Fencer Archive

Fellow Fencers:

I should be able to finish up the collected data during my lunch hour tomorrow (the 24th) and post the results once I get home. It should be about 5pm CST.

In the mean time I request that you consider what you feel we need to put in front of the developers for this next go around. While I know there is bound to be the occasional off-the-wall request beyond the scope of what we could ever really expect the development team to go for, I anticipate our community pulling together to identify the issues we all care about the most and presenting it in such a way as to be accepted.

Before you post, take a few moments to read through what has already been suggested by your fellow Fencers. Even if the same issue is brought up 32 times by 32 different replies, it will still only be brought to the dev team in the singular. Posting the same thing that was already posted a few minutes earlier just alerts everyone else that you haven’t bothered to see what your peers think. In addition, please keep submissions clear and professional. Try to avoid rants and whines, or screams of nerfs to other professions, and focus on what we truely want to accomplish.

I also request the issues or suggestions to be Fencer-specific, not just related to Melee in general. There is no doubt that we are subject to issues inherent to all melee, but we have another board for presenting those generic melee topics and I highly recommend all of us to keep current on the activities there. However we can only submit our “top” few issues at a time on this board, so focusing on Fencer-specific items allows more of our Profession's needs to be heard.

One last request that I have, is to keep your submissions to topics of which you have hands on experience. In other words, if you have not reached the level where you have access to HealthHit2, or BodyHit3, or ScatterHit2… or whatever… then please don’t post that they don’t work, or need adjusting. We want our final proposals to the devs to be as accurate as possible and backed up with facts, not subjective rumors of what so-and-so said, or predictions of how you “think” something might work when you get there. We have folks here representing every step of the journey from Novice Fencer to Blademaster, and we will be far more effective if we each stick to what we know for certain through personal use.

I guess that’s it for tonight. Tomorrow I’ll post the “collection tank” for our ideas (starting us off with everything you guys have already been asking for throughout the posts over the last few months). We’ll give it a few days to gather additional submissions, and then we can then decide which of the ideas/issues we want to push through the mill first. I’m really optimistic for our Profession, and what we can get accomplished by working together. After all, there is so much potential in the Fencer Profession and we have the best group of people visiting this board in all of SWG.

~Lyahpar~
La Femme Fencer

"Thrust if you love Fencers!"

I think that a fencer's last cert should be some mega supa sword of doom (or just a dinky sword), not a freegan NYPD beatum' stick.

It just seems appropriate that with titiles like: Blademaster, Bladeweaver, Apprentice swordsman, Novice swordsman, etc etc.....it kinda seems likea "no duh" equation that we should have our final cert be a sword or blade of some type.

Right now, all we need is pom-pom's to go with our baton's and a full group of 20 fencers would be like a huge cheerleading squad....well, guess we'd need a squad leader to make it official....

Make the stun baton cert change to some stun sword or something....that is my suggestion. Same stats and whateva, but change the graphic to a sword, and finally the fencer title might fit.

*Refer to my thread "A fencer, a cert, and a retard walk into a bar..." for the detailed dicussion we all had about this.*

One issues that will come up when theyincrease the speed offencers, is that power-ups will expire to fast.

An answer to this problem would be to have Melee power-ups go from 100 uses to 150-200 uses when equiped to a fencer weapon.

Also the lack of melee damage types is a known issue, one option to fix this issue would be to add Elemental damage power-ups - Just like the current melee power-ups but also changes kinetic damage to Heat, Cold, Electrical,or Acid. I'm not sure how easy this wouldbe, but I think it could a really cool way to give us more damage type, and make it interestingfor weaponamiths. Think About!

I am a fencer currently at 3-4-3-3. What I would like to see is for the dodge ability to be implemented more often. I hardly ever see it implemented at all in pve. While in pvp it does come up ever once in a while. I have only encountered it when I am dueling another melee class. I think the idea of the speed cap is a great asset to fencers because our weapons are among the lowest damage in the game. For example I dueled a pikeman who was 4-2-4-3 last night. I won the duel but when looking over the combat screen his damage was considerably high compared to mine. His damage was over 200 while mine was only around 70-90. This is damage done with bodyhit 3. With the speed cap I hope fencers damage come at least comparable to the rest of the melee class.

