vAddicatedGamer: I find that if I nailed down the timing of the attacks, I use strong attacks more often than fast attacks, contrary to most of you :).
Light attack:
- The good: The ability to leap attack a far away opponent. Combo attack is devastating if you catch your enemy off-guard (i.e. you don't get hit/blocked while executing it)
- The so-so: While it is quick half the time, sometimes it's barely faster than strong attack. Note that fast attack takes several form.
- The bad: Auto-target can be rather jumpy. So if you are fighting a mob, there's a decent chance of attacking an unintended target, affecting your flow of combat and even causing unexpected injury/death. This is somewhat circumvented by very careful isolation of enemy.
Strong attack - The good: 2x
un-deducted damage compared to that of light attack. How does this affect the
effective damage? Say you have 30 damage (the one shown on character screen), your enemy has 15 armor, so your light attack deals 30-15 = 15
effective damage. If you use strong attack, each hit deals 60-15=45
effective damage. So depending on the enemy's armor, you can get higher than 2x the
effective damage.
- The good II: Larger arc of attack. More likely to damage multiple enemies at once.
- The good III: You are rooted at the spot. So the jumpy auto-targetting has
far less effect on you.
- The bad: It's generally slow. If you don't get the timing, you are susceptible to injury.
That's why I use strong attack whenever my intended target is within weapon reach. I've been playing on Hard since my first playthrough on Normal.
This has been a very educational post. I will now scuttle back to my cave.