Fencer Archive

As of this weekend, I am the proud new owner of nearly an entire suit of Composite Armor. I have five pieces--Chest, Legs, Helm, Boots, Gloves--and I got some pretty good encumberance slices on them: 43% on the helm, 40% on the gloves, and mid-thirties on the others except the legs (which had 28%). My goal was to secure some sweet armor and then go hunt big game on Endor and Dathomir while buffed, and having been forewarned of the attribute penalties of armor use, I adjusted my stats to compensate: my Mind, Focus, and Willpower are at their maximum. (I am a Zabrak, so those numbers are 1000, 750, and 900 respectively.)

To my utter frustration, I am now nearly useless in combat. When I enter battle with this armor on, I can fight only one creature before my Mind pool is nearly entirely drained. With the Doctor buffs, my Health and Action pools are just fine, nothing can hurt me at all, but by the time I finish killing a creature, all of my Mind is gone. This happens even when I enter battle without the Helmet on (the helm being the single largest Mind-attribute drainer, despite its awesome slice).

Am I missing something? My current situation is intolerable. My Fencing skills are at 0-4-3-3, and the full Footwork tree means that my attacks come so fast that I am literally killing myself. I have done everything that I can think of to alleviate the Mind problem: I am using a Gaffi stick, which drains only 15 points from Mind with each special attack, and as I said, all of my Mind stats are at their maximum. There seems to be nothing more that I can do, and the only alternative is basically to take Muon Gold before each and every battle, which is not only annoying and dangerous but is downright silly.

Does anyone have any suggestions for me? This can't be the intended use of this armor, can it? Surely there is a way for it to be HELPFUL and not a Mind-killer? I haven't even added the remaining four Arm pieces yet, which would just compound the problem. Is Composite just basically useless for Fencers, or am I missing a major piece of the puzzle here? Please don't tell me to "just go without" or "use Ubese", because that is tantamount to accepting that Composite armor is just useless...which, if it is true, would beg the question "WHY???"

Thanks for the help.

If you're going to be fighting enemies that deal kinetic damage, get in a suit of Ubese. You can get a whole suit of ubese with upwards 70% or more kinetic resists for a HAM cost that's MUCH, MUCH less and cheaper than kinetic-layered composite.

Personally i use a comp helm, legs, chest and gloves only. An undershirt with +12 to warcry and intimidate and a bandoller with +4 melee defence and (i think) +17 to def vs stun.

As the comp I have is all 80% kinetic, I migrated some health and action to my mind pool which helps. Use Fishnak instead of moun as you get no side effects and only use the moun in an emergency. The advice about not using specials unless you have to is good advice. I also use Ryshcate and breath of heaven which radically reduces HAM costs of specials if I choose to use alot of them.

I guess it all depends on what your budget is.

Oh and did I mention that a few points in Artisan helps no end, I have surveying 1 and some nice harvesters and currently make well over a million a day from resources...helps for buying all that food and armour and buffs and stuff

Thanks for the advice, all. Anyone else, feel free to jump in. Some specific replies...

One thing I've started is not using specials during fights. Or using them ONLY to appy some sort of state change such as blind/dizzy then going back to auto-attack. This method doesnt usually deplete my mind pool by much.

Yes, I have tried this before, but this just makes a single battle take forever, since my blows are relatively weak and hit random pools. It is a viable alternative, since I can literally stand there and take blows until the nerfs come home, but I don't want to spend three minutes on a single creature.

I also alternate Muon Gold shots then Hivoli (sp) food. When the muon wears off I take one hit of the Hivoli food and it keeps me alive till the negative effects of muon wear off.

Thanks, I'll keep an eye out for Hivoli. I'm not well-versed in the effects of food (especially with the upcoming Chef changes), I should definitely look into that. Ditto for the Ryshcate and Breath of Heaven mentioned in another post.

