Sword & Shield

How it plays

• Stay glued, hit short, and leave through a dodge rather than a retreat.
• Alternate blade and shield: the shield hits blunt and wears the head down, the blade carries element and status.
• Heal and use items without sheathing, which is worth several seconds each time.

Focus Mode and wounds

Focus Mode makes up for the short reach: it keeps the blade on the targeted part while the monster moves. The Focus Strike is fast, which allows opening then bursting a wound within the same window.

Defending

It guards and can trigger a Power Clash, which is rare for a weapon this mobile. The block absorbs little: it is there to cancel an unexpected hit, not to hold a breath attack from start to finish.

What it brings

• High rate and a complete palette: this is the status weapon par excellence, every hit moving the threshold closer.
• Two damage types on one weapon: it never has to choose between the part soft to slashing and the head to stun.

What loses hunts

• Reading its displayed attack like a heavy weapon's: with a low inflation coefficient, the sheet value is close to true raw, and looks small without being small.
• Sitting behind the shield. The weapon does not absorb; its survival comes from mobility.

What the data says ?

• It is the best-stocked category in the game: 95 weapons, against 74 for the thinnest.

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• Its palette is complete: poison, paralysis, sleep and blast are each carried by at least one sword and shield.

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• Its inflation is 1.4, the lowest among melee weapons alongside dual blades: its displayed attack is nearly its true raw.

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Defence

• Guardyes
• Power Clashyes
• Offset attackno