So I’m nearing the last bit of xp in Barb2 and debating in going barb3. I know pouncing is great and I’ve had a lot of use out of Warcry and Seism but I wanted to change. So far I’m sword-high-barb2 and had planned on going barb3 into Fencer. I didn’t take peltast but everyone makes it seems like that was a mistake so I wanted corsairs support. Any current thoughts on Corsair2 - Fencer or Corsair - fencer2? If I had an arde dagger would it be worth it? Should I give up in Fencer and go shinobi?
Ide advise you to reroll now since pelt > high c1, but both barb c3 is good. Personally i prefer corsair c2 into fencer 1 since you dont lose tankiness and gain a lot more dps. Me and @AnitaCafe chose that path. @Lostac went the corsair 1 fencer 2 path. All thesee are viable and rly depend on your playstyle. Yes get arde asap, get venier asap, get a sage wall. Also fruck shinobi
Well, you either go for Corsair 2 and have a more bursty build now with Hexen Dropper. Or you go Fencer 2 and have 0cd spammable attack with an option of going Fencer 3, if it comes or going Corsair 2 anyway.
I giggled at “fruck Shinobi.” X3 On that however, it depends on you. Shinobi is probably the best thing in Swordsman tree for PvP. Usually if you’re PvP focused though, the general consensus is to go Swordsman 3 for Restrain proc. Then again, with this new card system coming out, going Swordsman 3 may be a waste. There will be cards that are suppose to stack giving you a decent percentage on stun rate. I browsed through this quickly:
There’s a lot of debate on builds, and Shinobi doesn’t interest me much, so good luck on that one. xD
Now if you decide to stay Fencer, you can do a little of everything but until we see future ranks you won’t be the best at anything, and maybe not even then, who knows. The thing is though that’s just Swordsman in general right now since they are ever so slowly working on balancing them out with the other three class trees. You play Fencer because you find it fun, and like a challenge.
Honestly if you feel like you’ve made a mistake with Pelt, re-roll now. You’re not that far in that it will take ages. High C1 is doable and plenty do, but for Fencers, Guardian which gives 18% evasion is really helpful, and of course Swashbuckling. Also C block if you go in knowing you’re going to be a straight up tank. If you had gone Highlander C3 you’d at least have more attack power, but in my opinion the only thing you’ll really be getting use out of is Crossguard at later levels. With that said you’ll already have other pierce buffs, Attaque Coquille at C1 Fencer and if you go C2, Preparation. The more set up you have, the longer you’re not putting out damage.
Barb x2 is perfect for either build you want to take. I prefer Corsair C2 > Fencer C1, but Corsair C1 > Fencer C2 is also really good. Either way you have decent PvP utility with Hook and Keel Haul (level 1 KH cause damage sucks), Jolly Roger for farming/party buffs (go 5 if you want it for farming), and Dust Devil is really a nice, underrated, small circular AoE which can disable enemies for a moment as well as deal decent damage with Lunge from Fencer. C1-2 Fencer gives you some greats buffs as well, more pierce damage, more slash damage, and more evasion.
In the end it’s dependent on what you want to do with rank 7, then 8 when it comes out. Do you find Hexen Dropper’s burst and Double Weapon Assault auto attacks fun, possibly taking your other skills higher for more effect, or would you prefer to have another pierce modifier with Prep, another 0 cool but pierce attack with Composee, taking other skills higher for more duration of buffs + damage?
The hope for Fencer is a C3 with great skills, and the hope for Corsair C2 is a new class will sync well with it. Remember that developers have stated they want old classes damage wise to fade out, but the utility will remain the same, so for instance taking C3 Corsair (which already kind of sucks) may not be wise because rank 8 classes should be more powerful than a rank 7. It’s all a guessing game until we have news about rank 8, and levels are suppose to go all the way up to 600. We’re not even half way there, so just play what you find fun for now, because rerolling may be something everyone want to consider in the future. Look at Swordie C3’s losing their big thing to cards: stun chance.