As the comp I have is all 80% kinetic, I migrated some health and action to my mind pool which helps. ... Oh and did I mention that a few points in Artisan helps no end, I have surveying 1 and some nice harvesters and currently make well over a million a day from resources...helps for buying all that food and armour and buffs and stuff.

Yes, my comp is all 80% kinetic as well, and I have already migrated stats so that all of my Mind pools are maxed out. As for gaining money from harvesters, I don't have any of those, but I am nearly a Master Ranger so I make enough money from creature harvesting to keep myself supplied. Not millions, to be sure, but enough for my needs.

One additional question: I've heard tell of Entertainment Buffs that enhance the Mind, but which require ten minutes of sitting and listening to Entertainers. What are your experiences with this? Is it worth it, how many Mind points does it typically add, etc.?

i use 3 pieces of armor and swear by it. I use a chest plate, left arm bracer and boots. When i am hit, 99% of the time it is to one of these three pieces of armor, and at 80% kin, I can outlast just about anything.

When grinding fencer XP i never used spices or fought anything that I didn't think i'd beat.

Now that i've been master since dec 12 I use stim-b's regularly in battle and keep a muon at hand, i take on just about anything. As far as the biggest thing I've solod with this armor combo, I can say the only thing I've really tried was a regular kimo with 70k HAM. The key to winning that was in the muon gold as that thing trounced my mind. I also took a Blurg of some sort that had 70k HAM, much easier battle as he mostly did health damage so again, the muon helped as i fought i'd use stim-b's.

I used to use all ubese armor but have not found a really good set to compare with my comp armor. The trick was finding balance, using enough armor to cut down on the damage, but leaving enough HAM for using a limited number of specials.

As for specials, it depends what I'm fighting, but if i'm in a room full of tuskan chiefs, i make sure i dizzy them all and then knock a few down. Take a stim, bleed them, blind them, and i'm usually good---usually, the key word here. Granted if I wore a complete set of comp armor i'd prolly last better but adding more armor seems to do nothing more than kill me faster. I've tried fighting in my underwear, my dodge ain't that good and i tried in full 80% comp, that wasn't good either. So I started with chestplate and boots and balanced it with a left bracer.

If you watch your fencer fighting style, you'll see that he strikes with his right arm and blocks with his left. It was this that inspired me to use the left bracer. I tried left bicep, but adding just that one more item did nothing for me in the combat screen, in that I never saw that item being hit and it did more damage to my HAM pools than it was worth wearing.

Helmets are the worst. Fencers need all the mind they can get, so wearing a helmet is useless, in my eyes.

Your situation can't be half as bad as you're saying. A Twi'lek's maximum mind stats are 1100/500/500 and I don't have problems in a full set of 80/70 comp or unlayered comp. The only thing I can think of is that you're probably getting hit a lot from low defense due to doing Grips last. Set up an armor macro to take your armor off for a bit after getting a few kills to regen mind. Only use your armor if you need to. When buffed a fencer can still take down 95% of mobs sans armor.

Take muon, but don't fight through the downer. You should be fighting hard enough mobs now that they will rip you apart while on a downer. Fishak, Biovoli and GGP all help but dont solve anything.

I'm also a 0/4/3/3 fencer, a bothan. My mind stats are at 900/600/500. I have a full suit of 64% kinetic ubese, but I keep the helmet on my toolbar so I can take it off to perform specials.

What I'll do is blind with a vibroblade, bleed with the gaffi, and 95% of the time, just throw on the helmet and have at em with default attack. This gets me through huurton huntresses/stalkers, savage quenkers, and fierce picket protectors, providing I'm buffed.

If not buffed, I take off the armour, use some master brawler magic (lunge2, warcry2), land a then suit up and default attack, healing as necessary.

The only mind enhance i use regularly are my +90 mind chardes (i'm a novice chef, as well). If I see my mind getting low, I'll pop 3, and I should be good to go to the end of the fight.

Note that all of this probably won't work on really high level mobs. If nothing else, i'd suggest removing the helmet when you perform specials.

