Fencer Archive

I'm a first-tier fencer (0/1/1/1) and I currently use one of three weapons:

Speed-sliced curved sword (primary) - using since One-handed 3, has the best DPS and you don't need to spam specials in the PvE available at these levels. However, the relative advantage this has over other weapons (notably vibroblade and gaffi) will decrease with Footwork 2 as I have now hit the speed cap on this one. Lower HAM would be nice, but I can still get 5-7 specials in against each opponent without HAM worries.

Damage-sliced vibroblade - Close to the speed curved sword in raw damage and with armor piercing to boot. Currently about 1/2 the speed of the above, but with Footwork 2 it should have about 90% of the DPS and less than half the HAM cost. Usecurrently forAR1 opponentswith kinetic resists <20%. Can use lots of specials to improve damage output. Consequently, I'd be looking for high damage on one of these weapons.

Speed-sliced stun baton - Doesn't stack up to the above in damage output. Looks goofy, too. However, the stun damage bypasses a lot of armor and kinetic resists meaning that its output is greater against certain opponents. Use currently for armored opponents with kinetic resists >20% or unarmored with >35%. Damage, damage, damage here. Most of the critters with higher resists pack a hard punch, too. After an initial pair of bleeds, I pretty much use auto-attack with this guy so HAM's not very significant.

Don't use the gaffi yet. Too slow and too ugly. May change with added Footwork levels - well, not the ugly part. None of my weapons ran even 10k, but then again I didn't shop around much to get the absolute premium out there.

Dear SWGMertchant,

You have hit an eager crowd. If you read our board at all, you will learn many things about us fencers. First off, we feel so ignored by SWG that anyone who pays attention to our concerns will receive a great response. Second, our weapons, while decent, do not compare in damage to most other weapons out there.This means that weaponsmiths generally ignore us, and when they pay attention, well... see the first sentence. Third, our skills/weapons lead to high HAM costs,if we fight using solely special attacks, we do can often do more damage to ourselves then the enemy can. Fourth, do to the HAM issues and damage issuues, we are split into several camps about how we should fight. This means that weaponsmiths might want to pay attention to this and cater to as many of the different groups as they can. Not that they should try and average their weapons out, but that they should cater to the *different* groups, all at the same time, but not with the same weapons.

The first camp of people:

Have hit the speed cap. This means that, to them, the speed on fencer weapons is pretty much irrelivent, because the slowest you can find on a weapon with good damage is 3.5. After their skills have been applied, they are hitting the speed cap. To them, The other things matter. Things like HAM. And Armor piercing. And damage.

The speed cappers willmainlyuse Gaffi sticks or possibly vibro blades to save HAM. Stun Batons are used on the occasions that they are necessary. You can read the other posts for how people like these to be.

The second camp of people:

Love to use specials. Doesnt really matter whether they have hit the speed cap or not. They love to use specials. As such, they love low HAM costs. To them, the vibro blade is the single best weapon of all. Stun Batons, again,are used on the occasions that they are necessary. They dont really care so much about speed since they may or may not have hit the speed cap, they just want to use specials.

The third group of people:

Have not hit the speed cap, and are concerned mostly with damage. These people want a balance of speed, damage, and HAM costs. To them, the one handed curved sword is probably the most used weapon. The vibro blade may be used on occasion, and the stun baton will almost certainly be used when necessary. Gaffi sticks probably wont be used since they are noticeably slower than all the other weapons when you havent picked up the major speed boosting skills yet, and they have considerable HAM costs.

I happen to fall into this camp, I havent hit the speed boosts yet, and my one handed sword has far better damagethan any other one handed weapon I've seen out there. Gaffi's have more damage, but they are a good 1 second slower. I switch betweenmy one handed sword and my stun baton based on the resists on the stuff I'm hunting.

I suppose thereare probably more camps, andanybody can certainly be a combination of camps... but this is just how I view it. You'llrepeatedly see people saying "No! Damage is Best!" and "No! Low Ham is Best" and "No!Balance is Best!". I just wanted to givereasons behind their logic.

Also note that, there is practicallynoreason for the number of Rykk bladesthat are on the market. They dont compare to the better weapons... which (as someone said) arent ever on the vendors, probably because noone can keep them in stock.

I personally would prefer post sliced one handed curved swords with over 200 points in max damage. I've only ever seen 2, and one of the other posts mentioned a third one. I'm certain you could easily get at least 20k for them, they are worth it.

Oh, and not all the fencers have mastered the speed boosting branch, a lot still want good damage/speed ratios.

If you could get weaponsmiths on other servers to give us some attention, we'd appriciate it!

4 out of 5 weaponsmiths dont seem to have melee weapons, let alone good fencing weapons.

Uhm... I think thats my two cents.

Odeeso Arnsu, Shadowfire, (probably on hiatus) Novice Fencer, Novice CH, Novice Medic

Most of the swords you can craft can be usefull. And i dont agree about the ryyk. The ryyk can be an awsome weapon. The one i have is 92-220 speed 2.3. Almost the same stats than my curved 94-222 speed 2.2.What i see is that the curved cost less HAM than the Ryyk but in revenge the wounds are higher with the ryyk. So bothcan be good. But i only saw 1 weaponsmith that do goodRyyk and at least 5 that do curved on Intrepid. Vibro blade and stun baton are also popular weapon if they are good quality. The price range on my server is betwen 7k to 12k i never saw anything more expensive... but on a different server it is probably different.

Saryon Echo

Blademaster

Intrepid

A fencer with the footwork tier climbed can use a gaderiffi baton to the best use. I have a damage sliced one that deals in 282 damage and 3.2 speed. While spamming one hand hit 2, I can do 2k damage per second. For the damage they do, they have extemely low HAM (60/25/18).

However, as a novice fencer, this would have been worthless. I'd be attacking every 3 seconds when I could have gotten a speed sliced curved sword with about 180 damage. That would have been ~1.3 seconds of speed and I could do 1.2k damage each second. Hence, doing 3.6 damage in the time that it would take me to do 2k with gaderiffi. They also have better accuracy than the gaderiffi.

Then there's the vibroblade with its AP1, then the stun baton with its rare damage type. Each person has different needs for weapons. If you want success, I'd just leave a sign that tells players that they're more than welcome to leave custom orders.

I am a wookiee Fencer on the Kauri Server. I am seriously interested in purchasing a premium curved sword unsliced, two if I can get them. Send me a tell in game.

Croggibacca

Wookiee Fencer extrodinaire

I like vibroblades, not so much the way they look, but I like em. They are my second weapon of choice.I just dont need one. I can spit outside the cantina in Anchorhead and hit3 weaponsmiths that have decent vibroblades in stock. They have their uses (the application of butter onto toast or a biscuit)and I keep mine in my toolbar at all times (for those travel buscuits). But it is easily replaced.