Help with melee weapon stats and choice

Anyone got to grips with how to figure out the better melee weapon from their stats? I'm thinking particularly of the damage vs speed trade-off.

If we take, say, a low level character like Sogg. If I give him a rapier and a broadsword, he chooses the broadsword. Yet on him, the stats are:

rapier: damage 9-16 (fatigure 9-12); speed 15
broadsword: dam 4-16 (fat 3-11); spd 4

Just looking at the damage and fatigue the rapier seems slightly better.

But the killer is the speed - I understand a weapon speed of 15 translates into 3 action points per strike whereas one of 4 translates inot 7 P per strike. So the rapier will be wielded more than twice as fast as the broadsword and, given comparable damage stats, do more than twice as much damage.

Yet Sogg chooses the broadsword. Why?

What am I missing here?

Also, what is the "total attack" on the lower left corner of Sogg's paper doll - it is valued at 18 for the broadsword and 17 for the rapier.

Thanks for any advice.

 

Followers' default choice of weapons is a complete mystery to me, but they seem to judge weapons by the maximum damage, while ignoring the speed and other bonuses and penalties. They also sometimes chose weapons they have no skill with over weapons they had mastered (leave a chakram in Sogg's inventory, and he will use it instead of a pyro axe). Just give them weapons you think are most effective, and if they try using something else, take it out of their inventory.
A Rapier is definitely better than a Broadsword.

 

You have it right, speed is good. Weapon speed is not the only thing, but it is way ahead of damage, the second place finisher. The fabled Pyro Axe & Pyro Bow make up for a slow speed with massive damage. There is a rather useful cursed weapon named The Axe of Lost Time. No one gets more than two swings with that piece, but its max damage is a whopping 72. Those are numbers to give up speed for.

 

I do math to figure it out. Here, a for instance with make believe weapons, all are swords:

Weapon A
damage: 4-16
Speed 5

Weapon B
damage: 3-10
Speed 10

Now A is stronger, but half as fast, so I can get 2 attacks with B for every one with A, not sure if that is exactly right, but close enough. So I would actually put weapon A vs a 6-20 damage weapon, because of the twice as fast speed. Now If weapon A was 12-26 and Speed 5, the speed wouldn't compensate and I would choose Weapon A.

In a tie, I prefer speed, because if I'm fighting skeletons for example, all the skeletons are weak, and if I only have two attacks, I don't want to deal a lowly skeleton 70 damage and still have 10 more left, I want to just barely kill 5 of them and not be surrounded.

 

i agree completely. this is why i've held onto the sharpshooter's pistol for most of the game.

 

It's also why the Balanced Sword is one of the best early game weapons. Damn fast, and fairly decent damage too