Sorry for all the questions on boards but I seem to get answers here and don't wanna spam in game =) I did a search and could not find a "good" weapon comparison thread.

My question is this, what are the pros/cons of each weapon type?
I have been using hammer and it seems to have mid range damage. The best things I have found with it is "Conquer" is a beastly behind positional snare. I also use the anytime 2 hit combo "Ruiner" followed by "Crumble" for a decent burst of damage I get from the DD added in with "Crumble". I have heard people say "Mjolnirs fury" the level 50 skill is good, but I rarely get to use it considering its a third hit combo of a block reactive. Seems like in pvp this would be near impossible to pull off on a regular basis. All in all hammer seems pretty meh. I love the snare though from "Conquer"!

Anyone had better experiences with Swords or Axes? Also am I missing something awesome with hammers? (people tend to say hammer is best?)
Lastly with shields, what ability is worth a hoot? The block reactives are REALLY tough to pull off in pvp. I have heard "Slam" is supposed to be good? But have yet to try it.

Thanks for your alls time =)

Axe style sucks
Sword is the best but you need be able to go 50 to get Ragnarök if you aren't a thane(Best weapon for thanes, Polar rift have dd in and good style dmg for anytime, and you have snare back style at 39spec)
Hammer a must weapon for anyone that cant spec on 50sword cuz the snare at lower lvl weapon skill

 

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In general, sword is the best weapon line for a thane. Great anytime style with a 45 dmg proc. You get this anytime style at level 34 which makes sword the ideal weapon line for any spec that emphasize stomcalling/shield/parry. Weapon selection is also great (ML10 pet proc weapon, spear of kings for absorb, gjalpin claw for pierce resist).

Hammer is not bad, but the damage from the parry chain can vary a lot obviously, and against opponents who do not fight back the damage is simply not good. It is awesome for solo PvE at level 50 assuming a 50 hammer + parry spec. Crush is also a great damage type in RvR against many of the opponents you will be facing if you solo.

Can't say much about axe. It doesn't really offer anything special and it requires a very high spec before you get the proc styles.

edit: the lvl 42 shield style "slam" was recently nerfed from a 9sec stun to a 5sec stun.
edit2: the lvl 50 hammer style is the second part of a parry chain. The first parry style has a 75 dmg proc, the second (lvl 50) style has a 175 dmg proc.

 

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Ok awesome, I will definatly have to try out sword then. Yea I was thinking Mjolnirs was off a block chain for some reason.... but parry chain is near impossible to pull off for me as a thane pvp.

Is shield worth speccing for slam anymore since the nerf? If it is a 5 second anytime stun thats still pretty solid I suppose. Could get off a positional at least. How do the stun mechanics work? Any kind of stun immune after you get stunned? Maybe speccing into parry would be more wise with a 2hander for more damage? SO MANY OPTIONS!!!

Also something else I thought of is that a lot of pvp/rvr people are going to have the 50% CC time reduction, so would this effectivly make it a 2.5 second stun? If thats the case then that is not very helpful.

Wish my comp wasnt in the shop for silly blown capacitor that no one seems to have the right size for. Wtf fail computer stores without capacitors.

If you're going 50 weapon then Sword is generally your best bet since you can spam Ragnarok as your back positional skill, which does more damage than Conquer in addition to having a snare of its own. If you're not going 50 weapon then Hammer is nice because you can still get Conquer with Hammer at 29. Axe, unfortunately, doesn't have much going for it.

The exception to all of this is Thanes. Ragnarok has a 150 delv proc on it instead of the snare, but it's now also the follow-up to Njord's Fury which is a new back positional snare style added for Thanes (and Valks I think). Compare this to Axe which gets Tyr's Fury which not only has a higher growth rate than Ragnarok in addition to having the same 150 DD proc, but is a follow-up to an anytime style instead of a back positional skill. If you plan on going 50 weapon with your Thane then Axe definitely looks like it's your best bet for outright damage. If not then Sword is nice because Polar Rift has a 45 DD proc on it. Hammer relies on you getting lots of parries for damage.

Sharp, that is some AWESOME info bro. I was looking at the abilties you mentioned and looks like you are right for Thanes. All the ultimates in each tree look so similar, but hammers is near impossible to pull off, sword requires you to be behind target and axe is anytime?! Axe xlearly wins there.... Is there a good snare in axe line also? Looks like Evernight is a behind snare? If this is true then looks like axe 100% wins at 50 skill for a thane. If not thane then maybe sword.

Also is shield worth speccing into anymore? Or should i just throw the extra points into Parry and use a big ol 2hander.

Thanks again for info! So much help. Hammers are definatly not the way to go at 50 skill looks like.

Yes, Evernight should have a snare on it.

Despite the Slam nerf, Shield is still worth specing into. With practice you should be able to get side positional off in combat, so 35 points in shield will get you a 8 second stun (only 1 second less than pre nerf Slam). At the very least, you should put 7 points into it for Engage.

Wanted to reply to this as well. Only casted, or "magical," CC is reduced by resits. Physical stuns from melee will always last the full duration unless purged (as far as I'm aware, anyway).

with slam nerf, i would just drop shield down from the cookie cutter spec

so 35 shield 50 storm rest wep which than more than likly will be what 44 ?

you can still do your job as a BG bot well, just gotta hit the side stun or if your lazy the back stun.

and with sword you get the back snare and anytime dd which is all you really need, your nukes will do more damage than your melee most of the time even with 50 wep spec.

your job is pet clears and peels!

unless your soloing, than i would still just drop sheild to 35 and bump sword

i dont have char plan on this netbook but im also sure sword gets a 7 sec off block stun chain


i on the otherhand have a troll 2 hander axe thane that i run around on. just for me i dont care if he sucks its just awesome to look at

 

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Hey.


Here's some decent information, and just slightly outdated(mainly the 9 to 5 second stun nerf on slam/shield, and ofc the pages about templates, they're outdated):

http://www.runeworld.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=40

(regarding the forum itself - don't bother to sign up, won't work)

 

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