Purr
Well-known member
I don't think you have to be in light armor
SWF or TWF Fighter build
- Thread starter Jasparius
- Start date
Bjond
Well-known member
Technically true: you can also wear cloth. Medium or Heavy will drop stance.
Coffey
Well-known member
Purr
Well-known member
Does buckler always work with swf, or just in swashbuckler?
Without swash, you can only use an orb or rune arm or nothing. All shields, including buckler, normally disqualify you from the bonuses, but skirmish in swash allows you to use a buckler and retain all the SWF bonuses.
Frantik
Well-known member
Also you can make use of Swashbuckler tier 3 ability Skirmisher (use of buckler while Swashbuckling) while wielding a larger (non finesseable) single handed weapon such as a Bastard Sword or Dwarven Axe; in this case, you can take the SWF feats with a pseudo Two-Handed weapon and you can add THF speciality at level 31 and get your strikethrough to +140% (always hitting 2 mobs, 40% chance to hit 3).
Note that the only downside to using a larger weapon with Skirmisher is that you do not gain the +10% dodge.
As others have stated above, Shadar-Kai is still a very nice variant (before Dragon Lord it was one of the few ways to get displacement) for the two chain attacks, debuffs and some defence. I always found the Feydark illusionary short sword to be good (until into epics, and sentient weapons) for the potential insta-kills, which trigger fairly often. Tier 3 Swashbuckler also has a 1d6 sonic imbue which is sweet.
Note that the only downside to using a larger weapon with Skirmisher is that you do not gain the +10% dodge.
As others have stated above, Shadar-Kai is still a very nice variant (before Dragon Lord it was one of the few ways to get displacement) for the two chain attacks, debuffs and some defence. I always found the Feydark illusionary short sword to be good (until into epics, and sentient weapons) for the potential insta-kills, which trigger fairly often. Tier 3 Swashbuckler also has a 1d6 sonic imbue which is sweet.
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Yes great point.
I have Char so that will be my hand axe for end game.
My last decision is whether I want shield mastery feats. I took Tactical + 4 and Empowered Healing, figuring this would help a LOT with Cocoon, and still have my level 20 feat to take so I could LR instead and get all 3 shield mastery.
My last decision is whether I want shield mastery feats. I took Tactical + 4 and Empowered Healing, figuring this would help a LOT with Cocoon, and still have my level 20 feat to take so I could LR instead and get all 3 shield mastery.
Djoe
Active member
this late into the leveling process, just take shield specialty at 31 and use an orb or something through epics
I could also ditch the Orb and shield and take OV at 20.
I think I have a physical themed Orb at level 31 but nothing while levelling.
Though I could maybe use a Sonic themed Orb at 21 (if that exists)?
Ive made it to 34. The damage seems quite small compared to my bow Ranger life where I often got crits in the 20k and sometimes got crits in the 60k range with a Leg. Twisted Willow bow - so a level 29 regular bow vs a level 32 raid drop hand axe.
With Char (7.65 x 1d6+3 +101 x6), 80 Str, 70% Doublestrike, 35% attack speed, 196 Melee power and also took Lacerator and had Action Hero running which isnt in the stats above.
Im seeing a lot of 10k and 15k crits but nothing ever huge. Though I do see these often (15 to 20 crit range).
I took Perfect Shield Mastery as well, rather than the Shield Mastery line.
Is it just Melee Power which I need to increase for big jumps in damage ?
My Ranger life I think I had around 250 Ranged power.
With Char (7.65 x 1d6+3 +101 x6), 80 Str, 70% Doublestrike, 35% attack speed, 196 Melee power and also took Lacerator and had Action Hero running which isnt in the stats above.
Im seeing a lot of 10k and 15k crits but nothing ever huge. Though I do see these often (15 to 20 crit range).
I took Perfect Shield Mastery as well, rather than the Shield Mastery line.
Is it just Melee Power which I need to increase for big jumps in damage ?
My Ranger life I think I had around 250 Ranged power.
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Djoe
Active member
Yeah, your melee power is low. On my melee lives, I typically aim to have 300+ melee power, having only 196 means that you're basically running at 75% of what I consider typical. I can't tell you why yours is so low because I don't know exactly what you're running, but keep in mind that you can get 21 from reaper points and a bunch of small (but good) bonuses on mythic powered gear.
