SO I always played a NS back in the day. Because CD was a different mechanic and only effected your chance to swing with your offhand it was generally a lower skill for NS builds. The most common NS spec was 44CD, 35 St, Weap, ENV, and 28 CD.

Now for SB I was always told that the LA skill level mechanic effected your damage of all attacks, even your CS styles like your garrot and hamstring chaines. SO because of this you need to always spec higher in LA.

So if I was to do the above NS spec as a SB would that make me less effective as a NS using that spec? Would it be just really gimping me?

If I am using CS styles would 34 LA be okay? Or would I really need to go up to 39/40 LA?

Thanks

With LA you always swing with both weapons, every round - but the base damage is half what each weapon would normally hit for. This is modified by your spec points in left axe - there is a base bonus of 20%, and it goes up as you spec. In other words, LA affects weapon damage output for both the primary and offhand weapons.

There are a couple common specs people choose
1) 39CS, 34LA, 34Axe, 35Ste/Env
2) 34CS, 39LA, 34Axe, 35Ste/Env

If you like to use 2H for opener and during most of the fight, go with the first one. If you like to dual weild for most of the battle and just PA with 2H, go with the second. People still do 44CS, 28LA but I would say it's less common than the other realms' counterparts.

ascanet wrote:With LA you always swing with both weapons, every round - but the base damage is half what each weapon would normally hit for. This is modified by your spec points in left axe - there is a base bonus of 20%, and it goes up as you spec. In other words, LA affects weapon damage output for both the primary and offhand weapons.

There are a couple common specs people choose
1) 39CS, 34LA, 34Axe, 35Ste/Env
2) 34CS, 39LA, 34Axe, 35Ste/Env

If you like to use 2H for opener and during most of the fight, go with the first one. If you like to dual weild for most of the battle and just PA with 2H, go with the second. People still do 44CS, 28LA but I would say it's less common than the other realms' counterparts.

Thanks for the info. I remember seeing most SBs using sword. is there a reason to use sword over axe when using CS or LA styles? or does it not matter? Maybe there were just more swords available than axe?

It's just preference. I never understood going sword over axe when you have access to a meat cleaver.. but hey, people like being different