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*** Swordsman Classes Need to be Fixed *** [IMC, are you looking at this?]

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#195

Hi guys! I’m a level 271 Pyrolinker, and i’ve partied with a Couple of DPS swordies. One of the players in my static group is a Sword 3 Cata 3 Dragoon 1, and his DPS output is ok.

I have partied with a Sword - Highlander - Barb 3 - Doppel 2 as well. His DPS was pretty good actually. His spin2win cyclone was critting for like 8-10k per tick non stop, which is pretty good imo.

At higher levels, it’s quite likely you’ll need a class with CC to stunlock groups to open up time for your melees to DPS. (Cryomancer, Linker pull, Fire pillar, or archer full draw etc) No class can really solo at level 200+, and the best utility you offer is with Peltasta. However, the same could be said of clerics as well in terms of build diversity (No cleric 2 or priest 3 = GTFO).

Meta builds will be meta builds, if you are playing something without what the meta wants, expect to be shafted. Not every build performs equally in every platform.

#196
  1. Hitbox - AOE component - the higher the AOE the less the damage it should do. All you need in this game is medium size aoe skills since monsters dont block each other with their hitboxes. Meaning you can gather all mobs in really small space. So after reaching certain aoe size it doesnt really matter anymore.

2)Range is more of an defensive mechanism rather than offensive one. All it give in offense is uptime of your possible damage period (ex. you are able to hit 70% of the time due to mob movement). Thats simple multiplication formula.

3)Animation time is…animation time. How much time it takes for skill to complete from start to the end is one of basic components in calculating skill DPS. Why even mentioning it?

4)AOE attack ratio is again AOE component - explained above with the diffrence it literaly defines the numbers of target you hit so its more usefull than aoe size stat.

5)DoT and burst in this game dont make much of a diffrence if it comes down to PVE. In normal game burst damage simply gives you more defense, since if enemy die quickly it wont damage you back. Here nobody care about that since you got healers and tanks that take all aggro. If defense would matter than ofcourse DoT skill should deal more DPS than burst skill.

BONUS 6 ) Games should be centered around offense rather than defense for a simple reason. Defense is needed for players who make mistakes, thus need to cover them with large HP pool or damage mitigation. Good players mitigate or nullify incoming damage with their player skills (refleks, reading of enemy movement patterns, CC skills and so on) thus all they need is offense, not defense.

Want people to be more concerned about defensive stats, then :

  1. Make them useful
  2. Remove healers from game - it make people turn brain off
  3. Reduce perfomance of tanks - it make people turn brain off too
  4. Require more of manual dodging and positioning from players - each mistake will be painfull, thus people will either become better players or either invest in defensive stats or cry how the game is hard since doing 2 steps to the left in mids of battle is so impossible to do.
#197

cldw92, I think you are about right. I still think Swordsman needs a buff in some compartments - like the AoE ratio attack so that way we can be useful. Out of 7 party makes from yesterday for Evac, only one of them would invite a Swordsman. We take a hell of a lot of damage if we’re not properly geared. So we do need to be buffed in that area at least to mitigate some of the damage. Because really, we’re on the front line while Archers/Mages are in the back line.

It just would make more sense to bring range who have larger AoE radius and more AoE attacks. Take for example, Cross Slash. TERRIBLE AoE radius and Skyline has even worse AoE radius. We have to be really well geared in order to be on the same damage level as Archers and Wizards (if the mob doesn’t move, too).

I’m level 243 if you want to ask. I host under the username acetatsujin on Twitch for as much as I can and I’ve put in over 300 hours so far.

It’s possible to solo mobs if your well decked out. Like, REALLY well decked out.

I have Superior Royal Plates (top and bottom) with 5+ on them and 2 sockets open and I have green gems in each of them, each gem is level 4 star. Each gem reduces the chance the mobs will crit me by 9 rating. Glass Bracelets with 3+. Magi Two Handed Sword 6+ with 2x level 5 green gems for 22 Crit Rating each, and the Roxona Plate Gloves and Plate Boots. The Gloves have 2 red gems at level 4 for 16 Crit Attack each and boots have 2x level 4 blue gems for 4 magic defense each.

