I'd say they make them have higher resistance to damage, be more expensive to maintain, perhaps lighter, with a greater ability to be enchanted. There's a possibility of allowing them to pierce a certain amount of armor as well I suppose, but that only goes so far.

I just always have difficulty figuring out why a warhammer made of Ebony would hurt more than a warhammer made of Iron, especially with the large damage difference they've given them historically.

Maybe an Ebony warhammer is a lot heavier so it impacts with much more force? :shrug: Armour piercing sounds good, but maces get that as a perk, so I don't think two-handed weapons are going to get that as an innate ability, even Daedric ones.

f=ma, but if your warhammer is more than five pounds it starts to become quite difficult to accelerate that mass, so the force starts to drop and you become less able to hit a moving target.

They should absolutely be stronger. If you're character has enough strength to use a two-handed weapon at ease, then they should be able to cause more damage than a dagger.

Hey hey! Don't bring physics into the equation! :nono:

Absolutely.

I love Oblivion, but that is one significant problem in the game. Two handed weapons are way underpowered. I think they should be much more powerful than one handed in order to compensate for the lack of a shield.

Right now, from a pure stats perspective, the game is heavily biased towards one handed sword and shield.

True, and I wouldn't want a warhammer that can't hit a dodgy bandit, but RPGs have always had better-quality-equals-higher-damage weapons, so I'd imagine that if they make Iron almost as good as Daedric in terms of damage, it would take the fun away from finding a "better" weapon.

However, the good thing about doing something like the above is that if I find an Ice Troll, for example, I can bash it's skull in with my Iron Warhammer, realistically, and not have to go and find a better weapon because my Iron Warhammer can't even hurt it much. Realistic but not very RPG-ish, IMO.

It's still fun, you can enchant it more readily, it doesn't tend to fall apart as quickly, and it looks nice. Also, it would be more likely to be enchanted to begin with, which is a bonus.

I'm not saying don't increase damage, but I just wouldn't increase it by so much. It creates all sorts of balancing problems to do so, as you have to increase armor values and hit points to compensate, and then you become nearly invulnerable to low level opponents, which makes little sense.

It would be better to get an edge, but maintain vulnerability so that 8 level 4 Goblins are still a major concern if you don't handle them right.

If all weapons have stats like puncture, slash, crush, reach, weight, durability, block/absorb, parry/trap, deflect/avoid, speed etc etc etc, it doesn't really matter if it's one or two handed. It should mostly governs fighting style and what perks we get access to. A heavy two handed claymore might have very good blocking abilities, maybe not as good as a tower shield, but enough to absorb much of the incoming energy from a heavy war axe. But you might be weak against an agile opponent, whereas being a dagger user yourself you get to be agile enough to avoid blows but won't deal the same amount of damage. You should feel quite powerful with the path you choose to take, but there should also be situations where you go "damn, I wish I'd taken something different". Every weapon should have it's strengths AND weaknesses - no ultimate winner.

Like in FONV, the weight of .50MG ammo and speed of the anti material rifle makes it an awesome weapon to have around, but basing your existence on it alone may prove difficulty. Carrying a secondary and even third weapon helps on being more flexible in battle, but has a significant cost on weight. It's all about having to make a decision. If your two handed claymore or great sword proves difficult against agile opponents, just bring a dagger or magic, and pray you spent important perks there as well instead of useless abilities like double running speeds - which might *also* be a valid tactic to get away

I don't think any weapon (incl. magic) should be the ultimate solution to all situations. They should make us want to specialize to get better with our weapon, but also make us want to generalize so we have a better chance in some situations. Forcing the player to *think*, and *choose*, always makes the best gameplays. Especially in RPGs.

They pretty much have to be to balance out losing both magic and shield usage.

I think they should. Its awesome to be wielding this friggin huge sword or hammer or two handed axe and feel like you could crush anybody's or anything's skull in. In oblivion it seemed like i was only holding a long tree branch. It would be cool if they could add a way that makes the two handed weapon heavier for the character (because obviously you can't feel it in real life) so that your character has a harder time swinging the sword or hammer or axe or whatever at first.

I hope that there is a perk where if you meet some ridiculous strength and skill with a Two-handed weapon, you can dual wield them. This would of course need to be a character focused specifically on Two-handed weapons and maybe make it require the ridiculous strength and skills, and then having some quest to acquire the ability. They would need to do this with every combat system though for people who use different skills.

