Team name: Resource
Server: Klaipeda [NA]
This guide is outdated! Please refer to this link for the newly updated Ver. 080820
So you want to be a fencer? The better question is do you have the determination and funds to be a Fencer? Fencer is a class that scales exponentially with gear and attribute. You will need determination to get the best gear in the game in order to take advantage of fencer’s high scaling. This guide is mainly for PvE.
Fencer is pretty much a single target DPS that utilizes a rapier. They primarily do pierce damage and rely on critting for high damage. Epee garde, a Fencer buff, gives fencer a whopping 80% damage boost to critical damage at max attribute.
As a result, its best to pair Fencer with Matador since they have Ole which gives +88% critical rate. Matador also provides the AoE that Fencer lack and together these classes cover each other’s weaknesses and strengthens one another.
Fencer + Matador is mostly for PvE as the class is squishy and does not have much crowd control, but it can PvP if you take Retiarius or Peltasta. Your third choice class is completely free but it can be used to specialize your character for certain content such as bossing, pvp, mobbing and etc., so it is up to you on what you want your third class to be.
Swordsman skills
Attribute message
Each skill will show how many points i allocated to it. That is followed by a description with comments. At the end there is the priority for leveling the enhance attribute. For all attributes except for None you should raise them to Lv50 then prioritize the High -> Medium. When High and Medium reaches Lv80 start maxing 1 High skill until you max all of them then move onto Medium. High means this is a staple move that will give you the most damage for your money.Medium is the next strongest set of skills and they should be maxed before moving onto Low . Low is fillers as well as effects that are weak and this is mostly if you finish everything else. None means there is an enhance attribute and they should be ignored, you will waste your money investing in these but there might be some minor gains. Keep in mind that maxing an enhance attribute gives an additional 10% boost to the skill.
Swordsman skills:
Thrust (0/5): Thrust your weapon into the enemy. The skill factor sucks and it is a useless skill. I can’t think of a scenario where it would be more beneficial than detrimental.
Attribute Priority: None
Bash (3/5): Slashes the enemy and with the attribute it knocks the enemy back. This is a very very very very useful utility tool that gets overlooked by many players starting out. At level 3 you unlock the knockback attributes and this is one of your crowd control. It boasts a really low cooldown and really low skill factor.
Attribute Priority: None
Gung Ho (5/5): Buff that provides 10%-16% damage increase. Cannot be used with Bear as they cancel each other out. Free damage buff, take it. If you want to maximize this buff bring a Durandal with a Yekubite Gem in order to increase Gung Ho to lv 8. With those + max attribute this gives 25.6% damage. This is very significant.
Attribute Priority: Medium
Bear (0/5 or 5/5): Buff that decreases physical damage taken by 10%- 16%. Cannot use with Gung Ho. You will be using Gung Ho for PvE so this skill is left at 0. Note: Durandal with a Boowook Gem does add to bear, but they get disabled once you remove/swap. The skill is currently bugged and reduces physical damage and magic damage by about 66%. With durandal and bear gem you can be almost invincible to most damage.
Attribute Priority: None or High
Pain Barrier (5/5): Provides a buff that prevents knockback and knockdown. It also gives you a chance of resisting debuffs. The best take home from the swordsman tree because getting knocked back or down = dps loss. It has half up time and you will love it.
Fencer skills
Attribute message
Each skill will show how many points i allocated to it. That is followed by a description with comments. At the end there is the priority for leveling the enhance attribute. For all attributes except for None you should raise them to Lv50 then prioritize the High -> Medium. When High and Medium reaches Lv80 start maxing 1 High skill until you max all of them then move onto Medium. High means this is a staple move that will give you the most damage for your money.Medium is the next strongest set of skills and they should be maxed before moving onto Low . Low is fillers as well as effects that are weak and this is mostly if you finish everything else. None means there is an enhance attribute and they should be ignored, you will waste your money investing in these but there might be some minor gains. Keep in mind that maxing an enhance attribute gives an additional 10% boost to the skill.
Offensive Rapide: This is actually an attribute but many people ask about so i’ll put it in. So this skill divides your fencer damage into two lines. Each line is 50%-70% (depending on attribute lv) of your skill damage but in return it doubles your hit count. Essentially you are hitting for 140% for each fencer skill instead of 100%. For example sept etoile hits 6 times normally but now it will hit 12 times. Offensive Rapide also disables your ability to block from a shield, but the attribute is so good that you should always have this attribute on despite your build. This and Epee is what makes fencer scale so well.
