@migliole
I would be wary of TOSBase builds, as most of them give pretty bad advise, are outdated or lack general knowledge of how the classes perform at higher levels or on different environments.
Anyways, you covered pretty well the basic principles that a PvP (in this case duel oriented) build must meet. Unfortunately, many of those tools are not available in the Swordsman tree, leading to few options to choose from to truly perform in PvP scenarios.
As a Fencer you are already at a disadvantage because you lack a gap closer, a way to increase your movement speed as well as reliable way to guarantee that you deal damage through your skills, as most of them require you to stand still to be used.
This is why most people will suggest you to instead look into a Cataphract build as it has the highest movement speed from all the Swordsman classes, as well as different interactions or skills that help a lot in PvP against moving targets.
But well, since this is a Fencer build then we have to find a way to cover those weaknesses and try to craft a build that would be centered around duels, even if it means being sub-optimal on other scenarios.
You pretty much already found the right build, so I will only expand each part if it helps on anything.
This is the build that I suggest:
Swordsman->Peltasta->Barbarian->Rodelero C2->Fencer->Corsair
or
Swordsman->Peltasta C2->Rodelero C2->Fencer->Corsair
(I started typing out and ended up doing a mini guide before I realized it, so decided to format it like one).
###Why not Swordsman C2/C3?
Because you don’t have a reliable way to take advantage of Restrain as a Fencer.
To properly use Restrain you want to have a damage source that lets you stay on top of your enemy and deal multiple hits, quickly and constantly, to have the highest chance of activating it’s effect and capitalize on it.
This is why Rush from Cataphract, Cyclone from Doppelsoeldner and Pouncing from Barbarian C3 are the best skills to take advantage of Restrain, as they let you move while attacking and deal multiple quick hits through a period of time. As long as one of those hits triggers the effect of Restrain then you will have a good window to deal more damage and most likely finish off your enemy from that.
Since Fencer doesn’t have any skill like those, you wouldn’t be able to take advantage of Restrain and while it could activate from time to time, you could go through an entire duel without it activating it’s effect or you dealing hits constantly enough to benefit from it.
###Why Peltasta C1?
+18% Evasion.
Like you said, high damage is not necessarily the best weapon to use in a PvP scenario and there are many other ways to overpower your opponents, one of them being evasion.
Evasion is one of the strongest tools that you can use in PvP against physical classes. Unless a character invests heavily into DEX+Accuracy, it is going to have a very hard time landing hits on a character that built on a high amount of Evasion and the entire fight could be decided from you evading their best skills or highest cooldown ones.
They can build more Accuracy through gems and refining their gloves, so you want to be sure to maximize the amount Evasion that you can get from your Fencer as you will fight many different builds with a wide range of Accuracy.
This percentage increase on your Evasion not only will increase the extra Evasion that you acquire from gems and equipment, but also from your Fencer skills.
+25% Block and Manual Block.
Now, while Evasion is a pretty nice tool to use it is not always going to be effective. What happens if you meet another high DEX opponent?
You want to make sure that you have another way to mitigate their damage and Block is the perfect choice for this.
Best of all, you can block passively but also use manual block to significantly increase your block and keep it up indefinitely. Suddenly you can nullify their strongest skill and just wait it out while it ends, leaving them with a massive cooldown and you with barely any damage taken.
These two in combination already give you a huge advantage and will overwhelm any builds without a good amount of Accuracy or Block Penetration.
###Why Barbarian C1?
Mainly because there are not many options that you can take at Rank 3.
Helm Chopper gives you an active skill to stun your opponent, it is quick and while it’s area of effect is not as big as Seism, it is still a pretty good skill to have on your kit.
Cleave will let you have another option to burst down stunned enemies.
###Why Peltasta C2?
Mainly because of High Guard.
Why even think about using that when it reduces your Physical Attack by 50% and Critical Rate by 50?
The Critical Rate is not going to matter too much because you will be building high DEX and gearing with Critical Rate anyways.
Once you meet high DEX opponents, your evasion is not going to be of much use. This will force you into a straight up DPS vs HP battle that you might not be able to win, especially against Archers. Being unable to win some of these fights, you will need to rely on a different strategy to win.
The Physical Attack will significantly decrease your damage, however it is not going to be too much of a concern because it is part of a strategy. And this is to try to get your Block as high as possible through the Peltasta kit as well as CON and equipment.
It is not reliable, but on an otherwise unwinnable fight, if you manage to block enough significant incoming attacks that might be just enough to give you a chance to win these duels.
###Why Rodelero C2?
Block and Evasion already covered your advantages against physical attack users. However, now you have to worry about magical damage.
Slithering gives you the ability to completely nullify magical damage and while it doesn’t block CC (for now), it is enough to completely avoid or stall out the most important skills from those magical classes.
With good timing, you will be able to give yourself small windows of opportunity where they won’t have their best magical skills available and where you will be able to chase them freely to try to land your CC’s on them.
While the Rodelero kit offers you some CC, it isn’t very reliable and won’t play a major role on your overall win condition, but they are nice to have in case you missed your other CC abilities.
Shield Charge will play a major role against Clerics, as you will be able to push them out of their Safety Zone, giving you a small window to go all out on them and try to finish them off before they can heal themselves back up.
###Why Corsair?
Iron Hook. This is your main win condition with this build:
Dash to your enemy, get within melee range to land Iron Hook and then proceed to burst them down with your highest damage skills.
Nothing else, really.
If you manage to land a melee range Iron Hook you most likely will win the duel out of that as this skill is even able to get through Plague Doctor’s Bloodletting.
Everything else in this build is meant to give you the highest chance to land a melee range Iron Hook.
You only have 9 seconds to act on it, but that should be more than enough time to burst down most if not all opponents through a proper rotation of your Fencer skills.
In the case that you are not able to finish them off within those 9 seconds for whatever reason, you can also use this time to apply other debuffs or hard CC and try to finish them off on the following seconds after your Iron Hook ends.
###Is it going to be pretty?
Not really.
It will require a lot of skill from you as a player, as you will be on a disadvantage on most duels, but you will have plenty of tools to try to outplay your opponent and take a win from them.
Some fights might just be straight up impossible to win, like a Priest with Revive where you will have to kill them twice, meaning stalling out 25 seconds so you can use your Iron Hook combo again and that might be too much time before you drop dead on the floor.
Other classes have too many potent CC skills and it might be really hard to close the gap to reach them, but Slithering and Dashing will at the very least give you a small chance of doing so.
There are certainly other builds that could do better than a Fencer, but this build is the best chance you will have with this class to go into duels.
###Any hope for the future?
The massive buffs to Slithering on kTOS as well as other minor buffs might make this build better if/when those changes arrive into our version.
And well, this build also works for PvE as a lurer/tank and it also has potential for GvG and even arena PvP.
###What about stats?
You want a lot of DEX, not only for Evasion but also to cover your Accuracy to hit those with that type of build.
Lots of CON, not only for Block but also a high HP pool that works against any type of damage.
SPR? Depends on what you consider a duel. Will you be able to use potions? Then SPR might not be necessary.
However, SPR does increase your chance of resisting certain types of status ailments like Sleep, Freeze, etc; so you might want to experiment with this and see if it works out for you. It certainly is not reliable but it might, from time to time, be the reason why you win a duel.
If you do decide to use SPR, then you want to stay at around 65~67 SPR total and then cover the rest with Max Petamion and Venier, so you can reach around 100 total, although you can keep it at a lower value if you want to.
You can also get a minimal amount of STR (around 40~50) for leveling up, but it isn’t necessary and you can skip it if you are willing to level up slightly slower at lower levels.