As a fencer, we are blessed with the defence mods, melee defence and ranged defence. An honor given to very few elite combat classes (atleast to the degree that we are given these defences, and I am aware that TK gets just as much if not more then us). I'd personally like to see these defences do MORE, in that, I'm almost sure that they work, I'd just like to actually see it and KNOW they work. Since I've moved on to training in TK after finishing master fencer, my melee defence and ranged defencesare in the 40's-50's, and I can honestly say I'm not seeing a huge difference there. Now I don't know if there's a set number I have to hit before seeing a major difference, my KD defence and position change defence are now in the 60's and after doing some tests yesterday with a friend, I seem to be almost if not completely un-knock-down-able, yeah that's for sure not a word.. but defence SHOULD be a key advantage to fencing, as oppose to the other melee classes that get releatively low defences compared to us.

Now this point might be made too late with the upcoming 'tank' abilities. (I did BEG the dev's on many forums to fix the KD defence before implimenting a timer on it, given that we never had the chance to see how bad KD really was when it was not un-defeatable). But I'd like to see an increase in our defencive effectivenessbefore we get this 'tank' skill. I'd also like a stun baton thatdoesn't kill my mindpool when using specials... remind the dev's that we're suppose to be fast, and we need ourHAM to be lower then say.... apikeman.... ok I'm done.

-chee

I've seen many of the melee correspondents request profession-specific feedback, but you cannot possibly separate melee and Fencer issues without producing unbalanced solutions. Many ofthe issues Fencers and other melees faceare due to craptacular melee mechanics or broken Brawler skills (see my response to the Brawler correspondent). General melee:

1. No line-of-sight. Every fight is an open-field fight, unless you're PvP in town.

2. Every mob is an Olympic sprinter. You, apparently, have two left feet. Kiting is a huge issue, even if you do all the hard work and get into melee range.

3. Warping isa big problem. To save your hide from getting kited and pummeled by a ranged attacker, you find a tree to hide behind. Sorry boy, the mob just warps to your sorry butt, blasts you, and proceeds to kite you at melee range.

4. For PvP, client-server sync is an issue along with facing issues. Even if you do all the hard work to get into melee range, you're still hosed unless you can kill your opponent in 1 or 2 hits. We get no attack bonuses for attacking the back of a fleeing enemy who can apparently run just as fast as us, despite being turned around 180 degrees to blast us.

It's no wonder you keep seeing requests for more damage, less HAM use, better defense. As an example, simple facing calculations would let you tune damage bonuses to be effective without being over-powering. Strategy and tactics would become part of the game (e.g., don't attack the mob fromthe front, attack from behind or the side, etc.). I firmly believe that the correspondents and the designers have lost sight of the forest for the trees - we need to fix the system first, then worry about profession (or 1 vs. 1) issues.

I'll say this, my Fencer fights are either wonderful to behold with evading, defending, attacking (imagine a Jedi duel in the movies or just come watch me fight Binayre smugglers on Talus), or more frequently, it's a pitiful string of target out of range, target out of range, target out of range, you cannot see your target, you cannot see your target, you swing and hit your target for xxx damage, target out of range, target out of range...arrrrghhhh!

Ifeel that these commentsare in part related to comments already made in this thread about defense. But essentially, my number one concern about fencing isenhancing some combination of fencer abilities abilitiesto ensure that, at least over time, they can inflict damage on a par with other classes. I cannot pretend to measure the existing differencesprecisely, but it seems to me that fencers currently do damage at a significantly lower rate than other professions without having any significant advantage in other areas to compensate. Fencers need one (or a combination) ofseveral things to bring their abilities into line with other professions, both melee and ranged:

1. survivability--if you have the tools to live longer, lower damage up front is compensated for by a longer period during which you can keep fighting. In an average fight in a group with TKs and two-handed sword users, I on average inflict less damage and receive more damage than the TKs and about the same as a two-handed (this is a non-scientific observation). I also typically wear 3-4 pieces of armor whereas the otherstypically wear none or twopieces. This suggests to me that dodge and the defensive bonusesare eitherbroken or so scaled down as to be of no practical significance.


