Tree of Savior Forum

The best DPS build for Swordsman

Class and Rank Swordsman
#12

You can’t. At level 10 the charging time is so ridiculous, you will never full charge anyway, thus it’s useless to level it that much. Level 5 is fine.

@marceloliveiraa92

I would max Gun Ho and Concentrate, since besides DOV, these are your only Attack buffs, especially in the early game. And keep in mind they still work with some good things like Cyclone.
You don’t need 5 points in Guardian. You just don’t. You cripple your main thing - DPS for a very little amount of DEF. Leave it at level 1 and get that Evasion, that’s it.
If you are going Peltasta, you can choose. Either you upgrade both Shield Block and Cross Guard or you upgrade only one thing. That 1 point in Cross is useless and out of place, relocate it elsewhere.
1 point in Wagon Wheel, if you don’t plan on going in PvP, won’t do you any good. Yes, even in PvE, the damage is minimal.
There is absolutely no need to max Crown this much. 2-3 points is more than enough.
Get at least 1-2 points in DPE and activate it just before mob’s death.

@dandan

No, it isn’t. On C3 - yes, maybe. But not when High3 exists with ist’s PASSIVE boost to 2H Swords and great skills like Skull Swing and Skyliner.

@aolgado1

For the damage. Not like there are a lot of options you can choose, actually. You can leave Cartar at 3 and Crosscut at 8, still will be fine. for example.

#13

@Autentist

Well Highlander C2 still gets the passive boost to 2h swords and Skyliner and I thought Cleave and Helm Chopper was better than Highlander C3 skills but I really don’t know :slight_smile: .

#14

High C3 also gets Armor Break, which reduces DEF to zero.

Barbarian really shines only on C3, for this we have to sacrifice Highlander, which is extremely not advisable. On C1, ESPECIALLY in lategame, it will offer you nothing.

#15

Doesn’t Crown have great synergy with Zucken? This could justify a high level of crown (though not max level)

#16

Yes, that’s why level 3 or so is enough, since you already get almost 10 seconds Shock duration on top of it’s main use.

Zornhau adds another 5, which allows for rotation between them. I’m not really telling to ditch Crown completely, am I?

#17

PSSSHH!!

Don’t tell them xD.

9 Seconds on crown are enough.
5 on zornhau.

To always have schock up for zucken.
Remember shock … is one thing that koreans underestimate alot.
Only damage oyu cant block is matk … but shock helps against it alot.

#18

What do u think for that one? My doubts are for Corsair or Pelta, since pelta give the 25%hp bonus and 18% evasion… but corsair has hook and Jolly Roger… (sorry for bad english)

#19

This is actually the best build for PvP Doppel, nice job.

  • Lower Cartar to level 3, if you really want it, rest dump in Crosscut.
  • Don’t get Crown that high, 3-4 points is enough. Rest can be dumped either in Cross Guard or Crosscut, again.
  • Get Keel Hauling to max level. This is PvP build for Doppel, you want maximum efficiency here.
  • Instead of Redel, get more points to Zornhau.

That’s it, nice job, as I said.

#20

The 25% HP bonus only granted a bonus to max HP, and did not change your current HP total. I don’t know if this has been changed since iCBT2, but I am assuming it hasn’t, otherwise it would serve as a self-heal for Swordsmen.

#21

Thats a pretty good pvp build, I just have 2 tips for you:

  1. doppel have an attribute that increases your moviment speed and evasion under the effect of pain barrier
  1. if you want another class but took highlander just so you can use 2handed swords doppel can also learn the 2handed attribute
#22

Pain Barrier: Movement Speed are removed, no?

#23

No, theyre not. pretty sure people still get it on kobt

#24

and it DECREASES evasion xD

#25

OH ■■■■! Ive read this many times and never noticed!"

#26

Seems like a bas idea to take this with Pelta… not worth it.

#27

You don’t have to sacrifice anything for Barb C3. Frenzy and Warcry are some of the best buffs for a Swordsman in the game.

Warcry at level 10, with all Attributes hits 10 targets, lowers all their defence by -30 and increases your attack by 60 per target, meaning 10 targets is 600 attack and the buff lasts for 40 seconds with attributes learned. 80 second cooldown.