All of that, and I still can’t do freaking 20K-40K like archers and mages with a single attack with a large AoE radius. And they’re wearing gear from level 90-120 quests and using some level 220 white weapon.

Not to mention how useless Skyline is against enemies who don’t bleed … Oh man, TERRIBLE damage. Not even worth spending the SP on. Vertical Slash is the worst ability we have for a Highlander and those who spend points in it … I’m not sure what to tell them. Respec and don’t put one point in there. Very bad skill and doesn’t scale what so ever.

Cyclone right now is bugged and not sure what really triggers the bug. I have a level 9 Cyclone, and when the bug is active it drops to level 3 Cyclone so the duration goes from 4.9 seconds to like freaking 3.2 or whatever level 3’s duration is and the damage goes down by a lot … Deeds attack speed only works if you swap weapons (just have the same weapon you have equipped for both swap icons) and it attacks faster but it seems like there’s an animation limit on it? Not sure.

Dragoon totally needs a buff to be on the same level as Doppel C2. Doppel C2 has access to Deeds up to level 10 which can do insane amount of damage but holy hell how much damage do you take in is unbelievable … You NEED a healer to watch you or if you have a smart tank that doesn’t sit there and hits C and does nothing.

Not to mention the high cost of our attacks. Other classes don’t need to rest, they can just keep moving while you have to rest. If you spend no points in SPR that is (which I don’t find a reason to do so). Putting more points in Con just seems to be the idea.

Anyways, that’s my take on Swordsman for now. The damage calculation needs to be looked at across all ranks in Swordsman and Swordsman tree (the first rank) Seriously needs to be reworked. Gung Ho is just a bad skill at higher levels because of the high defense value it takes away from you … Concentrate grants you more damage if you invest in the passive attribute which it benefits from. AoE radius for certain attacks need to be bigger (Cyclone needs to be at least 12 base, let your gear take you higher). All mobs need to bleed so Skyline can be ‘useful’ otherwise fix the freaking Vertical Slash’s ultra terrible scaling damage so we can benefit from that. Enemies who wear plate should totally have their armor removed, it doesn’t feel like it with Skull Swing.

Anyways … that’s all I wanted to say … for now.

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#198

Some changes that devs could apply to improve swordsman’s dps

Gung Ho - % increase in atk, flat reduction in defense
Reason: Scaling damage, we need and want this.

Concentrate - Toggled skill, costs sp every 3 secs it is active or for every 5 attacks that hit, whichever comes first
Reason: I always forget to re-apply this and I’m sure others do too, being able to keep it active for as long as needed would be better. Managing SP is a lot easier too than keeping an eye on your buffs.

Restrain - Deals damage when the stun procs, **as an attribute maybe
Reason: The stun duration is so short it’s almost negligible

Pretty sure swordsman C2 and C3 would be more viable especially since Gung-Ho would just be a better skill overall.

#199

make the provoke thinngy work with most of the swordsman skills

like warcry for example… so we will not be obliged to take that pelt 1 ( which i really dont want to get)

#200
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#201

Wow… I have nothing to say about this. You clearly are not a game developer nor a game designer. Your suggestion for the removal of almost any mechanic except for offensive ones are truly preposterous. It just makes the game a 1-track/minded nonsense. There are really obvious reasons why the healer archetype has existed in games since ages back.

Perhaps you may want to read up on some game design theories, on what vertical depth vs horizontal breadth in mechanics actually mean before simply throwing out stuff like that, especially if you want to berate every game developer on earth is so crappy at balancing their games.

