Long Blade Proficiency

Skill Tree	Long Blade
Cost	0 sp
Requirements	0 Strength
ID	LongBladesProficiency
Infobox data from game version 2.0.202.89

You gain access to two stances.
Aggressive stance: With a long blade in your primary hand, your long blade and short blade attacks gain +1 to your penetration roll but -2 to hit.
Defensive stance: While wielding a long blade in your primary hand, you gain +2 DV.

Long Blade Proficiency is a skill in the Long Blade tree. It provides access to two toggled abilities: Defensive Stance, and Aggressive Stance. Both stances require having a long blade in the primary hand to have any effect, and only one stance may be active at a time - enabling Defensive Stance will disable both Aggressive Stance and Dueling Stance. Additionally, all stance skills substantially change the effects of Lunge and Swipe, please read those pages for details. Enabling a stance does not cost a turn. Creatures can switch stance and attack on the same turn.

Defensive Stance provides a flat +2 DV while active. It upgrades into Improved Defensive Stance for an extra +1 DV.

Aggressive Stance provides +1 to PV, but a -2 to hit. It upgrades into Improved Aggressive Stance for an extra +1 PV and an extra -1 to hit.

Tips

This section is opinion-based. Your mileage may vary.

Defensive Stance's DV bonus can be very useful even for builds which do not focus on melee combat, such as those focused on guns or mutations. It requires minimal investment while causing an extra 10% of attacks to miss.
Aggressive Stance's PV bonus is very strong, but may be a net disadvantage for characters with low Agility. Players who miss too many attacks in Aggressive Stance may benefit from switching to a different stance.
- On the flipside, Aggressive Stance is very useful for characters with high Agility but low Strength, who may otherwise struggle to actually penetrate with attacks.
If you have a stinger, such as from Stinger (Paralyzing Venom), you can set it as your primary weapon to gain the advantages of a stance without taking up a hand.
Builds which utilize Short Blades and Multiweapon Fighting may find it advantageous to use Aggressive Stance, as its bonus applies to both long and short blades, so long as the primary weapon is a long blade.
Aggressive and Dueling Stances only affect melee attacks, so any turn that isn't spent on melee attacks should be in Defensive Stance, because extra DV is always helpful.
- In a gunfight? Defensive Stance.
- Using Esper powers? Defensive Stance.
- Closing to melee range? Defensive Stance.
- Taking a tonic in the middle of a battle? Switch to Defensive Stance for just that turn.
- Using a melee ability that doesn't use Long Blades or Short Blades (e.g. Shield Slam)? Switch to Defensive Stance for just that turn.

Factions That Teach Long Blade Proficiency

Long Blade Proficiency is not taught by any of Qud's persistent factions. However, procedurally generated factions such as village factions can teach randomly chosen skills as part of their water ritual.

Long Blade Proficiency

Tips

Factions That Teach Long Blade Proficiency

Creatures That Have Long Blade Proficiency