Frenzy at level 10 stacks up to 20 times and gives 20 attack and that totals up as 400 attack. Easily doable on bosses and only splits the stack with attributes if you target another mob.

Together these buffs give you 1000 attack. It’s situational, but easily doable by a good player.

Highlander passive 50% critical damage with 2H

Simply go High > Barb C3 > Doppel C2.

You gain the passive ability this way as it’s available for High C1. 50% more damage to criticals is great, but not game breaking if you choose to go Peltasta instead for Swasbuckling for mobbing / pulling. The evasion from Guardian is nice too and I’m not sure which is better at this point.

For pure DPS I’d go for the build above though. Cartar will be at 5 and you gain the ability to use the 2H to block. Rest of the skills are terrible.

The block with 2H isn’t great, but with high STR you will be blocking for a lot and it won’t require you to swap weapons (block chance is the same as with shield when held up, just no passive blocking and shields gain more block as a swordie).

It’s not as good as shield block since you can’t change directions, but it works wonders with Doppel since they are the only exclusive class at ranks 6 and 7 to use 2Handed Swords.

DPE is fantastic at 1 or 2 points. I’ve heard it’s even slightly bugged in parties that if you activate it and just stand back ALL kills during the duration gain 2x EXP and Drop. Might be a bug and might be patched, but even without you can still use it well as Barbarian and Doppel excel at overkilling or killings things in 1 or 2 hits.

I’d max Cyclone since it’s one of the best AoE skills any sword can get, even if only 5 points EVEN with the nerf, but at 10 it’s a no brainer.

I would argue that this build is the best 2H Sword build in the game:

I would go into detail about everything, but your main skills for leveling are Cartar for early game, Seism for all ranks in Barbarian and Cyclone for the later game until you get to C2. Deeds of Valor at 9 is overkill, I know, but it also means the buff can be up 100% and you never lose the stacks if you keep buffing it I hear.

I only reached Doppel C1 in iCBT2 and I was the only one on the server. I didn’t get a lot of chances to try DOV out.

#28

While War Cry is good. Skull Swing nullifies ALL Defence instead of flat number.

Barbarian also doesn’t have any means to deal with magic mobs unlike Highlander via Shock.

I.E. Barbarian gets Seism, War Cry, which gets overshadowed by Skull Swing on later levels and Frenzy. However, mobs on high levels also have tons of HP, while hitting like a truck, so that 1000 damage, without useful utility skills, will become useless.

It can be combined with DOV, but mind you, that without proper means to accomodate to situations Barb becomes even more vulnerable than Highlander with maxed DOV, i.e. a walking glass cannon.

Changing directions doesn’t mean absolutely anything with Shield or without it. Cross Guard gives more block than Peltasta in the long run because of it’s formula.

This bug is confirmed working.

Highlander also has Crosscut + Skyliner combo. While it was nerfed, Skyliner still has 3 Overheat stacks now, providing gigantic damage on Bleeding targets in a short time. It deals double damage and scales incredibly well later.

Cartar is enough at level 3 just to get that Collision. Crown is by no means terrible, it lowers INT and SPT to 1 and the only mean for Swordsmen to deal with magic mobs. It also has incredible synergy with Zornhau, providing almost constant Shock status.

#29

Skullswings defence modifier is nice but it isn’t a hard hitting ability. I’d also like your source on it reducing ALL defence as none of the databases I’m looking it explain it doing so. Apart from Skyliner and Crosscut, Highlander lacks terribly in AoE abilities and Cartar being at the top falls off at level 3 like you mentioned. Every Barb ability carries with itself AoE 2 or 3. Every 2H sword in the game carries with itself AoE bonuses, meaning every attack is going to hit 5~6 targets easily even without vubbe gloves.

Skyliner isn’t the powerhouse it was with 0 cooldown retardedness, even with 2 overcharges. Seism trumps it in damage and hits more targets for far more, not to mention it can stun multiple targets leaving them open for 2 quick Cleave hits which deal 100% more damage to stunned targets (it could be 50%). Cleave’s 50 crit rating is terrible later in the game, but it’s simly put free.

