Tree of Savior Forum

[Guide] Swordsman's Battle Manual (All classes) - By Cathexis

Class and Rank Swordsman
#1686

This is the exact class choices I’m running on my swordie. lvl 201 Corsair 2 atm. cors/doppel synergy is higher than corsair/fencer because 0cd skills arent synergetic with DWA but thats not a big deal since the 0cd make DWA an alternative for sp management. doppel is far stronger though. I’m going 2:1 str/dex doppel is good aoe with cyclone, but with roxona plate gloves and eventually gladiator bands (unless i go sissel bracelets) will allow hexen, dust devil, and barb skills to hit tons of targets in their hit boxes. weapon choices are fine, plus you can weapon swap anyways. rapiers are a problem though, with their low durability you have to carry 2.

keep in mind swordies still lack in damage department compared to other classes, but this is one of the builds that offer good damage potential for the swordie tree, and it only gets better when kToS barb buffs hit here. as for tanking role, at my lvl I can tank some lvls above me in sialau mission without swapping to shield thanks to okay dex roxona gear and jolly roger attribute.

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#1687

Corsair2>Shinobi here. That’s a solid looking build. The only thing I would change is to take points from DWA to max Dust Devil. If you plan on PVP then leave DWA at 1 and put rest in Iron Hook. When you reach rank 7 you won’t have time to use DWA all that much so lv1 is more than enough.

Swords have more drawbacks compared to Spears yes but Corsairs help in that department with Hexen and DWA when targets are not wearing cloth. You can also auto attack with dagger as well for pierce damage so don’t stick with Arde for too long.

If you go Doppel you’re better off going high STR. Wearing 4 plates with high defense and Aspersion buff can reduce most physical attacks to single and double digits. So in that case, don’t invest too much in leather mastery unless you’re rich. I switched to plate when I got Cor2 and maxed the attribute right away.

If you prefer Fencer than high DEX will work out better. You’ll have more damage going the other route though so depends what you’re after.

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#1688

Thanks for the feedback, glad to hear from someone that’s already far ahead from me! Are you going 2:1 STR:DEX all the way until 280 or will you stop putting points in DEX at some point?

I don’t really mind lacking in damage department as DPS isn’t my highest priority, I’ve read everywhere that even the highest dps a swordie could pull would be no match against archers/wizards :P.

Also could you tell me some good level 40 plate gear that would last me a while? I ended up getting good leather gear (vubbe fighter gauntlets, farmed the recipe and mats myself so even if I don’t use it I can keep it for an alt/sell on market later) but now I really wanna switch and go all the way to doppel. I’ve thought about it for over an hour while doing something else and I really don’t think fencer will suit me.

#1689

Thanks for the feedback as well, never thought DWA would only need 1 point but now that I think about it since you’d only buff up to fill in during CDs it makes sense.

Should I leave spare points if I max Dust Devil, for a possible corsair 3 revamp?

I see, that’s great to hear (about the sword/corsair synergy).

Alright I’ll switch to plate then. Do you have any equipment recommendation at level 40 that would last me a while (or should I just keep leather while leveling plate mastery?)

I’ve thought about it a lot but fencer doesn’t actually looks like something I’d like in the end, doppel looks much more attractive.

#1690

Not a bad idea at all to leave spare points if you don’t plan on PVP at all. In that case you can also leave IH and KH at 0 for even more spares.

As for plate there’s no need to go crazy now, you just don’t need to up the attribute anymore if tight on cash. Leather is still good with your Vubbe and Rokas so there’s no need to make the switch immediately since stuff won’t hit hard til later on. Good time to make the switch is around 170 when the good stuff becomes available like Roxona, Superior Infantry, and Knight armour. Those will last a while whereas anything before that will be quickly disposed of because of how fast you level at that stage.

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#1691

I’d love to pvp, but unfortunately the performance issues really put me off. Is IH completely useless for PvE? If it works on boss it’d be a really strong CC and I wouldn’t mind putting points into it.

Oh that’s good to hear! I already got those vubbe gloves, so I guess I can get the rokas leather top with the quest and roll with those until 170 right? It’s not like I have much of a choice though lol, since I have to wait a week before I’m able to trade or even use the marketplace, and I have no recipes :(.

Guess I’ll also hold on my 2H sword until I reach corsair to get a good sword+dagger.

#1692

IH works for PVE but not on bosses. It’s not really needed though because you want to fight packs so CC on 1 won’t do much. Against 1 monster I find it just takes time away from my damage skills.

Vubbe and Rokas will be perfectly fine up to 170. I did just fine with them. Some people actually use them well past 200 with no issues.

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#1693

going until i cap lvl, as im still at like 93 dex including gear due to my small investment into con and spr (just enough to do full rotation or 2 before needing to pot, and slightly more magic defense) so i won’t hit crit cap vs 0 resist monsters even with full party buffs on crit values.

also, I’m fully aware that this build may need rerolled in the future as we climb to r10, but I’m assuming the vast majority will be the same way. once we get buffs to swordies, this will be a viable build as it stands atm since we are close in damage to the top performing swordie builds comparitively.

