From looking at so many posts about people stressing out from not enough tankiness or dps in swordsman, it made me rethink what a swordsman is at the core of its being.
I just had a good dungeon run earlier in which we unfortunatly had no clerics, and as such, had to take the least amount of damage possible to make it a decent run, but we fortunatly had a psychoikino 3 which had really great cc.
In order to help out as best as i could, from my swordsman1, palesta 1 barb 3 build so far, i simply used all the cc i could and pushed the enemies away from the kino, or into the cc he provided so as to make it easier to kill them all. In all this, i didnt FEEL like a tank, i was a repositioning monster, i made sure the monsters were where we needed them to be, and it felt RIGHT.
A swordsman isnt a ‘tank’ in the tradditionall MMO fashion, its a strategist. You bring the enemy right where you want him.
From the begining, in swordsman C1, we get 3 tools to help the strategist approach: Provoke, Bash and Pain supression
Bash is especially potent in that role, having overheat 3 and a controllable knockback, its a tool i use again and again in missions and dungeons. like a shepherd, it helps positions the monsters exactly where they are needed. It helps when MOBBING. Plenty of dungeons ive been had monsters a bit out of the aoe from cryo, psychokino, ground tiles or statues from clerics and diev, our a bit out of that ele AoE.
Pain supression and Provoke are tools for bosses mostly, since it helps in staying where we need to be and in keeping him on us the whole time.
Notice what i did? didnt speak about tankiness. From all i could see so far, and granted, its not much with me being only 151 at the moment, but i did read a lot, and look at many videos, we arent tanks in most classes of swordsman, yet most have tools to help THIS approach of swordsman.
If we check other classes of swordsman, we can see plenty of debuffs or repositioning tools(knockback/down, push, stuns, shock, pull, gap closer from long stride, extra movement speed from sprint or trot, armor reduction/break, restrain from arrest/hook, heck, even dragoon makes enemies take more damage from physical attacks with gae buld), which helps a lot in doing what I believe to be swordsman role in this game, a strategist.
The later we get in the game, the harder the monsters hit, and proper positioning is extremely important in that regard. Tankiness helps, but sowrdsman arent THAT tankier then other classes. Magic is something only cleric truly has tools to help with (and to a certain extent, slithering from rodelero, but you arent doing anything else while using slithering, and its at most 10 sec each 30 sec).
Granted, a minimum of tankiness is required to do that role, doesnt necesserily need to be with a shield, although theres a lot of tools there, either highlander or palesta/rodel provides the blocking, the only truly bad choice for pve that i can see is swordsman C2/C3 since it provides almost no additional tool for the job while replacing classes which DO provide these tools. It feels more like a PvP investement, going C2 or C3.
While palesta makes it a lot easier to round up monsters, running to them also does the same job, but with a bit more risks.
The second job of a swordsman is also to help in killing these darn monsters, so, each time i see those ‘full tank’ build with palesta C3 and Rodel C3, or palesta C3 and squire C3, i feel like its such a waste. They only provide a taunt and some cc, but almost no damage at all, which will, one way or another reduce the clearing speed. Archers and wizards, and to some extent clerics, do provide some dps themselves, but its no reason to not bring any at all.
To those ‘full dps swordsman’, well, you are ignoring half the class by taking only damage skills and ignoring the other ones. Going highlander instead of palesta SHOULD be fine, but at least take cross guard, bash, and the CC/knockback you can to position the enemies. The whole party benefits from monsters being at the right place at the right time, at least BASH them in one group so you and the rest of the party can kill them easely, knock them away from squishier teammates, etc, but for fu** sake, bring something MORE then pure dps, even archers bring at minimum a % reduction in def from auto attacks, dont know what else they could bring since i hardly know the class, but being pure DPS is bullcrap since you risk much more being in front, and just having a bit of positioning tools to make everyones life, yourself included would be so much easier.
For all this, be aware that this is my opinion of swordsman best role, which could change once i learn more of the game, but i dont see tanking as being a good role in this game. Mobbing and positioning, which palesta is arguably really good at, isnt tanking by itself. Heck, a highlander could pull a boss and move out of harms way or cross guard (if enough points are invested or enough str for relevency), none of this has anything to do with tanking in WoW-like MMO, which is being a damage sponge.
Also, wall of text crit you for over 9000
Thanks to all those who read it all, if anyone feels like answering, im quite open to discussions.
TL DR: Swordsman has bash in C1, which EVERYONE should have, monster positioning is usually more important then tankiness, especially since magic monsters can hurt so much. if you taunt, then stand and just guard, you arent contributing much, or if you just dps, but dont bash enemies into decent positions or stun/debuff them to help out, you’re just ignoring potential uses you could have.