2 questions:

A) Pre-dualwield and with no shield block is it more defensive to wield a spear or sword and shield?

B) When a wizard is gagged, can he cast spells?


Thank you for your help.

Both get decent parry, but I'd bet sword is better versus a wider variety of weapons. Shield block and spin probably work about the same for someone without the skill.

I'll state here that I'm pretty sure spin even for a non-warrior is dex based without the skill trained whereas shield block is not. I'll further add that, this is probably really complicated because of things like light armor use and AC from shields and the level range you're talking about.

I'll further add that, in almost any non-ranking situation you want a spear over a sword if you cannot dual wield just because it's harder to dodge AFAIK.

I'll further add that, my only experience with this was as Trevant (human ranger, 23 dex, archer so no dual wield used mostly spear) - and that was only for less than 100 hours I'd say and I never ever bothered to wear a shield even with shield block in a PVP fight.

I'd use spear over sword/shield in PVP every day for a ranger. However, sword/shield is definitely better (I've played countless rangers) until you get ranger spear and wilderness familiarity for tanking specifically.

I looked up spin. I could have sworn I've seen that it is skill based, however a post from Daevryn I see says "giants won't spin as well" so I'll assume that it is dex based now.

My giant staff spec tanked just as well as my human 23 dex did, but this may have been due to the higher parry rate of the giant and the inherent dam redux.

All that being said, the new answer is. High dex staff spec? staff/spear is better. Low dex staff spec or not a staff spec? sword/shield.