Parry/Bushido Question

[HalfMercy]

No, it's not the same old "Which one is better?"... I try to self-educate whenever possible and I've read up on these two skills a lot but there's still something that I don't understand. I get the fact that when Parry and Bushido are both high, your chance of blocking with a 2-handed melee weapon is highest, your chance of blocking with a 1-handed weapon is a little less, and your chance of blocking with a shield is in the toilet. Buuut what I can't seem to clarify is this: when you're holding both a 1-handed weapon and a shield, will your character attempt to block with just one or both? I ask because in most cases the 1-handed weapon chance to block + the shield chance to block is about equal to the 2-handed weapon chance to block anyway, so there's not much drawback to using a shield with high Bushido/Parry if it works that way.

[Crisis]

It's tough and I don't understand it fully but it works on bonus'. You get a bonus to parry when 120 Bushido, 120 Parry and a 2 hand weapon. You lose all bonus' when using one hand weapon and shield.

[HalfMercy]

Thanks Crisis. I think if it's just some tiny bonus the benefit of utilizing the shield slot for extra properties will offset the loss of the bonus. Especially with Evasion to make up for it.

[unisharp]

Once that shield goes on you have 0 chance to block, regardless of if you're holding a 1-handed weapon or not.

Examples:

Wrestle/Parry/Bushido, No weapon + Shield = no blocking
Swords/Parry/Bushido, 1-Handed Weapon + Shield = no blocking

[unisharp]

Couple other things...

If you're using a 2 handed weapon and it has Balanced on it, you will never block regardless of any skills you have.

DCI check comes before parry check.

Evasion does nothing if you're holding a shield.

If we're talking sampire template here, just never hold a shield - unless you have 0 parry on the template.  It's either 1 handed and you can chug pots, or 2 handed without chugging pots.  Blocking is a beautiful thing, don't blow it on some shield properties

If you've never used Counter-Attack before, then you're in for a treat.  Basically you can get two armor-ignores off at the same time when you block.  Consider counter-attack as a stance, once you toggle it you have a chance to hit your enemy when you block.  If you have armor ignore toggled, then when you block you will armor ignore.  BTW, you can block throwing/archery, so yea, you can disarm/dismount people from across your screen with a melee weapon in your hand.

[HalfMercy]

Thanks for the insight, sibble. I don't forsee myself dropping parry, I was just wondering about the shield question. I really appreciate you mentioning Counter Attack - I never used it before and in my initial tests it seems ridiculously good. I tried it with Whirlwind actually and in the later stages of a champ spawn pulling off 2 or 3 WW attacks with an AOE weapon in the space of one swing timer is pretty amazing. I think I might be able to tweak my macros and put out an insane amount of damage fairly consistently.

[unisharp]

No problemo!  Also if you'd like to counter attack more, considering lowering or completely getting rid of DCI.

Some smart guy wrote this:
http://stratics.com/community/threads/sadoks-sampire-template.335198/

[Crisis]

Thanks for the info on counter strike, I did not know that it could be used with whirlwind and other specials like that.

[HalfMercy]

I tried Counter Strike with Darkened Sky last night on a constant loop and it was so fast and devastating I felt like I was cheating, lol. Thanks again! I still have some tweaking of it to do but my god, the potential....  I play on a free server where we can add properties to items (up to a max of 5) and I tacked on Hit Fireball, not sure about what I want for the last prop.

I read through your very thorough guide and I get what you're saying about DCI... funny thing is my character's is only 5 at the moment. I feel like it should be higher than that because I can't handle all the incoming damage from the 4th tier of some champs but yeah I don't intend to max it out b/c I get it - if you do that, then you're missing most of the value in Counter Strike and might as well just loop Evasion for full damage mitigation. I also feel like Darkened Sky might never be able to generate enough damage to drop high hp monsters like hiryu and rotting corpses before they start running away, so I might swap out for Blaze of Death or some such when I hit 4th tier.

[unisharp]

I tried Counter Strike with Darkened Sky last night on a constant loop and it was so fast and devastating I felt like I was cheating, lol. Thanks again! I still have some tweaking of it to do but my god, the potential....  I play on a free server where we can add properties to items (up to a max of 5) and I tacked on Hit Fireball, not sure about what I want for the last prop.

I read through your very thorough guide and I get what you're saying about DCI... funny thing is my character's is only 5 at the moment. I feel like it should be higher than that because I can't handle all the incoming damage from the 4th tier of some champs but yeah I don't intend to max it out b/c I get it - if you do that, then you're missing most of the value in Counter Strike and might as well just loop Evasion for full damage mitigation. I also feel like Darkened Sky might never be able to generate enough damage to drop high hp monsters like hiryu and rotting corpses before they start running away, so I might swap out for Blaze of Death or some such when I hit 4th tier.

Well, you have fencing.  Unfortunately the big-d DPS weapons are mostly swords i Double Axe for AOE, Bladed Staff for single target.  The base damage different between a kama and a double axe is huge, you would do a lot more damage with the double axe.