Tree of Savior Forum

A fair assessment on swordman DPS issue (no not bigger damage)

General Discussion
#1

So I just reach dragoon, got some skills, did some number crunching.

Swordman damage isn’t that bad, no, isn’t bad at all.

Take an example:

  • Dragoon tooth: (100% + 500) x5 hits = 500% + 2500
  • Cannon shot: 150% +2000

That is actually a great number. So why no one want swordman DPS?

No this is not about everyone want swordman pelt. Even swordman DPS want swordman pelt. The real question is when you already have pelt, why do you choose other DPS over swordman DPS?

The answer might just be much simpler than all the debate in many threads: mobility, survivability & accuracy.

  • Mobility: wizards (and clerics) can drop skills (in other games, those wizards skills would be called “turret skills”, that means they fire on their own) and run around. Archer can shoot while moving (except some charge skills, which would be addressed below). Swordman has to stand still to cast skill, charging or not (except for some selective few in cataphract tree, that explains the popularity of cataphract)
  • Survivability: some wizards and archers skills require charge as well. But wizards and archers can charge them from range, while swordman has to be in the face of the enemy. While charging you can’t guard or move to dodge, that means you are sitting duck. This is not what anyone want from a DPS
  • Accuracy: this is a more complex matters than evasion vs accuracy. As above, while charging/casting skills, most swordman cannot move, so when enemies move out of range, they practically just wasted their skills. “But archer and wizards can miss too” you say? That is true, however, most wizard skills are turret-like, they last for a while and enemies can be lured to those later. Archer skills are shorter on cooldown, so even if you miss, you can redo it easily.

All of those would explain why doppel is a good DPS despite only having cyclone as a damage skill. You can move while casting cyclone (mobility solved), and cyclone could care less about accuracy since it hit everywhere around you. Same for Rush of cataphract.

So I gonna suggest the most drastic change to swordman tree ever, without asking for more damage:

  • Make all swordman charge skills chargeable while moving (probably reduce movement speed while charging to balance it)
  • Reduce cooldown and cast time/animation of other non-charging swordman skills (the new skyliner on kTOS is good)

Because I believe swordman tree should operate around the ability to maneuver through the battle field, not sitting duck on the front line.

Feel free to discuss

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#2

I don’t usually agree with you, but you’re so damn right here.
Also, archers get a lot of accuracy and evasion for being simply archers, while swordsmans must kill their own damage to be able to hit anything and their evasion is still bad with leather+guardian evasion attribute.

2 Likes
#3

  • Buff their skill damages.

  • Lower cooldown.

  • Give them buffs that actually applies to parties. aka Gung Ho or Guardian.

  • Increase their AoE attack ratio on their skills so they can hit more enemies.

That would be a start.

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#4

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#5

Dragoon tooth: (100% + 500) x5 hits = 500% + 2500
Cannon shot: 150% +2000

Haha what?

First of all you’re comparing level 5 dragon tooth to level 1 cannon shot. You obviously did this on purpose, that’s an impossible mistake to make. Second of all the calculation is actually (skill damage + attack) * multiplier so cannon shot is (attack + 3300) * 1.5 meaning its base damage is effectively 4950 - vastly more than the 2000 you claim.

Second of all dragon tooth has a charge time, which you sortof mention; more importantly it’s got a 17 second cooldown vs. a 5 second cooldown, meaning 3 cannon shots per dragontooth, or 14,850 + 4.5x attack vs. 2,500 + 5x. You need a shitload of attack to make up that difference, eh?

This is not a fair assessment, this is intellectual dishonesty. A lot of what you say later is wrong too, cyclone is such a good DPS skill because it does a lot of damage, it has nothing to do with the accuracy and little to do with the mobility, it’s just the best scaling swordsman skill out there and still really doesn’t compete at all with magic arrow or frost cloud. And wizards can’t miss.

Now the mobility issue is valid, and nobody is going to stand there for 10 seconds charging cartar stroke, but just making swordy more mobile isn’t going to make the class any better in PvE; a bit better in PvP sure, but their damage numbers will still be trash.

Edit: I wouldn’t even consider this a strictly swordsman problem either, Pyromancer cast times also really suck for a class that has to be up close to drop their spells and some Cleric classes feel similar.

16 Likes
#6

True… not a fair comparison.

#7

Level 1 dragon tooth already deals 5 hits, with level 1 your charge time is 0.5 seconds which is next to nothing.

And it has long cooldown too. DPS needs to take cooldown into account as well. I’m not too familiar with cyclone number, but I have rush, which deal ~60k damage for 40 seconds cooldown, which translate to 1.5k damage per second (DPS). That’s barely better than auto attack, if not for the mobility and AoE of it.