For more Corsair + Fencer stuff, check here:
1 Like
If your goal is to be a fencer not going peltasta is somewhat of a mistake not because you don’t have swashbuckling but because you don’t have +18% evasion. If your stat build is also evasion based, there’s no reason not to get peltasta. However, you did not list your stat build or anything so who knows.
If you are concerned, I’ve seen some similar class build path people use jolly roger as a psuedo swashbuckling somehow. Also, if they never patch it and you haven’t been to davasia peak/shaton resevoir yet, you can get a quest that triggers aggro with no mob cap and almost the same range as swashbuckling.
Of course, that might be a glitch and could be reversed at any time.
A lot of people in KR seemingly do corsair->fencer 2. Not my kind of thing, but it’s a viable build. However, they are also highlander based. Highlander 3 is pretty lackluster so I can see one circle of corsair being a bit more useful.
Unless you have bad ping, I find going fencer 1 without fencer 2 to be a waste.*
*This assumes you care about DPS.
Something else I feel worth mentioning - Sword->highlander->barb 3->fencer 2 has always been a dream build of mine. Cross guard is INSANE
But I couldn’t give up the evasion for it. If you follow this route, could you please follow up with some videos or something? I’d be dying to see the kind of power this build can have
Corsair C2 has good damage and is comparable to Fencer C2. There’s a whole argument about that in the Fencer thread I linked, which unfortunately went a little south. It’s burst VS damage over time for the most part.
Also, Barb 3 is great for Corsair auto attacks on bosses, since you can stack Frenzy. It’s not something I fancy in a Fencer build, since that skill hinges on AA, though Pouncing from what I have seen is beast.
1 Like
Damage over time is a bit misleading. It takes 4.2 seconds with composee to match the same number of lines as hexen droppers 2.4 seconds 14 hits. This excludes the 155 skill damage compo has over hexen.
The burst damage taking skill damage in to consideration is probably almost equivalent (but without having to worry about a cooldown). Though you trade alchemist SP pot consumption for this as well.
Hexen dropper is way better for groups of mobs that die quickly though because compo has piss poor AoE in both visual range and its innate attack ratio.
Then it comes down to what you want to do with your character. If you are just going to use it as a dungeon alt at 280 once you have no reason to fight small groups of mobs that die quickly, then corsair 2 -> fencer 1 is actually a much better choice. You save more money on SP pots and deal with grouped up mobs a bit easier.
If you want to do extended boss fights and stuff like that, that is where fencer 2 shines. Seems like this is an uncommon role for fencers to be part of though. Understandably so to some extent.
For extended fights, composee always wins.
You also have to consider for PvP purposes, burst will generally out do a skill you have to spam. Even if it’s by a few seconds. With combos like Helm Chopper/Seism for Stun > Cleave > whatever you want to follow up with, those seconds will matter. Plus Hexen Droppers CD is only 28 seconds, it’s not huge, but of course Composee wins out on that one.So if you want an even mix of PvE VS PvP, Corsair C2 may be a better consideration, not to mention you can extend Hook time.
For farming purposes, Jolly Roger 10 is also great. Most people opt to take that instead of Dust Devil 10, though again I say DD is highly under rated.
I also really like auto attack classes, so Corsair C2 for me is more fun.
1 Like
This has been thoroughly discussed, lol. I said it’s comparable, not one is better than the other. It really depends on what you want to do with a class, no?
You are absolutely correct. There’s nothing I can say here.
PvP in this game is something I’m not interested in (OP might be though so it’s a good point to bring up). Again, comes down to what you plan on using your character for. Hands down corsair 2 is the best option if you want to use it for PvP, even just a little - It’s not even a contest
1 Like
While Shinobi give swordsmen stealth, they’re pretty anti-synergetic with the most consistent PvP-built swordsmen circle, cataphracts, and clones will more often than not kill you in a setting where a lot of things are thrown at you the moment your stealth is gone. You almost need a corsair 1 just because Hook’s one of the few things that doesn’t get resisted by bloodletting.
