Lately I’ve been seeing more people roll Fencers instead of Doppel.
I even heard someone say that Fencer is the new Swordsman class meta.
So what exactly is the consensus of the Swordsman meta? Is it still Doppel C3 (for now), or is Fencer arguably better?
I think it’s because Rank 9 Matador is also Rapier-based,so people are obviously going to reset their builds at Rank 9 to Fencer2>Matador2
Wut
/twenty wutwutwut
Fencer Without C3 is crap…
Having experienced both Doppel c3 and Fencer c3 I can provide my experience on these:
Note that this is purely talking about PVE.
Doppel is much cheaper to obtain good damage with. If this is your first character, I would strongly recommend choosing this. Even a Gale Slaher (315 purple weapon) with trans 3-4 can deal decent damage and allow you to solo just about all bosses in Saalus and missions. Doppel is also much much more superior in AOE and it is the ideal swordsman class in ET. Very strong AOE, strong single target burst too.
Fencer is expensive to perform well. If you have a fencer with blue +8 HG weapon with no trans, you might as well reroll as you literally take forever to kill anything.
You need to achieve at least 600 crit rate to crit decently with Epee buff. You need a good weapon (315 orange +11 or above) with trans 4 minimum to start dealing good damage. You need at least four 7-star green gems on your weapons (2 on your 315 orange rapier, 2 on your 2-slot dagger offhand) and 2 sissels to get that 600 crit rate. You need full leather set (at least 315 HG) which would mean your physical and magical defense are weak unless you supplement this with headgear / gems / cards. Fencers are also terrible at AOE - even with falconer’s circling, their hitbox is really small, unlike doppel’s cyclone which covers a large area. Even with the above gear level you will struggle in ET against wave of monsters.
Having said all that, Fencers are very strong in boss fights. Au fer can hit damage cap easily if you’re geared and the burst damage skills (Flash and Sept) are very strong too. There is enough skills to spam in between (Composee and Flanconnade) to maintain DPS while your main burst skills are down, so you can achieve a consistent DPS throughout the fight. Prolonged DPS boss fights such as world bosses is where Fencers might outshine Doppels if you’re built correctly.
To summarise Fencers:
Areas of strength: World bosses, missions, Saalus
Areas of weakness: ET, farming (due to lack of AOE)
Honestly, just play what you want. A majority of fencer’s damage output comes from proper rotation and knowing when to go all in or conserve skills due to a truck load of overheat skills on the most common builds.
Fencer fo life! 
I’ve played Doppel already. I don’t like Fencer much. I was just asking the question of where the meta is shifting, if it is shifting.
Most Fencer players make this class because they love the concept. The Rapier fantasy is a rare one, with Granado Espada and ToS being the only games that heavily invested in the concept, trying (and I repeat, trying) to adapt realistic fencing moves and timing logic, so we could say they gathered here.
Fencer is what people said above, a single target and duelist specialist.
It is the only class that can pretty much negate physical damage without defense gear investment, Flanconnade is pretty much 100% block for half second per charge (there is 5), preparation activates block during its channel and buffs it for 55%~75%, all without the need of a shield.
And if we ever again have dodge as a relevant stat, Lunge and Esquive Toucher are the biggest evasion buffers of the game (though it only lasts for a second or so).
If only Fencer could block magic as well…
EDIT: I don’t know if you get it yet, but I love Fencing. I mean, ■■■■■■■ love it to the core, like a fanboy.
So another question, then.
Is Fencer a good class for PvP? Assuming Corsair C1 Fencer C3**
I think any swordsman build that lacks Murmillo does not work well in PVP, even Cata>Lancer.
Fencer3 with corsair is something that I already tested before though, and Balestra Fente is a good skill to one shot (a dash-thrust after a preparation is neat).
But this build suffers too much against magic and heavy CC, because it is too much melee and this game has no gap closers.
Of course, you could count on your hook, but you know how the Top10 TBL ranks are, and it has pretty much no swords aside from some lonely murmillos that rarely appear.
EDIT: Now that we have a good idea of what Matador is, we could say that the CC and gap closer lackness issues might be solved. >Might< be.
Much so, makes me wish EpeeGarde worked similarly to how the FencerC2 test was like.
Fencer preps/twirls rapier every 10(-1 per skill level)sec, and timing any attack or skill input would result into sure crit.
“What a hero truly need is style”
I’m also hyping him.
But damn, Valve takes too long to release its new characters.
doppel is going to die in power. fencer with matador is going to be very very strong
Not happening… if, and I repeat, IF, what they said about new classes being released staying on par with Rank8 in terms of power, I don’t see Doppels declining any time soon… even when Rank 9 is out.
Fencer3 are already on par with Doppels3 in terms of power, they just cost more in terms of itemization.
It won’t happen because Rapier skills are forever single target based. Doppel will be the king of AOE, which is the most relevant damage, as it is equally effective on single targets.
You could say that Matador would be a better PVP class than Doppel, but that we have to see first.
mhm yeah but they didnt say anything about r8 c2 and c3 being on the same power as c1. as r9 and r10 come out doppels are just going to be second on par with goon3 or third class. there’s just no natural r8 for them to go to and even if they take c1 or c2 of something i dont think they can beat r8 c2 or c3 builds.
But if you count r10, then we will most certainly have a 2h sword class.
And as far as I know, all class now will be rank8 strong. Might have interpreted the text wrongly, but that is what I understood.
all new classes made will be r8 strong. matador1 will be equal in power with murm1 and lancer1.
doppel3 peaked in power this patch, but goon will peak in power next patch. and the r8 c2 classes are going to grow to c3 which would be cap in skill power.
there’s no way r8 c3 classes are the same in power as dop3 with c2 in something awkward like murm. maybe dop3 murm c2> goon3 c1 in lancer.
even if a new class with two hand sword is made, it would make it awkward for dop3 just like fencer 3 and matador. might as well go for a different build that can fit 3 classes of r8.