The left side shows Offensive Rapide on. The right side shows it off. Notice right does higher damage lines (attribute off) while left does 30% less damage lines but double the lines (attribute on).
Sept Etoiles (15/15): Stab the enemy 6 times despite the name being “7 stars.” Fencer’s strongest single cast skill in the whole tree. The skill factor is high, cd is 15s, and it has 50% defense ignore. The 50% defense ignore is what makes it extremely strong. This is a must max for all fencer builds. This skill is usually what you prep. The gif above also demonstrates Sept Etoiles.
Attribute Priority: High
Esquive Toucher (0 or 1/15): This skill does some fancy animation and has really low damage. The skill animation is shown in the beginning fencer section gif 3rd to the left. One of the most useless skill in the fencer tree. It is awful due to low SFR and it locks you in place during the animation. The evasion buff is only present during the skill animation. There is one use for this skill and its to activate the ignas boot/glove effect so if you are using ignas leather boots/gloves then you should get a point in this skill.
Attribute Priority: None
Flannconnade (0 or 1/15): Strikes upward twice. It has been heavily nerfed with rebuild. It does not auto block anymore during animation so I see no purpose for this unless you are Ret fencer since it does help dagger guard during the animation. The 100% block increase only happens during a small 2 second window.
Attribute Priority: None
Attaque Composee (0/15 or leftover dump or 15/15): Pokes the enemy two times quickly. Composee’s attack speed scales with dex. This used to be the bread and butter of fencer as the skill factor was decent, cd is short, 5 OH. The skill factor is quite low now and fencer combined with matador has really high uptime. Most builds will skip this build but it is still a nice filler if your third class choice does not provide enough fillers. Take points out of balestra if you need or want this. There is enough points in the fencer tree to just put 5 points into it incase you ever run out of things to spam.
Attribute Priority: None or Low or Medium
Preparation (5/5): This is a channeling skill that increases block during the channeling and at the end of the channel you get a buff that doubles the attack of the next pierce skill. The block portion gets ignored and you pretty much tap this skill for the buff. The cooldown goes down with levels and when it is at 5/5 the cooldown will match with Sept Etoiles. If you have a Solmiki Rapier then you can put this at 3/5. There has been a slight nerf (?) or bug with prep + finale. When you prep finale it will only prep the first enemy hit by finale and it will not prep the other enemies getting hit. There is a work through for this which is mentioned in the finale description.
Balestra Fente (10/10): Dashes forward and hits enemy in the path of the dash. This is one of your combo starter as it applies a debuff that reduces crit resist by 20%. It has a 100% uptime so make sure the boss is always debuffed. The skill factor is also the highest in the fencer tree.
Attribute Priority: Medium
Epee Garde (5/5): Bread and butter skill. This is a buff that increases your critical damage for pierce damage type but also disables the defense gains from your shield. if you have rodelero in your build then the shield defense does not get nullified. It increases your crit damage by 80% with max attribute. This is why fencers strive for critical rate and why they scale so well.
Attribute Priority: High
Fleche (5/5): Stabs the enemy 3 times quickly. Strong skill that gets overshadowed by Sept Etoiles with low crit rate. The cooldown is a little high but it is a strong skill nonetheless.
Attribute Priority: High
Matador skills
Attribute message
Each skill will show how many points i allocated to it. That is followed by a description with comments. At the end there is the priority for leveling the enhance attribute. For all attributes except for None you should raise them to Lv50 then prioritize the High -> Medium. When High and Medium reaches Lv80 start maxing 1 High skill until you max all of them then move onto Medium. High means this is a staple move that will give you the most damage for your money.Medium is the next strongest set of skills and they should be maxed before moving onto Low . Low is fillers as well as effects that are weak and this is mostly if you finish everything else. None means there is an enhance attribute and they should be ignored, you will waste your money investing in these but there might be some minor gains. Keep in mind that maxing an enhance attribute gives an additional 10% boost to the skill.
Capote (1/15 or leftover dump): Waves the capote which aggros bosses and mobs around. This skill will always grab the aggro of the boss for a set amount of time regardless of how much damage you do. The debuff duration goes up with levels. For PvP this skill is actually not bad. For a pve build this is 1/15 while pvp would max it. The same applies to the attribute enhancement. You can animation cancel the end part of this skill by jumping.
