Fencer Archive
Thread: Equipment question for you Fencing Vets
You sound pretty new, so let me give you some advice.
For now, dont worry too much about Composite. Its expensive and doesnt provide much of an advantage over good Ubese for skill-grinding and hunting. 90% of the creatures you hunt for skill will be hitting you with kinetic damage, and a 70-74% suit of ubese will cost you a fraction the cost of a suit of 80% kinetic composite, and have 1/3 the encumberance.
Buy a second chestplate. With Ubese, the jacket is protecting the chest and shoulders, so it takes increased wear. Generally, given that you dont completely fail on a repair (about a 5% chance), a suit of Ubese will wear out about the time 2 jackets will if you get marginal repairs on all of them (20% reduction in max condition). Repair them yourself using 99-100% repair kits, standing next to the highest rated private Clothing & Armor Crafting Station you can find (look in player shops they usually have crafting stations in the back room, find one with a 40+ rating).
For skill gain, you wont need a Stun Baton. Hold off on those until you are hittinghigh-level NPCs or creatures with high kinetic resists or for PvP.One of the best ways to get fencer skill is to get to novice, don your suit of Ubese, and head to Yavin IV. Use 1-handed Spin Attack on lairs. I suggest you start small, start with mamian lairs, spined puc lairs, stintaril lairs, etc. Make sure you are buffed and on 2 brandies. Use CoB and just spam the spin attack. I used a Gaffi stick with-33% mind cost, +16% speed powerups on it. The Gaffi stick is already low mind cost, and with the powerups it only cost me 1 mind point for every spin attack while on two brandies. As you hit the lair more creatures will pop out and youll hit them all, racking up XP very easily.
Move up the footwork tree first. When you get to footwork III xp becomes a breeze, since the huge speed bonuses and spin attack II really up your damage. At this point you should switch to Mawgax lairs. You can just fly around and find them (theyre everywhere), or just grab missions for them. I worked from labor outpost, and grabbed a pair of 9k Mawgax Pack missions. It took me about 12 min to clear both of them - exactly the time it took my Veghash to run out. It was a great bonus that the Yavinian leathery hide spawning at the time was of amazing quality (and a sought after Adv. Wookie armor component). Mawgaxes also bear Domesticated meat, so if either of them is good quality on Yavin at the time then you stand to make a lot of money while you grind. Plenty of money to buy yourself a nice suit of 80% kinetic/66+% base Composite armor, and a decent Acklay Stun baton.
Stun batons arent high damage in nature. Their advantage lies in their damage type. When someone is wearing 70-90% kineticubese/comp armor, your AP0 gaffi stick will do very little damage to them. Light armor reduces damage by 50%, and then their kinetic resistance reduces it again, lowering your damage to 5-15% of its potential.
Gaffi sticks are about double the damage of stun batons. If you luck out, however, your opponent will be wearing armor with a stun vulnerability, and you will do 100% damage tothem. If they do have stun layered armor,chances are its quite low (40% is max and 20%ish stun layeredis far more common), and youll be doingsignificantly more damage with your stun baton than you would with a gaffi stick with 90-95% of the damage reduced. If they are wearing an imperial PSG with 48% stun, have no fear since 8-10 hits will wear it out. Even if you lose the duel you can take consolation in the fact that youre out a set of 10k buffs and theyre out a 20-40k piece of hardware.
As general advice, Jimmi, don't shop at CSA on Starsider. The weapons there are severely over-priced, and if you're starting out, it'll leave a big hole in your pocket.
You also don't need composite armor or a stun baton until you decide to PvP or engage in high-level areas like Dathomir, Endor,the Geonosian Lab or the Corvette. For all intents and purposes, the Gaffi Stick is your best bet.
I prefer Curved Swords over Rykk Blades myself, and you should use it to level up until you can use a Gaderffi stick. Get yourself a vibro-blade too - it's damage is lower than most Fencer weapons, but it has the benefit of armor piercing (AP1), which means that against targets with Light armor and some kinetic resists, you may be better off.
A "good" stun baton on Starsider (around 200 max damage unsliced, it's acklay-made) is about 600k or so. Not worth the investment just yet, considering you can a 130ish max damage one for 10k or so.
I recommend you shop at either Trean's Shop on Lokian Abyss (Lok), or better yet, visit Jaclyn's Shop just outside Theed (-3971 3979). Both stock weapons that are slightly better than CSA's and are about 1/2 to 1/3 the price.
Thanks for the responses. Looks like some good advice there. My new plan looks like this.
(currently on Tat, so...)
1.) Kill a few Tuskens and hope for a gaffi drop.
2.) Head to the shops mentioned on Naboo and/or Lok to look for Ubese armor.
3.) Grumble about spending all my creds on Muon and Pixie and not having any cash.
4.) Head to Yavin 4 and pound out some missions destroying mamian lairs, spined puc lairs, andstintaril lairs.
5.) Sell meat.
6.) Head back to the shops with creds from missions and meat. Buy some Ubese armor.