Just worth mentioning, dancer and especially musician buffs would help you immensely with any problems, the only issues being that finding master musicians/dancers can sometimes be quite difficult.

As stated by others food buffs can help a lot if no entertaining types.

Personally I don't use armor at all, haven't found a need for it yet

I find that taking 1 breath of heaven and two Rychates allow me to spam my specials while I wear armor,and with almost no HAM cost. These boost str, quick, and focus. I usually have close to 1000 in these stats when I eat/drink these foods. And the 1000 is after I wear my armor.

I use no armor and sometimes only mind buffs. Most of the time I use no mind buffs at all. I solo pikets, bols on Dantooine and I have also done some high level solo missions on Dathmor. Also, no pets! How? Here is a strategy I use for non PVP fighting. If you have bleed1 and bleed2 (they still stack but probably not for long) you will be able to solo these missions with the aid of a speederbike. My tactic is to jump off my bike and stack a bleed1 and 2 on each mob then jump back on my speeder and do wide circles around the lair. The mob will follow you but will not be able to touch you and therefore nearly bleed to death. Once you see the mob's health bar down to nearly nothing, jump off the put the finishing hit's in (just one or two per mob). Repeat until lair is empty. I have received 3.5 to 4k xp just incase you were wondering about the xp value in such a tactic.

I have saved tons of credits from not using armor also. This works for me but I'm also a Blademaster that can hold his own in pvp even without armor. Put that is mostly strategy based. Try that out if this is what your looking to do. I've done high level missions this way and effectively at that. Any questions, just ask.

Prometheus

Blademaster

Again, thanks for all the help everyone, I really appreciate it. Some more responses:

---

ZoSo8 wrote:
Your situation can't be half as bad as you're saying. A Twi'lek's maximum mind stats are 1100/500/500 and I don't have problems in a full set of 80/70 comp or unlayered comp. The only thing I can think of is that you're probably getting hit a lot from low defense due to doing Grips last. Set up an armor macro to take your armor off for a bit after getting a few kills to regen mind.

---

I assure you, the situation is as bad as I'm saying. Being hit by enemies is definitely not the problem; I can stand there and take hit after hit after hit without a problem. Indeed, my stat pools actually grow while I'm not using the special attacks; that's how little the battle damage is hurting me. But when I start using the special attacks, my mind pool starts nosediving. I realize that my problem disappears if I just stick with mostly standard attacks, but as described above, this results in three or four minute battles just to kill one level 30-40 mob. That is neither cool nor fun, nor sensible. Hence my post. Oh, and I do have an armor macro, and I've tried different strategies with the armor on and off, but the root problem is the same: my special attacks destroy my mind at an insane rate. I exaggerate not.

What I'll do is blind with a vibroblade, bleed with the gaffi, and 95% of the time, just throw on the helmet and have at em with default attack. This gets me through huurton huntresses/stalkers, savage quenkers, and fierce picket protectors, providing I'm buffed.

Sounds cool, but see the above problem. It just takes a really long time. Maybe that's the best solution, I dunno, it just seems weird that Armor and Special Attacks just can't be used together.

Just worth mentioning, dancer and especially musician buffs would help you immensely with any problems, the only issues being that finding master musicians/dancers can sometimes be quite difficult.

Yes, I am definitely interested in learning more about these. Can anyone describe them to me? How much do they add to the Mind pools? How long do they last? What is required in order to get the buffs...is it instaneous like with a Doctor (not counting the wait in line), or must you sit there and listen/watch for X amount of time?

I find that taking 1 breath of heaven and two Rychates allow me to spam my specials while I wear armor,and with almost no HAM cost. These boost str, quick, and focus. I usually have close to 1000 in these stats when I eat/drink these foods. And the 1000 is after I wear my armor.

That sounds extremely helpful, but how long do these foods last? If they provide a short-duration boost, I'm probably just as well off using Muon Gold, if I'm careful.