Tree of Savior Forum

Swordman's concentrate, GungHo, Restrain and Thrust VS Bash

Class and Rank
#1

So, to all the swordies out there, what do you think about those skills?

Personally i think that concentrate is great at early levels but will be almost useless in end-game since it only buffs a little fraction of damage and it’s not even a percentage of it, because of that GungHo seems much better in the long run if you don’t mind the DEF decrease but with better equipment it doesn’t matter that much, right?

About Restrain i don’t know, i haven’t used it yet, it is useful or just a waste?

Also Thrust VS Bash, i leveled up Thrust and i regret it, i was thinking about doing a Corsair build and i tought “with thrust i will able to push monsters away!” But i was wrong, even if there was an attribute that adds that effect it woulnd’t change the fact that bash can knock enemies down, so is Bash the superior skill for CC?

#2

Funny, I just posed about this in another thread. I’m a Lv. 22 Swordsman x2, so my opinion is certainly limited, but here are my thoughts so far:

Bash: **** - Great for crowd-control on mobs, but not anything to write home about during boss fights as my auto-attack makes up for that dmg quicker.

Thrust: ** - It’s great for a secondary attack, but it might just be player error on my part but I keep missing lol.

Concentrate: ***** - My go-to skill so far. Short effect but good cooldown and helps with my auto-atk. Like you mentioned @Sakuya, it probably won’t scale well later on, but for lower-levels it works.

Restrain: * - Haven’t used it, so tough to say. Seems more like a PvP handy skill from what I’ve seen, but not sure. Curious though.

Gung Ho: * - Haven’t used this either. Wondering if it’s worth envesting though as I’m planning to go Swd>Swd>Bar>Bar>Cor>Cor

Like I said though-- I’m not super versed on Swordsman, so that’s just my take so far. Someone who’s played more into it might have a better idea.

#3

I am a level 37 swordman and yeah, i was thinking about doing a swordx2>barx2>corx2 build and since Corsair only has 1 CC skill that is the hook it may be smarter to level up Bash and not thrust for CC i know the damage is not the ideal but is useful, GungHo seems to be pretty great, better than concentrate in the long run and i know nothing about Restrain, in fact i’m making another build and i’ll post the results.

But if you want to make a corsair build, having the knocking down bash from swordman, the stab+kick from barbarian and the hook+hauling from corsair would make a definitely better pvp build, of course with GungHo, Savagery, Warcry (maybe?) and flange as buffs.

#4

Personaly, on my way to highlander, gung-ho and concentrate were more then enough. Sadly, the gung-ho attribute (plus one physical damage and minus one defense per level) is far to weak, same goes for concentrate (+2 damage). That is of course because highlander has an much stronger weapon choice.

#5

I’m a peltasta so my build is different. I have both Thrust and Bash. Thrust is very useful; it gives me the stab damage that I can’t get otherwise. I’m covered by all three melee atks now (slash, stab, blow). Bash gives me knockback with its attribute.

I put the last 5 into spirit barrier although I don’t use it.

#6

The Bash knockdown is useful, but at the same time it isn’t since you can knock enemies out of party member attacks. I Find myself toggling it on in solo play more than party play.

#7

Knockback is useful in bossing. You can push away the minions that get in the way of attacking the boss.

I imagine it might be handy in PVP too. But I haven’t tested it.

#8

Bash
I like bash a lot, especially since unlike the Highlander’s Wagon Wheel, you don’t throw the enemies into all directions and miles away.
You just throw them a feet away from you, all into a direction that you can control. It has 2 charges and hence profits from crits much better than Wagon Wheel as well.

Thrust
I also like Thrust a lot. Thrust, Bash and Gung Ho are the skills to max. for the DD route, while Thrust, Bash and Concentrate are a must for the tank route. Thrust is very bad for farming since it has 2 charges and each charge consumes a lot of SP already. It’s only single target as well. If you use it together with other stab-enhancing skills like Savagery from the Barbarian, then it becomes a very powerful single-target Stab-type attack. You mainly need it for boss fights when a boss is neither weak to Slash nor Hit/Blunt.
The only time when I wouldn’t put points into this skill is perhaps when I wanted to go for Spear-type DD, since you got enough Stab-type attacks already as is.

Concentrate
I absolutely hate this skill. It gives you a similar boost to Gung Ho at early levels. Then it drops off into nothingness only slightly later.
But I don’t see any other option for you to choose when you go down the Peltast route if you plan on going tank since you can’t use Gung Ho with Guardian. Definitely not a skill that is designed for melee DDs, but for the tanks.

