So… Was checking some popular cataphract build. Why do people do Sword C3? The only thing i like is pain barrier 15 and its attribute.
I was thinking of making this build:
Sword-pelt-hoplite-cata3-dragoon2
This way i have taunt and finestra
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Because people use it to PVP with. Those builds don’t work for PVE.
You answered your own question!
The biggest advantage of Sword 3 for PvM is nearly 100% uptime on Pain Barrier. Double Slash isn’t a bad skill but picking something like Sw1 -> Highlander 2 provides a lot more dps for PvM. The problem of picking Highlander 2 on a mounted build is that you can’t use Cross Cut to inflict bleeding so you need to rely on both Hoplite’s Pierce bleed attribute and Dragoon’s Serpentine bleed attribute.
Going Cata 3 -> Dragoon 2 is most commonly known as the “Catagoon”. You usually have very little flexibility on Catagoons because Cata and Dragoon will take most of your class circles already. You’re only left with a few rank 2-3 class options which won’t be making major difference for your overall build.
Catagoons aren’t bad atm but the big issue is that IMC already stated they want Catas to go with Lancer and Hoplites to go with Dragoon. They have added a few synergies for these classes and I believe they will be adding more in the future. As an example, Lacer’s Initiate buff will increase Cata’s Rush damage by 30%.
You can always make a Catagoon, but when other options (i.e. Cata-Lancer) are stronger then by contrast you may feel weaker. The biggest advantage of Catagoons over the Cata-Lancer builds are that Catagoons have the flexibility of using 1h spear + shield. However, they don’t really benefit that much from shields seeing they can at most pick 1 rank in Hoplite and 1 rank in Peltasta (as in your build). This makes their shield block quite low when compared to unmounted Hoplite 3 -> Dragoon 2 (or Murmillo) builds.
Because of the very low class flexibility, many catagoons just end up with 2h spears and ditch on Peltasta1 and Hoplite1. Thus, the most “logical” class for them to pick is Swordman 3. Many people don’t consider Highlander 2 on a mounted class something viable as you don’t have any skill that inflicts 100% bleed on enemies (Skyliner is the strongest skill of Highlander 2). Most of them don’t even consider Serpentine’s bleed attribute.
That being said, don’t rely too much on lvl 5 Swash Buckling. The amount of enemies it taunts is very low. The biggest advantage of Swash Buckling (as I see it) is the possibility of taunting a whole room of mobs and gather them quickly on a same target (you). Being a Cata with high move speed also allows you to pull enemies relatively fast (because you move fast) so that makes Swash lvl 5 even less necessary.
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You’re forgetting Concentrate buff, at lvl 300+ you’ll get around 1.5k~1.7k additional dmg depending on your DEX and STR, it’s like blessing buff.
Thanks mrshadowccg, very detailed information.
It is unfortunate to see that cataphract will eventually have less synergy with dragoon comparing to lancer. I am personally more PvE-oriented, thus i’m not too fond of lancer atm…
Right now i’m really debating either sword3 or sword-pelt-hop. Hoplite has finestra, and also stabbing when other skills on cooldown (not sure if there will be cool down time during end game for me to use stabbing though, need some experts’ advices on this)
To Unlocked: does Gung-ho scale with str and dex too? I personally like buff that has duration instead of hit counts…
Gung-ho scales only on STR, and the overall increase is rather low, the max you’ll get is probably 100-200 phys atk.
Also your hit count will never exceed Concentrate duration, it’s 100% up time. I’d recommend you to get Concentrate over Gung-ho or both.
Yes but it doesn’t scale that well for Dragoon / Lancer… Concentrate is usually better for high DEX aspd-skills multi-hit classes such as Fencer 3, Corsair 3, etc… Dragoons do have multi-hit on Dragontooth/Serpentine/Dragon Soar but they will usually build around STR instead of DEX (halving Concentrate effectiveness). Concentrate also has a terrible scaling issue (as with blessing) when you start transcending your weapons… Pain Barrier utility never fades off and will remain super helpful through the whole game (thus I considered it the main reason for sword 3).
When you start getting transcedence stage 5+, both Gung Ho and Concentrate buffs will be very marginal.
Lancers deal great damage at PvM! They don’t have much AoE on their skills but they still dish out tons of damage. If you’re hunting a boss (i.e. Saalus run) Lancers are the boss slayers.
I have made some videos (sadly I don’t have them anymore) of AoE damage comparison between High2 -> Cata 3 -> Goon2 and Sword 3 -> Hop 3 -> Goon1 -> Lancer (which are my current lancer/goon builds) and even if the first build, in theory, had more AoE than the second one (Rush + Dethrone), the second build still obliterated mobs (in dg 290) much faster and did the run in about half time of the first (using exactly same gears on both builds and similar attributes).