[quote=“SlyGoat, post:5, topic:284514”]
it’s just the best scaling swordsman skill out there and still really doesn’t compete at all with magic arrow or frost cloud. And wizards can’t miss.
[/quote]Yes wizards can miss. No not the kind of miss against evasion, but a simple miss when enemies run out of the spell AoE. You’ll know the pain when you are in party with a bad lure.

Same for swordman, while charging/casting skills and someone lure the mobs away from your, you are screwed.

Now of course elementalist is the best AoE DPS in game, and it should stay that way since most of the skills are on long cooldown. And I certainly don’t want swordman to be that either (cuz it’s boring).

Fletcher is good DPS because all skills are on 0s cd, not because of the big number (and magic arrow only hit a small AoE on the ground, so mobs can just run out of it)

Actually, number-wise, currently swordman is already very good in PvP, the only issue with PvP is that magic CC is too strong and stone skin = GG no physical damage.

#8

Swordsman is not good in PvP. As you pointed out, their big multihit skills like cyclone and rush do a lot of burst damage, which is good in PvP if you can actually get on someone to pull it off and it doesn’t just get blocked (and also good in PvE because you’ll have swashbuckling to gather all the mobs up and burst them down which makes the cooldown less of a factor). The getting on them part is the hard to impossible part. You basically need to party with a psychokino.

You didn’t even address the fact that you clearly misrepresented cannoneer damage, even though you brought up cooldown as a downside of cyclone while ignoring it in your comparison.

#9

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#10

lol, monk has hard times though, i just got to c1 monk today. I cant argue that its probably better than most swordsman classes though. C1 monk is bad, c2/c3 is awesome. Double punch is decent, hand knife is bad (except for the debuff and the hidden combo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZplhRWaL6Y ) palm strike initial damage is bad, but the bleed is awesome. iron skin is terrible (have it at 1 point, reflects 3% of the time, gets canceled all the time) one inch punch looks so awesome ( i saw a video where it killed a full con sorcerer fast, and drained his sp fast too, energy beam is also good, god finegr flick is bad, and golden bell needs a shorter cooldown (its just aother safety zone but you cant do anything at all) forgot to add that monk is also getting a huge buff, maybe it will be awesome now?

#11

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#12

monk can do well against ranged people with the right build

Cleric2>Diev2>Monk3

  1. owl and laima (slow, and they auto target owl)
  2. palm strike (which luckily has a pretty long range)
  3. hand strike
  4. one inch punch (or if ur c1 monk like me, spam carve and double punch, if theyre full con wizard, then im either gonna have a long duel, or im gonna have to wait until c2)

never tried, but it seems right, if i can get palm strike (which ahs a decent range) then i can get everything else.

#13

tbh swordsmen dmg doesnt seem that bad, ve seen a video where a shinobi soloed a boss that was levels higher than him in less than 5 seconds. just bcuz of bushin and kunai

#14

Shinobi takes 5x damage for that, so probably only usable on bosses.

Baby steps, cannot ask for much right now

Yes that is a mistake on my part, but as I said in the post, it’s just an example. Besides 500-600% scaling might make up for it (not calculated)

#15

You have good points but one is wrong. Dragoon have good dps nor swordsman.look atvwhat dragoon weapons give vs swords. If ypu dpnt go dragoon you will not have this good dps.

#16

I can’t speak for later ranks, but currently all your choices at rank 7 (dragoon, shinobi, doppel 2, fencer 2, corsair 3 etc) give good damage

Together with earlier classes like barb, hoplite and highlander, the burst isn’t that bad.

And bare in mind that my proposition will include all recent buffs swordman receive in kTOS right now.

#17

Yes but build not a dragoon and you will see how ypu no longer do ao good dps.look at what spears give and what swords give.then you will se why dragood doing more dps.

#18

Dragoon only deal more damage on bosses. If you talk about mob, doppel is currently the best choice.

Also barb on kTOS have buff on cleave that give +50% slash damage for 5 seconds, so that open up more possibilities for sword users too.

I do agree that currently on iTOS spear is better in term of DPS, especially the hoplite c3 --> doppel buid.

#19

One of the worst comparisons ever. Swordsmen are garbage when it comes to dps, period. They are numerically inferior in scaling, skill damage and cooldowns and that is the issue. Having to dodge boss attacks and knockdowns is a staple of melee classes, and if anything they need even more damage to compete because of that.

1 Like
#20

Please read the rest of the post, not just the first few lines that clearly state “just take an example”