Gung Ho
Best steroid for swordsman DDs I have tested so far. I prefer it at lvl10 with Swordsman C2 for the Barbarian build since the Barbarians Aggressor profits greatly in Crit damage from it.
You have 2 other options though, from what I know.
You can either go down Swordsman C3 and get it to lvl15 in order for other DD classes to profit from it.
Or you can keep it at lvl5 and switch to Highlander before you go to Barbarian. The Highlander does get an attribute that increases your crit chance but what would I need more crit chance for when I got a skill that gives me more than +500% crit damage based on my Patk? Of course I’ll rather go with maxing out Gung Ho to lvl10 for more crit damage.
The percent boni in this game are negligible anyway since you don’t get super high stats from your stat points. Each stat point is literally 1 point in either attack, crit, evasion etc. just that you get 1 extra stat point for every 5 points into the same stat. So yeah, a must for every DD swordsman but I feel that it’s better for Barbarian than everyone else.

Restrain
Restrain is what the Concentration attribute used to be, it seems.
I put 1 point into it and it has 2% per lvl to trigger, so it never happens. I used it quite often already and I never saw it trigger even once.
In the description it says “faint” but I think what it means is stun.
The way it’s supposed to work is:
Restrain+Savagery, then stun an enemy and Thrust away at the stunned foe. Your thrust then inflicts bleeding for 50% of your thrust damage extra.
Not gonna waste any points into this but I could see it work in PvP.

TL;DR:
Damage Dealer Swordsman classes: max.Bash,max.Thrust,max.Gung Ho
Tanky Swordsman classes: max.Bash,max.Thrust,max.Concentrate
Savagery, no thanks. Maybe later.

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#9

I have only seen restrain proc once (only lvl 18) but it knocked the enemy down and back. Which caused me to miss the next few auto attacks. Unless the proc gets increased alot or they change the “faint” then i would not see this as a primary skill to get.

#10

I used Thrust, Bash and Concentration.

I felt I needed thrust and bash because they both do two different damage types and enemies are weak to particular types of damage. Stab damage is pretty rare, so Thrust helped a lot, especially against bosses and Bash is just good AoE slash damage.

Concentration was a super useful farming tool early, since enemy health isn’t all that high and the +flat damage helped clear speed (I had like +35 on my C2 swordsman) but it seems like it’ll fall off in a big way. The numbers probably can get pretty big since skill ranks and attribute ranks both increase the damage buff, but it’s still flat damage in the end.

#11

@WatchGintama Probably Pain Barrier is useful for long cast skill like Cataphract.

Does anyone tried using Bash on companion?

#12

Not a big fan of thrust as I figured out that it becomes useless if you go swordsman > highland since you get much better skills. I would go with bash. I’m planning on going swordsman > highlander > barbarian > barbarian > barbarian and maybe doppelsoldner

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#13

Hi there,

I got to a level 42 Swordsman as Swr > Swr > Bar

In response to your call of what others think of the specific skills:
My opinion is as follows

Thrust
I personally found this skill helpful during boss fights. Of course it does not help for all, but it does make a difference against “tanky” bosses.

Bash
I forgo this skill but I could not remember why. If I remember correctly, it is because the attack type is “slash” which is similar to regular attacks. Thrust attack type is “stab” and does bonus damage to certain mobs. As I am building my warrior into a “Z” warrior, I needed different variety of attack types to have an easier time with bosses.

Concentrate
I took this skill but deleted my character because it only lasted for a set amount of attacks. I do not know the full potential of this skill.

Gung Ho
This skill was my diamond. I only use this skill and start directional keys and Z whenever mobs are in range.

I am sure there are several other swordsman out there that can give you a more detailed or precise information. After all, I’m guilty of not doing sufficient research from the Korean community regarding swordsman.

Hope my opinion helps. Good luck!

#14

Howdy,

I got a late invite into the Beta and managed to get to a Level 31 Peltasta. My plan was to make a very tanky character for end game scenarios, but that was foolish as I didn’t have a lot of time with the beta. Anyway, here are my reviews as follows:

Thrust 4/5
This was my go-to skill for 1v1 monster/boss fights. This skill definitely only hits 1 monster and it provides a quick wait to obtain the Stab modifier.

Bash 5/5
This was a great skill. In combination with several swordsman skill attributes, this was a great crowd control option. Will be using Bash for the entire life cycle of my future swordie.

