Dragoon Weaponry

[Takahashi]

As a means of comparison, the stats for spears, polearms (the other weapon type associated with dragoons) and swords (the other weapon type aside from spears that caps at six hits):

-= Swords =-

Short Sword: 8-12 damage, two weight, two hits, 140 gold
Middle Sword: 14-18 damage, five weight, two hits, 280 gold
Rapier: 12-19 damage, four weight, two hits, 360 gold
Long Sword: 24-32 damage, nine weight, three hits, 720 gold
Falchion: 22-28 damage, ten weight, three hits, 640 gold
Broad Sword: 50-60 damage, 13 weight, three hits, 1280 gold
Sabre: 40-50 damage, 14 weight, three hits, 1100 gold
Scimitar: 45-55 damage, 16 weight, four hits, 2000 gold
Bastard Sword: 65-75 damage, 18 weight, five hits, 3200 gold
Claymore: 100-110 damage, 21 weight, five hits, 5200 gold
Great Sword: 115-125 damage, 24 weight, six hits, 7000 gold
Knight Sword: 130-140 damage, 24 weight, six hits, 10000 gold

-= Spears =-

Spear: 11-12 damage, three weight, two hits, 150 gold
Pitchfork: 19-21 damage, seven weight, two hits, 400 gold
Corcesca: 40-42 damage, 12 weight, four hits, 1250 gold
Pike: 43-45 damage, 20 weight, five hits, 3600 gold
War Pike: 46-48 damage, 25 weight, six hits, 6000 gold
Grand Pike: 75-80 damage, 25 weight, six hits, 7000 gold

-= Polearms =-

Bardiche: 20-22 damage, four weight, three hits, 340 gold
Guisarme: 30-33 damage, ten weight, three hits, 840 gold
Poleaxe: 65-70 damage, 15 weight, three hits, 2300 gold
Scythe: 150-155 damage, 21 weight, three hits, 5000 gold
Halberd: 180-190 damage, 28 weight, three hits, 7200 gold

Something to note is that the second-best sword has six hits and better damage than the greatest spear. Also, once you hit Lirea, you have swords that have better average damage than any spear aside from the Grand Pike, with fewer hits being the only thing preventing them from making the War Pike look bad.

Once you hit Anara though, that reasoning doesnt work. Compare the Bastard Sword to the War Pike, then think about why a weapon with five hits and 70 average damage costs almost half as much as a weapon with 47 average damage and six hits. It gets worse in Hassen, where you have a sword with 105 average damage and five hits... and it too is not as expensive as the War Pike.

As for the spears themselves, things look bad from the very start. A Pitchfork costs more and weighs more than the Bardiche. All it has to show for that though is two hits (Bardiche has three) and 20 average damage (Bardiche averages 21). In Lirea, things seem to get better (Lirea's best spear has 41 average damage and four hits). However, once you look at what polearms have to offer, it's not as big a deal (67.5 average damage on a Poleaxe, although the Poleaxe costs almost twice as much).

Things plummet spear-wise from here. Once you reach Anara, you can buy a spear that upgrades your average damage by three and gives you an extra hit for 3600 gold. If you wait until Hassen before buying a new spear, you instead get to spend 6000 gold for +6 average damage and two more hits...

...or you can say 'screw it' and buy a Scythe for 5000 gold, boosting your average damage by 110 and lose one hit compared to the Corcesca. So, you get gouged money-wise for weapons that are barely upgrades over the one you got in the last town if you stick with spears. Why would anyone want six hits with 47 average damage when they can get three hits with 152 average damage?

In summary, spears suck. Hard. Early on in the game they're not as good as polearms sold in the same shop. Later on their damage is horrific; they're treated like daggers in spite of having the same hit cap as swords. The strongest spear in the game isn't much better than a sword you can buy in Anara (Bastard Sword), and is worse than one bought from Hassen (Claymore). That neither of these swords is usable by a Dragoon isn't the point; the point is that they're not top of the line for their weapon type, and yet they're either better or almost as good as a weapon that IS the best of its type.

Something needs to be done, and I think that something is is improving the damage potential on spears. Give them better damage, give them a higher hit cap, or maybe do both.

[Sarm]

Maybe spears could have an exclusive ability to influence damage done with the Jump skill too.

[just2slick4u]

So I am forced to use some shit spear to evoke a certain skill, hardly, I currently don't have a problem with the shitty spears, i.e. I never use them until Tote, however I do agree that the spears are horribly unbalanced dmg-wise in exchange for 1 hit until Tote, but hey, it has been like this forever, this wouldnt be a problem if the Scythe was still in Anara =D

[akuma]

Meh, my opinion is all the spears suck, just that I have no choice but to use them. So I eventually get accustomed to the shittiness of the spear so much so that I end up feeling that it actually owns .

[Manboy]

Spears blow, period. I don't even have to play as a dragoon and use them to see how much they suck.

I would rather do alot of damage with few hits (polearms), than do little damage with alot of hits (spears).

So lets say I have a dragoon with 100 str and a grand pike (175-180 damage(right?)). He attacks a monster with 100 defense. after defense is subtracted, the first hit of the attack would do 75-80 damage. The other hits after the first only do a percentage of the first hit damage (lets pretend that percentage is 50%) so it would be like 80 + (40 * 5) = 280 damage. So the total range of damage I could do would be 151(3 hits) to 280(6 hits)

If you have the same situation with a halberd (intial damage would be 280-290, damage after defense is subtracted is 180-190), the total range of damage that could be done would be 180(1 hit) to 360(3 hits).

Now... I don't know the formulas very well so the results may be wrong, but from what I see polearm > spear.