Let’s look at some of the points you mentioned:

  1. Reaching certain AoE size, it doesn’t matter anymore? Well, guess what, only swordsman can gather monsters easily. Also, you apparently don’t take into account the fact that monsters in ToS does pathing of some sorts and will not stack unto each other voluntarily unless there are skills doing it (Linker)

  2. That’s why I said it’s for kiting. Nonetheless, it is useful for not getting damaged.

  3. Animation time is animation time? Wow. Why do you think some skills have higher burst than the others even if they deal the same damage and overheat? If I could spam Hexen Dropper twice in the same time I do it for a single skill, like Dragoon’s Serpentine, then it is WAY more dps. Animation time IS time itself. You were talking about Damage / Time. Please factor in the time taken for an animation to end before you can cast another skill as well.

  4. Well, since you say it’s the same as the above, sure, somewhat.

  5. DoT and burst in this game doesn’t make a difference when it comes to PVE? You haven’t seen Earthtower plays have you? Why do you think people are complaining about Cyromancer skills that are simply cast and forget, run around while monsters take damage? In general, this entire forum is about swordsman melting in the fact of high level monsters. If we could say, bleed an enemy out like wugushi while running around, do you think it would happen? The same goes for burst. Please take a look at how Wugushis play, then tell me that again.

  6. This is the one I have the most issue is. We are talking about balancing a game, not an opinion of “good players don’t need defensive skills”. Let’s be objective here. ToS has it, so we factor those in.

You haven’t made any answer on how your program will take into account the calculations. Show me a formula rather than simply calculating x + % damage like your original post.

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#202

Even with abilities comparable to other classes in the baseline class, other swordsman classes would still suck. Frost Cloud alone is stronger than all abilities of a full DPS swordsman combined.

Cannon Blast basically does as much (or more if you don’t have Spear Lunge) damage as all Dragoon abilities combined on a comparable cooldown in a greater radius with the option of taking Falconer as R6 for infinite targets.

When it comes to scaling, Dragoon abilities basically scale as well as Multishot or Barrage which are R1 / R2 C1 abilities and Dragoon abilities don’t have overheat either.

#203

But they have something like 3000~6000 + 500%~700% atk total damage with 20~15 segs of cd each one . So, if you combine 3 of them (Drg. Soar, Drgtooth, Serpentine) you deal even more damage them the cannoner skills alone. Dragoon is fine, the problem is in the game mechanics for the melees and the swordsman early ranks.

Also, frost cloud is op imo, together with stone skin and cia. I get that elementalist is about damage, but that is just overkill;not in mention that this is the only real strong skill of their arsenal. Thats is not very fair, have a C3 but only use 1~2 skills.

#204

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#205

Imo, if you have almost the same defense of a ranged dmg dealer but only can go melee, you should have more damage them the ranged. This is the concept of the Assasins or DPS single target melee high dmg dealer.

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#206

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#207

You don’t seem to know how Cannon Blast actually works. It does (5k + physical attack) * 3 damage so we’re talking about 15k base damage here. Sure it doesn’t scale well with physical attack but that’s why you simply go for 100% crit + steady aim to get guaranteed ~40k crits in a large radius with unlimited targets if you took falconer at r6 (which you should). The only way a Dragoon can match that is if he hits the same amount of targets with all three abilities (which is already inferior to begin with because of cast times + melee range) but he can only do that if he’s being supported by a falconer (to circumvent AoE attack ratio) and a linker/cryo (to circumvent the pathetic radius). Otherwise he’ll be hitting 3-4 targets at most and take a minute to catch up with one Cannon Blast worth of damage.

I’m not talking out of my ass here either. I’m playing a Pelt1>Hop3>DS1>Drag1 and a mate of mine is playing an A2>R3>F1>C1 and my AoE is absolutely pathetic compared to his unless there’s a cryo/linker to pull everything into one spot and he’s used circling.

Then you’re talking about “frost cloud being the only real strong skill of their arsenal” which I find funny because it basically outdamages a whole swordsman DPS rotation and then you still have those “bad skills” which are bad in comparison to frost cloud but still good compared to swordsman skills (e.g. meteor is a better AoE than pretty much everything aside from Cyclone, even with its long cooldown).

Not to mention, this isn’t exclusive to E3 at all. E3 might be the strongest option at the moment but a Pyro3, while being a weaker option than E3, would still handily crap on any DPS swordsman build, especially if there’s no DPS swordsman (how ironic) who kicks fireballs away.

