Actually, Stabbing and Pierce can be used with a Rapier. But Stabbing will eventually be out-dps by Composee. And Pierce is not so great.
The best thing in the Hoplike skill tree is in fact Finestra. +3 AOE ratio, 150 crit rate are simply just too good to ignore. Unless IMC decided to change Finestra to compatible with Pierce weapons, Hop-Fencer synergy remains bad.
Hmmm I would just get highlander 3 imo. Fencer 3 will have a level 12 composse (with venier) that has 1.3k skill damage.
From what I can tell, stabbing is 20-ish hits in 3-4 seconds, can you actually reach the point where Composee out-damages that? Especially when we get higher lvl cap/new weapons, transcendence system, etc.
Can you actually afford to max Composee though? lvl 12 is like 91 SP per cast, how can you actually sustain the SP drain?
I can remember stabbing doing only 13-14 hits max. No need for max composee, Level 3 (venier) is actually good enough. you can put more but meh.
Stabbing - needs Pain barrier, locks you into position, long cooldown
Composee - high sp cost, a bit more expensive in terms of attribute upgrade
I don’t really like the idea of stabbing if you’re taking fencer c2, your pots can supply it. with composee you can freely wreck anything anytime. Something to look for on hoplites is Spear Lunge.
Higher level caps so higher mana pool and level 15 pots. Level 5 stabbing is preety garbage especially if you’re high dex and if you’re very high str, stabbing is kinda a risky move imo. Stabbing is only 13 hits. By how attributes work on this game, composse will be super strong if you can invest on it at level 12. You also are planning to take highlander for the cross guard so you’ll benefit more investing on composse since you’ll have a huge time frame to take advantage of the extra hits and damage (4 hits per composse with stagger) and lunge.
IDK about stabbing, there’s no real fixed answer as to how many hits it has exactly (some say 14, some say 16, a friend says 20-ish)
Assuming 14 hits over 4 seconds = 3.5~ hits per second, vs 2 hits per second with Composee, even with the higher skill dmg it still seems like Stabbing + Composee will be better than just spamming Composee.
Yea it will be easier to just spam Composee anytime, but I believe Stabbing will provide better burst.
Spear Lunge requires weapon swap, and based on what we know regarding Finestra (buff goes away when you weapon swap), then the same should apply to Epee Stance too. If I have to use Spear Lunge > Swap > Epee > use skills, then it feels like a complete waste since the debuff will be gone by then.
lvl 10 SP pot only recovers 1452~ SP total, on a 30s cooldown. Even if lvl 15 SP pot recovers 2.2k~ SP, you will still not have enough SP to constantly spam lvl 12 Composee.
Also, how do you plan to get lvl 10 Composee with your skill points? If you max Lunge (15), Sept (15), Epee Stance (5), Balestra Fente (5), you will only have 5 points left. 1 point in Flanconnade, Attaque Coquille, Esquive Toucher, Preparation and now you are left with just 1 point for Composee. That’s ignoring the new disarming skill Attaque au Fer too.
So where are you going to get that 9 points from? Drop them from Lunge?
No, I don’t plan on taking Cross Guard on my build, partially because:
Again like I’ve said above, if Epee is weapon locked (very likely) and goes away when I switch to another weapon type just like Finestra, then having to recast Epee each time I swap kind of defeats the purpose.
I am going for a high dex build, and dodge is calculated before block, so how I am supposed to reliably trigger Cross Guard in the first place? seems counter-intuitive.
That’s really upto you, but IMO just go with highlander c3, if you really want that stabbing go ahead. You’ll find yourself not using it too much with the exception of bosses, which Fencer alone as a pierce source does more than enough already.
I’d rather improve my slash based attacks which highlander gives through Skull Swing armor break and Vertical Slash if the patch ever comes here
If no cross guard usage, I think it’s better to take barb 3 imo like proxied.
You have a whole set of rotation beside composse. You’re not going to spam composse every time you meet a group of mobs.
I don’t max sept for the reason that it scales so bad per level atm (have it at level 6 and I still hit 12-13k on leather types.
Taking highlander for crossguard with low str is a waste of time.
