Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Draignean]

...

You're actually debating on which form of melee weapon to fight a one ton+, fire breathing, magic using, armored, DRAGON with?

Good luck with that, I'll be over here feeding my cows dragonsbane.

On Topic this is a great place to get info almost as quickly as it comes out.

[Shadowlord]

I meant in that they were designed as man killing tools first and foremost not in their method of killing. A crossbow is a perfectly decent hunting weapon from what I gather where as you'd not want to use a sword.

Especially if you were hunting knights or nobles in plate armor.

I wonder if we'll be able to punch them to death?

Not unless you're Hercules.

[Felius]

I wonder if we'll be able to punch them to death?

Not unless you're Hercules.

Or a martial arts movie/anime character.

[Rex_Nex]

I wonder if we'll be able to punch them to death?

Not unless you're Hercules.

Or a martial arts movie/anime character.

Or a high-level Skyrim char.

[jetex1911]

Guess what? Jehdin's video was also taken down. i swear, they have people on computers, 24/7, searching around for any quakecon video of Skyrim.

[Vibhor]

I meant in that they were designed as man killing tools first and foremost not in their method of killing. A crossbow is a perfectly decent hunting weapon from what I gather where as you'd not want to use a sword.

Especially if you were hunting knights or nobles in plate armor.

Be wewy wewy quite. I am hunting knights in plate armor.

Also sword is an absolutely batshit insane weapon to fight anything huge. In SotC, the sword only worked because of the conveniently placed weak points. I don't think there is going to be dragon climbing in Skyrim anytime soon. The spear would work because of high penetration. One could pierce the dragons heart or jam it in its skull while the idiot with sword would be flailing his sword around and scratching the dragon's scale.

[GlyphGryph]

Axes are a possibility but you've mentioned speed being important and it's a valid concern.

I wonder if we'll be able to punch them to death?

Axes tended to one of the fastest short range melee weapons that maintained the ability to punch through armor. A short sword would work as well.

There's no such thing as too close a range to fight at for something unarmed. That'd just be risking getting into a grapple against something much stronger. You're also forgetting that spears can be really effing long and still somehow usable, so you could fight a dragon beyond its melee range.

One: It would have to be an awfully strange dragon to be able to grapple you. And actually, unarmed fighting, like boxing, has a larger minimum effective range than knives, since unarmed strikes (for people at least), require a certain amount of momentum and a decent angle to actually do any damage. You can definitely get inside the range of a dragons teeth and claws.

If you're inside of the dragons minimum effective range, it will have difficulty seeing you, striking you with anything approaching lethal force, and dragons aren't built to grapple.

And the point about the spears is semantics - people were clearly talking about spears as a melee weapon.

Anyways, to be honest, you probably would want to START with a spear of some sort, and depending on circumstances, close.

Anyways, the most effective

[Duke 2.0]

Anyways, the most effective

 Looks like the dragons got to him before he could spill their real weakness.

[Shadowlord]

I, for one, welcome our new dragon overlords.

[Jehdin]

Guess what? Jehdin's video was also taken down. i swear, they have people on computers, 24/7, searching around for any quakecon video of Skyrim.

They actually took longer than expected to take down that Dailymotion one.

A few new links to the footage in case anyone else missed it:

Vimeo

Megavideo

Megaupload to download in 720p.

[Vattic]

Axes tended to one of the fastest short range melee weapons that maintained the ability to punch through armor. A short sword would work as well.

I stand corrected. I was picturing large double-headed battle-axes for some reason; Probably too many Sláine comics lately. Axes could do serious damage in the right places but I wouldn't want to spend too long hacking away trying to get to something vital.

And the point about the spears is semantics - people were clearly talking about spears as a melee weapon.

If you're referring to what I said about javelins being spears then I really did mean pole-weapons when I said spears as I'd like to see a variety as in Morrowind.

For the most part I can't see any advantage of using swords as opposed to spears against such a large foe. Being able to drive your weapon deep into your opponent through tough flesh and armour seems like the best bet. Slicing just won't cut it and if you're going to be stabbing anyway you might as well pick the weapon that's best at it. One other advantage of spears is reach. From the foot of a great dragon being able to strike up under it's wings and into it's neck would be good. Great swords might do the job but they are so long as to be almost pole-weapons.

Anyways, the most effective

would likely be magic.

[Felius]

I also call attention to another issue with spears: Dragons can breath fire. That is, they have a natural ranged attack. With that in mind, any melee weapon is equally worthless without plot in their favor.

If I had to choose a weapon to take a dragon, I would go for a M2 Machine Gun If limited to medieval weaponry, I'd go for lots and lots and lots of crossbows (or high draw bows, if the dragon leather is not THAT strong), preferably with poisoned bolts, the siege weaponry equivalent, other siege weaponry such as mangonels (specifically the lots of smaller projectile version). Of course, ideally I wouldn't be fighting him on the open. Unconventional warfare is the best option. Force it underground and collapse the tunnel on it, poison its food supply, assassinate it while it's sleeping, etc. Don't fight it on its own terms.

[Shadowlord]

What on Earth was Todd Howard doing standing in front of the dragon's mouth after he had knocked it out of the sky? Hitting it over the head with an axe seems kind of daft when you could try to chop its head off at the neck from out of the line of fire of its breath weapon instead.

(Of course, that's probably the only safe place to stand - by the neck - go around to either side and it might hit you with a wing and knock you down, or around back and it might whack you with its tail, so... in front of the head almost seems safe considering how the breath weapon seemed to do very little to him)

[Jehdin]

how the breath weapon seemed to do very little to him

It showed his stats in the menus, he had 999 health.

[Sensei]

I was just going to say, clearly he had a souped up character for the purpose of the demo. I'm sure dragons won't go down nearly as easily in normal gameplay.