Tree of Savior Forum

Hoplite PVP skill build questions

Class and Rank Swordsman
#1

I plan on going with sword c2 -> hoplite c3 -> doppel -> dragoon mainly for pvping. Here is the skill build:


I might put more points into pain barrier by reducing concentrate since the skill falls off late game. My question is which hoplite damaging skills should I invest on for pvp? I already decided that spear throw will be maxed because it has 0 cd and a great bind attribute. My main doubts are in the skills Synchro Thrusting, Stabbing, Spear Lunge and Pierce. I’d want to invest points on 2 or 3 of these.

  1. Spear lunge -> Great choice because of its overheat and bonus pierce damage which makes the skill useful even in later ranks. It also has good damage scaling. Multiply that scaling with the 2 overheats and you have a high damage skill that also adds utility. However most builds seem to only take 1 point in this skill. Can anyone explain this to me? I am assuming that 1 point in this is good for pve but how about pvp?

2)Synchro thrusting -> I have compared Synchro thrusting damage with pierce damage. Pierce has high burst but synchro thrusting has low cd + 2 over heats. My tests seem to show that synchro thrusting has higher damage when attacking medium sized targets (such as humans) due to its overheat. However most builds still seem to favor the high cd pierce skill due to being strong against bosses in pve. Can anyone give feed back on how good this skill can be in pvp?

3.) Pierce -> Great burst damage, especially for bosses with its attribute. Deals 2 hits to humans. Not sure how good this is in pvp. It also has long cd. Still torn whether to invest in this or just drop it in favor of putting points in spear lunge.

4.) Stabbing -> Great damage in pve. Hard to set up and use in pvp. Might be good with restrain? Restrain seems to proc with skills in my tests. Fun skill to have. But usability is more important in pvp. Given I have a lot of knockdown skills I should be able to use this right?

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated

#2

If you’re looking purely for PvP, you probably want to go Cataphract 3 instead of Hoplite 3. yes, Finestra is amazing, but Trot is invaluable, and you can’t make that kind of movespeed up with gear.

The most popular build for a strong PvP swordsman on kToS is Swordsman C3 > Cataphract C3 > Dragoon. Restrained Rush is beastly.If you are looking to stay with Hoplite, this is fine, but it just typically what you would pick if your main focus is PvP.

Moving on to individual skills, starting with Swordsman:

Assuming you stay with Swordsman circle 2, Concentrate is actually better than Gung Ho. I know, this sounds crazy. Look at the attributes though. GungHo 10 with maxed attribute gives 85 attack and lowers 57 defense. Concentrate, while it only lasts for 19 hits, gives 119 attack with no reduction in defense. You’re not going to be hitting most enemies more than 19 times in PvP anyways, so you might as well go with this option. Both are fine though.

Restrain level 5 is not great. 20% Sounds great on paper, and it might even be great, if the actual proc rate were anywhere near that. Most players in PvP are going to have 40-80% status resist rate. You’re going to be sitting at a 12% stun rate a lot of times. That’s not wonderful. That’s why most people go Circle 3 Swordsman or just stay with Circle 1.

Pain Barrier is amazing. That’s all there is to it. If your main focus is PvP, I would recommend maxing it.

Hoplite:

You’re maxing Finestra; that’s good. Synchro Thrusting is not as good as you think it is though I’m guessing. It has a fairly small hitbox, and landing it is a real pain. You are correct that it hits fairly hard though. I would recommend maxing pierce instead. It’s up to you though obviously.

Doppelsoeldner:

Punish is bad. It has a very long animation time. Don’t plan on ever hitting this skill in PvP. If you do hit it, it’s pretty good, but it’s unlikely that you ever will. There are just better options.

Deeds of Valor is pretty much the entire reason to get a circle of Doppelsoeldner. Max it. Take the points from Punish and max this. It’s very, very good.

I hope this helps a bit.

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#3

Thanks for the feedback. I know people prefer cata 3 for pvp. However I seem to enjoy hoplite more. For now I am not rerolling or making a different character. That might change later when I have more time. I have experienced the bad hit box of Synchro thrusting. I make up for it by knocking them down first. I also consider dropping it in favor of one of the other three available skills due to synchro thrusting needing a shield. Can I ask feedback on Spear Lunge? Is it worth maxing? And How good stabbing is in pvp?

