Req 13 swords (why do you bash them?)

why is req 13 for swords getting a bad name!

Its sooo easy to get to 13

you just put some points on it till 12

and then use

a minor swordsmanship rune

and bam u got 13

its not hard its easy STOP BASHING REQ 13 SWORDS

they can rock too

and they should value as high as req others

plus this paying so much for a req 7 sword is insane

you people are nuts.

thats my two cents

someone handle my question for god sakes.

the lower the req, and the higher your points into swordsmanship the more damage youll do. a req 10 sword with lv 12 swordmanship will do more damage than a rez 13 sword with 13 swordsmanship points

why are so many people convinced this is true?

LOL I have to say that that's completely UNtrue. If you don't meet the requirenments, your sword will do basic damage instead of the listed one. That damage depends on the sword but is something close to 2-4. The difference between your current attribute level and the one a weapon requires is NOT included in the damage calculations. Read THIS ARTICLE.

Here's an example to illustrate the concept of weapon req's:

You have a max, clean, not customized longsword with a req of 12. But holy crap your swordsmanship is at 10 and you can't do anything about it! The sword will therefore do 2-4 damage, or so, 3 being the average. Say you're wacking a monk wearing wanderer's armor from droknar's forge (60 AL). You also have no points in strength so your attacks dont have armor penetration for the ease of calculation.

So here we go: 3*2^((5*10-60)/40) = about 2.5 damage a hit.

Now, you increase your swordsmanship to 12 via a major swordsmanship rune. Holy cow your sword will now do (15+22)/2*2^((5*12-60)/40) = 18.5 damage a hit to that same monk. Oooooh!

So... A sword with a req of 8 will do EXACTLY the same amount of damage as a sword with a req of 12 AS LONG AS YOU MEET THE REQUIRENMENT. So that's why swords with a req of 8 will generally sell for much more - people do not want to invest too many points into swordsmanship to be able to do just the basic 15-22 damage. That's particularly useful to secondary warriors who can't use warrior runes. What people need to realize, is that you will do considerably more damage with swordsmaship of 12 than with swordsmaship of 8 even if your sword only requires 8:

8 swords: 18.5*2^((5*8-60)/40) = 13 damage a hit on average, to the monk.

12 swords wielding the EXACT SAME SWORD: 18.5*2^((5*12-60)/40) = 18.5 damage.

And that's not even customized yet... And if you're a warrior with high strength you will do even more damage with swordsmanship of 12....

I beg everyone to read the article about how the damage is calculated in GW to eliminate all the misconceptions such as the one I explained in this post.

PS: For those who are lazy, I provide you with a quote from the article to confirm my explanation:

can someone just write ArenaNet and get the decisive answer.

I thought the way the article explains everything is decisive enough...

I dare you to go and write to Ensign and argue that this is true.

Kha!
I call upon your power to please close this thread!

You have got to be kidding me. We went over this *yesterday*

A 15-22 sword with a 7 req and a 15-22 sword with a 13 req do *exactly the same damage* if your Swordsmanship is 13 or higher. Period. Low reqs *only* matter if you're planning on using the weapon at a lower attribute, since a low req weapon will let you deal some damage while a weapon who's requirement you don't meet will do next to nothing.

Lower requirement weapons dealing more damage is one of those persistent rumors that will *never* die. This has been tested and proven by several people on multiple occasions.


And you wondered why I'm such a jerk in threads of this sort.


Ah, the original question. There are several reasons for this:

1) People are clueless and think that a req 7 sword does more damage than a req 13 sword. It really doesn't matter if it's true or not, people believe what they want and pay accordingly.

2) Lower requirement weapons are more flexible. You can twink your newbie character with a lower requirement sword. You can drop your weapon attribute below 12 and still have a useful weapon with a lower requirement. This is more important on some weapons (bows) than others (axes), but there is a difference.

3) Lower requirement weapons are technically better. In a game where items don't matter all that much, the rich need something to lord over each other, and a req 8 weapon with max stats is better than a req 9 weapon with max stats. When you're paying more for vanity than effectiveness, things like that matter.

If you just want to be competitive, though, the requirement really doesn't matter at all for melee weapons. You're likely going to be using a weapon attribute if 16 so the requirement is largely irrelevant. Requirements matter more for Rangers who sometimes skimp on Marksmanship to pump up their preparations or just take a different route (trapper, beastmaster), or casters who often grab staves or foci from secondary attributes that often aren't maxed.

Peace,
-CxE

this is one of the most craziest and dumbest things ive heard. who would really think that way?

I prefer low req swords because I like to run warriors as tri-attribute - 11/10/10 Mastery/Strength/Blood Magic - being forced to pump an attribute higher and/or equip -life runes means I'll lose out on either my Strength skills or my Blood Magic - not something I want to do.

I'm clear on the requirements business, but:

12 swordsmanship does more damage than 8 swordsmanship-- when you have the same weapon, right?

Or not?

Yes, it will do more damage.

for my character, im sticking with the level 10 attribute for my hammer mastery.. even thought i own 5 hammers, three of them, i met the level requirement. The other two is a level 11 and 13 but i still can do decent damage, althought i can't hit enemies for 40 to 80 points of damage using the higher level hammers.

a kid ... who oviously cannot make use of the calculators provided by guru.

on top of that ... someone who should never ever make a build for tombs/guild battles. This is the type of person you want to put the weapon in his hands and say go mash stuff now.

A very popular point distribution is 12, 12, 10(with no major/superior runes). For example 12 swordsmanship, 12 strength and 10 on a skill from a secondary prof. So having a 13 req weapon doesnt help you much.