Tree of Savior Forum

High-End PvE Swordsman

Hello. I’ve taken a break from a game and now want to roll something for PvE and built around my fav class - Swordsman (I just kinda like it… sad IMC doesn’t give s**t).

So, I’ve come up with three builds. I find all of them utterly disgusting, because each has it’s major flaws. But I guess I’ll have to choose smth and maybe you’ll help with smth I missed.

I daresay I know a lot about the class tho, so let’s see if u manage.


Build 1: Exotic

Sw1-Pelt1-Barb3-Doppel1-Fencer1 (Rapier + Shield)

pros:

  • can double the damage of Slash attacks once in 14 secs for 4 secs - those are Cyclone, Pouncling, Flanconnade and Seism.
  • can be used with shield, increasing survivability for lategame content
  • doesnt really rely on Pierce damage, so can take Esquive Toucher, Lunge and Flanconnade for maxed Slash, Block and Evasion… tho I still want to forego Esquive Toucher for Sept Etoiles.
  • will get even more Slash-damage with Cleave buff of kToS… someday
  • if u work on capping both Block and Dodge, you can theoretically wear fullcloth if needed
  • all and all a great tank char that can destroy packs solo with long combos like Swashbuckling-WarCry-Cleave-Lunge-Cyclone, even though some of those are very long cd + does damage and manages aggro well.

cons:

  • rapiers are disgustingly weak, even more so if char doesn’t rely on Pierce dmg…
  • need to bump a lot into DEX
  • need to forego better weaponry like Venier to have more AoE Ratio with Catacombs Rapier (note: it’s more effective the more dex you have)
  • needs GBs / Phadas
  • so when Cleave starts doubling Slash too, the whole idea of going Fencer for the same effect will become questionable

Build 2: Sword Classic

Sw1-High1-Barb3-Doppel2 (Two-handed sword)

pros:

  • greatswords have op stats, only manamana is better. when Lolopanther Two-handed Swords start to appear, many ppl will want to roll such char.
  • crit attack passive is considered weak by many, but crit atk is still being enhanced by attribs, if I’m not mistaken. and with cap lvl increasing, the effect will get increasingly stronger + any equipment with Critical Attack like Gladiator Band of Phada will be even stronger.
  • when that patch from kToS hits us, it’ll be able to double Slash damage with Cleave that has 2 overhit, making previous build much less appealing
  • it has two levels of Doppel. Cyclone does more dmg and lasts longer by ~37.5%. Deeds of Valor has 5 more stacks (+50% dmg bonus to existing modifier).

cons:

  • NO PELTASTA
  • NOW it has no slash-dmg modification and TBH it’s damage is kinda lackluster. so currently it’s chasing a korean dream.
  • it has no no-cd skills, which also hurts. overall situation with CDs of this char is rather dire, it needs Chrono badly, only real dmg are Pouncing and Cyclone, both have terrific cds.
  • can’t use shield, making this char very squishy at high level dungeons. so needs to pump more CON than shield builds as well.
  • still needs to pump a lot into DEX.
  • still needs GBs/phadas BADLY, because AoE ratio, tho it’s better then with Rapiers as a lot of twohands have decent AoE 1-2 usually, there are some 4 AoE ofc, but they are for lower lvls.

Build 3: Spear Classic

Sw1-Pelt1-Hop3-Dop1-Drag1 (Spear + Shield)

pros:

  • cheapest build because I have fullequip for it already lol
  • finestra is +150 crit rate, +30% block and +3 AoE ratio. it means you can wear like double sissels or sissel + phada/gb and have 0 point invested into DEX, wear a shield and a fullplate with 150 CON and rest into STR.
  • as it doesn’t need DEX at all, it’s one of the few swordsman builds making good use of Sissel Bracelets.
  • spears are decent in PvE as Maga Spear gives dmg to Medium mobs (all party leveling) and Brandism kills bosses.
  • can double Pierce damage for 6 sec - those are Stabbing, Synchro-Thrusting, Dragontooth and Serpentine.
  • can, with some additional effort, make use of Circling + Geras Spear + Spear Throw combination (having to rely on Geras hurts tho)

cons:

  • have no Evasion whatsoever and also it’s DEF is always halved due to Deeds of Valor.
  • can’t increase Cyclone damage, have no Pouncing => have no good AoE hitbox skills with maxed performance
  • has no no-cd skills apart from Spear Throw, which requires a switch

Fencer seems like a winner now, but I’m REALLY worried about rapiers perfomance 280+ (yes, I’m talking about future).

PS. Another alternative is Sw1-Pelt1-Hop2-Cor2-Dragoon1, but it really HURTS cuz it has no evasion and no shield and only a darn karacha which is so much weaker than mana-mana (my main is Corsair3).


