Tree of Savior Forum

How to 'fix' Swordsman DPS

Class and Rank Swordsman
#1

There’s a lot of buzz around how Swordsman aren’t considered optimal DPS for late game parties, and how this needs to be fixed.There is one thing that I must make extremely clear though:

You can NOT expect to do as much damage as Archers/Wizards and still keep your huge HP advantage

If you’re only interested in my proposed solution, you may scroll down to the bottom of this post now, as this is going to get lengthy. If you’ve only read this far, please don’t bother replying yet. Put down your pitchforks and read through this before you burn down my village.

Personally, I agree to an extent that Swordsman is a bit underpowered in late PvE parties, but I disagree at the same time. Swordsman just aren’t the typical min/max class that most people (especially Westerners) seem to enjoy. Everyone seems to think you need to go full str, full dex, or full con. Overall this game actually promotes a more even stat distribution system, which seems to confuse a lot of players. That miniature rant aside, this is so upsetting to a lot of players that something really does need to be done.

Now this doesn’t mean you can’t have SOME HP advantage to offset the benefit of range. If we all had even HP, Swordsman would be at a distinct disadvantage. Yes, they have some gap-closers and cc-resisting buffs to help offset this, but they do need a bit more HP. The difference at this point is staggering though. The base HP (even ignoring plate mastery, which is stronger than most people give it credit) of a Level 280 Swordsman is around 16.5k. An archer is around 8k, and a Wizard is around 5.5k.

So what is there to do here? Well, there are 3 options:

  1. Make new classes/rework current classes. This is the worst solution. It would ruin a lot of build diversity, especially if there are only new classes that can be viable DPS.

  2. Balance the items to give Swordsman more damage and/or other classes more HP so Swordsman can be buffed. This is another bad option. This would make certain gear way too desirable for way too long, and we already have Cafrisun for that. It would also ruin the balance of PvE that we have currently, so let’s just trash this option as well.

  3. Give the Swordsman class itself some way of offsetting this. This would allow EVERY class in the Swordsman tree to be able to reach the desired viability of DPS. It would need to be balanced VERY carefully though, as balancing an entire tree simultaneously is a scary thing to do.

Given how I listed the issues with solution 1 and 2, I’d like to focus on solution 3. Now you can’t just make this a buff/nerf to all Swordsman players directly. Some of us, myself included, quite enjoy playing tank classes. Nerfing that to make Swordsman more viable DPS is a ridiculous thing to do. I would say that it would also be better as an Attribute than a skill, so we don’t have to waste 5 skill points. That said, Swordsman circle 1 skills typically aren’t amazing overall late game, so those 5 stat points wouldn’t be horribly missed.

Those of you who just wanted to see the solution, pick up here

There should be an attribute that decreases the Max HP for the Swordsman in exchange for either attack damage, damage percentage increase, skill damage increase, or a mixture of any of the above. This would have to scale into late game, so base values would have to have a level modifier to them. A potential example would be below.

Berserk: Decreases the HP of the Swordsman by level * 20 to increase their attack damage by level * 1.5.

If you’re not a fan of reading, you can stop here

Now, I would have to do a lot more testing on the numbers, and so would IMC, obviously. This is just one potential solution. Maybe it would need to be in percentages not not base level scaling to prevent tanks from being too strong. I don’t know. This is the TYPE of solution that would fix this problem though. It would allow Swordsman to be viable DPS by giving up their natural boost of HP, effectively turning them into the more desirable min/max class that everyone loves so much.

If they were to gain a skill/attribute like this, it would either have to have a LONG cooldown and duration (with 100% up-time still ideally). It wouldn’t be something you could just toggle on and off at will, as the abuse potential would be rather high here. It might even have to be a permanent passive. It also may have to be disabled entirely in PvP.

There are a lot of things to consider here. I’m not saying my example attribute is perfect by any means. I am sure there is plenty of flaws with it. This is just the style of skill/attribute that needs to be implemented to make Swordsman a viable min/max DPS class.

If you want to increase Swordsman DPS to that of Archer/Wizards AND keep your high HP advantage, then you don’t really care about balance at all; you just want your class to be strong.

That’s all I have for now. Please do try to discuss civilly, but I do respect if you all want to tie me up at the stake and burn me now.