Attribute Priority: Low or Medium
Muleta (1/15 or 15/15): Channeling skill that takes out your capote in front of you, if something attacks you during the animation then you will counter hit the enemy and receive a critical rate buff for 20 seconds. It also reduces cooldown of matador skills by 5 seconds and gives more critical rate per level(up to 30% for 20s at max). The tooltip is wrong for this skill and the SFR is much lower than it actually shows. The critical rate is significant as its 30% crit rate with 100% up time. I do not like this playstyle so my builds will exclude it but if you want it then follow the skill build. Skill build for matador with muleta.
Attribute Priority: None or Low
Faena (15/15 or 0/15): Strikes a really thin cone in front of you multiple times. This skill got heavily nerfed in SFR and AoE Atk ratio. It is a solid mobbing skill that gets increased hit count with levels. Note that the SFR does not go up with levels and it has a 20% damage increase on large enemies. Great for challenge mode and being a filler. You can animation cancel this skill with jumping and the damage will still continue. You cannot cast a second Faena until the animation of the first Faena should finish if you animation cancel. If you get Muleta then there is no room for Faena.
Attribute Priority: Medium
Ole (15/15): Waves the capote around and gives you a buff. Bread and butter skill for Matador. It gives a whopping 88% critical rate increase with max attributes. Complements epee garde so much and you should have this up almost all the time if you use muleta at least once when Ole is on cooldown.
Attribute Priority: High
Paso Doble (7/10 or leftover dump): Hits enemy in an aoe around you. You also receive a 20% critical rate increase for 5 seconds so this is one of your combo starters. Enemies hit by paso get knocked up pretty high and it is your only crowd control besides bash. This skill resets if backslide successfully evades during animation. It is decent skill that makes you invincible for a bit but the skill factor is a little on the low side. I recommend you don’t use the remove knockback attribute as its quite useful as crowd control.
Attribute Priority: Medium
Backslide (1/10): Slides backwards and increases your evasion during the animation. If you successfully evade during the animation then your Paso Doble cd will reset. More points into it reduces the cooldown 1 second per level. There is an interaction with balestra where if you balestra while backslide is on cd then it will reset backslide cd. Not really worth maxing as spamming Paso Doble isn’t strong
Corrida Finale( 5/5): Probably matador’s most iconic skill. Summons a 
that passes by and hits once. The bull comes back a second time with attribute. This is your best AoE and PvP skill. So there are 2 unique interactions with prep here. The one mentioned in the preparation description and another one where you can actually prep Finale + another skill. If you use Corrida Finale then the bull passes by once, prep. All of the hits from the second bull will get prepped but you will retain your prep buff so you can prep another skill. Doing this also prevents the bug mentioned in Preparation.
Attribute Priority: Medium
Third class choices + Skill builds
Third class choices + Skill builds:
Realistically any class works with fencer+matador so feel free to pick anything that complements your playstyle. I will list the ones that i have experience with and I have confirmed it works decently or well. If its not listed here then it does not mean it doesn’t work its just that I have not tested it. I’ll provide a skill build for these which is located in the class names. Some of these skill point distribution are subject for debate so if you have any additions/changes you think i should do let me know in the comment and we can discuss it. Also if the points are not distributed then that means you can put them anywhere without affecting the build.
Note: Each class name below links to a skill build.
Barbarian: //most recommended
This offers powerful buffs and debuffs to complement fencer and matador. This is probably the most well rounded choice in terms of aoe and bossing. You get cleave which gives you a 10% critical rate increase and crit damage increase to stunned mobs. Warcry decreases enemies physical defense by 10% while increasing your physical attack and lastly you get frenzy, another powerful buff that increases your damage. Going barbarian drastically changes your playstyle as you need to weave in debuffs. My top choice and potentially the strongest fencermata build.
Skill build contributed by Orna.
Hoplite: //recommended
This is the strongest choice for bossing but may lack a little bit in the aoe department if you do not invest in spear. Please note that you do NOT need to invest into a spear for bossing as pierce and stabbing have no restriction. You can utilize spear lunge now for a debuff that increases pierce damage. You will need any spear on your secondary weapon for autoswap in order to use spear lunge. Pierce is actually an extremely strong bossing skill, it has a hidden 30% boss damage multiplier. Counting the overheats and damage it does more damage than any skill in your build. Pierce + spear lunge is what makes getting hoplite so worth. Stabbing actually got nerfed from 25 hits to 15 hits so this skill no longer gets prepped as its a filler now, but its still great. If you do decide to invest in a spear then this build would be pretty good for CM due to spear throw AOE. My personal top choice for bossing + general content and what I am currently using.