#208

First, I want iTOS to apply the Barbarian/Rodelero buffs recently added in KTOS and hopefully reverse the nerf for Skyliner/Cyclone.

I think we can’t actually have really scalable/percentage-based skills because compliment that with proper weapon type and maximum attribute Swordsman will be OP.

I maxed 2 DPS Swordsman classes in iCBT2 and I did realize that pre-200, my pure dex build that heavily relied on Evasion falls-off somehow but not the damage output. The damage was just normalizing around level 200, from the 255% overkill, 1 to 3 cartars per boss to a less of a hack-and-slash.

When EA came, I tried playing a bit of a utility farming type to adjust with the party requirements I am expecting mid to end game since I won’t be dealing that much compared to wiz/arch. I took 1 Pelt, 2 Barb, 2 Cors. I was trying to be a one-size fits all Swordsman. I was not enjoying it, when I swash’ed/lured I sometimes die, when I tried to hit I’m only damaging around 2k, there were times when my flag is more useful than me so I ended up rerolling, I’m going for the standard Barb-Doppel now, steamrolling through my knowledge of weapon/damage types and focusing on just pure damage. I am trying to find the correct balance of Physical Attack and Crit Damage since statistical information/tests from our talented forumers are somewhat static when subjected to a lot of monster diversity.

Though I haven’t reached 280 yet, again, I don’t think the biggest issue in the Swordsman class is the scaling and static damage of skills. It’s the succession of classes that is kinda tough, what do I pick next? This is really crucial because swordsman classes are very restricting due to Weapon Types, you can’t do this because you’re 2Hand, you can’t mount when using this skill, you can’t lure when you don’t have that, etc, etc. What I suggest is for IMC to go back to the drawing board and start-off with the Swordsman Circle 1 to 3, add some utility skills on the Swordsman class like quick cast and , decide on maybe 3 super viable paths that can somehow be useful in the parties so we don’t end up being just a Sword > Pelt 3 > whatever or a so-so glass-canon dps frontliner.

#209

7 Hits/Attacks that applies the base damage of the skill + 100% P.atk + all other modifiers.

At lv 5: 926 Base Atk -> if connect all hits, it inflicts:

(926+100% P.atk) * 7 = 6482+700% P.atk (*150% damage against leather enemies) . And it have less CD them cannon; plus, you have another 2 multi-hit skills with almost the same damage and less CD. It still a little behind from cannoner, but in terms of damage, is a good value. The problem is that cannoners have steed aim + crit bonus + large aoe + other buffs like %crit and def. penetration or bonus damage against flying monsters, while dragoons have gung ho, finestra’s flat crit rate and warcry 300~150 flat P.atk.

#210

yo, repair bill?

lets talk about fletche arrow’s costing, priest blessing/aspresion/sacrament material Dievdirbys’s crafting material?

#211

not totally against your point but do add this on your numbers:

MISSILE
Suffers a 25% damage penalty against M size enemies.
Suffers a 50% damage penalty against L size enemies.
Suffers a 50% damage penalty against XL size enemies.

#212

easily fixable with a +5 lol

#213

If you upgrade the weapon enough that number is reduced to 5% and 10% respectively.

And bow attack peel off target defense as well.

#214

Just did Storage from lvl 250 to 255 and I have to say it is so painful … the mages and nuas hit so god damn hard, but what more is that some dude totally called me off that no one will want a swordsman over mages/archers in Earth Tower … lol. What can I say? I can’t argue with that. My DPS is on par with his too, but the problem is I take way too much damage from those guys. I’m gonna give it another 5 levels to 260 to see if the damage will be at least reduced (by a large margin hopefully).

So I heard Korean Swordsman got some serious buffs. Can someone give us all the buffs they’re getting? I heard Barbs got buffs, Swordsman C1 got buffed (50% extra damage debuff, I think?) and … Skyliner no CD … That’s all I heard. Can someone confirm?