Brawler Archive
Thread: Which Master has the greatest DPS?
i would say swordsman, because i can consistantly hit for 2500 to 5k per swing, its just that teras kasi has better accurasy and speed, so they hit more and faster, where the swordsman hit harder but slower, and fencer hits in between swordsman and teras kasi, and pikeman hits the hardest, but i seem to miss quite a bit with polearms.
First of all, I think you could be happy with TKM + Fencer or Swordsman. IMO TKM is the best melee profession to supplement another combat profession due to the defense and meditate. However, if you are going to go TKM plus another melee, either of the sword professions are great. Fencer is awesome for the pure defense and low ham cost for specials while Swordsman is mediocre for defense and awesome for pure damage. The biggest problem I have seen with Swordsman is the HAM cost of specials. You just cannot afford to spam them, but you don't need them since you hit so hard (AP2 also). If you want to be offensive, I would say Sword + TKM would be very nice. If you want defensive, I would say Brawler + Fencer + TKM and you would take no melee damage.... ever.
TKA:
Have the fastest damage spam against optimal targets. They can hit with specials at 1s each and the base damage for VK's is very high (a master TKA adds 250 damage to any weapon they use) for a comparatively low HAM cost (a good VK has HAM costs of 30/54/30, and you can sacrifice a small amount of damage to go as low as 23/34/23 or so). Base TKA fists are essentially 260-270 damage weapons (AP0) at master.
Swordsmen:
Swordsmen have better armor piercing and bleed. In theory this should mean that they deal better damage against AR2 and AR3 opponents and the same against AR1 and AR0. AP is not supposed to deal better damage against lower AR targets although currently it might do this (the system is a bit borked atm). So, a TKA will tend to have better damage spam against AR0 and AR1 targets but they may well lose their edge against swordsmen at AR2 and 3 where they will deal roughly half damage. Bleeds can be of varying utility. If you are going to kill something quickly anyway, then bleeds aren't that useful but over time they can be very nice. Damage on an sliced power hammer can be better than a TKM with VK's but only by a bit
A little comparison between Power Hammers and VK's at TKM:
TKM sliced VK damage will be around 300-450, for an average of 375.
Sliced Power Hammer damage will be around 180-620 for an average of 400.
Power hammer specials will be much slower, but will be AP2 and will allow bleeds. Base DPS and DPS against the best possible target are better for a TKA. If that helps you. Power hammers also have a hefty health HAM efficiency of 120+.
Fencer
A fencer can make a very good tank but their damage output can be very discouraging. The only fencer weapon with AP1 deals roughly 30% of the damage of a VK in the hands of a master TKA although it does have better HAM usage. The best AP0 damage weapon deals about 2/3rds of the damage of TKA fists at master and has much higher HAM usage. Fencers dodge and CoB very well although one of the most effective defenses right now s toughness (aagainst melee anyway) and Fencer toughness is not that high. Fercers can deal stun damage which is very nice, although the stats on their stun damage weapon are among the worst damage stats for any end-game weapon in the game (they are held back in part by very poor resources). All the same they are still useful when your opponent is heavily armored against kinetic.
Pikemen
Pikemen have a lot of issues with accuracy and such. The road to master pikemen can be very difficult although masters aren't that bad. I don't have that much experience with pikemen though so someone else could better fill in the details for them.
Master brawler helps a lot. I think a very good template is to take master brawler and TKM and dabble in Fencer. Take the health bleeds and the defensive bonuses. Note that defenses like block/dodge/counterattack do not "stack" meaning that you need the right weapon out to use them.
I would say also that hopefully there will be some rebalancing of various weapon issues in the future. This might iron out a lot of the problems that some of the melee professions see and even out things such that there are less clear winners and more of a situational superiority for each profession. That would be ideal, and we'll just have to wait and see what happens.
StGabe.
Well, that was very informative. I see why you are the correspondent now. Thanks alot!
So, Master Brawler, and Master Swordsmand then dabble in Fencer for the def mods and dabble in TKA for the same and meditate ( I can use power boost too, right?) and the def mods for pike.
I saw a post on the SWG Discusion page where a guy said with Master Brawler, MTK and dabbling in the others for def mods you could solo a Kraytwith some nice armor on and maybe some buffs but thebuffs werentreally needed. (oh and novice medic). Is this right?
My opinion:
TKM = highest DPS,Swordsman = greaterall around killing power
TKM has high DPS as reported in the combat numbers. However, that damage is untargeted, meaning it's scattered in a somewhatrandom fashionamong the 3 HAM bars.
Swordsmanwill be posting less DPS, but it canbe directed to the blue bar with headhit3. Because of that, a swordsman can be killing things quicker than a TKM, even while having less DPS according to the combat logs.
Swordsman damage is 'higher quality' - AP2 versusAP1, at best,for TK. AP2means swordsman weapons do full damage againstanything with medium armor or less, whereas an AP1 vibro knuckler will be doing half damage againstmedium armor, and bare fists (AP0)will be doing only quarter damage against it.
Also, with Master Brawler, Swordsman gains a knockdown, and a 25% increase in DPS which is really nice. TK doesn't benefitfrom MB as much,because it already has two knockdowns, and the +5Unarmed Speed does not increase DPS at all becausea TKM is alreadyat the speed limit of one attack per second.
One lastthing. If you want to duel others, TK is the way to go, because the KD + dizzy move is basically a guaranteed win if it sticks.