Idont know what the economy is like on Starsider, but buy a gaffi stick. It will be superior to anythingmost tusken drop. better yet, buy 2-3, get them sliced. Odds are youll get 2 speed slices and a damage slice, hold onto the dmg sliced one until you hit master fencer and use the speed sliced ones to grind.
Dont use muon, or pixie. Trust me. I keep muon and pixie only for emergencies when my buffs and brandy wont cut it, but they are actually far less cost effective than brandy or buffs and have insane downtime. You can buy 400+ brandy that lasts 35+ min and is 20+ uses on the bazaar for 5-6k (at least on my server). A crate of muon, at the cheapest, will cost you 5k and if you add it up it will give you less mind buff, by far, for the money - and more downtime because of the downer.
Youll need the armor first... and dont bother doing the Yavin thing until youre at least Novice Fencer, have a suit of ubese and some buffs. What i suggested (spin attacking the lairs) isnt as easy as it seems, since having 10-15 spined pucs, stintarils, etc on you will wear you down if you have no armor, especially the giants. If you absolutely cant afford a suit of 65-75% kinetic ubese (shop around, these usually range from 60-150k a suit) then a suit of armorweave will do. This isnt about looks, its about staying alive and at no time should you not have at least a suit of mabari on. That light AR will give you 50% reduction right off that bat, and that instantly doubles your health.
Go to www.swgcraft.com. Look at the hides and meats on Yavin4 on your server. For armorsmiths, you need OQ + PE generally > 1600 to sell at a decent price. Yavinian leathery hide is an Adv. Wookie armor component so it is worth quite a bit more than normal leathery if it has decent stats. Mamians drop wooly hide, and if its decent OQ/SR you will make some amazing money on it.
If youre still not novice fencer, and are having cash problems, then you can do the meatlump thing. Around Coronet and just about every other non-player city youll find meatlump/ragtag kook/etc static spawn. They just keep popping up constantly and are very easy to kill. Make sure you are grouped (if not, buy a cheap pet or mouse droid off the bazaar, group with it, and you will get a significant xp bonus). Loot the meatlumps you kill (you can moderate the rate of respawn by waiting to loot, if you need to heal or something). They drop locked containers (sell them for 6k on the bazaar), skill tapes/armor attachments, DOT weapons, skill enhanced clothing, heavy duty leather and heavy duty clasps (these are at around 50-75k/each on corbantis and usually drop in lots of 1-10). 98-160xp each andyou loot average 75-125 credits offmost of them. Its a steady yet decent source of income and very safe xp gain until you get to novice and can buy some brandy, gaffi sticks and a suit of armor (preferably ubese).
The index card explaination: all armor halves damage, except for where it is vulnerable (it does nothing in those cases), or reduces damage an addition percentage (those are resists). This means that even the cheapest set of armor with any kinetic resist is worth 50% off damage! Kinetic vulnerable armor (like most bone) doesn't work against kinetic attacks at all.
2. Your playstyle will help you decide which armor you should wear. I myself prefer a chiton breastplate, helmet, and leggings.
3. Higher weapons aren't necessarily better, but can be, depending on the armor/protections of the target creature. (This is why you need to know how armor works. Choosing the right weapon makes the job far easier.)
4. There's no good explaination about why which weapon gets certed where. They Rykk blade the least sense of all the fencer weapons.
I hardly wear any armor grinding, I was in the Jinda caves yesterday with CoB running, a spec ops duster and cammo pants. Got full buffs (over 2400 from myself ), 2 brandysand Ibarely broke a sweat.
Get a speed sliced Gaff stick until Footwork III then go with a damage slice.
You can cut out of the theme park and keep the sword if you want, but it honestly isnt worth it.
Ditch tat, planet sucks except for krayts (dont even think about those, hehe, instant death for most people, master or not=P)
I run on dantooine alot, Dath is very popular on my server, but i noticed (in my experience) it isnt on others so I wont even consider it.
Once you get a decent gaffi stick, start running missions on some advanced planet, id say anything about an 8k mission is to powerful you a buffed, armor-less 0-0-0-0 fencer.
On dantooine, there are 5400 credit missions, that are called Quenker lairs. Their relativly easy, you should (with a decent gaffi stick, look for a ~223 max unsliced) be ok taking the lair, just be careful, brandy is a nessecity, you SHOULD be able to get a bottle off the bazaar, again, about +400 for ~35 mins ~20 charges ~5k. Something in that ball-park.
Another tip for making money, when you run 'missions' try not to do them on Yavin/Endor. There are no player cities there, if you run missions out of player cities you get a (I belive) 15% bonus in the value of the mission, it may be 10-20%, i cant remember, but it IS a bonus, for the exact same missions. So keep that in mind.
Once you have footwork 4, stick to damage sliced gaffis, all the way.