Concentrate 4/5
This is a character’s pilot skill. What I mean is, that you are limited with the amount of attacks that are enhanced with this skill so spamming Z or whatever isn’t going to reap a lot of benefit. I would pop Concentrate, then use attack enhancing skills, such as Bash or Thrust, to get a sort of compounding damage affect. It was definitely noticeable. More ‘APMs’ than just sitting there swinging for a homerun.

Gung Ho 5/5 (DPS), 1/5 (Tank)
I put 1 skill point into this skill just to test it out. I would highly recommend this skill for DPS swordies. However, I wouldn’t personally get this for a tanky character.

Pain Barrier 2/5
Like Gung Ho I put 1 skill point just to test this out. The affect was only noticeable for a small %-age of the boss fights. I think this skill will be very effective for PvP characters and perhaps later boss fights, but it seemed rather inconsequential early on. I would put just 1 point into this for my eventual swordie as a hedge against status ailing foes in the future.

That’s all I got for now. Hope this review helps!
-MeatWoD

#15

So, i made another swordman the last day of the iCBT, i pumped all of my stat points into STR and tried out bash this time with pommel beat.

IMO Bash should be used only as a CC skill, level 1 is just fine with the knock-down and AoE attribute, about pommel beat i don’t know if it’s worth it, at early levels is much more spammable than bash and costs a lot less SP also deals way better damage for only 5 skill points instead of 10 on bash, but since we unlock it only in swordman cycle 2 it doesn’t get that much stronger later on, right? but still it’s either pommel beat or level up pain barrier up to level 10 (And i think this one will be really important for PVP) or concentrate (Almost useless on later levels)

So for a corsair build Bash is a must, at least at level 1 for CC purposes, GungHo is also a must, Pain barrier at least at level 5 for pvp and about concentrate… if it doesn’t get a buff or a rework as a skill it just isn’t worth 10 or 5 skill points.

About Restrain, i couldn’t try it out because i worked on this build the last day and we all know about the “low rates” and such, but i think that it isn’t a bad idea to put 5 skill points on it if you are going to be a dual wielding Corsair with Savagery, better attack speed, more hits per second equals to a better chance at stunning, right? also the attribute of Restrain seems useful (The one that slowers targets after being stunned by Restrain)

I still can’t decide what skills should i max as a barbarian (I could get Rank 3 on iCBT) but if i had to choose it would be embowel (CC again) Aggressor and Savagery, Flange looks better than warcry for Corsairs but i should check how much ATK it adds up.

#16

I disagree. I think Bash is always relevant. It does good damage, has utility and AoEs, which Pommel Beat doesn’t.

I had a level 38 swordsman/highlander and a level 33 c2 swordsman and I found myself almost never using pommel beat compared to how often I used Bash between the two characters.

Concentrate is good, but not excellent. It IS excellent at low levels though because if you’re soloing and don’t have the damage type that the enemy is weak to, concentrate gives a flat damage buff that allows you to kill them quicker. It has high uptime, low cooldown and low SP and you can get the damage pretty high on it too. My +35 concentrate was like having an additional +35 max damage effectively, but it also applies to your other skill usages too, per hit.

#17

I know, bash is a must, but what i’m saying here is that i’m not pretty sure if it is worth the investment of 10 skill points on it, at level 1 you will be able to spam it to knock down enemies with out suffering a massive SP consumption.

Concentrate it’s really good the first levels, yeah i agree, but it doesn’t seem to be that much better as you progress, once again it’s just isn’t worth 10 points on it.

Once again take my opinions lightly since i’m more oriented to a Corsair build (That relies heavily on auto-attacks and critical damage)

#18

First, this is the build I am aiming for after playing iCBT as a Swordsman lv. 74.

Corsair Build

Now about the Swordsman skills.

Thrust
I don’t see any reason to max this skill, as the only reason I picked this up is for the Piercing damage. Your main DPS as a Corsair will come from using your basic attacks. In fact, if you wanted to get more damage off Thrust, the best way of doing so is maxing the Damage attribute for it, instead of wasting skill points on it. The Attribute gives you 1% more damage per level, some Attributes supposedly cap at lv.100, though I cannot confirm if it is the case with this one as well. Percentage multipliers never fall off towards late-game, flat damage increases do.