I was using lvl 75 gear mostly until i hit 170 and had 2 roxona and knights armor ready to go. now full roxona which should last until lolopanther if you even get them lol.

When I made this build myself, I said I wanted Doppel 1 or 2 or shinobi and I wanted corsair 2. Barb 2 was the lead in after pelt as I don’t like highlander or spears personally. Shinobi I decided against because its honestly too reliant on doppel for its overall damage, plus I went swordie2 on my corsair in iCBT and never again so no swordie3 build shinobi for me. If I make a shinobi it will be pelt/barb3/doppel/shinobi.

The funny thing is, so many forum posts I read during the iCBT I played were complaints about how op barbs were during lvling. Keep in mind I think this was on tosbase.com forums and this was after heavy nerf reworks to both barb and corsair which imo should have never took place, with savagery and the old corsair mechanic of stacking attack speed and evasion swordies may have been in a halfway decent dps spot.

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#1694

[quote=“Naivety, post:1660, topic:153860”]@HeianTaiga what do you want exactly? PvM, PvP, farming, dungeoning? Cataphract’s focused on mobility w/ better defense stats (Dragoon there’s just added dmg), Corsair is burst dmg/Jolly Roger/viable in pvp depending on build.

Do note that even Corsair won’t suddenly make your swordie good in PvP, CC exists, QS3 exists etc, and pvp isn’t meant to be taken seriously atm anyway, but at least you’ll be viable.[/quote]

To be honest, I don’t even know where should I specifically fall into because I’m still exploring the reason why Hoplites exist on this game (anti-boss or large targets?) but I guess I’m going to go with Corsair since I’m more inclined on the PvE side of the game.

I barely give attention to the PvP since it’s really not good at the moment though :confused:

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#1695

Hey guys I was wondering, how strong (as in utility/damage) is Crown (the highlander skill)? I was thinking that an alternate path to Sword 1 > Pelt 1 > Barb 2 > Corsair 2 > Doppel 1 could be Highlander 2 replacing barb 2, just for that skill as it seemed to be an interesting debuff. How would both builds compare?

The joy of ToS and immediately regretting a build once your start one because one might be cooler ha ha ha.

Unfortunately since I’m already barb 1 I don’t know if I’ll do a reroll or not (might be way too early) and I don’t know enough about highlander.

There’s also absolutely no number or formula telling me how effective Crown is lol…

I’ll post both builds here:


and the variation:

#1696

Crown does not do much damage on it’s own, but I’ve noticed that Shock debuff not only works on bosses, it reduces damage dealt by shocked targets as long as it’s magic (based on INT). I couldn’t estimate it yet since my HL is mid 120s (my first was a barb > sair > fencer) and I’m kinda rerolling to hoplite so I might not be able to help on the shock INT/SPR reduction formula.

#1697

Depending on how effective that is in actuality, it might be a decent path to take considering you’re dropping barb’s cool aoes. From just the attribute it’s already a 10% decrease of INT/SPR on target, for 23 seconds at level 10 and considering swordies have low mdef to start with and that lots of attacks are magic, in theory that does sound good.

But for all I know it could be awful in practice.

#1698

Crown debuff is 1:1 with your STR, it scales very well as long as your build is high/full STR

2 Likes
#1699

Hy cathexis
I come with some new build, so i wanna ask alot of thing :smile:
Here we go


What this attribute mean, additional damage or increase raw damage that has impact to damage calculation ?

Is there any swordsman skill that can inflict bleeding to boss aside from Crosscut?

FENCER SKILL

Lunge = Make enemy Vulnerable to [Slash] attack
How long the duration of the debuff ? affected with skill level ?
And it’s stack with barbarian cleave debuff or not ?

Attaque Coquille = The enemy’s defense is ignored when attacked again with [Pierce] attacks
Only for 1 next attack or have debuff duration too ? also debuff affected with skill level ?

Preparation = The next [Pierce] attack you make will inflict twice as much damage.
Same question like Attaque Coquille above

Thanks for answering :smile:

#1700

4 seconds, same on all levels, but levels are still useful for evasion

Defense is ignored for all pierce attacks while active, +1s duration per level

for 1 pierce attack or a set of pierce attack, by a set, meaning one whole skill, such as all attacks on sept etoiles being doubled

#1701

ah thanks
So the duration on description is duration of debuff

too bad preparation only for 1 attack

#1702

It’s still a nice one point skilll since it doubles your entire sept etoiles, or future pierce skills if we get them

#1703

i wanna try fencer but damage from rapier suck

Bonus on medium or large targets on weapon / equipment only for additional damage or also work with damage calculation ?

#1704

Why hexen consider best burst damage for swordsman
compare to Seism

seism level 5 = 1054 x 4hit = 4216
hexen level 5 = 537 x 7hit = 3759

#1705

Seism isn’t a real 3-hit skill, it’s a one hit skill divided into 3

you can test it on the training post in lemprasa pond, you will only see one “1”.