Another note, if your like me (stingy about over-charging armorsmiths) dont run around with your armor on all the time. Yes, itll be 'easier' to do missions, but consider this, if your fighting say, a quenker, they do about 100 damage or whatnot. If you intimidate it, itll do around 40 damage. Do you really NEED to waste your armor duribility? Case in point, dont always use the armor, use it if you NEED it, (Also, if 60k or what ever it is on star-strider is a bit much for a suit of armor, get a Jacket, leggings, and helmet, those are the three main pieces that take a beating, I think about 80% of the hit that damage your health pool are on the jacket, so if you need 1 piece of armor, thatll make a world of difference, get a tunic.)
Don't know about quenker lairs. The XP was nerfed.
From what I have been told though, if you get buffs, you can pretty much level to master fencer in a day or 2 by heading to Endor and killing everything that moves. Boarwolfs and Mereks especially.
I wouldn't know though. I leveled gradually doing dungeons like the Lost Aqualish Party Cave and the Erran Sif bunker on Talus, and the Mt Chaolt Droid Engineer Cave on Lok. Nice XP to be found there.
As far as armor goes, depends on what you are hunting. If it is creatures, then go with Ubese, because nothing beats it vs Kinetic.
If you are going to take on humanoid NPCs or a mix, then I have a crazy suggestion for you - get a hold of some good rancor padded segments, and have some padded armor made for you (I now go out in Padded and a composite helm, because I HATE the padded helm... just looks stupid). Padded isn't PVP wear, but for PVE, its the best all around armor. HAM cost is still taxing, but less so than Composite, AND it offers both Kinetic and Energy protection - my current setup is about 70% kinetic and 40% Energy, with pieces ranging from 39-52% base. The ham factors in, because you won't regen as slow as you would in full composite - therefore, more specials can be squeezed in.
Anyway, those are my thoughts.
ZionHalcyon wrote:
Don't know about quenker lairs. The XP was nerfed.
From what I have been told though, if you get buffs, you can pretty much level to master fencer in a day or 2 by heading to Endor and killing everything that moves. Boarwolfs and Mereks especially.
I wouldn't know though. I leveled gradually doing dungeons like the Lost Aqualish Party Cave and the Erran Sif bunker on Talus, and the Mt Chaolt Droid Engineer Cave on Lok. Nice XP to be found there.
As far as armor goes, depends on what you are hunting. If it is creatures, then go with Ubese, because nothing beats it vs Kinetic.
If you are going to take on humanoid NPCs or a mix, then I have a crazy suggestion for you - get a hold of some good rancor padded segments, and have some padded armor made for you (I now go out in Padded and a composite helm, because I HATE the padded helm... just looks stupid). Padded isn't PVP wear, but for PVE, its the best all around armor. HAM cost is still taxing, but less so than Composite, AND it offers both Kinetic and Energy protection - my current setup is about 70% kinetic and 40% Energy, with pieces ranging from 39-52% base. The ham factors in, because you won't regen as slow as you would in full composite - therefore, more specials can be squeezed in.
Anyway, those are my thoughts.
No, same xp, just higher resists. The nerf hit savage quenkers, not norms.
Padded doesnt exist on my server, it use to, and I bought 35% suits for 20k a suit, Worked great for grinding out cash missions.
Latly Armorsmiths have not been wiling to even attempt making it (I understand why, it IS crappy armor) but I was told (at one time, I havent bothered to try it since) that rancor segments dont work, but its been over 4 months, so could be fixed, then again, this is SoE, we still cant get missions that work right.
Well, I can verify that Rancor Segments DO work now, at least on Radiant. With good ones I have been able to have my AS hit 50% base and over, withaverage onesits more like 30%, and without more like in the 20% range.
Yeah, I wouldn't take padded into battle with me for a PVP fight, but for PVE, I think it actually tops ubese as best all around armor, although Ubese is far better if you are just going to attack creatures and stay away from NPC's with guns.
padded is truly horroid armor. it requires several named organic resources (yavinian wooly hide, lokian leathery) that are a PITA to gather. then on top of that, its more expensive to produce than composite because of all the rediculous named and named organic components and their amounts.
the encumberance is almost up there on level with comp, yet the protection is far lower. the best non-enhanced padded armor i was able to make was around 70% special (in my case energy), and 43% base. rancor segments will give you about 43% base, but the encumb will be higher and theyhave COLD as a special. w-t-f attacks you with cold dmg? its retarded.
i still like padded because of the vast amount of color combinations available, its more of a functional outfit than anything. but to actually consider as a viable armor option for PVE? hell no. ubese blows it away with less than 1/2 the encumberance and higher kinetic protection, and it costs half as much.
btw - heres a tip for ubese. dont get it sliced. neither that nor wookie armor. this is why:
sliced armor wears out faster. significantly faster. both ubese and wookie armor are plagued by low condition ratings, especially on the chestplates. both armors have naturally low encumberance, high special (kinetic) protection, and low base. the best you can hope for with a good slice is fractionally lowering the already low encumb (lowering the chest encumb from 113 to 85, bfd), or increasing the base by a percentage: so youll increase the 15-20% base on ubese by a pitiful4-5% or so. in the end its going to make much of a difference and your armor ifs going to wear out much faster. buy a pair of helms and get them sliced only, since with buffs mind encumb is the only thing that really matters and helmets take very little wear.