Bash
The reason I got this to lv.3 is because you cannot learn the knockdown before that. The only reason I got this skill is for the knockdown. The same applies here as for Thrust, except this skill is doing Slashing damage, which may very well be useless for Corsairs, as we are using swords to begin with.

Gung Ho
Gung Ho is love. Gung Ho is life. Gung Ho gives you a bonus on your Physical Attack. What you should know is that buffs applied after Gung Ho also profit from the bonus Physical Attack where applicable. This is especially important for the Aggressor Critical damage Attribute, but also generally for all skills utilizing your Physical Attack. Gung Ho’s Attribute increases the Physical Attack gained by +1 in exchange for -1 defense. During the first iCBT, it was capped at lv. 50.

Concentrate
I had this skill capped during the beta and frankly I was hugely disappointed by it. Concentrate’s bonus damage is applied after all other damage calculation (but before the weakness/resistance multipliers, I believe), thus skills do not profit from this at all. On top of it it has a maximum amount of hits before it wears off. I was not dual wielding yet, as I had not reached Corsair (and as this was pretty much a pipe dream with the time we had), but the buff ran out faster than the cooldown timer could reset. Once you are Corsair, mind that you will be attacking MUCH faster, thus even further decreasing the value of this skill.
The thing I don’t know however, is whether or not this damage is subject to Defense reductions (not to be confused with resistances). If Concentrate ignores Defense, it might be worth picking up just for really tough enemies (of which there were none from my play experience, maybe later in the game).

Pain Barrier
I had only 1 point in this skill during the beta, however as I am dropping Concentrate entirely now, might as well cap it. This skill’s usefulness is really depending on the situation you are finding yourself in. Generally on a lot of boss fights, it can be a potential life-saver. In PvP, it is a definite must-have, as this might be the only counter play to the insanely overpowered Energy Beam Monks have been using in the kCBT.

Restrain
Frankly, I don’t know how useful this skill is. Before you reach Corsair and start hitting faster, it’s probably useless, and even after that, with just a chance of 12%, it’s still quite a gamble. However if you are lucky, it can be an effective way of stun-locking enemies, especially after you knocked them down with Bash or Stomping Kick (Barbarian).

Pommel Beat
I didn’t try this skill either, but after dropping Concentrate I had a point for it. The thing about Pommel Beat that makes it interesting, is that it’s a fairly low cooldown Blunt-type attack. As Corsairs will most likely have to use swords for Double Weapon Assault, this is a good skill to have in case you fight enemies that are weak againt Blunt-type attacks. It also deals more damage IF you can stun an enemy with Restrain. (That’s an if in caps for you :smiley:)

There you go. I am a firm believer that capping active attack skills on early rank classes is a huge waste of points if the only thing they increase is flat damage. I’d rather suggest picking up several other skills for the utility and versatility, and getting the damage through your stats and attributes.

But at the end of the day, it’s up to every person’s preference. This game is much less punishing than RO1 for example, when it comes down to your skill build. There will probably also be ways to reset (for real money though) so I wouldn’t be scared to experiment with builds either. Cause after all…

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#19

@DOTvu Wait, you can actually save skill points for your next rank? If that’s the case then this build could change for better

The idea is to combine and use every CC available for Corsair, Knock-down from bash, stab and push with embowel, capture with the hook, bleeding with the hauling attribute and the Restrain stun+slow effect if it triggers obviously.
I’m not sure about the level of Savagery and the bonus it gives, so i don’t know if it’s better to leave it at level 1, 5 or 10, Warcry seems like a good skill but i see it being sacrified for an extended/buffed savagery or a stronger embowel stabkick.

Thank you for your feedback, fellow pirate!

#20

Savagery seems to only increase duration. I haven’t had the points to get it to a really high level though, so I haven’t tried it at higher than lv.1. However, if it really only increases duration, then lv.1 is more than enough, as the skill lasts for 45 seconds and the cooldown is about the same.

What Savagery does is split your piercing attack damage into multiple hits. It’s essentially the same damage, but hits twice, thus giving you another chance to proc Restrain. Savagery has potential to be quite amazing for your offhand, as your offhand is always piercing (at least this is what I read from others).

I would also recommend getting 1 point in Stomping Kick, as the knockdown from this is like 3 times as long as Bash and it has 4 charges before it goes on cooldown, which is insane.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, there is an attribute for Savagery, that increases your critical rate for piercing attacks by a percentage depending on attribute level. I believe 5% per level, capped at lv.5. Again, this means your offhand has a higher chance to crit as long as Savagery is up.