2. Ability to use special attack on a sustained basis--another method of equalizing damage over time is if fencers can use special attacks more frequently than other professions. At least one weapon--the vibroblade--does allow a greater number of specials, butat the expense of damage. The gaderiffi baton (although AP0) does allow a higher rate of specials against unarmored opponents if you have a medic or can use stims because of its vibroblade-like mind costs. All of the other fencer weapons have HAM costs generally and mind costs in particular that severely limit the number of potential special attacks. It seems pretty clear to me that our combination of weapons/speed/damage and HAM cost currently do notpermit fencers to cause equivalent damage by how often they use special attacks. The curved blade in particular is a pale shadow of its two-handed equivalent without HAM costs that allow fencers to ever catch a two handed sword user by sheer frequency of using specials.


3. Type of special attacks--fencers could potentially equalize damage to the extent that their special attacks inflicted offensive disabilities on the opponent that increased survivability. Recent changes have limited the contribution made by special attacks to fencer ability. The knockdown changes have made the lunge-dizzy combination a bad bargain when you consider the HAM cost, the lost damage from lunging, the short duration of the posture change and extremely short duration of knockdowns when they are achieved. Blind, which formerly inflicted the effect in a high percentage of uses now appears to work a little less than half the time (this in group not solo fighting which means against predominantly creatures that would con red in solo). Dizzy also appears to havea reduced chance of hitting but appears to succeed more often than blind. I think a combination of increasing the likelihood of getting existing defensive effects and adding others (stun comes to mind, also possibly a movement restriction) would be another way to compensate for the poor ability to inflict damage.


4. Increase in damage--this is the least desireable approach, but to the extent that the developers increased damage to close the gap between fencers and others, there would be less need to re-examine defense, HAM usage and specials.I would fear that the melee professions start to look too generic to the extent that there are negligible difference in damage among them.


5. Speed--This may help a lot as part of a higher level fencer's abilities


6. Targeting--Although it may not equalize damage per se, being able to target specific pools definitely can make up for causing less damage. I find that when opponents have a partially depleted health bar, I can help bring them down far faster than professions that cannot specifically target the body. Having a similar ability against other pools would go a long way not in equalizing damage so much as in making damage causing more efficient.

That is pretty much my biggest issue. There is an issue common to all melee that I feel it is worth bringing up because I feel as though it has a bigger impact on fencers. Targeting and attacktargets as a melee is difficult as is sustaining contact and continuing to attack a target once engaged. Only one small part of this is being addressed by the proposal to extend range. This problem has several components:

1. The Combat stutter step--The number one issue raised in the original report of the fencing report is still with us. The second or so delay that you get when trying to escape or trying to charge just exposes melee professions to an extra round of damage.


2. The attack movement bug--It also is still with us also and makes a moving target in PvE extremely diffficult to damage.


3. Inadequate performance of /follow. Anyone who has tried to keep a target in range manually knows how difficult this is. I suspect most fencers opt for /follow at least for part of a fight. On hillsides, this causes circling with attendant messages for out of range or out of sight. At least when a melle closes on an opponent there ought to be a command (/engage maybe) that keeps the player in contact with the opponent at least so long as speed differences do not permit the opponent to pull away.


4. Limits on the "next target" button--Targeting in a group melee is impossible by pointing and clicking. The combination of lag and movement makes that futile. In a large fight, the next target must cycle through a large number of target to get to one very close to you. It would be helpful to have a "nearest target" button that would alow you to short circuit the process of cycling through numerous targets.

The result is that in large fights in particular fencers are not able to do one of the things that their speed and specials wouldotherwise permit. A fencer can hit a number of opponents to try to inflict some combination of blind/dizzy/bleed, which can often help a team tremendously.

I echo in full what Eiloo'li said. In particular, since the dizzy/lunge nerf, my character is practically useless in PvP. Add the delay in initiating the fight, the ranged opponentrunning away, and the inability to attack while moving-- makes for a very unsatisfying encounter.

We need either an increase in our weapon's effective range (ok but not the ideal solution imo)... or, preferably, a way to slow down a target that's moving away from us ( a modified return of the dizzy/lunge move)... AND the ability to attack AS accurately - (really should be MORE accurately) than a ranged opponent who is running.

