Thank you all so much for your responses. Ive been doing pell training with both hands for a few months, but I still have a lot of bad habits when fighting that should be helped by using single blue at practice.
Im going to give single blue and sword n' board a try for awhile and put florentine on the back burner until I have a better grasp of my basics.
Brutus wrote:There's no one right answer to this question. Here's the questions I would have you ask of yourself so you can determine what might be a more correct answer for yourself:
1) How many people are you fighting against? Is this a realm practice with field battles? If so, how many people are on each side? Or is this one-on-one sparring? And what weapons are they using? I don't recommend single blue against pole weapons or arrows.
2) What are your goals? Do you have a character from a movie/book/anime that you really want to be like? If you derive more pleasure out of imagining yourself to be like this person than you would from being as effective as you can be, then lean towards their fighting style. Some styles (single blue) are good for training (unless you're in a large, well-established group and you're just going to get your butt handed to you very quickly every battle, and you'll have to sit there watching everyone else fight for 10 minutes until you get your butt handed to you instantly again). Other fighting styles are a good compromise between offense (getting kills) and defense (staying alive), like sword+board. Once you get moderately decent at "florentine" (all offense) you can get a lot of kills and do a lot of damage, but you'll be pretty easily killed, especially if there are missile weapons on the field.
3) How athletic and coordinated are you (what is your reasonable top level of skill, and how easy will it be for you to get decent quickly)? If you aren't super athletic, a shield will give you a good level of defense and allow you to concentrate on swinging your weapon. I've seen plenty of people that were completely worthless with two weapons, but actually pretty good when they didn't have to concentrate on both hands simultaneously.
4) How dedicated are you? Are you just absolutely IN LOVE with this game to the point that no amount of failure will dissuade you? In that case, fight with whatever you want! It doesn't matter whether you succeed or not at first. Every single style has advantages so eventually you will learn how to use those advantages to be relatively successful. However, if you are easily discouraged, you might want to consider going the "easy route" and picking one of the better all-around styles. Then when you get good, you can dabble with other styles, and it won't be a blow to your ego if you aren't effective, because you already know in your heart that you can be effective with other equipment.
As you can see, there's no easy answer, and no one answer is correct for everyone. Like most things in life, there are many different factors to consider. To paraphrase, anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.
1. Its just realm practice with 4 to 10ish people
2. My goal is not to be the best, but as good as I can be while having fun at the same time. Florentine is definitely the most enjoyable for me right now.
3. Im pretty athletic and very coordinated. I grew up my whole life doing martial arts and gymnastics, and I still do both today. I like being as mobile as possible and trying to find odd angles of attack, but my defense suffers a lot. I also have been neglecting my footwork so ive been trying to emphasize that at practice. My worst area is endurance since my athletic background focuses on large, short bursts of energy rather than constand exertion.
4. I really love this game and want to get as much out of it as possible
so I want to improve my longevity on the battlefield. Like I said, I dont intend to be the best fighter ever, but I want to have a good grasp of fighting theory and strategy and then apply it to the field.
Thank you guys again!