The truth is: Cata 3 loses too much damage and move speed isn’t all that useful in PvM. It’s nice to have a Cata to hunt low level mobs moving quickly through the map but as a main dps it’ll always lose out against non-cata builds.
Concentrate has the issue of non-multiplying skill factors while Gung Ho is multiplied by your skills. For Dethrone, Gung Ho is much better than Concentrate. For Serpentine, Concentrate is slightly better because of the amount of hits the skill does.
Aaactually, with the upcoming defence rework, concentrate might just be usefull, specially in pvp,
Conc + Rush may not be too bad depending on how much defence will matter after that rework.
Needs to be tested though.
Yeah, I have 120 DEX and 240+ STR and concentrate deals around 1.3k damage, to bad it’s works only on first line of damage. 
Thanks all for the responses, very helpful information.
I really need to reconsider my build now… Any suggestions? I really just want a mounting swordsman class with dragoon in it (cuz of its cool costume XD)
Ok, after thinking it through, i still wanna go with cataphract.
Movement speed is important for me cuz I most likely just gonna do quests and run dungeons till Lv 310 or so anyway, my main goal in this game is just to try all the classes (but i STILL want somewhat strong builds, not just any random ones)
So maybe sword3-cata3-goon1-lancer. Is goon1 a good choice? Or should i replace it with something else?
Thanks a bunch
That’s a decent build, many Lancer players go for that.
Goon1 has rather weak skill factors for a rank 7 class. However, there isn’t really much else you can do in that build. At most, you can trade Goon 1 for Hoplite 1, or Hoplite 2 if you ditch Swordy 3. But hoplite has even worse choice of damage skills than Goon 1 (It’s mostly for Finestra +AoE atk ratio and crit rate).
Picking Cata 3 -> Lancer or Cata 3 -> Dragoon 2 will always leave you very little flexibility.
Thanks.
I’m personally not too interested in hoplite tbh. I’ve never played hoplite before, so i just don’t understand how a rank 3 class is the core of hoplite3-doppel-goon build…
Is hoplite really that high in dps?
The biggest advantage of Hoplite is having Finestra. Finestra lv 15 gives you +3 AoE atk ratio (which is a lot), +200 critical rate, and +250 block. That alone is already a huge advantage. Imagine every 100 CON you get gives you around 70 block. 250 Block is about as much (or more) block than you could achieve in a full CON build.
The second biggest advantage of Hoplite is having both Spear Lunge, which gives +50% damage with pierce as a debuff, and Spear Mastery attribute at Hoplite 3, which gives +20% damage all the time when wearing 1h spear (90% of mobs are medium-sized).
Those things together already justify most of Hoplite’s strength. Hoplite doesn’t have awesome dps by itself but it boosts your survivability and dps with other classes (through criticals, spear lunge and the 1h spear passive) so it becomes a great class choice for 1h spear + shield users.
When you get hoplite being a 2h spear user, you’re already losing a lot of benefits the class gives you (block, 1h passive), so that makes hoplite less appealing for those builds. However 2h spear users don’t have much choice when it comes to lower rank classes, so people tend to pick hoplite anyways.
Finestra and High Guard are the only reliable buffs that increase your block rate considerably. High Guard is slightly better when it comes to block but it doesn’t have 100% uptime as Finestra does. If you’re a shield user, and want to be minimally defensive, you should look forward to one of those two buffs.
Wow i can’t thank you enough.
Seems like you are very experienced with swordsman classes. I don’t have much experiences, thus many of your suggestions really opened my eyes
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Where did IMC state that “cataphract is to go with lancer and hoplite is to go with dragoon”?
They added very specific synergies between Hoplite -> Dragoon and Cataphract -> Lancer.
So this was never stated in a post or blog by anyone from IMC? Theres still loads of synergy between dragoon and cataphract, i.e. all dragoon skills work mounted.
Actually there isn’t loads of synergy… That’s the very reason why they’re trying to add some now on the korean server. You’ll have to go translate 1 of the update pages on their korean site to see what they have planned.
What kind of synergy are we expecting there to be between cata and dragoon that isnt already present? Both classes utilize 2 handed spears and all skills are usable while mounted. Once you’re reasonable geared you have 3 skill rotations. Your Dragon rotation which is focused towards 1v1 dmg (once you get aoe ratio modifiers this rotation is nice for mobbing as well) and your cataphract skills which are nice to clear out large collected mobs. If you went swordie c3 and you picked up double slash ( pick this skill up if you are doing c3, the damage is impressive even when compared to dethrone) then you also have a skill that has great utility in clearing trash mobs.