[quote]Ok, so it’s 4:22 am here and I have to work in ~5 hrs.

Below should explain everything. Added to OP post.

Build name: Combo Fencer Build (for kToS->iToS patch merge in August, hopefully)
Circle build: Swordman3-Barbarian1-Peltasta1-Fencer1-Doppelsoldner1
Skill build: http://www.tosbase.com/tools/skill-simu … 3nvcd24lp/
Build idea: PvE super tank - high survivability, strong crowd control, all
attack types with empowering skill rotations. Supposed to tank ET after
kToS patch arrives.
Build equip: Grynas, Cata Rapier, Sage Wall, Phada, Phada, Max Petamion

||— KEY MAPPING —||

Attack skills:
1 - Cleave lvl 5 (+50 crit rate; with kToS patch increases all slash dmg to target; double damage to stunned)
2 - Helm Chopper lvl 5 (2-hit Strike attack; 2 overheat; each hit has a high chance to stun)
3 - Double Slash lvl 5 (2-hit Slash attack; 3 overheat; gets bonus dmg from Bleeding; has +35% flat critchance)
4 - Sept Etoiles lvl 5 (7-hit Pierce attack with fast animation; 29 sec cooldown)
Q - Lunge lvl 5 (4-hit Pierce attack; increases all slash dmg to target for 4 sec; also gives +50% Evasion on use)
E - Flanconnade lvl 5 (2-hit Slash attack; 0 sec cooldown; also gives +50% Block on use)
R - Cyclone lvl 5 (continuous AoE damage for 4 sec; 2 overheat; 75% added anticontrol; long cooldown)
F - Thrust lvl 2 (1-hit Pierce attack; 0 sec cooldown; makes stunned enemies bleed => increases Double Slash damage)
G - Bash lvl 3 (AoE knockdown)
C - Pommel Beat lvl 10 (1-hit Strike attack; 3 overcharge; gets double damage from stuns; ignores def of Medium mobs)*

    • simply to burst-down Plate mobs quicked, as Slash-oriented builds may have problems with them.
      will go away with Rank 8 as I’ll need more quickslots, will probably get Thrust to 12 in that case

Mouse skills:
L => X2B (mouse side lower button) - Guard lvl 1 (hold to greatly increase block and def + stagger attackers)
P => X3B (mouse middle button) - Swashbuckling lvl 5 (aggro 11 mobs; +25% hp; increase maximum provoke value)

Buffs:
5 - Pain Barrier lvl 15 (only 10 sec downtime)
6 - Double Pay Earn lvl 5 (double the drop and exp from white/gold/blue mobs)
T - Guardian lvl 1 (+18% Evasion)
Y - Restrain lvl 10 (40% chance of 1 sec stun with every hit; long slow after stun; 60 sec with 60 sec downtime)
H - Deeds of Valor lvl 5 (+10% atk and -10% def per hit taken; maximum 5 stacks)[/quote]

Im, atm leveling a dragoon, with the exact same build as yours. Im curious whats it like @ 250+ as a dragoon. So far looks like my dmg will be much higher than my fencer (237, sm-pel-barb c2-corsair c2- fencer). I like the evasive part of fencer tanking, a lot more than my hop c3 right now. Ill wait and see @ 220 ish when i hit dragoon but so far beeing knock the ■■■■ down every hit and having to rely on my C to survive kinda annoys me.

Well, it’s called spear classic for a reason. My friend was levelling such a build but dropped it saying it was bad. I levelled my Sw2-Hop2-Cor3 to 280 and fullequipped it and I still love it, so I guess it depends on a player.

Try sword pelt hop 2 cor 2 doppel. That might just as well be the best PvE swordman build right now.

Dragoon is nice, but weak at the moment

Well, it does have Hexen, but it has no shield, and having no shield is ofthen gg. Cyclone is only good AoE and it kinda doesn’t get enough power, cuz this build is slash-oriented and pirate is pierce-oriented.

See, two-hand swords are powerful, more powerful than any offhand but mana-mana, possibly. And they also get that crit atk increase that’s going to grow with increasing lvl cap over time + makes any crit ark gear acceptable + IN TIME they will also get Cleave that’s going to add 100% to Slash. What this does is that kinda possibly justifies having no shield at high level. Cuz that crit damage can be decent with double phadas (yeah, extremely rare but possible) or GBs + it naturally has high atk.

A two-corsair have none of such things, his cyclone is weak -> he cannot really burst a big crowd of mobs -> he’s already not so good in PvE.

Other thing that possibly justifies is Hop3 as shown above. IMO.

