Melee Weapon Powerset Comparisons

With the release of Titan Weapons and Staff Fighting, I was wondering how all the melee weapon sets stack up against each other. So I was hoping for some helpful info on the following sets:

Battle Axe
Broadsword
Claws
Dual Blades
Katana
Staff Fighting
Titan Weapons
War Mace

I'm not super experienced and I'm sure someone who is will weigh in, but I'm also interested and I really love the weapon sets for melee and ranged.

TW seems to be king just going by the numbers. Tons of AE that does decent damage, and still excellent single target damage.

In my own thread about what weapon to take with shield, the consensus was that war mace out classes axe and broadsword. Smashing is a much more agreeable damage type overall and the damage/AoE are in the right proportions, plus an absolutely RIDICULOUS single target attack in clobber (all bonuses in CoH are % based so raw damage is always welcome.).

Staff Fighting is getting mixed reviews across the forums, but looking over the set it appears to lean on utility that most players don't particularly value. I'm going to let that simmer for a while before I make a staff scrapper. See what the gurus come up with against pylons and what not.

This is going to get complicated quickly because certain sets perform better paired with different Defenses and on different ATs.

That said, I can pretty much tell you Titan Weapons is king of the heap now for damage on all 3 ATs that can get it.

Potential complications to consider:
Stalkers have different power lineups. Their ST attack chains are all also different because of Assassin's Strike.

Ignoring Stalkers, any weapon that can be paired with Shield Defense is going to do the most damage when paired with that, on a Scrapper, and any weapon that can't is probably going to do the most damage when paired with Fiery Aura, on a Brute.

Tankers often skip their tier 2 attack even if it's better than the tier 1, because they're forced into the tier 1.

I believe, at some point a long time ago, BillZBubba endeavored to compile a spreadsheet of the optimal DPS of every melee set on Brutes and Scrappers, but I have no idea if he completed it or maintains it. You might try PMing him.

I24 Proc Chance = (Enhanced Recharge + Activation Time) * (Current PPM * 1.25) / 60*(1 + .75*(.15*Radius - 0.011*Radius*(360-Arc)/30))
Single Target Radius = 0. AoE Non-Cone Arc = 360.

My personal ranking roughly in order of power, though keep in mind that all are quite viable and the ranking could change depending on your defensive set and build:

1) Titan Weapons due to AoE and good damage
2) Katana due to +defense attack and generally fast attacks
3) Mace due to good crowd control
4) Broadsword/Axe they're roughly similar in power
5) Staff Fighting, more for utility but still quite fun to play
6) Dual Blades, combos can fail if you miss an attack but they're nice when they hit.
7) Claws, fast attacks and quick recharge.

Personally I'd put Broadsword and Battle Axe at the bottom, but I really can't say if that's the case.

I've heard many times how Dual Blades is weak, but then we see DB/ELA combo seems to come out on top for at least ST DPS.

Missing with DB's combo's never effected me though, as missing an attack in it's combo, to me anyways, was like missing an attack in any chain that didn't have a combo. You missed, you did less damage.

But I can see how people feel a miss means less damage since the combo system probably makes the feeling worse (it really isn't tho).

Pairing something with shields will also make a big difference.

Pairing with Fire Armor will also make a difference.

Assuming SR or WP for a secondary...

1) Titan Weapons
2) Dual Blades
3) Claws
4) Katana
4) Staff
5) Broadsword
5) Axe
5) War Mace

I always thought BS/BA/WM felt pretty similar (so not going by actual numbers, just game play) while I think Katana and Staff are pretty equal.

Though we're not including Spines as a weapon set?

Here's what I think...

Titan Weapons - my only experience is a mid-20's tanker, so it's not much. But everybody else here has explained enough about how good it is.

War Mace - I love this set. It annihilates your endurance, but the damage is superior to anything else I've seen. Clobber is simply amazing.

Battle Axe - Never played it, but from what I read, it's basically a weaker version of Mace. Not much point in playing it other than pure concept.

Broadsword/Katana - It's basically the same set, with katana being overall a bit better due to quicker attacks. Obviously the gem of the sets is parry/DA, which gives you a good amount of defense. But in my opinion the sets just don't compare to WM. WM might not have +def, but its damage is better by quite a large margin...especially the AoE.

Claws - Decent ST damage and great AoE. But I personally don't enjoy the set. The attacks are boring to me. It's a very good set though, as far as actual effectiveness goes.

Dual Blades - No experience here, but it seems kind of like dual pistols. Mostly flash, not as much substance.

Staff Fighting - Too new to really say.

Overall, if I was making a suggestion about which weapons set to choose for a powerhouse build, I would suggest either TW or WM. One WM advantage is that it can be used with /shield, which makes WM's damage godly.

Well it seems like the verdict isn't out on Staff Fighting just yet, so looks like I may have to wait a bit for that. I was suprised to hear that War Mace has garnered such praise. I've never tried the set but thought it was basically the same as Battle Axe.

So it seems the general consensus is that Titan Weapons does very good damage. Claws and Katana are also up there. How is Broad Sword? I see some have listed it as equal to Katana, while others show it with Battle Axe.

I'm also looking for info on each set's niche. So far I know that Katana and Broad Sword have the +def component, and that Dual Blades has combos. I also know that claws contains attacks that recharge quickly, some ranged attacks, and good aoe dps.

My main character is a BS/SR.

Headsplitter does a tremendous amount of damage and if you're a scrapper it has an improved chance of criting. BS is a good all around set but isn't terribly flashy about any of it. Axe is similar except instead of -def it gives kd, which can be decent for crowd control and katana is exactly the same as BS except that it animates and recharges faster but deals less damage. Warmace is also similar aside from its crowd control and smashing damage.

Honestly though, you really can't go wrong with any of the weapon sets. Just choose whichever one fits your concept best.