unarmed + animal form is a mess

I can't figure some of the rules about been an animal and use some of the claws special attacks from unarmed skill line. For some reason, seems animal get the short end of the stick from both parts.

Rule 1, animals weapons doesn't count for prerequisites of skills. Ok, so if you wear a fire stave, you can't use fire magic, because you still have claws. Ok, gotcha.

Rule 2, to use unarmed attacks you need a free hand (this means having NOTHING at all aka 1 less item in your build) or having an unarmed weapon (katar/claw) or be an animal with claws.

So, now the weirdness start. As wolf wearing a katar/shield i CAN'T use any of the claws attacks (god forbid i have 4 pawns or since im an animal i should be considered i'm always have "free hands" as per rule 1) or i cant use any of the "one free hand skills" (again if weapons doesn't count as animal i should be at least considered to have my hands free)

In short, i cant figure any sense in what seems really arbritary rules for unarmed + animal.

Can anyone care to enlight me?

Thanks

Technically you can equip a sword+shield and use unarmed attacks like Kick, bodyslam, and a couple others. With 1 "free" hand (katar main hand OR claw off hand) you can use the punches, and with 2 free hands you can use every attack in the unarmed repertoire.
You are never really expected to not use any weapons in the game, you just need a free hand-- which the unarmed weapons count as.

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Originally Posted by Mbaums

Technically you can equip a sword+shield and use unarmed attacks like Kick, bodyslam, and a couple others. With 1 "free" hand (katar main hand OR claw off hand) you can use the punches, and with 2 free hands you can use every attack in the unarmed repertoire.
You are never really expected to not use any weapons in the game, you just need a free hand-- which the unarmed weapons count as.

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Thanks for the answer, but im talking about the weird interaccion between unarmed and any animal form. If weapons doesn't count of anything been animal, it should be at least unarmed, otherwise it doesn't make sense. It makes even less sence having animal only unarmed skills (like claw barrage).

I'm sorry I'm not able to answer your question enough, and I'm probably creating more confusion! But...

Weapons do count when you are an animal, just not every weapon. There are not fire magic enabling first weapons, but if there was, it should let animals cast fire magic. Claw barrage is not animal only, instead it just requires a claw. This is satisfied by wielding a claw in the off hand, or I believe the giant bat and lycan transformations (I don’t do animal transformations much, so I can’t triple check it).

I think it would help if you look at unarmed attacks differently than other skills because it's a skill that supports dual wielding UA weapons. The different abilities in UA have different weapon requirements. The cost of using UA to it's fullest comes at the cost of no shield, which some people don't mind (But I could never do because barrage is amazing).

I run unarmed with several animal forms.

The weapons you want to equip are a katar and a claw, same as you always use for unarmed. You will get the stats from these, and be able to use them for all of the unarmed special attacks.

Some mods work for both animal and unarmed. If a mod says "all kick attacks gain xxx" then that works for several animal attacks that count as kicks. Cow comes to mind here. Unarmed has a couple of mods that light the enemy on fire. A mod from your animal form, such as fox, might add to that. It's all in the wording.

Overall, unarmed works great with all animal forms. Good attacks, stun, knockback, some evasion and a ton of mitigation. These add well to all animals. I find unarmed and fox works great. A friends runs unarmed with warden as a lycan. Warden also works great with all animal forms.