PS. Cuz see, my pirate3 does INSANE burst dmg by swordsman standards with hexen and pistol shot (which is also doubled by spear lunge while being missile). But it doesnt really matter as he have no no-cd skills and also no really wide-hitbox AoE skill like Cyclone.

You said high end pve.
I must ask:
For mobbing, for bossing or both?

I think we must take in consideration rank 8 for now or we will need a reroll again.
I think a sw>high3>barb>fenc2 is pretty solid.

1 Like

For mobbing. /20kappas

Not sure about fencer 2, not going to rely on fencer skills, dunno about HL as well. Crossguard sure nice, tho I’m not used to idea of tanking to get a boost while also switching weapons lol.

I’d better buff Pouncing with Lunge and get +50 crit rate +potentially another Slash boost with patches from Cleave + have War Cry. All of those skills are very long cd but also gamechangers.

So I just read about that soon-ish kToS version of a game. Wonder how will they handle Steady Aim and Skyliner.

I think I’ll have to wait then. If Skyliner is no-cd, it will really make Sw>High3>Barb>Doppel2.

God bless IMC for finally doing it. Sure wont be easy.

The main issue: we need to rely on all rank 6 and 7 skills to do damage wiz/archer/cler already do that in rank 3/4.
We must discard use cleave+cyclone because of duration(damn)

Now that I’m looking at the announcement regarding patches merge, I’m thinking of something along HL2+Barb1 for Crosscut->Cleave->Skyliner. IF it will be a no-cd version of Skyliner like on kToS, it will severely outdamage anything swordsman have but Circling + Geras Spear + Spear Throw I guess.

Your issue with that dragoon build just gets worse as you reach higher levels. This might actually be fixed if we can stack pain barrier cards with no internal cooldown with 100% uptime when we get the monster card update. But yeah, your issues are the reason why I quit dragoon (272) and switched to a fencer 2 build.

Skyliner isn’t as good as everyone assumes it is unless the most recent kTOS patch that decreased its animation time is actually significant. The only thing skyliner has going for it is its damage type if you need to fight something weak to that damage type, and a cheaper attribute cost. I suppose the horizontal range can also be nice too but a LOT of swordsman skills just got changed to have a bigger hitbox too. Spear throw also can’t compare to skyliner DPS. It has like a 5 second cast time and leaves you completely vulnerable. Fencer skills will out DPS 0 second skyliner too.

On iToS spear throw doesnt have any cooldown and can be spammed under one’s feet like once in 1-1.5 sec. It also has a decent hitbox.

Idk, Idk. If both Cleave damage bonus and Cross Cut bleeding dmg bonus will stack, I think Skyliner will outshine Flanconnade. But ofc I cant be sure.

5 seconds was an exaggeration - actual execution time of spear throw is 1.3 seconds with a slightly longer timed animation to pull back.

My issue with it still stands - vulnerability. You are locked in the animation and can’t do anything about it until its over. Idk even in situations with a lot of mobs I found it more DPS to use other skills over spear throw since they all have pretty big ranges anyway. For bossing spear throw won’t provide anything also but I guess you are mostly interested in regular mobs.

And you are right. It will absolutely outshine Flanconnade. I was mostly talking about composee.

edit maybe notdsfdasfdsafsad (for video)

With a high3 you cant easly reach 35k~40k+ damage each skyliner.
If we get 0 cd on that, the damage could be massive in 10 sec.

Are you high? 35k~40k+ damage? Snipe from Musketeer 400%+5997 and still require gear and decent attributes to hit 35k non-crit. Yet, Skyliner is 450 damage flat, even at lv100 attributes, you’d be lucky to crit over 33k with the most optimal setup.

Possible, but not easy.

This is with level 100 attribute, under the influence of bleed effect, a +15 weapon and other decked out gear, under the influence of lunge, and under the influence of armor break (though to be fair armor break isn’t a huge boost)

The only thing it’s missing to achieve your 30k+ is the enemy being weak to slash.

You can also see when all the special setup goes away, the damage drops down to 4k per line. The boosts have pretty high uptime though so it’s whatever

Please stop using the words high-end and swordsman in the same sentence. Swordsman in end game is an dumpster fire atm, with no hope in sight, the upcoming minor str scaling boost will do nothing to address the core issues of the skills being terrible and scaling horribly. I tried, took mine to 252 and couldn’t take anymore, moved on to archers and wizards.

From another thread.

This was with no bleed.

Probably with a very specific setup where he has lv10 deeds of valor, as the the character stats screen conveniently hides all his buffs, plus enemy weak to slash.

He is rank 6 so its impossible for him have a dov lv 10.
You can see his stats and I can tell you is easy to reach that values.

Edit: Yes, enemy is weak against slash, but it has imunity against bleed. So what you can see there is a skull swing+skyliner combination.