To OP, since you didn’t take Peltasta, I assume you’re not planning on tanking, so I’ll just have to remind you a few things lest you reroll like me at level 227 as a Pel 1 > Barb 2 > sair 2 > fencer1.
Barb 2 looks really great on paper, I really tried and even bought 3 skill reset potions to test on how big the changes between frenzy and warcry. Both are terrible in comparison to spear lunge due to the same issues Gung-ho has which is flat and unmemorable damage and in frenzy’s case, setup time for little gain. If you’re still willing to give it a chance, Corsair 2 isn’t as good as I thought, because Hexen’s damage remains pretty average without spear lunge and while Coquille gives you a boost depending on the DEF ignored you’ll still have contrasting results in comparison (200 DEF ignore from a boss like harpeia for instance, gives you 200 more damage per hexen line, then compare that to Spear Lunge which multiplies your damage, your property damage lines from arde, and attribute %).
I’d say if you really want damage, just go with doppel 1. It doesn’t have weapon requirements for Cyclone and Mordschlag, and you have an insurance DPS buff in Deeds of Valor. Shinobi’s clones as was discussed in the Shinobi thread, lets you take 5x more damage with 5 clones up, despite the potential of 5x more kunais positioning yourself to not die is all up to you to take the risk.
Arde becomes better the more multi-hit skills/damage lines via sacrament/cafrisun you have, as arde adds the additional property damage per damage line. Exceptions count for fake multihits like Earth wave which is 1 hit divided by 5, but take that into consideration before falling into Cafrisun hype.
If you still want to salvage your build, try going with the following.
sm 1 > hl1 > barb 2 > hl2 > sair 1 > doppel 1
sm 1 > hl1 > barb 2 > hl2 > doppel 2
sm 1 > hl1 > barb 2 > sair 1 > doppel 1 > shinobi
Crosscut Skyliner combo, despite the changes, are still great for non-mutant bosses and it’s a waste to not get them since you’re already HL1. One big issue you’ll face is the lack of peltasta in parties so everyone might have a point regardless since fencers enjoys 2 or all the pelt 1 skills (guardian evasion attribute, swash).
2 Likes
Hands down if you want damage from Swordsman, Dopple is the way to go. That’s why I say Fencer is a class you play for fun, not anything else.
Don’t forget though that even if you skip Pelt all together, you’re a Swordsman. People are going to expect you to tank at some point. We have a huge “meat bag” sign over our heads even if were built for pure DPS. Evasion skills from Fencer can really help with that bit since you skipped over Pelt. Still, I’d just reroll. I rerolled my first char at 185 since I went SW2 on launch. It was a good choice.
Fencer is great damage/DPS. I play fencer for DPS.
It’s better than sw->hop 3->dop->dragoon from personal experience - even if you have the ability to stand in place and blow all of your cooldowns.
I compared the DPS of my 272 dop-dragoon to my 232 fencer (at the time) in the level 190 dungeon bosses.
I could stand in place and blow all of my cooldowns on my dragoon, and take a bit more time for some skills to come off of cooldown and use those again as well. Of course with cyclones insanely high cooldown, I didn’t get to use it more than once (or I could, but I didn’t get to use all of the hits from it).
The characters have similar gear (both weapons were +8 - venier and catacombs pike). Stat builds are vastly different. My dragoon is nearly full str, and my fencer is nearly full dex. Both of them had similar crit rate.
The results?
My dragoon (with about 1k more physical attack due to deeds of valor) would finish both bosses about 10 seconds faster with a massive stat difference and level difference. And normally playing that character I would need to do manual dodging. Didn’t have to since the level difference was so great between the mobs and the character.
Playing fencer for damage is fine.
Doppel 2? Can’t really comment on that with personal experience, but with the cyclone duration nerf we got, it seems pretty eh.
1 Like
This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden.
1 Like