Piercing or slashing weapons

[Troll-Loki]

I like piercing weapons but I dont know how good they are compared to slashing.

For instance:
Skellies are resistant to both Piercing and slashing while Zombies are resistant to blunt and piercing.
I have so far not encountered a mob that is resistant to both slashing and blunt but not piercing.

Thus is piercing weapons a disadvantage for a melee toon ?

[Tumarek]

Well it always depends which monsters are running around.

I think one generally could say that the most mobs have a DR vs Piercing (of those that have a DR against a weapontype), a few against Slashing and very few against blunt.

But this really depends where you are running around and what kind of packs will come in future.

Most of the time you will want to have at least 2 of the 3 damagetypes covered. No reason to run around with just one.

[Sinni]

zombies don't really matter in end game, skeletons are another matter (thus blunt weapons). to be honest besides the undead i don't know of any monsters with DR against a weapon type. if anyone knows more i'd really appreciate a list

imo more important is the type of effects you can have on weapons. A few examples: You can only have vorpal on a slashing weapon (beheading someone dosn't work so well with a rapier...), bone breaking (dex damage) only exists on blunt, banishing (against outsiders) or puncturing (con damage) only on piercing weapons.
and of course the weapon base stats (afaik there is no blunt weapon with a higher crit range than 20)

[SouCarioca]

banishing (against outsiders) or puncturing (con damage) only on piercing weapons.

That is incorrect. I have a +2 Banishing Heavy Mace of Pure Good (ML14).

[Freeman]

That is incorrect. I have a +2 Banishing Heavy Mace of Pure Good (ML14).

Yep, Banishing comes on piercing and blunt weapons. Most people trash the blunts though, due to the poor crit range. The only slashing banisher is a sword from the Abbot.

[Impaqt]

Slashing is generally the better route to go for a fighter. That being said, Its always good to have a nice "Skelly Beater" on your hotbar. I generally make sure I have a Nice Bludgening set for that specific reason. Holy Burst Warhammers of PG work great for that (Or Double/Triple Positive or Fire SHroud Weapons if ya got spare ingrediants)

A COuple Banishing Rapiers are certainly a handy weapon to have until ya hit Shvarath.(WHere they dont work so why bother with em) A Rapiers Crit range is better than some slashing weapons even with IC and wide enough to be effective even when compared to Khopeshes with IC...

[Emili]

Yep, Banishing comes on piercing and blunt weapons. Most people trash the blunts though, due to the poor crit range. The only slashing banisher is a sword from the Abbot.

Banishing is not all it's cracked up to be really depends on how much DPS you tend to wield as a high DPS toon rips thru banishable mob about as quickly as any banishable mob fails a save...

http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p...13&postcount=7

I use banishing rapiers on my dex based rogue and a few of my rangers, Yet on the same note... I have two enduring convictions (+5 absolute law absolute good banishing longswords) on my kensai III which is near equal only 5% less then the rapiers crit threat on my other toons - Kensai III w Enduring conviction = 16-20 vs Tempest w banishing rapier = 15-20 - but you know what? The kensai pounds most banishable trash into oblivion like 90% of them due to the DPS quicker than banishing. The other slashing banisher ... which you would most likely not go with - is a dreamedge - still even though is an exotic weapon and you will not be feated for it ... since is a +5 weapon is like a +1 slashing banishing axe with some other attributes on it in the hands of a slashing spec'd toon.

The other thing to consider is vorpals... still most of the high end trash - orthons for example - on elite... in shroud and devils battlefield quests (where nothing can be banished - but you ) still may be vorpaled. IMO... the question on hand is WOP or just wounders as vorpals you're looking for a roll of 20 anyway with a crit confirm - actually may be easier with a slashing spec if you're broderline since weapon focus also adds a couple plus's on the confirms... never seen a fight though do badly though in confirms. Then comes down to race ... is know doubt single handed weapons Khopesh still dominates ... but dwarf - axes and elf scimis are attractive and for 2HF falcions are... the bomb. Then if you're looking at 2HF then you pretty much look at slashing as that covers 3 of the 6 available 2 handers ... interesting thing about a slashing spec you can go either way if you the stats a 15 dex +2 tome gets you TWF and you can 2hf those early levels for the to-hit and twf later with slashing - something hard to do with a pierce spec... Was not long ago the crit II deathnip barb was a killer much has changed in a short span so is not to say it will not yet again.