Topic on Talk:Spear

For every individual damage category, the spear seems to have better DPS.

Best:

• Spear - (23 dmg) / (2.6s) = 8.84
• Sword - (23 dmg / (2.6s) = 8.84 (FOR BOTH ATTACKS - IGNORING DAMAGE TYPE)

Mid:

• Spear - (13 dmg) / (2.6s) = 5
• Sword - (9 dmg) / (2s) = 4.5

If every possible attack is the same or higher, why would the spear do less damage? The LS is considered a higher DPS weapon even in the post-melee-verb-selection section.

I assume that (Average Damage) / (Average Cooldown) is better for LSwords. But unless I'm missing a mechanic (OTHER THAN STAB VS CUT), the spear would just be better in a game.

Also getting this out of the way: Cut attacks definitely cleave, and definitely have a 1.4x total damage multiplier. Extremely simple test - start attacking with the plasteel knife.

• Normal plasteel knife deals 13.2 damage
• 1 attack deals 9.2 damage to both jaw and nose (18.4 total)
• 18.4 / 1.4 = 13.14. Loss is due to rounding error.

Because the time spent executing the spears handle attack is time spent not doing the stab attack. Because of the disparity between the damage between the two attack types, the longsword wins out despite the slight reduction in its handle's DPS. If you reduce the disparity between the handle attack and the head attack, then the spear would come out on top.

You can do a sanity check yourself: Assume 4 attacks perfectly distributed to the average - so 3 attacks with best, 1 attack with mid.

Spear: 3*23 damage + 1*13 damage, and it took 3*2.6 + 1*2.6 seconds to perform it. Thats 82 damage in 10.4 seconds. Or 7.88 DPS

Sword: 3*23 damage + 1*9 damage, and it took 3*2.6 + 1*2 seconds to perform it. Thats 78 damage in 9.8 seconds. Or 7.96 DPS

Then add on to the fact that the stab performs significantly worse that cut in actual combat, and the sword comes out significantly better on average.

Ah, that makes sense.

Is the longsword really "significantly better"? For reference, my thoughts, with all that I personally know, are pretty much what I wrote on the page.

E: (Except when including maces in the comparison, which I will add soon enough)

In practical testing, the sword often beats the spear in both 1v1 fights (which aren't always ideal tests - e.g. part destructions limiting combat ability which can skew the results in ways that don't really apply in practice like melee blockers which cycle through enemies too fast for it to have a significant impact) and in time to kill against a standard enemy by a fair margin, but that obviously varies depending on the targets in question.

Where the sword doesn't beat the spear, they're basically always close enough to not matter much which you pick. I haven't done/seen testing against pawns like Stellic wardens which always have Exc Cata so its possible that spears significantly outperform the sword there due to its AP bonus, but they're also not a very common enemy.

I really need to get around to finishing the Damage Types page. Theres a lot more to cover about the mechanics of each damage type, but it takes so long to dig out the information, test it, and write it up and I can't do it while doing anything else.

Semi-related:

Would it be better to call melee verb selection, "melee attack selection" in these analyses? While it's technically not the actual name, it would be easier for readers who don't understand RW melee mechanics to understand.

Honestly, its probably better to use the technical term - 1) "Melee verb" pretty obviously implies something to do with melee attacks anyway 2) Less chance that they'll assume they know what it means if they don't 3) They can always follow the link and find out if they're confused.