2 Likes
#2

I disagree that swordman shouldnt be good DPS wise as other classes, you should have option to be if you want (build wise). Also range is big adventage. Even if you have 2 times more HP, range can be as good or even better than that. All depends what mobs you are fighting. I wouldnt agree that swordman have so much higher HP than other classes, wizards and archers just dont spec anything in CON, thats why they have so low HP. Thats just proof how much defense are giving ranged attacks.

The problem with skills, DPS wise balance, is in multihit versus single hit skills.Wizards tend to have load of damage-over-time or multihit skills. Swordmans tend to have many skills as single hit ones.

The whole point would be to balance multihit vs single hit skills.
If multhit skill have 500 attack (skill stat) and do 20 hits (some wizards do that), then single hit one should have like 5000 attack in it. Where in reality they have like 2 times at most.

Swordman should have beastly power in DPS just like any other class, just in different way. Slow, sometimes hard to output skills, but hiting like a truck if you succesfully perform them.

Seriously, if you dont believe me, just make statistic of how many people have “single hit skills” picked and use them. I bet it will be super low %, they are useless in this game at most part. Only the ones that are highly boosted or boost other skills are used probably.

2 Likes
#3

Only if every enemy you face isn’t able to reach you. If you’re sitting at 6k HP endgame, pretty much anything that hits you is going to kill you. This isn’t like a MOBA where classes are blinking to safety constantly. If something catches you, or also has range, you’re going to get hurt.

If we’re talking PvE, a single boss attack can EASILY do 6k damage, and they have a plethora of ranged skills. Some of them are super easy to avoid, but others are not so much. Groups of mobs are going to be focusing on the tank (ideally), so HP is taken completely out of the equation.

If we’re talking PvP, almost everyone gets some decent Con, and some people go very heavy into Con because of how important the extra HP is. Swordsman have a good number of tools for PvP to avoid CC and close gaps, all while having very high HP and a boatload of CC (depending on the class). The main issue holding them back in PvP isn’t a lack of damage, it’s broken physical cc prevention and damage mitigation skills, namely Bloodletting (which is thankfully getting nerfed) and Stone Skin.

1 Like
#4

Have you ever even considered positional requirements as the reason we possess more HP? You’re putting the classes side by side as justification for our lower DPS, but completely ignoring that to DPS at all we need to be directly in harms way. It’s a more dangerous way of playing and thus to offset this we are given more HP to counteract that.

That means our DPS should still be equal, regardless of HP comparisons.

3 Likes
#5

The entire issue that people are having is that Swordsman DPS isn’t picked a lot for PvE parties because they don’t need the tankiness element. Your party’s max HP isn’t of major concern when another player is tanking. You aren’t getting in harms way at all, except at bosses, where everyone is in danger. If the max HP of your players IS a concern, then Swordsman already has an advantage, and doesn’t need more damage as well.

Basically it comes down to this: When HP doesn’t matter, Swordsman is lacking in DPS to compete with others, when HP DOES matter, other classes in lacking HP to compete with Swordsman. There’s a reason that Swordsman will flourish in PvP once Bloodletting and Stone Skin get nerfed.

Like I said, Swordsman should get slightly higher HP when doing the same amount of damage as Wizards and Archers. The difference in HP though is astronomical. They get over double the HP of archers and over triple the HP of Wizards. That’s staggering. You can basically ignore Con if you have no intention of tanking ever, since you can still hit 22k HP without any points into Con. Realistically, You’re going to get a little con and sit at ~30k HP, which is fairly tanky for a DPS class.

Yes, range does matter a bit, but it’s not amazing. You know what else matters a bit but isn’t amazing? Autoattacks. Is it unfair that Swordsman can do so much damage on autoattacks which cost no mana and have AoE ? OMG SO OP! Of course it doesn’t. You can’t just treat this game like every other MMORPG. Some things matter more, and some matter less. Some things are good in some situations and worse in others.

#6

You should already know that AA are so weak in the endgame that no-one uses them, right ? They are just good for the first 50-100 lvl tops. The only thing a swordy can realistically do lvl 200+ ( if he ever finds a party ofc ) is waiting for the linker to use joint penalty in order to spam their CDs as fast as possible.

