Piercing is slow to advance: but - take a cleric and go to BB and do the Crazed Gobbys - easy pull - safe and they con red all the way to mid 20s. They will con high blues up to under red until thirtys - and are hardly touched for camping. (mostly) You can work on piercing to your hearts content and other lesser worked skills like archery etc.
Say you hit a mob with this weapon. Lets say your initial hit was for 60 damage. The damage Bonus on this weapon (45) is added to the total, so you would actually hit for 105 dmg on your poke. Damage Bonus does not add to the base damage of the weapon (Meaning it does not make the tusk an 85/44 weapon). The Cold Dmg IS added to the tusk's base damage (making weapon 44/44 ASSUMING that the monster fails its' cold resistance check).
i think we should see more 2h piercing weapons because its not really worth getting skills in 2hp. all the 2hp weapons that even worth using are high lvl stuff like this ^
Luckily, you don't NEED to train using a 2hp, since there is only one piercing skill, used for all piercing weapons, regardless of whether they are 1h or 2h.
Personally, I like to keep a pair of velium daggers in my pack, and pull them out when I end up in an overkill (too many, or lvl too high, for what we are killing) group, and just practice.
On Brell Serilis server, Centi Warspears (20dmg/30delay) are a great deal in the bazaar, maybe because 2hp is not the beaten path. The cheapest one is 20 to 40pp any time, and I've seen them as low as 10. (as of march 2003)
For a true, untwinked newbie it's tempting to train this skill to take advantage of that. But advancing all 5 melee skills is a pain at low levels, especially with the speed at which you can level these days. If you work on more than 2 skills, they tend to fall behind. So choose wisely.
By the time I got a warrior to 50, he had 1HS, 2HS, 1HB, 2HB and Piercing all at (200) by keeping my skills as rounded as possible while I advanced. If you get a new weapon, don't be afraid to train with it, you WILL get better.
The key is timing, if you are the only tank in an xp group, don't pull out your 2hb with a skill of (45) heheh. Do it when you are not the main or secondary tank in a raid, or even if you are not the MT in any group. Haste and dex buffs also make training so much easier.
All my skills are above 200 now, piercing was one of my favorites from the beginning though. Of course as a SK, my two biggest ones in training were 1hs & 2hs, but I was always intrigued by the possibility of decent weapons in other categories. Nowadays, for a Shadow Knight and Paladin, the Blunt series of skills harbor the most potential, but piercers are always nice not to mention have a remarkable look to any knight. The old myth about swordsmanship being the only need for a Knight is long gone.
i have a 51 pally that ran with 2hp from lvl 1 by choise since i studied bazaar and for myself with 20-30k to spend on equipment i could get a better deal of 2hp than 2hs
i started with a Centi Warspear moved onto Carved velium war lance and have been using Two Toned Corpse pitchfork since lvl 49 25 dmg / 22 dly atm i also have a Narldni's Lance sat waiting for lvl 55 to roll around so i have pretty much got my weapons to take me to End game unless i plan to join an Uber guild or spend 40k+ on a weapon (not likely)
just my 2Cp but i think that people get herded down the 2Hs route because of the epic <which imho is the worst of the epic's>
Jarkeld Hammerhiem <Darkstorm Dragons> Druzzil Ro server Cavalier of Brell
Your mind is like a parachute, it only works when it's open.
Um.. because the original message stated that the pally epic is the worst of all he epics.. but most people feel the warrior epic is even worse... Try reading.
Something to keep in mind, 2 hand piercing runs on the same skill as 1 hand piercing... although this is a pain for the Paladins to deal with in that they can't use most 1 hand piercers, Warriors and Shadowknights both have a pretty wide range of lower-mid range piercing items.
As far as Paladins practicing their piercing skill, a Luggald Dagger can be used by paladins and it has a delay around 18 or so. These daggers are pretty common drops in places like Gulf of Gunthak and Dulak's Harbor.