Grimrock

Q: Are there any dex-based melee weapons other than daggers?

I ask because I'm trying a new party minus the alchemist (unhappy with firearms) and have a Lizard-Knight Front-Right along side my Minotaur Barbarian. In LOG1, I could focus on "unarmed combat" and pump up dexterity to get my evasion to a decent enough level to not worry much about armor. This time around, there is no unarmed combat and the only "dex" based weapons I've found on the first three levels are daggers leading me to believe the dex-based evasion build is dead, save for dagger wielding rogues in the back row. I was fairly surprised to see the Rapier sword be strength based instead of dexterity based. Hence my question if there are any high damage dex based melee weapons in LOG2. In my mind, I'd rather not attempt a back-row rogue because one is my wizard and the other my thrower, but I had a picture in my head of a front-row, suave rapier wielding swordsman who uses dexterity with light armor (think "Inigo Montoya" from the Princess Bride here) and relies on evasion over heavy armor. If there is no such combo, I guess I'll just reroll my party before getting to into this... again, lol.

yes. there is the moonblade you get in the pyramid.

I think that's the best dex weapon. really though, the dex weapons are overall the weakest class it seems.

10-31 damage +dex
needs level 4 light weapons to use at all, and to active flurry.
2.8 secs cooldown time.

punch dagger is second IIRC.

9-27 damage +dex
needs lw 3 to use, and to activate thrust.
2.7 secs cooldown.

compare to the best heavy weapon:

Bane
27-82 damage +strength
needs hw 5 to use and activate devastate
6.3 secs cooldown.

I can recall getting around 300 damage once on a critical flurry-backstab with a moonblade.

I regularly get well over 800 on a critical with Bane, best was 1005.

dex based weaponry is weak in this particular game. hell, even the best throwing weapons (throwing axes) are strength-based.

some might say that dex weps do more raw dps because they are quicker, but really I'm spending as much time dodging as I am clicking on the hit button, so prefer getting in one good strike at a time anyway. 6 secs in between strikes is ideal timing for me; I can cast a spell itmt, toss a bomb, dodge, and then back to the heavy hitter.

all that said, you can make a viable front line rogue with dex based weps, though you will probably need to go heavy armor, as it is very hard to get sufficient evasion in this game; even full rogue set does not do much for that. I think the best set bonuses are only on the heavy armor sets (meteor and crystal) and crystal has the best shield for evade.

meh, not the Inigo Montoya thing you were looking for though.

if you are looking to roleplay instead of be really good at smashing monsters, I would turn the game difficulty to "easy" and make your inigo montoya character just as you imagine you would like him to be. you'll have more fun that way I think!

There's also the Serpent Blade:
13-39 +dex (note: attribute dmg is added as (attrib-10)/2+min dmg= new min dmg, attrib-10+max dmg = new max dmg, so say 6 dex is = to 3-6 dmg for 4.5 dmg added to average dmg)
3.5 cooldown
+15 Acc
DPS(Avg DMG/CD)= 7.4 + dex/3.5

compare to Moonblade:
10-31 +dex
2.8 cd
+10 acc
DPS = 7.3 + dex/2.8

compare to Fist Dagger:
9-27 + dex
2.7 cd
DPS = 6.7 + dex/2.7

compare to Meteor Hammer:
24-72 +str
4.5 cd
+20 acc
DPS = 10.6 + str/4.5

compare to Bane:
27-82 + str
6.3 cd
DPS = 7.8 + str/6.3

compare to Cutlass:
12-36 + str
3.3 cd
DPS = 7.2 + str/3.3

compare to Sickle Sword:
15-46 + str
4.5 cd
+5 acc
DPS = 6.8 + str/4.5


Assuming max in Light Weapons or Heavy Weapons:
Serpent Blade: 26-78 + dex, DPS = 14.8 + dex/3.5
Moonblade: 20-62 + dex, DPS = 14.6 + dex/2.8
Fist Dagger: 18-54 + dex, DPS = 13.4 + dex/2.7
Meteor Hammer: 40-142 + str, DPS = 21.2 + str/4.5
Bane: 52-164 + str, DPS = 15.6 + str/6.3
Cutlass: 24-72 + str. DPS = 14.4 + str/3.3
Sicklesword: 30-92 + str. DPS = 13.2 + str/4.5

Take the DPS values with a grain of salt however, if you're not fast at clicking or spend tons of time dodging a mob such that you're not maximizing you're time spent on cooldown you're mileage will vary. If you are hitting attack every time a weapon comes off cooldown however, low cooldown weapons scale much better with the attribute which increases their damage. On the other hand, low cooldown weapons with lower damage will get reduced more as a percentage of their DPS by armor than slower hitting higher damage weapons.

