Shattered Kingdoms

At what point do weapons become more effective that talons?

Is there anyway to compare talons to weapons, besides just seeing how many whacks on the same creature it takes to kill them?

Or is there some trick using your strength and dex to figure it out? There has to be some hard code to dictate how much damage a talon will do right?

In my rather limited experience, talons become less effective than weapons around journeyman. As far as I know, though, there's no way to test or compare without doing as you suggested: whacking on the same NPC and comparing the length of the fights.

If I remember right, usually talons are compared to enchanted daggers.

I would break your question down a bit further. Your choice is going to be dependant on your foe and what occupation you are. Weapons are good for learning your second etc levels of attack, shield block and dodge, while talons for a good many things provide a bit more damage. Using a weapon for a griffon is a bit more strategic as at times, you will want a shield to last longer in a brutal battle or.. if you just want to add max damage before you die, then talons... again.. some of this depends on your occupation and the scenario.

Talons are like all quick weapons against high MP/heavy armor damage reduction they are less useful. As a griffon barb, I had a reaching weapon, talons and a scripted weapon for the most part. I noticed the scripted weapon was not very useful even using shield block. How ever that was before a lot of the griffon weapon sub types where add. As I remember from my griffon they always had the crappy of two subtypes that where close to the same (Greatsword rather than Flamberge for example). So claws being as good as I remember is probably out of date if there are better griffon weapons. Do not forget as a barb claws are a lot better than other classes wild flighting lets you slip parries better and do more damage. A trick for younger players if your weapon is ineffective against a foe switch to claws.

The damage of your talons increases with your level. However, your access to better weapons also increases with level, and you also gain access to more weapon-only skills, such as Second Attack. The crossover point depends on your level and class. Generally speaking, the better your class can fight, the sooner you want to switch. (Though as noted in the previous advice, sometimes talons are better, for certain foes.)

Starting out with mastered self-defense is fantastic in the early levels. I wouldn't bother with weapons until you either:

1) get Second Attack, Shield Block, or some similar skill that makes weapons worthwhile or

2) get to Apprentice, at which point in time practicing your Amateur-level skills starts making sense. (The greater your level compared to the learn-level, the more likely you'll improve your skill.)

In general, two-handed weapons make better use of your strength. Unless you find something special, one-handed weapons are for working with Shield Block, when tanking is more important than damage. Most light weapons (daggers, staffs) are inferior to your claws unless they do something special. For example, there's a set of griffon throwing-daggers that either lets you fight from the third row, or mix dagger-throws in with your claw attacks.

Okay I guess I'll fiddle around with it, it's a griffon mage btw... anyone know if increasing the size of the griffon increases the amount of talon damage done?

for example: Large griffon does x amount of damage.

Huge Griffon does xxx amount of damage due to it's ginormous talons/overall size?

Yes, size does affect damage. If you are a mage, you will most likely stop using your claws when you get to journeyman anyways, approximately.

Best weapons available for griffons are straight daggers with a shield, and battle-spears.

Period.

unechanted straight daggers are kinda low on my damage list... but for accuracy and speed a good choice.

Which brings up a good questions would claws be on top of the accuracy and speed charts... considering they're attached?