Best build for solo challenge mode and PvP. It does not provide much bossing or mobbing damage but it will make you survive cm 6/7. You will solely rely on fencer + matador to carry your damage so going peltasta lowers your damage output compared to other builds. You must invest in transcending a shield for going Peltasta in order to fully utilize Hard Shield. In return, you get Swash buckling which aggros mobs to you and increases the amount of mobs that will aggro to you. Hard Shield and Guardian are buffs that decrease the amount of damage you take. You will be almost unkillable with these. Note: you will use a shield or at least auto swap for a shield and you cannot block because of Offensive Rapide. Pelt fencer mata is also the strongest fencer PvP build as pelt makes you extremely tanky with addition of fencermata’s damage. If you use swash/rim/umbo + capote then Banderillo will actually increase your damage by 60% instead of 30% in PvP only.
Skill build contributed by Orna.
Another shield choice but more offensive than Peltasta. By taking rodelero you no longer loses the shield defense from using epee guard. Note that you cannot block. Rodelero also adds crowd control, which fencer mata lacks. with shield charge, shield push, shield shoving, montano, and targe smash. Shield push reduces defense by 15% for 10 seconds with 3 overheat and it also silences boss/mobs. Shield Bash and shooting star deal great damage as well, but they are strike damage so they do not benefit from Epee Garde.
Skill build contributed by TearsTail.
Offers a lot of offensive skills to use. I find highlander to be a decent choice at most and i don’t really recommend it unless you like the playstyle as highlander is mostly slash damage. Since fencer + matador are stand alone together this adds too many offensive skills imo. Moulinet is a solid slash skill that hits more when crown debuff is on the enemy. Skyliner also gets increased damage when the enemy is bled which usually comes from crosscut but matador has piacador attribute which bleeds enemies aggro’d to you. You can also go for Cross Guard for the double pierce damage debuff, but it is extremely hard to pull off so I excluded it from the skill build.
Choosing Retiarius as your third choice adds some mobbing capabilities to fencer + matador. It is not too bad of a choice as you can mob with pull/throw net + dagger finish. Going ret allows you to pvp decently and gives you pve skills. You will need to invest in a spear for this build in order to use trident finish. Also composee is taken as a filler for this build. PvP only skill build, no spear required. My personal top choice for PvP. Hybrid skill build, Spear required.
PvE Skill build contributed by Nepenthe.
This is actually a decent choice but gets overshadowed by barbarian. Its does work because punish is a pierce and Deeds of Valor gives you a 33% damage increase but you’ll take 19% more damage. Spin2win with cyclone.
Templar: //not recommended but it does work
Only if you really want horse erp to be templar or move around fast. You should not be on your horse at all except for guild raid and traveling. You get Shield Charger which is a very very strong PvE and PvP skill. It basically gives 5 people in your party or guild a shield thats 66% of your hp. Flying color is really great since it reduces enemy crit resist by 64% and increases your party’d crit rate by 64%, but the cooldown/uptime is bad. Battle order for movement speed and Advance order if you decide to Guild Raid. Since Templar does not provide offensive skill, make sure you utilize composee as much as possible.
Fencer Retiarius Peltasta (PvP only):
This is the strongest Fencer PvP build but you will need to be extremely funded and you also throw away all of your PvE capabilities. To get max crit rate on normal people you need 815 Crit Rate without nepa in order to use this build as you will use Nematomas. I recommend a bare minimum of 700 but ideally you would have around 900 for people with higher than usual crit resist. Fencer will provide you with the damage you need for PvP. Retiarius will allow you to delete murmillos as well as catch people with the nets. Dagger Finish will kill off low hp targets. Peltasta Hard Shield is broken in PvP. Do not use a shield, just auto swap for pelt buffs and you must invest in a velcoffer shield.
Stats
For all PvE Fencers you want to go Full STR for physical attack. Before we would get some DEX for attack speed, but only composee really utilizes attack speed and we have that at 0 or really low points. If you max composee i suggest you get dex but if you don’t then dex is low priority. Dex does give critical attack though so don’t skip out on it for armor as critical attack adds up. For PvP go full CON.
