Blades

A powerful swordsman has reflexes of lightning, but more importantly, knows how to look cool while fighting.

Can blades fuck you up: y/n

Blades is a weapon skill that relies on reflexes and cool. Swords, knives and the likes rely on this skill.

Advantages

They have great damage potential, and most of the end-game weapons are PC2. Their damages are mostly concentrated, which helps passing through big soaks. Since you'll have big cool, stress is something that you don't have to worry about, meaning with a little management you could have 5 or even 6 implants in you. It also helps with using focus mutations - you can use a couple without the stress affecting you in any noticeable way. Blades use the same stats as rifles and pistols, so with some skill raw you could easily use those as well.

Disadvantages

You're going to need a decent brawn to use most blades, since with the exception of the Shiver Sword all of them scales with it a bit. Also, the skills that cool affects generally aren't as useful as the ones affected by senses or endurance. Most of them are very slow (even the shiver) so you'll need all the reflex you can get. They mainly do slash damage which is pretty easy to get soaks for. Also most of the best blades are one-time quest rewards, and the Shiver Sword requires power to operate. Overall almost every blade except the shiver scales pretty badly compared to other weapons, so you might have some trouble until you reach your 10th raw. Cool is very easy to debuff by other players as well, meaning you won't do as well in PVP as other builds could.

Weapons

For an in-depth database for the weapons, see Weaponry.

Starting weapons

• War saw - Pretty slow and has a lower tohit than other blades, but has a decent damage.
• Plywood sword - Can break permamently, don't bother.
• Switchblade - Easily obtained, your bread and butter grinding weapon. Dualwield these for maximum efficiency.
• Cutting knife and butcher knife - Gives a bonus to butchering corpses. Slightly better than switchblades - though the butcher knife is slower.
• Rebar sword - Fast and decent damage, but only with 0-2 raw.
• Shiv - Your improvised prison weapon if you'll end up there for some reason.
• Poison pick - Good crit chance, decent stab damage and infects everything you hit with ebola. Can also break permanently at random.
• Wakizashi - Better than switchblades, if you have the money for it.
• Fine wakizashi - Better than wakizashis, if you can get a pair of those.
• Sonic scalpel - Great alternative to Wakizashis, since they do unsoakable bleed damage.
• Crystal spike - Does mainly EMP damage, which is great against those pesky ghosts and spectres.
• Gas-powered chainsaw - Also does bleed damage, but needs fuel to be decent and even then it's very slow. (It's also one-handed - dual wielding chainsaws anyone?)

Mid-range weapons

• Katana - Your next step from the starting weapons. Easily obtained, decent damage and speed, one handed. Dual-wield them and you can do great.
• Cutlass - Slightly better than the katana, but if you have the raw for this you can do a lot better.
• Lotus Nodachi - One-time quest reward from Kakuri. Great if you need the PC2.
• Butane torch - Does decent burn damage, but needs butane to work which is pretty bothersome to aquire.

High-end weapons

• Fine katana - The best one-handed blade, for what it's worth. One-time quest reward from Kakuri.
• Wasteland kukri - The craftable alternative to fine katanas. Only slightly worse than those but scales a little more with brawn, so if you can only get these you still should be OK.
• Bruce Springsteel - Impressive damage, but very, very slow. Also two handed and PC2.
• Boss Springsteel - Better damage than the Bruce and a little faster, but has less hit. Which one is better is mainly personal preference.
• Hosaka daikatana - One-time quest rewards for killing a certain person who wanders between Necropolis gate and Mountain Pass. Good damage, decend speed and PC2.
• Shiver sword - The best blade. Does insane amount of slash damage even if it's a bit slow compared to other endgame PC2 weapons, and needs a cheap power adapter (rechargable, 20 unit) or power adapter (needs atomicells to recharge, 130 unit per cell to a max of 300 unit) to work.

Stats

After maxing out reflex then cool for the weapon skill, you should get a decent brawn. Your aim should be at least 15 total (with implants, mutations and buffs). This will allow you cap the armour thickness, and speedcap the 12mm pistol, which is (if you get the 6 raw for it) great against enemies who are weak to bullet or prone to parry/dodge a lot. After that you could either spend the rest on senses for dodge and focus buff, endurance so you could get boost from drugs without dying all the time, brawn to damage cap the Springsteels or brains if you plan to use your head a lot.

Mods

These are just guidelines - the list of what can you put on what weapon can vary (especially with the high-end blades)

• Balanced grip - Blades are a little slow, but this helps them a lot. Put it on everything you can.
• Sharpening kit - More slash damage is always good.
• Monowire serrator - Since you'll end up with a decent brawn, that'll be enough for you to get some more damage out of this.
• Shock/Butane - Your preferred choice of elemental damage.
• EMP generator - If you get some crystal spikes for the ghosts, completely forgettable.

Mutations

Recommended

• Hyperimmune - unless you plan to go vampire/zombie, HI is a great mutation with almost no disadvantages. The +end is nice too because you're not going to have a lot of that.
• Superclot - Unless you really want to go Bleeder, this helps a lot against bleeding, and with HI, the plus End can be helpful.
• Mule - Weapons and armour can be quite heavy, and with your cool the unburdened stress ticks are laughably small in case you have to run without any equipment. Plus being able to carry more is always nice.
• Nimble fingers - Plus reflexes. You'll need all the reflex you can get to have a decent speed, and the -End can be easily countered with HI/SC.
• Twitchy Nerves - Same as Nimble.
• Fuck Machine - +1 cool, plus the ability to control horny (whether you need brawn or cool).

Useful

• Enigma - The +2 cool isn't that necessary, and being unable to get diagnosed can be annoying. But if you can get past that it's definitely something to get.
• Bloodhoud - More senses with no downside.
• Brute Strength/Swollen brain - Dependent if you want to be brainy or not. With implants and horny, you can get 15 brawn easily with only 10 raw (+2 from horny and +3 from implant), so Swollen can help you with brains - but if you don't care about that, then you can get Brute for even more brawn and damage.

Focus

Unlike spears and whips users, you're not going to have as much focus they do due that you don't have much of either of the stats that boost that skill. That doesn't mean you'll be useless with it: with 15 raw and the boost from the various focus mutations, you could easly get around 30 total. That, plus you'll have the ability to get massively reduced stress from using them means that it can be a great help during combat.