Are you barbarian raging? On my strength melee lives I typically have 120+ strength, unless I don't rage, in which case it's in the 90 or so range. Either way, your issues may lay in the gear you're wearing.
35% attack speed and x6 multiplier tells me you took patience and the -10% attack-speed that goes with it. I've not played with it enough to tell you whether or not that was a good choice, but assuming you were using a bow on your ranger life, you should also keep in mind that although you might've seen bigger single numbers, you were attacking a lot slower.
Yeah I was thinking about the attack speed of the bow being lower.
I did include Barb rage. My tavern Strength is 61. Im using Sharn and Ravenloft gear sets as I havent got newer sets yet so Im down a fair bit on potential. I just noticed I dont have any Ins Str so that is 5 or 6 points I need to find.
I do have Rams Might, Qual and Festive Str in Leg. Belt of the Ram.
I did take Patience. I figure with 15 to 20 crit chance I figured makes more of a boost than the 45% to 35% speed drop.
I only have 43 RP so have 6 MP from there.
Im on my 5th life so dont have all the benefits of the 3 x everything lives but it would be good to know if Im on the right path or there are obvious and easy things to do to improve things.
Bjond
Well-known member
IIRC, bow rate of fire is capped same as thrower at 86/m. TWF is 100/m. SWF is 140/m. Using standard double and OH rates, the normalized per-minute scalars are 172 bow v 280 swf v 365 twf.
Smaller hits, but so many more of them that a top TWF beats SWF which beats ranged; ie. it's harder to do, but easier to feel if you judge a build by kill speed rather than floater size.
Patience is pure win on thrower; rof barely drops at all. For TWF, it wins on paper for physical damage by about 4~5%, but the actual play is so horridly slow it feels like a 50% nerf. After the abysmal play trial for TWF, I just punted Patience and skipped numerical testing.
I did not test it for SWF or THF (lack of interest atm), but in general, Patience is best for builds with only physical dps and lots of DPS from abilities with CDs (CDs are not altered by haste/slow). Sneaks, imbue, procs, etc are all reduced. Epic Strikes are not reduced. Crit-based CD abilities are enhanced; Adrenaline adores Patience. Whether Patience is good or not depends on your build.
Typical strong melee will have 100 Double (100 Off-hand 65 OH.Double TWF) (200 Strikethrough THF) and roughly 300~350 melee power. I usually start a build with high MP and whittle it down making trades for more DPS via other means; eg. trading Arborea for Ethereal. My current TWF raid debuffer has MP~320 with modest PLs (only epic completion and RP~65).
BUT, before working on MP, make SURE you can hit 100 doublestrike. Accuracy and Doublestrike will almost certainly have much more effect than MP at first.
Yeah at 70% I only hit 100% when using Reaper boost. Unsure of more sources as I think I took all I could from LD and Fury for Epic, and from Frenzied and Swash for Heroic.
I took all the SWF and Perfect Shield Mastery so there isnt more there either.
Ive got 15% Doublestrike on gear and I think Ins Doublestrike as well.
I slotted a +20 Accuracy aug as well.
I took all the SWF and Perfect Shield Mastery so there isnt more there either.
Ive got 15% Doublestrike on gear and I think Ins Doublestrike as well.
I slotted a +20 Accuracy aug as well.
Bjond
Well-known member
70+30 (reaper) is common for many builds.
Swash+VKF is the easiest way to hit 100 DS. Dagger or kukri will get many other bonuses, including an active cleave with DS+20, but the 5+DS @ core:3 another 5+DS at T4 work with all weapons.
100 DS is harder without VKF. Needs full EIQ stack from gear (15+8+3) and 3x Scourge PLs (9) and 3x Martial (9) and scouring all the trees and probably even some from fillies.
Sounds like I cant really do it with going for Hand Axe. I dont think I have any good end-game daggers so I may save it for when Im just going to cap with the goal to TR quickly. I will be spending a bit of time at cap with my current life and Char seems pretty good.
Im wearing Robes rather than Light armor because I dont have the Part of the Family Light armor so I do get to enjoy lots of Dodge, but I dont enjoy being MRR capped at such a low level. I ran IOD on R8 and seemed to do just fine with the DPS. I would die if hit twice though, so its very much a glass cannon build for now. The other Swashbuckler Bard had over 1k more HP and seemed to take the mob aggro just fine which I assume means he had far more PRR and MRR and other ways to mitigate the damage.
Thanks.