A couple things to note: as light weapons you can dual wield with 25% less dmg on a rogue or 40% less on all classes. For Rogue: Dual Wielded Damage for Moonblade + Serpent Blade (Fist Dagger might outdo Serpent Blade at high dex values, although I suspect they would need to be extremely high to beat the Serpent Blade's bonus accuracy) = ~25.8 + dex/3.5 + dex/2.8 which pretty clearly beats meteor hammer in terms of dps (though the hammer can be used with a shield) and blows bane way out in terms of dps, also the damage is quite comparable to meteor hammer when not considering cooldowns (fixed to take account of the 25% dmg drop for dual wield), 40-122.5 vs 40-142, but dual wielded weapons will get twice the attribute bonus and twice the armor decrease. Dual Wielded Cutlasses(Technically 1 Cutlass and a Bonesaber, very similar damage to the cutlass but slightly better, though I can't remember exact stats) on a Barb might end up outclassing Rogue with Moonblade + Serpent Blade (The Barb will have a dps of ~29.7 + 2(str-15)/3.3 at level 15, although the accuracy a Barb will have will be horrendous compared to a Rogue), but the base damage of the weapons isn't to blame here.

Ichthyic wrote:really though, the dex weapons are overall the weakest class it seems.

10-31 damage +dex
needs level 4 light weapons to use at all, and to active flurry.
2.8 secs cooldown time.

punch dagger is second IIRC.

so only those 2 ?


-.- there goes my dex based ratling knight

@ shadlowlord X:

your entire post is exactly why I said that some might say the dps is better with dex weps, but in the actual game, it just never works out like that because NOBODY can click fast enough to take advantage of it and still do anything else.

so, in reality, strength based weps are king.

sorry, but it's just a fact of how the game mechanics work when you actually play it, rather than just try to add up numbers.

if i can take out a monster with a single swing from bane, that's WAY more valuable than being able to take it down over several seconds with a flurry of light weapon attacks.

this game is simply not about raw dps.

I bet you had fun crunching the numbers though

the dex path is definitely an afterthought compared to the str path given how enemies move now.

however it is still plenty feasible to go the route of a dex character. you will be strafing more and dancing more though.
it is hard to actually even get backstabs in unless the enemy is frozen solid.

on my first time through I played a rogue barbarian front line melee. I did enjoy having almost constant up time on my blades for rogue. I had him maxxed in dodge and wearing bracelet of tirin as well. in real time play though when I got bane and meteor hammer even all that up time did not compare to actual real time damage. My Barbarian with meteor simply crushed everything very fast.

still the combo between rogue and barbarian as my main melee worked very well for that playthrough.
all dex based weapons (melee) are daggers or missiles.

Ichthyic wrote:@ shadlowlord X:

your entire post is exactly why I said that some might say the dps is better with dex weps, but in the actual game, it just never works out like that because NOBODY can click fast enough to take advantage of it and still do anything else.

so, in reality, strength based weps are king.

sorry, but it's just a fact of how the game mechanics work when you actually play it, rather than just try to add up numbers.

if i can take out a monster with a single swing from bane, that's WAY more valuable than being able to take it down over several seconds with a flurry of light weapon attacks.

this game is simply not about raw dps.

I bet you had fun crunching the numbers though

First off i noted that DPS has to be taken with a grain of salt, that said it's not accurate to say its completely irrelevant. If values between DPS are fairly close taking the higher damage option makes sense, but when you have very long cooldowns like Bane's, you can often miss opportunities to attack because of the long cooldown, but its also important to realize that comparing weapons DPS it's not necessarily a good idea to choose say, Fist Dagger over Serpent Blade, even though with 30 dex you'll see minor increase in dps (not accounting for accuracy) by using fist dagger since lower cooldowns don't translate 100% to higher damage, but it's not correct to say they don't matter at all.

The actual damage on dex weapons isn't bad compared to Str weapons. Moonblade + Serpent Blade is very comparable in damage to Dual Wield Str weapons, or singleton Str weapons. When DPS comparisons are taken into account DPS wise dual wield Dex weapons are quite a bit better than Str singletons, and are the better options for rogues easily, although comparing Rogues to Barbs makes the DPS comparison between dual Str vs dual Dex more nuanced. The main issue that comes up is armor is doubly effective versus dual wield, but so is attribute damage. So which is better depends at least in part on how attribute bonus damage scales versus how armor scales.

About nobody being able to hit the cooldowns fast enough, frankly thats far too big of a generalization. In some scenarios certainly its not possible to actually land all of your cooldowns off cooldown, but there are scenarios where it is possible, and in these scenarios quite often I find myself sitting waiting for cooldowns to come off even with relatively short cooldowns. It also depends heavily on the difficulty you're playing at and how well optimized your front line is to take hits.

Taem wrote:I ask because I'm trying a new party minus the alchemist (unhappy with firearms

Keep in mind that an alchemist doesn't need to use firearms; they can go into whichever weapon or spell lines they like.

Assassin's Dagger
12-37 + dexterity
2.8 seconds
+10 accuracy
life leech

N'Zembwa wrote:Assassin's Dagger
12-37 + dexterity
2.8 seconds
+10 accuracy
life leech

LoG1 item, not in the LoG2 main game, only in the editor.