New player questions

[Radikus]

I just recently started playing EQ2 this week. I started as a Swashbuckler. I have a few questions if anyone would be kind enough to address them. 1.  Ive read/heard some stuff about using 1h and not DW'in. Im pretty confused by this. Why would I choose to use a 1h over DW? I understand its a slight DPS increase. But as a new player im unsure on what type of weapons to aim for. 2.  Dont spam CA (combat arts?)? I understand that this delays my auto attack. This touches back onto question 1. What should I be looking for weapon wise and how do I judge when to use my attacks? Right now I am level 33. I played a long long time ago and leveled to about 28, I picked up my Swash agian as I restarted the game. I find myself a bit lost <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Also I should mention that I run in a full group always. Me and 5 friends are planning to reroll on Nagafen (currently on Venekor) and we will run a set party. So I will always be in a group. The group makeup currently is me (swash), wizard, zerker, templar, ranger, and the last slot seems likely to be another wizard. I am unsure if any of these classes buffs will change my CA attack times. I read through many many posts on these boards. But alot of times I find its like reading a different language <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Krontak]

<p>Don't even worry about AA's until later.  That includes the 1 handed aa in the wis line.  Until you can max out double attack with a 1 hander its not worth it really unless you find a phenomenal 1 hander.  Check the AA threads as they discuss this in detail.</p><p>And, as far as timing.  CA's apart from 1 of your deaggro's and your AOEs take .5 sec of cast time and .5 sec of recovery time before another attack can take place.  So, if you've got a weapon speed after haste at about say 1.5 sec (use /weaponstats to figure this out), try and time hitting your CA immediatly after the auto attack hits, wait for the next auto attack, then repeat.  You'll eventually get the feel of it and this becomes second nature.  If you've got a weaponspeed of about 3 seconds you could probably land 2 attacks.  So, better off to get a longer delay weapon so its easier to time things.  Avoid stuff like Right Hand of the Priestess with the 1.0 sec delay cause you'll end up delaying so much of the auto attack the DR prob ends up being closer to 60 rather than the displayed 80.  Reason you do this is to not delay your auto attacks and as you will learn, auto attack damage in the long run ends up being somewhere around 50% of a swashy's damage after you get skills such as hurricane at 55.  Remember, the DR displayed is the DR with non of the auto attacks disrupted so you really want to avoid disrupting any auto attacks.  Anyways, do some searches for more info in this forum and in other area's in the forum.  There have been about a gazillion discussions on this.</p><p>Now, all this above is much much easier to do without lag.  Once you get too much lag you can throw all this out the window as timing CA's probably wont do jack.  Good luck.</p>