Tree of Savior Forum

An inquiry about my builds



So currently i am kinda stuck between these two builds and i dunno which to choose I am going for a PvE offtank playstyle help me decide which build i should use and what stats to put?? I am leaning more towards the dragoon build but i fear it’ll fall off late game cause i keep reading that swordies dun do as much damage as Wiz/Achers thanks for any help in advance :slight_smile:

This is the kind of thread I love to post advice in. You have an idea what you want to do and potential build paths. You even did research on the forums.

You are correct about Wizards/Archers doing more damage in PvE endgame. The problem here is that Swordsman can take a lot more punishment, so they do a bit less damage. It’s pretty easy to not die in PvE if you have a dedicated tank, so the ‘not dying’ benefit of a Swordsman doesn’t really help in PvE.

If you’re still looking to DPS as a Swordsman, you definitely can; you just won’t be a prime pick for parties. If you do your job well, you can still be a valuable asset.

If you’re looking to ‘off-tank’ that means you’re looking to tank. There’s no such thing as an off-tank. Either you’re the one taking damage, or you’re the one doing it. Bringing someone who isn’t very good at either is just going to bring a party down. That said, you don’t have to pump full Con to be a tank.

If you’re looking for PvE, and you’re looking to tank late-game, these are both fine class paths. Really, any (swordsman) class can tank effectively as long as they get Peltasta. A large part of this comes down to what weapon you want to weild.

With your spear build, you’re looking at a pretty well rounded yet conventional Dragoon. You will be able to swap between 1 handed and 2 handed spears which is nice, and that free crit rate from Finestra will allow you to allocate a lot of stat points elsewhere. This is a build where you’d want a fair amount of Strength and Con, and very little Dex. Something like 3 Strength 2 Con 1 Dex would be a fine balance. Hoplite has some nice boss-killing skills, and Dragoon can help fill in those rotations.

As far as your rapier build, this is going to lead you down a very different play-style. You’re going to want to get some serious Dexterity in here to make use of all your evasion buffs. It’s a bit spread out, but you have some nice momentary passives and debuffs that will allow you to be fairly versatile as well. I’d probably end up going with a very even mix of Strength, Dex, and a bit less Con. Perhaps something around 3 Strength 3 Dex 1 Con could work. You could then swap your gear around a bit depending on what you wanted to do.

Overall, both of your builds sound fine, and really will come down to what you like more than actual efficiency. You clearly have some good knowledge about the game already, and despite what people cry about, the game is fairly well balanced already and getting more and more balanced as time goes on. Just take what you like and either of these two will work.

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Thanks for the reply @Vanic well when i say offtank i have tanking in mind, but i still wanna be able to deal at least some damage to help the party clear stuff faster, and this game is about killing stuf fast right? and I usually like to be the secondary tanks in other mmo that’s why i said offtank haha.

Well for me i am most likely gonna stick with 1H and shield or maybe get the famed andre dagger (not too sure what it does haha just see it pop out alot in the forums) and maybe occasionally switch to 2-handed for buff or maximum dps (not that there will be any from swordies haha).

I also have 1 more question is the skill Gae Bulg good or not cause i don’t really like the idea of throwing away your spear even though u could pick it up later so that’s why i opt for Dragon Soar but i heard it is buggy. As for stats i am not quite sure, though i will likely go as u suggested 3:2:1 and 3:1:3 respectively. Oh and umm just wondering what the Dragoon:Fencer ratio in game just curios. Once again thanks for answering my questions.

I’m not trying to be harsh or anything when it comes to off-tanking. I have played my fair share of MMOs and know it is frequently a thing. Here, a DPS swordsman is often considered a lower priority pick than a Wizard or Archer. A second tank would be considered dead weight.

You can still do a fairly decent amount of damage as a tank. With proper gear and skills/attributes, you can get away with a fairly low amount of Con. This leaves room for Str/Dex to do more damage.

Arde dagger is very strong, but it depends on the situation. It’s definitely not endgame equipment. You’ll probably drop it once you hit 120. You might wait until 170 though if you’re broke or don’t have good weapons. Really I would probably just recommend a 2 handed sword if you’re going Highlander anyways.

Please don’t get too discouraged when I talk about Swordsman DPS. It’s not like you do 1/4 of the damage of an Archer, it’s probably more like 80-90%, depending on each of your builds. That said, a lot of groups will be really pick about getting the highest DPS possible, so a few percentage points makes a big difference to them. Another thing is Swordsman AoE is typically pretty small sadly.

As far as Gae Bulg, there’s no way to answer this. It’s completely subjective at this point. Personally, I would say I like it. Plenty of people would call me a noob for saying this, and they wouldn’t be wrong to do so potentially. People either love it or hate it. Dragon Soar is indeed buggy.

Stat points are always tough. Gear can compensate for a fair amount of ‘mistakes’ there though. I wouldn’t worry about it too much, especially when you have so many stat points ahead of you.

It’s tough to say the exact ratios. I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like I see more of one, and then another day it might be the inverse. Overall I would say I see more Fencers, but Swordsman picks seem pretty balanced at the moment as far as popularity. Even Shinobi are seeing some spotlight.

Lol i wasn’t trying to sound offended or anything haha, i was just kinda giving you my definition of offtank or what i think an offtank is… xD

Doing 80-90% of the dps of wiz/archers is more than enough for me haha cause i was kinda expecting 50-60% dps and i am going for a 1H weapon with shield which will most likely hurt my dps already. For shields i heard that they increase ur defensive stats right or was i mistaken.

Well i kinda wanna play the lesser popular class more so i guess i’ll go with the dragoon build haha :wink:

Hey, i am Peltasta > Highlander c3 right now and am wondering if i should go Fencer.
The problem with Fencer is they don’t get any area damage am i right? How much is it needed later in the game as a swordsman?

Sorry mate can’t help much haha i am also a newb, but from what i read in the forums it looks like swordsman are not expected to deal damage but be a tanker for the party cause our dps are not on par with other dps classes such as wiz/archers… so i guess we should just focus on defense? I dunno i could be wrong >.<

Maybe, but heres a video of a Dragoon doing Earth Tower as a DPS so I would say that at least the potential is there to do damage.

But i heard that it is hard for a dps swordsman to be able to find parties at the lv200+ range no? :confused:

Here on iToS, yes.

There’s also the nerf to highlander,the guy in the video is a peltasta c1/highlander c2/hoplite c2/dragoon so it’s not possible to do the same amount of dps from de video, I just realized it now by reading the video description. =(

Yes, but that’s what friends are for.

Shields give defensive capabilities, yes, but some give offensive as well, and you can always socket them with offensive gems too. You will still do more damage with a 2 handed weapon though in most cases. You will probably want to pick one up as well.