Also... our HAM costs need to be drastically reduced. We depend on specials and multiple strikes in order to be viable-- yetwhen we do what we do best, we just as often as not, disable ourselvesby running out of mind/action/health.

I also share Eiloo li's problem with being more of a 'burden' than a 'boon' when grouping. I deal far less damage, and sustain far MORE damage than my fellow meleers.

A better selection of weapons would be great also-- but *please* fix the combat/speed/defense issues first!

Thanks Lyaphar-- here's to a brighter future for us Fencers!

Seena Lonewalker

All of the above is very true being a 0,0,1,0 fencer. Trying to stay on and hit a moving mob I would rate as my biggest problem and just trying to stay alive in a white or yellow con mob agro attacks me. Most of the time now since the patch to lower PvP damage done I find that I'm doing about 50% of damage per hit when I can hit. Maybe 20 to 30% are misses.

Personal I would like to see when we body hit the arm the mob to hit accuracy drops and may not be able to use a weapon if enough damage is done to it. The same for leg hits to slow them down and maybe prevent them from moving. These might even be two new fencing skills for us.

1) Either higher damage weapons or lower ham costs 2) More potent defense mods, we are meat shields, let us atleast be able to act like one

1-a) better weapons: ( take for instance the Rantok, not very nice of a weapon for all the missions you have to complete prior)

3) Please oh please remove the mind cost.. it just doesnt make sense that a spinning swing of a sword would hurt my mind in such a quick and harsh manner

4) Up the Dodge capability, we are fencers and as such should be able to move quickly to avoid a good amount of meele attacks, even at a novice level. Right now I see no difference in the dodge capabilities of a artisan and a fencer.

Many good issues have been raised and I will try to avoid reiterating them as much as I can but I may touch on other peoples points as a matter of course within my post.

Many people talk about raising our damage output. I think this is the wrong track to take. Yes we do not do as much damage - but that is part of being a fencer. This should be made up for by our greater defense. Yes, my greatest concern is with defense not offense. If we get new weapons or new moves that do incredible damage there will be no separation between melee classes. I WANT to be different. After switching to a gaffi stick I will say we CAN do good damage, it comes at a price but I think our damage range is more or less ok. Currently due to our lack of "toughness" we will always feel inadaquate in a group setting because fights just don't last long enough for us to equalize damage over time with other classes. And I think it's that experience that has made us all cry out for more damage - so we can feel useful in a group. I propose that if we could actually get in, draw the aggro (purposely) and then dodge/duck/evade like mad we'd feel a little better. Will you do a ton of damage? Not much more than you do now. Will you get more XP? Not really, because it's based on damage (to avoid power leveling I assume). But will you at least serve a purpose in a group? Yes. You will keep other group members alive, you will give the healers a single target to be concerned about for most fights, and you get the personal satisfaction of being the only guy in the group who can run up and go toe to toe with stuff and not drop in 4 seconds. You will also gain a boost to your ability to solo larger creatures (which seems to be a no-no with the devs but what the heck) and that might be where you can make up for the lack of group based XP. But soloing anything tough would be a time consuming fight and this would make up for our ability to solo big things - the XP over time would be better than in a group perhaps but it would not be unbalancing.

So I say focus on defense. If it's too difficult to activate/balance passive skills between melee classes give fencers more/better/stronger status effects. My suggestions:

Bleeds:

Keep them. These seem a perfect fit for a class that is supposed to "go the distance". These DOT effects provide that damage equalizer we want but only when they can be used OVER TIME - meaning you must stay alive long enough for them to do their work. Perhaps add an action "bleed"? It's not unreasonable to think that a cut on the leg would hinder your "quickness" or "stamina" over the duration of a fight just as much as your "health" and "strength". This would allow us to more precisely apply damage - but I fear without an action targetted attack to back it up this would not be terribly effective. Just a thought. Anyway keep the bleeds but perhaps shorten the timer and then the duration, so that we see the effects more quickly but they wear off more quickly as well. We should be able to reapply them as needed though - no bleed timers please!

