Sword vs other melee weapons

[cypherusuh]

Other than carve and parry/riposte gimmick, is there any other advantages that sword has compared to other melee? Spear has better block, sledgehammer has better damage potential, knife has better crits (also able to parry) and fist has better damage/AP. Also, sword has RNG dependency on Flurry and Onslaught, which makes it rather unreliable. Did I missed something?

[Bruno]

No, I think you are spot on. To say it bluntly: Swords suck.

In addition to your good summary, swords also require both DEX and STR to be effective, while knife/fists need mainly DEX, and sledge need mainly STR.
If you want to use Ripper you even need a bit of WIL. If you want some mobility and staying power, perhaps some crafting too... you need ability points all over the place.

The RNG part of Flurry/Onslaught is particularly annoying, unless you don't have a problem with savescumming. Personally, that is not the way I play games, so no Flurry for me, thank you.

The only interesting thing about swords is that they are one-handed, so you can use them with a shield. Can't see how to make it efficient compared to other melee, though.

[cypherusuh]

I made thread about riot shield few days ago, and the conclusion is  : it's sucks. So even sword n shield gimmick still sucks in the end
I did a test run yesterday, turns out carving is quite good if your character has lots of MP to Kite them, wasting their AP and makes them can't attack. It also indirectly saves you from heavy attacks due to AP reduction. The 15% crit bonus is also nice. I decided to run 5 str max dex, so I have lots of crit chance.

I suppose the advantage of sword is its high critical chance. Although idk if crit override hit chance, or vice versa. If it's former, I think it's really damn good, since it's might be possible to get 100% crit chance, thus removing RNG component for flurry and onslaught. Else, it's still sucks.

[Bruno]

You need to hit the opponent first, then the % chance determines if you have a critical hit or not.

Yes, swords are built for devastating critical hits, more than most other weapons. 5 STR + 5 WIL + high DEX indeed seems like the way to go in most cases.

But with a lighly armored character like this, why not use a knife or fist weapon instead?

[cypherusuh]

And with knife case, you could go with 3 STR and divert it to other place, while on psi monk, could put that to 7 Will for Force-User, or 3 STR 3 WILL high CON

[harperfan7]

Personally I think swords are the best melee weapon.  The damage potential is insane.

The ideal route is max dex with minimal str (5 or 7), focusing on crits, which means you're also good with knives.  I use a knife in my off-hand for when flurry is on cooldown or against very weak or heavily wounded enemies.  Machetes do more damage per hit than fists or knives, especially on crits, doubly especially if onslaught is built up, and once you add in flurry you can get down to 3.33 AP per attack. 

Granted I've never played a psi-monk (past lvl 8 ) or spear character (at all), but I have played knives and sledges.

[cypherusuh]

I have mixed opinion so far. Although my sword run is pretty smooth, since I don't really use flurry that much, as normal attack is usually enough to kill stuff reliably
It's not as comfy as spear and far from psi monk. Although I kinda agree that sword feels a bit better than knife, at least in low level (it would be great on very high Dex w/ eviscerate and cutthroat, though)