I honestly think that two handed weapons should be at least double the strength as they were in Oblivion cause, i think there should be somesort of reward for using a weapon that is slower to attack with. i think that the lowest level of two handed weapons should be stronger then the highest level single handed weapon.

No!

Uh, they're called two handed weapons for a reason. If you could wield a claymore with one hand, it would be a labeled a one-handed weapon.

Maybe the solution is that against an unarmored person, the daedric and iron warhammers do somewhat similar damage (the daedric will do more, but not vastly more). Then against armored people, the daedric one would do much more damage and wear out slower because it is designed for taking out armored foes, and the iron can't do as well against stronger defense materials like mithril.

Warhammers should do a craptonne of damage but should have a really slow attack. Judging by the looks, these things must weigh 30-40 pounds, that's not something you can swing around as easily as in Morrowind and Oblivion.

It should take a good 3-4 seconds to do a power strike, but such a power strike should completely paste your enemy if it does manage to hit.



While they probably won't be slower on defense (theylll be more effective overall) they sure as heck will be a lot slower on the attack. The speed of the swing may be the same speed (or even faster due to the length) but the effort and time you'd need to exert to get it up to speed would be quite a bit. Your average claymore weighs something like 6 pounds, it doesn't sound like much right off hand, but when the weight of the sword is spread out over a meter long, it's going to take a fair bit of time to swing it. A warhammer as depicted in TES would easily be 20-30 pounds, and such a thing would take a huge amount of time and energy to swing.

Well, the thing is, they are adding perks to handedness. This means they can keep the damage the same as Oblivion, but the perks can really improve the effect. For example, if two handed weapons inflict increased bleeding and possible stun, there can be a pretty good incentive to use it. Also, I think they should make some effects exclusive to handedness. For example, if stun/paralysis can only be inflicted by Shield and Two-handed weapons, I would certainly consider specializing in two-handed weapons. However, if every type of weapon can stun (like in oblivion), then the effect becomes stale.

big, roaring YES, 2 handed weapons where useless in Oblivion, you traded in the far superior block of a shield for a measly 1 or 2 points extra damage comapred to a 1 handed version of the same kind of weapon.

Yes, but they have to weigh heaps and be slower than maces and swords.

The way I see it, a two-handed weapon like a claymore or a warhammer ought to do quite a bit more damage than a 1H weapon, if for nothing else but to make up for the loss of your shield, causing you to take less punishment. In Oblivion, I found that the tradeoff wasn't worth it because there wasn't enough of an increase in damage from 2H weapons. IMO, they should swing slower, weigh quite a bit more, hit quite a bit harder, and be able to take more damage (higher durability stats) but blocking with them does not protect you as nearly as much as with a shield would.

Too bad 2-handed swords handle nothing like any other 2-handed weapon in reality. A two-handed sword is light, fast, flexible, and excellent at delivering unexpected cuts due to the length of its cuttin edge.

Axes and hammers, due to their end-heavy sense of balance, really svck.

Actually... since skill perks are Weapon Specific (Not skill-based), perks for claymores could have them be the amazingly balanced, fast, and deadly weapons they are in real life, while Hammer Perks focus on more on being slow but deadly impacts that easily stagger and at higher levels send enemies flying. "FORE!"

@The two above me: Two-handed weapons aren't as heavy or slow as you seem to think they are. Having another hand to control the leverage really makes them more agile than a 1-handed weapon like a Mace, Longsword, or War Axe.

that′s already something they had going in Oblivion...trust me the damage is the only issue they need to iron out.

If you talking about two hands on a standard English straight sword, yes there more agile, but not claymores. Claymores restrict your range of motion, as two hands are required, making them hardly agile. Another thing that make one assume claymores are slow is that due to the pivot of the weapon being far down the blade (why the grip extends into the blade on some designs) a weak swing is asking for a disarmament. Quick(weak) swing are not a option for a claymore, thus the belief claymores are slow has some foundation of truth.

A=F/M, larger mass means less acceleration

Warhammers and battle-axes don't svck. Their length makes them much more feasible than a claymore. Also, claymores are useless agains heavy rounded/ tower shields, axes and hammers are not.

im pretty sure two handers will be extremely deadly in skyrim in there mentioning of the axe perk they talked about bleeding and im pretty sure everyone agrees a battle axe or a claymore would cause lots of bleeding

Would this cause you to not buy the game?