#7

Cancer post tbh. Not gonna bother explaining further since the reply will most likely be an essay to get a point across.

#8

You clearly missed the entire point of that paragraph. Please go read it again. I literally added this part [quote=“Vanic, post:5, topic:213754”]
OMG SO OP! Of course it doesn’t.
[/quote] to make it extra clear, but it seems to have still been lost on you. Of course autoattacks aren’t amazing. The point is that if this were another game, you could easily consider it as such. This game is different. Range doesn’t justify having 1/3 of the HP of another class alone, just like Autoattacks don’t justify the lack of our insane DPS alone. When you look at the big picture it all makes sense.

#9

Great contribution from a thoughtful and intelligent player. Thanks.

1 Like
#10

FOR ME THE MAIN DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SWORDMAN AND ARCHER AS PHYSICAL DPS IS THE DAMAGE IN % FROM SKILLS

while archers have skills like xxx%+ base damage and swordman only have base damage they will be always in disventage

4 Likes
#11

You don’t take in account that melees have to constantly place themselves in order to attack AND avoid mobs AoEs, while casters and archers spam 0 CD overpowered AoEs in a safety zone far away…

Saying “Range isn’t amazing” is asinine.

4 Likes
#12

Read the thread or don’t, but don’t tell me I don’t take things into account that I addressed several times already.

#13

Cancer post indeed, good luck.

#14

So after your second attempt to skim the post without actually reading it, and getting proven wrong twice, you just swap to this type of post. I’m less than surprised you don’t understand things.

#15

There’s a reason why every at least semi-decent and successful MMO gives more HP to melees classes than randged ones, even though they got similar DPS output.

Again, Saying “Ranged attacks arn’t amazing”, especially in a game where Safety Zone or Barrier Scrolls exist, is beyond asinine.

I won’t come back to this toxic ego-fest-topic of yours, have fun and good night.

2 Likes
#16

Okay, bud. Whatever you say. This is totally every other game in every other way, right? [quote=“evening.maz, post:15, topic:213754”]
I won’t come back to this toxic ego-fest-topic of yours, have fun and good night.
[/quote]

Please don’t until you learn how to read.

#17

I don’t get where this coming from…
what’s your source ? numbers ? … did you even get to the late game to confirm that ?
from personal experiene, bein able to tank while doing sustained dmg is
way more helpfull then bein an archer that can die any moment.

when you’re looking at the big picture. every class bring something to the table.

as far as I can see it’s

cleric : party protection, heals
archer : dps
mage : CC / Dps
Swordsman : Tank / dps

So ofcouse a class so focused on DPS such as archer will do more dps.
and mage will do more dps combined with CC aswell…
but swordsman won’t get anywhere near becouse it’s better as an aggro / tank / semi dps class.

making a swordsman do archer dps would be stupid. why won’t you just play your warrior, and get an archer to your party ?

the swordsman will keep the aggro from the archer so he can deal dmg to begin with ? (not implying that swordsman a tank)

and so, from my own experience of level 200+ characters
swordsman CAN outdps archer. mostly need Doppel. or hell even fencer.

you want your auto attacks not to be useless ? there many options in swordsman tree for that.

overall I agree swordsman are not best for DPS. but who care… it’s not what you’re looking for with swordsman. people who go swordsman mostly want to be beefy and fight close range.

So here is what I think of everything you said… warrior does not need ‘FIX’ to their DPS. and other class don’t need ‘FIX’ for their health.

it’s fine as it is, looking at every class have it’s own con / pro.
looking for balance in new game, of this type 600+ levels. is a dream you can keep dreaming for little longer… but nothing here get to the point of ‘useless’ or ‘less optimal for end game’. Hell people didn’t even get to the point where they know what’s good or bad.

#18

I agree, but this is not the general consensus with players here. If you read the entire post and some more on the forums you should have gathered that much.

#19

How to fix Swordsman damage per second:

Let them dual wield the goddamn two-handed swords and be able to grow an extra arm for a shield.

6 Likes
#20

Still instead of finding a way to change, I think it’s better to find a way to adapt.

if someone think his warrior not filling the DPS role good enough, he can go make an archer, and he will soon feel the big difference, of both solo, and party play. For good or worse.

The neighbor grass is always greener.

1 Like