Stun/Blind/Dizzy:

I think a stun would be nice if the stun effect actually shut down your opponent's offense or their movement for a few rounds. As a defensive class we should be able to apply all of the status effects that limit or hinder the damage output of our target. Add some stuns? Make the status effects land with more success and increase durations a bit. If lunge/dizzy will not be effective as a knockdown, make Dizzy have a direct combat related effect- yer not gonna shoot or swing straight if you feel off balance and are seeing stars. Lessen the importance of dizzy as a posture change dependent effect and make it another tool to hinder our opponents. Same for blind - give it a noticable effect, blinded targets should miss you - quite a bit. I slice open a wound on your forehead, it bleeds into your eyes... now try to hit me... Perhaps these or other status effects could be incorporated into the proposed combo system where landing your combos lead to more and more effects being applied, or increasing the effectiveness of already applied effects or extending their duration.

New Status Effects:

Looking at another way to make us "tank" a little better and also looking at Fencer-esque combat, perhaps some new status effects could be implemented. Right now I see these doing more in PvP but they might be effective in PvE as well, I just think this is an interesting idea and something to make Fencer's unique within melee classes. How about status effects that limit the ability of our target to use "specials"indirectly by lowering secondary player stats for a short duration.For example a status effect called "Fatigue" or "Exhaustion". Itseems likely that we could tire our oppenent out through feints and parries letting them attack, attack, attack while we conserve our energy. This could be represented by aneffect that lowers strength andconstitution or quickness and stamina or willpower and focus. The idea being that we make using specials more expensive by increasing the cost of the moves,AND lowering the regen rate of the stat. This fits with them being tired out. This effect also compensates for our lower damage output since for the duration they will naturally "heal" slower allowing more of our damage to "stick" during that time. That could be considered a reflection of taking advantadge of their fatigue to strike more damaging blows - their guard is slow, we find more openings, etc. This also leaves them open to choose - do they continue trying specials and hurting themselves, or do they hold off a bit until the effect wears off.Making them hold off a bit lowers their potential damage output and that means (ta da!) we take less damage! I do think this effect should be on a timer, as spamming it could potentially be too powerful. It could also be the payoff at the end of a combo sequence and this also seems fitting - you can't tire someone out in a single strike, but at the end of landing 4 or 5 lead-in moves this would be a nice payoff. Perhaps you could gain "Fatigue" midway up a tree - maybe finesse, and then get "Exhaustion" at master - the two just being a lighter and heavier version of each other. Also depending on balance issues maybe these would just affect the pools that deal with special move cost and not the regen pools, or perhaps an asymetric penalty weighted towards strength,quickness,focus with a small effect to con, stamina, willpower.

It seems to me there could be many ways to improve our survivability without resorting to active "tank" abilities which I just find very unappealing - I mean "active tank abilities" are taking some spice or medic buffs right now. I want something that is in line with my profession to boost my ability to take (or more importantly AVOID ALLTOGETHER) damage. If passive skills can be fixed/modified great, if not perhaps alter the way the skills we have right now work, or add some new tricks.

Also, I am highly behind some new weapons, but that has been covered : )

I hope this was at least an interesting post to read.

Rexx

Basically my number one for the class is to let me have the abilities to tank and crowd control (the important bit most omit)that my pet has. I'd like nothing more to drop CH for something else and start to actually group again without the need for aCH (who can solo more effectively if they have acombat skill).

Mind you that brings us onto mynumber two concern --content, when you're maxed out with zero skill points there's nothing to do there'sno incentive or reasonto PvE, and PvP is a sad joke at the moment, againwith no real incentive. My character is essentially dormant until the game catches up with me.

Oh well FF Onlineand the new DAoC expansion coming up soon to fill that void I guess, pity cos this game has potential. yeah yeah I know "can I have your stuff" you say, but you'll get to this point sooner than you think and it's the number one game killer for me, and many like me. Still it's been a fun ride up till now and worth the subs, but carrying on past this point isn't...

It may be that SWG never really becomes a good PvE or PvP game, or is intended to, asit seems aimed more at the Sims-in-Space genre, which is fine but not for me. I prefer a challenging PvE and PvP environment with mobs that require certain strategy beyond send in theCH pets and then zerg to win, also zones that support such tactics.