Okay, I’ve tried out Fencer’s skills enough to have a good idea on what it’s like and give a general guide on its current state. Feel free to link this to other posts if anyone asks for Fencer information.
[size=11]Other kCBT Fencer testers, feel free to correct any misinformation, but I’m pretty sure there’s no mistakes here.[/size]
General Information about Fencer
- All Fencer skills require a Rapier.
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Rapiers can only be equipped by a Fencer, as it requires an attribute. Currently, they have fixed damage (i.e. 200 attack, rather than 190-210 attack).
- Rapiers are Pierce weapons. This is their attack animation, and their ‘En Garde’ stance.
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It will be very likely to be using a Shield with a Rapier, but you can use a Dagger as well.
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Preparation and Attaque Composee are currently not available for Fencer C1.
Skills
Please click the links to see video examples of the skills and any other visual examples.
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Esquive Toucher is a [Physical] - [Pierce] skill which mixes elegant swordplay and dodging in a single movement. It is a skill which does multiple hits and will raise your Evasion stat by 10% per level of the skill, but for a short duration of time. (Roughly for the duration of the skill animation which is a second.)
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Flanconnade is a [Physical] - [Slash] skill which involves two swings of the rapier in a cross pattern. It has 0 cooldown, but costs SP to use. When using Flanconnade, your block is momentarily increased for 1 second (according to the buff, but I don’t see this reflected even with a Shield equipped).
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Sept Etoiles is a [Physical] - [Pierce] skill, which is a rapid stabbing move which deals 7 hits of damage. There are no extra buffs, and levelling the skill only increases its damage.
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Attaque Coquile is a [Physical] - [Strike] skill, which is a jabbing attack using the shell guard of the Rapier. It deals quite high damage and has an 8 second cooldown, and causes enemies to gain extra damage from Pierce for 4 seconds. The skill’s buff duration increases by 1 second per level. This means you can have the debuff on with 100% uptime at Level 5.
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Attaque Coquile also stacks with Hoplite’s Spear Lunge to cause even more Pierce damage and even stacks with Leather armor’s pierce weakness! However, this requires you to swap between a Rapier and Spear. (For reference there, normal hits on that mob was 934 damage, and with just Attaque Coquile on it was 1216 damage.)
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Lunge is a [Physical] - [Pierce] skill where you attack your foe with a normal Fencing combo of four hits. Your evasion will increase by +10% per level when you hit an enemy with this skill, however this only lasts for 3 seconds.
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Lunge also adds a debuff to enemies which makes them suffer extra damage from Slash attacks for 4 seconds. It is essentially the ‘Spear Lunge’ for Slash skills. The debuff’s effectiveness does not increase with level.
My build: Swordsman C1 > Peltasta C1 > Hoplite C2 > Corsair C1 > Fencer C1
This build was originally intended to end with Corsair C2 rather than Fencer, but it was a good opportunity to test how Hoplite and Fencer worked together.
I don’t think Fencer really goes too well with Hoplite. Hoplite and Fencer clash with their key skills. Finestra requires a Spear, and Spear Lunge also does. Spear Lunge has the benefit of allowing you to use a Spear then swap back. Spear Lunge and Attaque Coquile stack to give high damage with Stabbing and Pierce though.
Stabbing and Pierce can be used with any weapon type as well. This way, it’s possible to take C1 Hoplite for Fencer if you wanted these skills. I would recommend against it though, as Fencer has its own ways to make Pierce damage work well. Swashbuckling works with a Rapier and Shield/Dagger which is nice. Also, Guardian has an evasion attribute which will go very nicely with Fencer’s evasion buffs.
Corsair is a very solid class by itself. It offers two great CC spells on non-bosses with Dust Devil and Iron Hook. These also work well with Fencer, but Fencer also relies a little on block with its skills so having a Dagger can clash. There’s no reason you can’t take it though.
Recommended Builds
These are by no means tested or tried, but based on my experience with the class, I think these builds would work nicely.
I’m not focusing on Evasion for any of these builds, as I feel the duration on the buffs are too little to merit it. You can by all means go for it, I recommend Peltasta C1 for Manual Blocking and Guardian’s attribute, as well as Swashbuckling.
On a side note, the buffs may be intended as a ‘counter-play’ style, where you attack with evasion-boosting skills when an enemy attacks, thereby evading and countering. Therefore, it’s worth looking into an Evasion build with this playstyle in mind.
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Highlander C3/Barbarian/Fencer - Lunge and Highlander’s skills work nicely. Vertical Slash increases with the amount of debuffs on a target.
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Highlander C3/Rodelero/Fencer - Provides the ability to block manually and offers more debuffs. With Lunge, Attaque Coquile, Shield Push, Skull Swing, Montano and Cross Cut’s Bleed, you have 6 debuffs to use (with Lunge’s extra Slash damage) with Vertical Slash.
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Highlander C2/Barbarian C2/Fencer - Forgoes the use of Skull Swing/Vertical Slash, but brings in Warcry and Seism. Offers good slash damage and CC with Seism and Helm Chopper. A balanced build of Slash, Strike and Pierce damage.
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Highlander C3/Hoplite/Fencer - Not too fond of this build, it’s a little inelegant with points (some points not used). Main objective is Pierce and Stabbing for bossing, alongside Highlander’s Skull Swing. Pierce can cause Bleed, so it can be good to use along with other debuffs for Vertical Slash.
I feel Highlander works very nicely with this class due to the addition of Slash and Lunge. Spear-using classes like Cataphract and Hoplite do not mix well, but these also focus on Pierce. If you like these classes, build them together rather than focusing on adding Fencer into the mix.
Evasion builds seem good initially when you look at the spells but the duration of buffs is very short to warrant a build on it. It will most likely shine if you use these skills whilst enemies attack you, so you can have a build which focuses around dodging and attacking whilst being attacked. I feel like the buff durations need some work, if they lasted longer it would be much more worth it.
Conclusion
Fencer is very good with Attaque Coquile and Lunge, allowing for some good Slash/Pierce synergy. Flanconnade adds a decent 0CD skill which is Slash-based and can be used as fillers for skills on cooldown.
It’s skills feel quite strong, however there’s not much choice of Rapiers and they all have fixed damage. I feel these may need a change, but I could be missing something. The animations for some skills (Esquive Toucher in particular) are quite long, so you’ll need to be careful when using it versus bosses.
They’re finally a good source of Pierce damage for people who do not want to use Spears. Highlander feels like it will go well with this class too. Once Fencer has some adjustments with attributes and skills, it will probably be in a better place than it is now.