1) Design
When you are making a pure offensive, the things that matter most are:
Damage, Endurance, Attack skills, Decise skills, Initiative skills, and wit.
While other attributes and skills are nice, especially if you want to try fighting differently, the pure offensive doesn't care much about them.
Damage is dictated by Strength and Size.
Endurance is dictated by Strength, Constitution, and Will (especially Will)
You get attack skills at: Str: 5, 7, 15, 17, 21, 21 Wit: 5, 7, 9, 11, 11, 13, 15, 17, 21, 21 Wil: 5, 7, 15, 17, 21, 21 Dft: 5, 7, 9, 11, 11, 13, 15, 17, 21, 21 You get decise skills at: Wit: 5, 7, 17, 21 Wil: 5, 7, 9, 15, 17, 21 Spd: All even values You get init skills at: Siz: 5, 7, 15, 17, 21, 21 Wit: 5, 7, 9, 11, 11, 11, 11, 13, 15, 17, 21, 21 Spd: 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 21 Dft: 5, 7, 7, 15, 15, 17, 21, 21Wit helps you learn more skills and as you'll notice contributes to each of the skills that you care about (attack, decise, and init). The only other thing to seriously consider is your weapon selection.
Damage is probably the most important attribute, followed by decise and then attack. Wit is also very important as you need to learn your offensive skills enough to keep up your ability to overwhelm your opponents.
2) Style Choice
Strikers are the best pure offensive style. They conserve endurance, learn the best skills naturally (decise and attack), and can use all the good weapons. The only real negative is that they have fewer attack skills than the other pure offensive styles.
Bashers are the next best choice. They learn the right skills (but learn attack more than decise) and have more attack than strikers. However, their weapon choices are not as good as strikers (which makes damage rating very important for bashers) and do not conserve endurance like strikers.
Slashers are the last of the styles that are naturally a pure offensive. They do not learn decise naturally, though, so while they are great with their attack and initiative, they are generally slower than their counterparts. They have access to most of the best weapons in the game, but do not have a great speed weapon. Parry Strikers can also be run naturally as a pure offensive. They learn lots of decise skills, but learn parry skills to go with it. They can use almost any weapon and can make fine pure offensives.
None of the other styles learn decise naturally, so while it can be a favorite learn for any other style, you can't count learning them, so speed can be an issue. Other styles' strengths are not in the pure offensive category, but there is nothing wrong with running other styles as pure offensives. Recommend HIGH WIT for these!
3) Weapon Selection (with requirements)
The following are my recommendations. Feel free to try other weapons
Speed Weapons (best chance to attack first):
Striker/Parry Striker Short Spear (9 Str, 5 Wit, 7 Dft) Dagger (3 Str, 7 Wit, 7 Dft) Basher Quarterstaff (11 Str, 9 Siz, 11 Wit, 11 Dft) War Hammer (13 Str, 5 Wit, 7 Dft) Slasher (I run far fewer slashers, so I'm not as sure about this one) Hatchet? (7 Str, 5 Wit, 7 Dft)Damage Weapons: (When damage is what you really care about)
Striker/Parry Striker/Slasher Battle Axe (15 Str, 7 Wit, 9 Dft - If using an off-hand weapon, also 9 Siz) Scimitar (9 Str, 11 Wit, 11 Dft) Broadsword (11 Str, 9 Wit, 7 Dft) Basher (note that HL and GS are very heavy and burn endurance fast) Halberd (17 Str, 9 Siz, 9 Wit, 11 Dft) Greatsword (15 Str, 9 Siz, 9 Wit, 11 Dft) ...can also use Battle Axe or Broadsword marginally... Other Good All Purpose Weapons: Striker/Parry Striker/Slasher Longsword (11 Str, 13 Wit, 11 Dft) Basher Maul (15 Str, 9 Siz, 5 Wit, 7 Dft) Great Axe (13 Str, 9 Wit, 11 Dft)4) Strategy and Tactics
The most common strategy used by pure offensives is run hot. Hot means high offensive effort (OE) and activity level (AL). 10 OE and 10 AL is very common. Realize the hotter you run, the faster you will use your endurance. But most of the time, you'll want to run hot. Unless you know you're fighting a pure defensive, running hot is good advice for pure offensives.
If you're fighting a pure defensive, they want you to use all your endurance, so running this hot might not be a good idea. Running 1 AL is not a bad idea (they are not going to try to attack you).
Also realize that every warrior has a favorite rhythm (favorite OE and AL) which will make them fight better. Some warriors don't like running super hot (or aren't) as well suited to run super hot. Until you get to advanced duel2, you won't know for sure what your favorite rhythm is. But you can experiment and sometimes get a feel that your warrior runs very well at certain numbers.
I am not a fan of using tactics. They hurt you as much as they help you. That said, the Decise tactic is great for making you faster. It is easily countered by a warrior using the Response tactic. I've won ridiculous fights (new warriors beating 20 fight warriors) by using the response tactic. The response tactic is a great way to counter another offensive using the decise tactic.
I usually do not use Bash, Slash, or Lunge very often.
5) Armor
No armor is recommended. But death is a high risk. Even using the lightest armor (ALE/L) protects against death in a major way compared to no armor. If you know you're fighting someone faster than you, wearing armor may very well be a good idea (While who attacks first is dictated largely by luck, I'd rather not depend on luck if I have another choice)