Newbie tips to choosing your weapon

I've been seeing a lot of people asking themselves why choose one weapon over another, whats the difference between an axe and a sword.

well I thought i'd make a guide to explain how each weapon differs from one another.

first off is modications. all weapons will have similar modifications available to them. one of the differences is the attributes on that gear. depending on what attributes are required to equip the gear, will determine what can show up on the gear. for example a wand will only have intellect as a possible modification on it, while an axe can have strength and/or dexterity

also any weapon that requires intellect will also be capable of obtaining spell oriented modifications such as mana, mana regen, spell damage, cast speed, spell crit chance and so on.

also skills will require specific weapon types in order to use that spell. read each spell carefully to find out which one requires which weapon type, such as heavy strike requires a mace, axe or staff in order to use it. while viper strike requires claws, daggers or swords.

now for each weapon, there are 8 different category of weapons, 2 of them have 2 subsets of types. you have swords (rapiers and basic), maces (scepters and basic), axes, bows, daggers, staffs, claws, and wands.

Swords are broken up into 2 different categories, rapiers and basics, basics can come in as 2 handed or 1 handed, rapiers are strictly 1 handed weapons. the specialty of the basic sword is that it'll have a relativity fast attack speed, but slightly lower damage. it will also have a implicit bonus of 18% local accuracy (meaning it only applies to attacks with this weapon) making this weapon reliable to attacks and making sure you hit your target. though you will still need to get some dex to make the accuracy decent, but you wont need as much compared to some other weapons.

rapiers on the other hand will provide an implicit bonus of additional critical damage. though the weapon itself will have a base crit chance of only 5%, this will mean you'll need to invest quite heavily into crit chance in the passive tree in order to make full use of this weapon. on the bright side though, it will usually have one of the highest attack speeds in the game, giving you a higher frequency of attacks thus you wont have to bring your crit chance up too high, you'll just have to find that balance point.

a special note for both swords and rapiers is that they have a unique passive node that allows them to reduce a enemy's chance of blocking thus further increasing their overall chance to hit any target. a great talent if you plan on trying your luck in the pvp arena.

maces are also broken up into 2 different categories, scepters and basics, again basics can come in both 2 handed or 1 handed, but scepters are always 1 handed weapons. all basic maces will have an increase to your stun duration by 20% while also being one of the slowest weapon type in the game. this will be great weapon to use if your goal is to stun your opponents and keep them locked up for majority of the match, though you will see diminishing returns going above 75% stun chance, but with this weapon you will stun them for a long period of time, letting you to give you a much larger reaction time.

Scepters can be a caster weapon that provides anywhere from 10-20% elemental damage depending on the scepter (this amount is fixed to each weapon and has no random aspect to it). unlike basic maces, this weapon can have an average attack speed. it is the preferred choice of weapon if you plan to use elemental modifiers such as added lighting/cold support gems, or auras such as anger and wrath. this weapon will also increase the damage on spells which uses elemental damage as well.

a special note about maces and scepters is that their passive nodes also have the capability to reduce the stun threshold on enemies attack, thus increasing the chance to stun them.

Axes are the most basic weapon of them all, having decent attack speed, and the highest raw damage in the game. they have no other special features and provides nothing special to the table. they have basic crit chance and they come in both 1 handed and 2 handed versions. they're probably the most boring weapons, but because they are the highest in base damage, they will do the most damage and have the highest DPS in the game. they will be able to provide the most damage with converted abilities and thus become the best weapons when it comes to pure raw damage.

all their passives nodes are fairly basic and will not provide anything special.

Staffs are the caster's 2 handed weapon. since they are a caster weapon, they will provide caster modifications, but they're also the slowest weapon of all, with the highest attack speed being 1.25. though they are the only 2 handed weapon that is capable of blocking since they possess a 12% block chance. the lowest block chance in the game. the reason you'd want to pick this weapon is if you are a caster wishing to be able to have a second possible 5-6 linked socket in your gear besides your chest piece. Or if you wish to create a 2 handed weapon build based around crits, since this is the only 2 handed weapon with a crit chance of 6.5 or higher.

staves also have nodes to greatly increase the block chance, upto an additional 19% giving you a total of 31% block chance. they also support a unique passive to gain additional global crit chance while holding a staff which will apply to both the staff's physical attacks, and spells casted. though this cluster is very lacking compared to blood thirster cluster which provides very similar stats.

Daggers are caster melee weapons, these weapons will have very large damage ranges similar to lightning damage and can have fairly high attack speeds as well. but their biggest appeal is in their crit chance and their implicate crit chance modifier. they will have the second highest base crit chance, or the highest melee base crit chance in the game, while also providing anywhere from 40-80% global crit chance modifier. crit chance in the game currently is only found in the passive tree with only amulets and int based weapons capable of gaining spell crit. this makes daggers the best weapons in the game to create a spell crit caster without having to invest too heavily into the passive tree. or if you plan to go melee, this will also be the best weapon to do that since with a higher base crit chance, you can get very high crit chance with out many crit chance nodes from the passive tree, allowing you to get more utility out of your passive tree.

a special node in the passive tree also allows daggers that do a critical strike to poison the enemy target.

Claws are another caster melee weapon that will always have either a life on hit, or life leech attached to it. also being a caster weapon, it also has an increased base crit chance and also decent amount of attack speed on them. as long as your defenses are high enough, this weapon will keep you topped up and keep going. other than that, there arent much benefits of using claws.

their special node is that claws gain the most life leech in the game through passives.

Wands are 1 handed ranged weapons that deal physical damage. they are also the highest base crit chance at 8% or higher in the game. they also provide an increase to spell damage that is random and the range is also different for each wand type. in the early stages of a caster, you'll probably get more increase damage from a scepter since wands are varied. but eventually wands will provide just as much than a scepter would. so choose which ever one happens to have the higher increased elemental/spell damage. though if you plan to use power siphon, that would only work with a wand and it will provide crit chances in the form of power charges.

also wands do have passive nodes which can add elemental damage to it making it a powerful elemental damage dealier especially with power siphon. the wand also has a node that will be able ot knock back enemies who are hit with a critical strike.

Bows are your 2 handed ranged weapon that deals physical damage. they provide nothing special at all other than being a ranged weapon. also certain skills require exclusive to the bow, such as any arrow ability. though the weapon itself provides no extra implications, they are the only 2 handed weapon that is able to equip a quiver which will provide either extra damage, or dex, and also a whole extra set of modifications as well.

their special nodes are that you can get a node to apply 35% chance for your arrow shots to pierce, giving you additional aoe potential. along with a node to provide knock back on any enemy that takes a critical strike.

those were all the weapons and the differences between them, please leave a comment if you thought this was helpful or if theres any thing else that needs to be added or changed

Uhhh, dunno how to say this, but... how about some formatting?