Trying to understand attribute bonuses.
I understand that different weapons types (e.g. hammer versus a sword) have different base damage, and so (for a strength+faith user) level-for-level a weapon like the Climber's Pick hammer will always excel at damage compared to the Whetted Wedge straight sword.
What I didn't expect was for the attribute bonus (that is, the bonus damage for attributes required to use the weapon) on the Climber's pick hammer to be significantly higher than the attribute bonus for the Whetted Wedge straight sword. In fact, I expected them to be exactly the same, assuming the attribute requirement has been met.
However, this is the information I'm seeing in-game.
Climber's Pick (9):
Base: 52
Attribute Bonus: 85
Total: 137
Whetted Wedge (9):
Base: 36
Attribute Bonus: 59
Total: 102
How exactly is the attribute bonus calculated? My Strength and Wisdom are both 26, and if the attribute bonus is a percentage of the weapon's base damage per attribute point, then that means the Whetted Wedge not only has a lower base damage, but also uses a lower percentage of the weapon's base damage per attribute point (4.55%) than the Climber's Pick (5.1%). It's like a double handicap for using a straight-sword. Is that really true?