damage, more defense, and there are bladeforms that hit multiple opponents. If the chance of hitting more than just your primary target was higher for flails, it might be worthwhile. As it is though, it's simply out classed.

I had yet to notice the ability to dismount opponents while I was using polearms, that is kind of cool. At the same time however, just how useful is it really? Is it worth sacrificing the extra defense and damage, and the abilities that bladeforms give?

Daggers can stab which can be really nice, and they give pretty good defense from what I've seen when I used them. The ability to stab, and potentially also backstab should not be discounted at all, however the drawback to them is of course sub-par melee damage and the fact that you need to be up close to be able to hit anything with any sort of reliability.

I have not used staves, however I have heard that they give quite superior defense against two opponents and can also hit two opponents at a time. I imagine they also have sub-par damage when compared to long blades.

I cannot comment really on other types of weapons as I have either not heard much about them, nor used, nor seen them being used. I have seen that spears can stab, but not having used them know little to nothing else about them.

There are a number of different maximum damage long blades. From what I have seen and used, they all seem to have fairly good defensive ability and can be used from the rear position making them quite superior to most other types of weapons. Mostly what it seems to boil down to is even blade forms aside, long blades appear to be a superior weapon type in and of itself. With the addition of blade forms on top of that, aside from some small specialized things(stab for example), every other class of weapon is quite obsolete. As far as I can see, the only reason to go with a weapon other than a long blade is for RP purposes, and then you're taking a hit to your abilities in combat because of that.

[Ganelon]

For the record -

Weapons need a drastic overhaul to make them all balanced, both class against class and various weapons within a class. We've been aware of this for a long time.

However the logistics of undertaking this task is something of a nightmare when you're looking at over ten years of multiple builders doing their own thing.

Consider this alone: I think at last count, Talion said there was over sixty types of short blades on the MUD.

Aside from this awesome amount of sorting for every weapon class, there's the matter of balancing classes against each other. Either some weapons have to have stats pulled up, or others have to be pulled down. Both have their own inherent problems.

This is a task nobody has time for at the moment unfortunately. I think to do it properly would require months of cross referencing stats, editing, testing, etc.

What I'd like to see myself is a ton of these extraneous weapon and armor products nuked out of the game. It would solve a lot of problems in trying to streamline things. This too also has it's issues - existing kits, items in player rents, etc.

A total weapons overhaul is something I've wanted to do for a long time - and do mean to get to - but don't look for it soon.