If we go a little further with this and do this with a knight sword, we get 260(3 hits) to 490(6 hits).

So... for the endgame weapons, sword > polearm > spear. Since dragoons can only use like 3 swords or something, they aren't that much help. And since dragoon's skills (other than dragoon fury) multiply damage, polearms are going to do more damage on most occasions.

But this is based off of info on the website and simple situations, so this might be a little false or something lol.

[Takahashi]

manboy said:

Spears blow, period. I don't even have to play as a dragoon and use them to see how much they suck.

I would rather do alot of damage with few hits (polearms), than do little damage with alot of hits (spears).

So lets say I have a dragoon with 100 str and a grand pike (175-180 damage(right?)). He attacks a monster with 100 defense. after defense is subtracted, the first hit of the attack would do 75-80 damage. The other hits after the first only do a percentage of the first hit damage (lets pretend that percentage is 50%) so it would be like 80 + (40 * 5) = 280 damage. So the total range of damage I could do would be 151(3 hits) to 280(6 hits)

If you have the same situation with a halberd (intial damage would be 280-290, damage after defense is subtracted is 180-190), the total range of damage that could be done would be 180(1 hit) to 360(3 hits).

Now... I don't know the formulas very well so the results may be wrong, but from what I see polearm > spear.

If we go a little further with this and do this with a knight sword, we get 260(3 hits) to 490(6 hits).

So... for the endgame weapons, sword > polearm > spear. Since dragoons can only use like 3 swords or something, they aren't that much help. And since dragoon's skills (other than dragoon fury) multiply damage, polearms are going to do more damage on most occasions.

But this is based off of info on the website and simple situations, so this might be a little false or something lol.

Well, based on those conditions (monster with 100 defense, dragoon with 100 strength, normal hits):

Grand Pike wielded = 75-80 for the first hit, 105-160 overall
Halberd wielded = 180-190 for the first hit, 180-266 overall

At best, the Grand Pike would do about 520 damage (mortal wound, six hits) and the Halberd would do around 850 (mortal wound, three hits).

[just2slick4u]

All this talk about spears blow, yet at the end the Grand Pike is preferred by most dragoons, even the local favorite Kain
Here is a brief overview of the Grand Pike vs. Halberd:

SPOILER: Click to show

Tests conducted by Slick and Rapta, refined by Slick and Dark Lancer, and again tested by Slick and Gonz

Reg 6 Hit Jump(GP)>Reg 3 hit jump(Berd)
6 Hit Dive(GP)>3 Hit Dive(Berd)
6 Hit Crush(GP)=3 Hit Crush(Berd)*
14 Hit Fury(GP)>>8 Hit Fury(Berd)
As far as crits and mortal wounds go, the Halberd has the advantage in each category except the Dragoon Fury. So, normally I would walk around equipped with my pike, in case of an ambush, also the one hit crush with the halberd has shown extreme lack in some cases, I have seen a 1 hit crush(weak) strike a demon smoke(those high defense bastards at the beginning of tote, they cast darkfire) hit for 8, yes very sad, while the pike has hit at least double digits under most circumstances...but other than that, the rest of the spears in the game are garbage, ESPECIALLY the one in hassen compared to the scythe, something seriously needs to be done about that, and I am glad the issue came up.

[Rapta111]

Well, it depends a lot on if you have put enough points into strength. Ever wonder how a Pure Str BB deals so much damage? One point in Strength adds 1 damage point, for each hit you have. So 3 hits with a polearm, 3 dmg added per point. 6 hits with a Spear, 6 dmg added per point. So you only need to have so much strength until you do more damage with 6 hits than 3 hits.

Plus, keep in mind the fact that Spears have 6 hits - an even number of hits. That means it can never result in less than 50% the number of hits (3). Since hits are rounded down, you can have only 33% of the hits with a Polearm, which also may be a factor in the amount of damage you deal.

And lastly, I've always have had a bias against the Polearm, and tend to use the Spear more, which might be why I've done all my hit records with spears. I'm not sure about recent record-breaking blows, so I guess I would necessarily be considered the person to ask.

Wow, second official day back and already making math calculations.

[Takahashi]

After thinking it over, I've thought of a set of changes I'm interested in (no guarantee they'll be implemented, but it's just something I wanted to toss out there):

-= Spears =-

- Change Pitchfork damage from 19-21 to 24-26, give it three hits, increase cost to 500.
- Change Pike damage from 43-45 to 63-69, reduce weight to 16, reduce cost to 3000.
- Change War Pike damage from 46-48 to 80-90, reduce weight to 20.
- Change Grand Pike damage from 75-80 to 105-110, reduce weight to 23.

-= Polearms =-

- Give Bardiche two hits.
- Add the Bec De Corbin to Anara and Hassen. It'll have 105-110 damage, 19 weight, three hits and cost 3700 gold.
- Increase Scythe's weight to 24, increase cost to 5400.
- Change Halberd damage from 180-190 to 190-200.

[Rapta111]

I think that would be able to slightly increase the effectiveness of spears and polearms. The problem, is that Dragoon hits seem to be all about chance. Whether Dragoon Fury hits or not, whether we Crit, MW or Weak makes a huge difference in the attacks that Dragoons make.

[just2slick4u]

I like the changes, but that weapon name "Bec De, whatever" needs to be changed...

[Takahashi]

Well, I suppose it could be called a voulge or a partisan instead. I kinda like Bec De Corbin though, more so since it was one of the more popular types of polearm in medieval Europe.

[just2slick4u]

Partisan sounds cool too, heh Bec De Corbin sounds a little to fancy for Hassen, XD