Hi. You guys should already know, they say arrows will do "more" damage. Hopefully that means "a lot" more. The trouble with Oblivion was I was "forced" to use a shield if it was on high difficulty. Lets just say, for example... the Glass longsword and the Glass claymore. When every thing was maxed out the claymore would only do two more damage then the longsword. TWO! I may as well use a shield with it.

I know, Lord of the Rings doesn't really come into this but if you have seen it Aragorn absolutely owns every Orc with his claymore. He never came across any archers so that doesn't really explain it. In Skyrim there will be plenty of times where you come across an archer if your using a claymore.

Now the blocking. What's the chances of blocking an arrow with a claymore? Since the AI were were dumb they always shot in the same place. The AI is going to be smarter if you don't already know. How are we supposed to block if we would like a challenge and arrows do more damage. The drawing arrow time, won't really make a difference.

Sorry about that. Thats my rant. Any ideas or opinions?

Thanks in advance!

I think that 2-handed weapons shoud have a much higher dmg than a 1-hander(but keep it fair) and we have it more or less confirmed that blocking without a shield is less effective.

It should be impossible to block an arrow with a two hander. That's just a fundamental weakness of that style of combat.

Another of those cases where, if the perks system is all it could be, a few tasty moves might make all the difference, and two handers could become a serious proposition.
As long as two handed isn't gimped as DAge on the attack speed : damage ratio,which was ridiculous, daggers doing more dps than mauls or claymores.

Btw, was it just me, or did anyone else in OB find two handers useless when you used them, but really hurting when used against you?

Actually agrees alot on this.
Maybe it could be solved with arrows having piercing dmg, swords/axes having slashing dmg and blunt weapens having, well blunt/impact dmg.
Then you could simply make it so 2-handers could'nt block piercing dmg.. Or maybe block 15% of ot due to the fact that you could hold your sword in a way so the most vital spots would be protected somewhat taking in mind the sheer size of the sword.

Yes I hated two handers in OB, they always hit me like a freight train but were so slow and under powered it was like I was hitting them with a pvssywillow.

Two Handed weapon styles means you need to evade the arrows, or lure the foolish archer into a bad spot. Archery is much more an "Ambush" style now, as it is seemingly impossible, or very difficult, to moonwalk and fire off hundred of arrows at the same time, so if the Two-handed fighter gets in range, you'd better have a plan B.

As for the Damage of Two-handed weapons in Oblivion, even when used against the player, they weren't particularly bad, but the overwhelming DPS advantage of Short swords(in particular), and the lack of distinct weapon characteristics meant that you basically wanted to choose the weapon type with the most theoretical DPS.

That's one of my biggest fears/hopes for Skyrim. With the improved emphasis on capturing the kinetic feeling of melee fighting, if they botch creating weapons that feel each distinct, but more-or-less equal, it'll really sour the experience. So far what I've seen is good. Daggers being used as Extreme one-shot stealth weapons, Swords occasionally scoring "Organ shots" (critical hits), Mace impacts ignoring a portion of the armor rating of an enemy, and axes causing bleeding lacerations all seem like a step in the right direction. But data-based attributes can only go so far, each weapon needs to "feel" different.

Morrowind had some good ideas in it. If you take the time to dive into the construction set, you see occasional glimpes of attempts to make the weapon choices meaningful. Swords allow you to have the advantage of a shield, but wind up being one of the lowest DPS weapons. Short swords have a low max damage threshold, but swing fast. Great Axes are relatively slow, but on a full-draw are extremely powerful, and Claymores sacrifice the shield, to gain a significant boost in both swing speed and damage potential.

I found claymores pretty useful in Oblivion, more for reach than damage, especially against slow-moving enemies like zombies.

2-handed weapons should deal more damage... they are specifically designed for devastating charges due to their reach and weight (creating an unstoppable momentum) and i think bethesda are implementing a charge system if i'm not mistaken. However two-handed weapon styles tend to suffer once the opponent is very close and that charge momentum is lost. If they do implement a charge technique, then a charge with a two-handed weapon is a force to be reckoned with and, in addition, it offers a new playing style which contrasts with the more defensive longsword + shield option. This will make the melee more interesting.

Remember that shields now have elemental resistance block ability too, so if a long sowrd of material X does 30 damage, a two handed claymore should do around 60 damage.

That does sound a lot more interesting for combat style choices.

I agree, after all, with two handed weapons, you sacrifice the ability to use a shield, or in Skyrim, the ability to dual wield or have a spell in your free hand as well, so having two handed weapons significantly stronger (Though obviously not to the point where it's not even worth considering other options.) makes sense from a balance standpoint, as well as in terms of realism. The benefits of sacrificing a fairly significant bonus to defense should not be measured in a difference of a few points of damage.