Helm Chopper is a great stun skill and hits twice and overcharges. It works well in combination with Cleave aswell if you proc no stuns with Seism.

I don’t get where you get the idea that Crown reduceses INT and SPT to 1 or that Skull Swing reduces defence to 1 With 5 attributes in Crown according to skill builders, it sits only at 10%, reduction which isn’t anything. The shock is nice, but you won’t be struggling with shock anyway as you don’t need it until Doppel C2. I won’t argue putting a point there is better than wagon whell though, as wagon wheel is generally kind of useless for other than knocking stuff around.

All Highlander skills have a crappy AoE hit of 1. Even with the best items I can’t imagine you getting any higher than 4 AoE targets from gear early on, but that’s just me. Not to mention enemies have defense against AoE (typically 5 for bosses, 3 for large, 2 for medium and 1 for small).

I see them both as decent, but Barb3 trumps High3 by a longshot. I would definitely go for one circle in high for the 50% critical, but Skyliner and Crosscut just aren’t worth the deeper investment.

#30

All these skills’ reducing abilities were tested on KToS and posted on reddit. I don’t have links anymore, but they are definitely there, you can look them up yourself, if you want.

Cartar gets it’s damage from attributes. It gains Knockback, Collision on top of being Enhanced and having fine charge at this level. It’s a very decent skill.

You don’t take Skull Swing for damage. You take it for what it does - reducing DEF to zero. That’s exactly what ARMOR BREAK status applies to enemy. It’s the best def reducing debuff all Swordsman tree has.

Likewise, you don’t just use Skyliner alone. You take it in conjunction with Crosscut, which doubles the damage on top of it having 3 stacks. Buffed with DOV this actually gives you more damage overall in late game, than Seism.

Stun statuses last too little time, while Highlander’s debuffs tend to last long. And they only scale better with level.

Completely wrong about Crown too. Shock status is what reduces INT and SPT. It was also tested, definitely reduces them to one. So, at level 4 you already have 11 seconds of Shock, potentially discarding any hard hitting magic attacks coming at you. Now, let’s combine this with Zornau’s 5 seconds. Voile, 16 seconds of constant Shock, which, taking in attention Zornhau’s cooldown, can be applied for ANOTHER 5 seconds.

Highlander has Moulinet which also has 50% to Crit Rate. And not just a small chance, it’s constant 50%. On top of it being multihit.

I agree about AoE. But Doppel easily takes care of it.

So yeah, I completely disagree. Highlander has too much utilities, helping him greatly in late game, while overall damage of barb falls off.

#31

I still would love source on those 2 debuffs.

How you’re describing them doesn’t seem intended, especially with crown essentially being a silence.

I want to see those tests. That’s all.

Seism has an AoE of 5 in it by itself. It is probably one of the most notoriously hated skills for achieving overkill consistently. Cartar falls far behind the damage of level 10 Seism and Seism is instant and the 2 overcharges are easily done. Cyclone at 10 with 2 overcharge is 14 seconds of lovely spinning, but it has the limit of 3 AoE too. It hits less targets than Seism, but obviously for more. If you rely purely for Cyclone for AoE, I’m not sure where your damage is coming from. Perhaps your build relies heavily on a Linker?

I doubt even with the 100% bleed effect, Moulinets 50% crit chance and, Skyliner or Cross Cut can come up close to barbarian abilities when it comes to AoE and dealing damage. Frenzy and Warcry are by far better buffs than being able to reduce a monsters defence to 0. The buff lasts for 40 seconds while you have to actually apply your debuff to all the monsters and with 1 AoE, I don’t think you’ll be able to do that consistently. With the build I listed single target damage on bosses comes from DOV and Doppel abilities. Seism, Cleave, Helm Chop are very reliable abilities to use, and you get Cartar 3 also with the build above. You have no shortage of damage dealing skills that sit at over 1k base damage’s versus High C3’s 400. Sure weapons, buffs and scaling will buff them but you’re missing out on a huge chunk of damage at all stages of the game.

tl;dr - doubt helm crush is as juicy as you describe it tbh fam senpai