Hi, I’ve been planning my swordsman build for a while and have settled down on this build.
I would like to ask players who have played such a build or have any ideas about this build just to discuss something and give some advice.
for examples; how is solo levelling? What is your role in dungeon? Can fencer make up for the lack of damage? How do fencer synergise with rodelero and peltasta? Should you practice swapping gears (rapier+dagger; rapier+shield) for combos?
Let me know and lets discuss 
i guess noone goes this route lol
Not sure why you want pelt 2 - rode 2 path
It’s really not useful in any situation, both PvP and PvE.
You deal literally peanut damage on small AoE
Quite the contrary, the build can work.
Pelt 2 for nice amount of SB and high guard:
Sure, high guard might fall off late game and the -50% atk dmg might be bad for holding aggro, but having more ranks on SB doesn’t hurt. It’s not like the overall class path can take anything better at rank 3. Maybe barbarian for the stun? Sadly, by not going Pelt c3, the build will be missing out on the armor break, which is why swordsmen are generally encouraged to take either 1 circle of Peltasta or go all 3, just like Cataphracts.
Rode 2 for slithering: The ability doesn’t last long enough, but it’s there to block all magical damage. If done at the right time, it could be a lifesaver and a great utility. The CCs from rodelero tree don’t hurt either.
Fencer 2: By going this far the character will have 3 more damage nullifying abilities and all the while contributing some dps (not really noticible tbh)
And, hey, rapiers don’t look half bad!
It’s just that the leveling will be tedious until you reach fencer, I think that’s about lvl120ish, which is relatively easy to reach compared to Demon Prison grinds from lvl154-164.
With this route it’s best to build pure tank for PvE. There aren’t many pvp contents as of yet so I can’t really comment on that.
thanks for you reply. shud i pick swordman2 instead of pelt2? in that case
It really depends on what you want for your swordsman, maybe a tank? An infantry dps? Do you want to focus on PvE, PvP, or both?
Swordsman C2 has Restrain for the 20% chance stun per damage dealt on enemies, and all the while doesn’t offer any new utilities. It’s not exactly a better choice. Like many of the other classes, it’s best to go Swordsman C3 if you were to go that route. That particular path is mainly for pvp, and a powerful one at that.
Pure tank is bad, and unnecessary. You cannot live without your DPS party, and most of the time they don’t need you to be pure tank.
A path like sword -> pelt -> barb 3 -> fencer 2 would be much better as both tanking and dealing damage
The thing is that it’s actually the Clerics who mostly deal with the damage mitigation while swordsmen usually act like a monster homing beacon as well as a punchbag. I’m not sure if we should even be using the term ‘tank’ here, as there are more ways than one to play and advance in this game.
Different classes have different utilities that deal with different situations. The aforementioned build by OP will most likely be more suited to deal with large magical mobs compared to your suggested build, but all the while your build will have a much easier time holding aggro on a boss fight and doing solo content.
While I agree that pure tank is bad, it’s not unviable. And contrary to what you believe, there are more Pelt C3 Squire C3 (Or templar) out there than I can count due to the fact that it’s the safest build that will most likely remain relevant and not become obsolete as of now.
This is considered by a lot of players, including myself, to be arguably the best tanking build.
Nightmarish from ~level 30 to rank 6. You are going to want to party up. Rodelero is receiving some buffs on kToS soon. If we get those here, they should help a lot. They will actually be able to PvE fairly well. As of right now, however, they aren’t exactly a class with a lot of damage. The same could be said about Peltasta’s damage as well. It’s not very intimidating. They are a defensive class.
Human punching bag. You taunt, and then hope you don’t die, while holding guard or spamming CC.
Somewhat. They will definitely give you SOME damage, but a lot is going to come down to stats and gear at the end of the day anyways. If you’re going full Con, you’re not going to hit very hard. I would argue that Fencers promote the greatest stat balance between Str, Con, and Dex in the entire Swordsman tree, but that’s more of a personal opinion.
Amazingly well. They are basically designed to fit together. They can each work with other classes as well, but this is a very, very solid combo. [quote=“nammyjaja, post:1, topic:230642”]
Should you practice swapping gears (rapier+dagger; rapier+shield) for combos?
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The game will swap for you if you use a skill that requires your other set. IF you merely want to increase your DPS output by doing so, by all means practice it. [quote=“nammyjaja, post:5, topic:230642”]
shud i pick swordman2 instead of pelt2?
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I definitely wouldn’t. If you’re focused purely on PvP, you might for Pain Barrier, but for PvE, absolutely not. Restrain level 5 isn’t particularly good, since status resist will bring that 20% stun chance down to ~12% in most situations. Most mobs will die before you hit them 8 times. If they don’t, you’re killing them so slowly that there’s another issue there entirely.
Hey thanks so much for your detailed replies!
I didnt know that the game can autoswap the required stance for you (provided u have the set items) thats really useful!
Yea I think I want to go this route becos I want to be able to tank properly (late game a lot of mobs use magic which only slithering can block - provided you get the timing correctly also.) but I also want to be able to do some decent damage myself and from what you said, I think fencers are nice!
Thanks so much! I hope to see the rodelero buffs soon!
I went with a very similar build [ hoplite instead of pelt 2 ]
And as for changes I would do to the build are the following:
Sword c2 or Barbarian instead of Peltasta 2
Why Sword c2?
For the higher aoe range of bash which is a pretty nice cc, Restrain is okish
and Pain Barrier for pvp in the future.
Why Barbarian?
The stun mainly, deals amazing dmg and helps out on the cc chain, also Cleave’s crit is not bad
Also some things im considering on Rodelero is maxing ou shield push instead of montano leaving it at lv 1 for the cc
Solo leveling with a con/dex build was pretty slow but steady[hoplite and barbs help out a ton in this part], as for dungeons they were pretty easy, on physical mobs my evasion would take care of it while i kept my dmg up[stabbing or smash], and against magical mobs i would switch between jumping around and using slithering when off cd.
On the matter of being the best pure tank for PVE i think anything with more dmg would be better for tanking, i just think the rodelero and barbarian circles will help out in pvp later and i quite like using shields.
I will play similar build:
-> pelt -> (sword c2 or barb) -> rodelero c2 -> fencer -> shinobi
I cant decided about R3 ( Im thinking stricte pvp)
I tried maxing shield push at circle 1 rodelero and was very disappointed. I did like 50-100 more damage with it up, which was okay, but the hitbox is awful and I could never get it to hit more than one or two targets so it’s completely useless when leveling or farming.
Now if it worked on bosses I bet it would be just fine for that purpose at rank 10-15, but as it is I can only see it being at all useful in pvp or dueling. I ended up using a skill reset potion and dumping the points in montano instead.
Yeah youre right , made another rodelero and shield push is just pretty bad gonna keep leveling montano and shield bash.