I did my fencer and I’ve noted when you hit fencers skills you barely use skills of another classes because you have 2 0cd skills and a good kit in.
Getting crossguard to do a bit more damage will make you lose dps and time.
That was I learned with fencer.
I’m goning to ask here since this is like THE fencer thread: how fencer fares in PvP? Lack of AoE is a big problem but I’ve seen only 2 fencers so far in TBL and they did not go well.
With my studies of this class, and with watching them on PvP, I would say that they’re bad, UNLESS you pick Corsair, because Hook gives another dimension of PvP utility, and synergies well with Fencer’s skills.
More experienced people here can answer you better, though.
Iron hook (with the attribute) is the skill that will make you win in PvP, tho it won’t be you who kills
Yes, in PvP you either need Cata or Hook. But what I mean is: can you do anything else while Iron Hook is on cd?
You can Pounce your way trough enemy territory, specially useful with the Knockdown Attribute (Barbarian3 required).
Fencer is for Damage, use other classes’ utilities.
I don’t think it will. It seems like stabbing can do another 2 or 3 hits compared to composee in a ping perfect situation. And since it lasts the entire duration of preparation instead of 1 hit, that’s pretty nice. But then this means not using preparation for sept. The actual difference in DPS will be pretty minimal, but stabbing SHOULD still do a little bit more.
Pierce is a waste of time tho for sure
Probably not. Lv 3 with venier already gives me some trouble sometimes. I mean lv 7 was managable but you had to lose some DPS by sitting. Additive skill damage is also pretty much not worth the amount of SP that goes up
Higher mana pool really, really doesn’t help at all. Level 15 pots might though
This seems to be misleading just like the galin trident triple hit effect. It appears that you’re doing additional lines but it also seems like those additional lines are only doing 50% of your original lines (so you’re doing +50% more damage, hence cross guard description saying vulnerable to pierce attacks which generally means +50%) it’s a large increase still, but might not be worth the set up time especially depending on your stat build
Getting Barb3 usually means no Corsair. (Or no Fencer c2 at rank 7 which means no c3 at rank 8).
Yes, that’s the dilemma.
If Fencer3 is no good, I’m going:
Sword1>Pelt1>Barb3>Cors2>Fenc1
or
Sword1>Pelt1>Barb3>Cors1>Fenc2
I had to go Barb3 because Pouncing is excellent, more Seism, Warcry and Frenzy.
But really, I’m finding Warcry and Frenzy really lackluster compared to what I kept hearing while researching them, making the sole reason that I don’t regret taking Barb3 being Pouncing.
Actually, If Peltasta really becomes what it is set to become, I’m considering going with a Sword1>High3>Cors2>Fenc2 or Sword1>High3>Cors1>Fenc3
I would reroll for that, but first I need to know exactly what Fencer3 will be and Peltasta’s Guardian.
I really didn’t like Barbarian as a whole, and (I read this somewhere too) I think that you either go Barbarian3 or don’t go Barbarian at all now.
PS: GungHo now is worth of speculation too, so even then, it’s being hard choosing High3. Actually, IMC is really making it impossible to do the necessary and important character planning, as we’re being cornered to even think the possible changes that a skill might suffer.
Even in a ping perfect situation, Stabbing is till awkward to use. Normal mobs can easily walk away from Stabbing AOE unless you have something to lock them in a place. Not to mention the long cooldown. In 25 sec, Composee can spam 25 times with 2 hits per use
I have less than 100 ping most of the time (except lag spike of course) and that’s my experience with Stabbing
I don’t really like stabbing either and it should be 41 times in 25 seconds
Stabbing during its duration still provides more hits than composee tho
Is there any reason for a Fencer to get SW c3? Assuming party is not a problem (no pelt) and weapon swap is not desired (no HL), would SW c3 be relevant (I don’t want to enter the Gung Ho speculation)? Someone once wrote in this forum that anything pre-Fencer didn’t matter so much (I’m paraphrasing). I have an alt sitting at sw c3 and I’m trying to come up with a build that keeps a shield most of the time and deal reasonable damage (as in “full tanks”, “meat shields”, etc.). As most of my chars, it’d be PvP focused.