The Sword Beam or Spin Attack??

[SpiritGerudo]

Which did you find more useful, the sword beam or the spin attack?? I for one found the sword beam more useful, I never really made good use of the spin attack and I hated how if you hit something while you were trying to charge it up you couldn't. Both of these were limited, one by health and one by magic (if you're using the magic spin attack). I do think the sword beam is a bit overpowered, you can hit stuff far away without even using your bow and you can do it while moving and it's not as hard to aim, but this was somewhat balanced by how rare hearts were to find in the Zelda games that used it. So what do you people think??

 

[Crash]

I found spin attacks more useful, the sword beams were nice for taking out enemies on the fly, but it's not the little ones I'm worried about The sword beam didn't affect bigger enemies or bosses, and I'm thinking ALttP here, but the Spin Attack did. Not only that, the Spin Attack did twice the amount of damage while the sword beam did one sword under damage.

 

[SpiritGerudo]

Yeah see I'm thinking TLoZ and AoL where the sword beam was just your sword but it went farther. I guess spin attacks did do more damage, I just never got in the habit of using them.

 

[BakerGuy]

spin attacks, i think are better, mostly because of what Crash said and because if i get overwhelmed by enemies, i can defeat them in a flash. plus it looks cool

 

[Crash]

I didn't either until I got older and I realized that it was indeed stronger. From then on I started using them much more often, it was very helpful in ALttP, if you forged your sword after the palace of darkness, in the second dungeon with the giant eye octopus thing, you could kill it two hit no problem.

 

[Ronin]

I like the Spin Attack because it brings down multiple enemies at once, or hacks a circle of grass in one swipe, but the Sword Beam still has novel potential in the 3D titles. I hope we see it a lot more now.

 

[Fred Flintstone]

The only thing I ever use the spin attack for is cutting grass and killing stalfos, or whatever the jumping skeletons are, in a hit and not having them jump away from you. It is normally the weaker enemies that I end up hitting so killing them from a distance is great. The peril beam in MC actually saved my life a couple times.

Best beam is in loz when it is as strong as your sword.

 

[Ventus]

The spin attack is infinitely more useful than the sword beam. With double damage at little cost besides a slight charge time in the 2D Zeldas (and TP Wii), I don't see how double damage is EQUAL to 1/2 damage.

 

[Djinn]

A few games have given us both the spin attack and the sword beams. Starting with ALTTP, I also liked how it was utilized in that game. Link could perform the spin attack with any sword since that relied on his own skill but the sword beam could only be performed after you get the Master Sword. I like that dynamic of the spin attack being something Link can perform but the sword beam is a special ability of a special upgraded magical weapon.

I always thought the spin attack was much more useful in the early parts of the game because it had more attack power behind it when most enemies are much harder to kill. Later on as Link gets more powerful I stop relying on it completely. The charge up time makes it fairly impractical unless I am charging it to sneak up on an enemy and use it when they do not notice. And since many enemies can spot me while I creep up that also makes it a little less practical. OoT took it further by having it take away from the magic meter each time it was used. This meant I almost never used it in that game at all. In Wind Waker the first time I got to the forsaken fortress this was basically how I fought everything.

The sword beam however was incredibly useful for most occasions. Being able to take out an enemy from a distance is always incredibly helpful, even if there is the occasional monster that is immune to it. I thought the limitations placed on it were reasonable enough. You can only use them when at full health and the beam itself was one degree less powerful than your current sword. Not too often do I have full health for long unless I am roaming around in Hyrule field and that does not really count anyway since I am between dungeons and most things out there are rare or easy enough to kill. I am not so sure about having the beams feed off of the magic meter even it it would make more sense from a story standpoint. I would just never have any magic in the meter when I really needed it. All my bottles would be filled with magic restoring potions. Still between the two I like the sword beams more as they remain useful through the game.

 

[Links Brother]

Well, that would depend on the game. In the classic 2D games the sword beam would allow you to shoot from a far distance. This would help you avoid getting closer and when you get closer that's when you get hit. In the 3D games however when you walked into the fray of a Enemies you could just spin to kill everyone around you, as for the beam sword those were not in the games. Each one has good talents however I chose Beam Sword because in the 2D titles it made gameplay a TON easier then getting up close.

 

[Ventus]

I always thought the spin attack was much more useful in the early parts of the game because it had more attack power behind it when most enemies are much harder to kill. Later on as Link gets more powerful I stop relying on it completely. The charge up time makes it fairly impractical unless I am charging it to sneak up on an enemy and use it when they do not notice. And since many enemies can spot me while I creep up that also makes it a little less practical. OoT took it further by having it take away from the magic meter each time it was used.

In OoT, there is the Quick Spin which takes no magic at all to use, but deals the same amount of damage as a normal spin attack with slightly less range.


That video imbues those words.

 

[onidarklink2]

I prefer the spin attack over the sword beam for a number of reasons. For one, it does more damage than a normal attack in many instances, while the sword beam can actually do less damage than a regular attack, and the spin attack still has more reach than normal attacks in many cases. You also attack in a 360 degree radius with the spin attack, so you can hit enemies more easily and hit multiple enemies at once. It's really useful if you know how/when to use it. While being able to attack from a distance with the sword beam is pretty cool, you can just use the bow/boomerang/etc. for long range, which kind of devalues the sword beam anyway.

On an unrealated note, did you know that the sword beam was originally supposed to be in OoT but they took it out because the N64 couldn't hold enough data for it to be in the game?

 

[SavageWizzrobe]

Yeah, I had read about that actually...

Anyway, I agree that the Spin Attack is far more useful than the Sword Beam, mainly because you can attack multiple enemies at a time with the Spin Attack as opposed to the Sword Beam. In addition, you can use the Spin Attack whenever you want, as you don't need to be at full health to use it. Also, the Spin Attack sometimes does 2x damage unlike the Sword Beam, which sometimes does .5x damage. The only flaws to the Spin Attack are that it's close-range and that it takes time to charge up, but I don't mind that.

 

[Batman]

The Spin Attack is very useful at certain times, but the Sword Beam is always helpful. It's always better to be able to attack your enemy from a distance than to knock a few down who are near you.

 

[romani64]

lol i really dont use he spin attack much.

but the swordbeam. talk about useful. attacking from a distance with no worries.
while when using the spin attack, you have to be careful not to get hit by a enemy.