#4

Spear Lunge is all about the debuff. Stabbing is not a PvP oriented skill.

#5

Thanks. Overall, the changes to my build will only be points that will be allocated on pierce and synchro thrusting. I am not sure yet with doppel. Havent reached that rank yet.

#6

I highly recommend getting Deeds of Valor over Punish. I really, really do. That’s the main change that is needed. You don’t have to take my word for it; ask around.

#7

Thanks, I’ll do that. Haven’t read much about doppel so didn’t know how good deeds of valor was.

#8

It’s exceptional. Punish might get buffed in the future, but as of now, it’s… it’s slow.

#9

Sorry to say this, but this is bad, on so many levels … Take this from someone who has played both hoplite - doppel and cataphract to maxed circle.

  • First, you need pelt circle, no matter if you want PvP or PvE build. Additional HP and +25% block chance = better than 20% restrain
  • Synchro thrusting is a crap skill, you will never hit anything or anyone with it. The hit box is so small that it’s even smaller than your auto attack.
  • Unless you plan to use Geras spear for the rest of your life (which is bad), getting more than level 1 throwing spear is bad, since the bind chance doesn’t increase with level.
  • Punish is … really really bad, it can only hit knocked down target. You literally have 1 skill that can knock down (2 if you go for pelt circle) and they are slow + small hit box. You basically waste points here, because if you can land knock down + punish, you are better off throw 2-3 other skills (such as throwing spear + stabbing)
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#10

Thanks for the feedback. Why is throw spear bad when it has 0 second cd? I have 3 skills that can knockdown though. Dragonsoar(should knockdown but currently broken), Bash, and the jumping skill of hoplite.

#11

Throwing spear has crap targeting and really slow animation. 99% of the time you want to throw it at point blank so you don’t miss

All your listed knock down have 1 common flaw: close range. If you expect to get close to people and get a melee skill off, you obviously haven’t seen a lot of PvP lol.

There are 2 hurdles that you need to overcome in PvP:

  • Getting close to the opponent, through the barrages of their CC (the main reason why cataphract is popular, they can do this with their speed)
  • Somehow CC opponent so that you can unload your skills (this is why restrain is popular in PvP, 2 seconds stuns + 12 seconds slow afterward on each skill you can hit, not just specific CC skills)
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#12

Thanks for your feedback. I am no longer putting points in punish since its really slow. You say that synchro thrusting is bad in pvp but my only other option to max is spear lunge and stabbing. Would putting points in stabbing be better?

#13

Yes stabbing is better. It’s not that useful in PvP, but neither does spear lunge. And higher spear lunge doesn’t really do anything. At least with stabbing you can finish off people that you catch (if you can actually catch them)

#14

I have tried Synchro Thrusting in PVE and it has better DPS than Pierce because it can be used 4 times in 30 seconds. Not to mention it scales with shield DEF.
Oh, I always use 1H Spear + Shield all the time so I don’t know about 2H Spear user.

#15

You cannot use synchro thrusting with 2h spear, so if you ever want a 2h dragoon, you just wasted points.

Yes on paper synchro thrusting is better in DPS comparing to pierce, but with pierce most of the time you 1 shot mob, you cannot do that with synchro thrusting.

Shield def is not something big, most of the time shield has less than 100 def

#16

Oh? I tried lvl 5 piernce and lvl 5 synchro. Synchro seems to do more damage. I am high str build btw since I have lvl 10 finestra.

#17

At higher level the damage from shield part get less and less, only the spear part is good.

Also you have to consider using spear lunge -> pierce. With bigger base damage, spear lunge boost pierce more than synchro thrusting (since the strike part isn’t boosted)

At hoplite c3, every time I use pierce I took down 1/5 of the boss HP in quest.

You can also keep synchro thrusting at low level as a filler

#18

Thanks for the tip sir. Ill keep trying things out as I go. Didn’t factor in boost from spear lunge.

#19

My build is hoplite C1 so it doesn’t have spear lunge which means Synchro Thrusting attribute won’t matter.
Shield DEF is multiplied by 5 so it’s actually scales with better shield.
So I think in my case:
Stabbing lv 5
Pierce lv 1
Finestra lv 5
Synchro Thrusting lv 4
will give higher overall DPS than Pierce lv 4 and Synchro Thrusting lv 1

#20

Yes that is true, although I would prefer pierce over stabbing, but at c1 they are not really different