Fencer Archive
Thread: FAQ: What is the “best” Fencer weapon for my current skills?
FAQ: What is the “best” Fencer weapon for my current skills?
Like many other questions, the answer to this question depends on several other variables. However, this is still fairly easy to determine. Before we begin, it is important that you know some fundamentals first. If you have not already, I recommend you to have read all the previous FAQ (higher on the list) before proceeding, as this FAQ assumes you already familiar with their contents. Without a grasp of these concepts it will be difficult to follow the logic we’ll be using to determine the “best” weapon for your current status and needs.
There are 3 basic elements to consider when determining the “best” weapon for your current needs. These elements are:
- Raw damage potential
- Ability to bypass defenses
- Final HAM cost of special attacks
In a nutshell, the “best” weapon will be the one that best meets these 3 criteria for the situation.
Let’s first examine raw damage potential. To best describe this process, I’m going to need some example weapons. I don’t know what weapons you have access to (and it won’t matter since the process is still the same), so I’ll use the ones listed in the FAQ:
Curved Sword (AP0) 73-167 2.3 (23/46/31) Kinetic
Gaderiffi Baton (AP0) 132-223 3.4 (54/32/15) Kinetic
Vibroblade (AP1) 45-150 2.6 (11/22/11) Kinetic
Ryyk Blade (AP0) 73-171 2.5 (45/35/30) Kinetic
Stun Baton (AP0) 90-133 2.5 (15/44/37) Stun
To see the raw damage potential of these weapons we must factor in 2 additional elements:
- Applicable weapon speed bonus
- Mitigation ability of the target (if determinable)
Let’s look at the applicable speed bonuses first. The speed bonuses you have will make a big difference in not only the weapon you select, but also the kind of Slice that will be the most beneficial. Below I will list the calculated DPS (limited by 1.0 speed cap once applicable) for each weapon at each Fencer skill level granting a speed bonus; first with a max speed slice, followed by a max damage slice. If the first number is higher then a speed slice would benefit that weapon more. If the second number is higher then a damage slice would benefit that weapon more. Note: I’m limiting weapons to those available (Certified) by that level.
Intermediate 1hand (+10 Speed):
Curved Sword 86dps vs. 77dps
Gaderiffi Baton 89dps vs. 77dps
Advanced 1hand (+15 Speed):
Curved Sword 92dps vs. 81dps
Gaderiffi Baton 94dps vs. 82dps
Vibroblade 65dps vs. 60dps
Expert 1hand (+20 Speed):
Curved Sword 100dps vs. 89dps
Gaderiffi Baton 99dps vs. 88dps
Vibroblade 70dps vs. 62dps
Ryyk Blade 94dps vs. 82dps
Master 1hand (+25 Speed):
Curved Sword 109dps vs. 95dps
Gaderiffi Baton 105dps vs. 92dps
Vibroblade 75dps vs. 66dps
Ryyk Blade 102dps vs. 86dps
Novice Fencer (+35 Speed):
Curved Sword 120dps vs. 107dps
Gaderiffi Baton 119dps vs. 108dps
Vibroblade 89dps vs. 77dps
Ryyk Blade 111dps vs. 102dps
Stun Baton 102dps vs. 94dps
Intermediate Footwork (+40 Speed):
Curved Sword 120dps vs. 115dps
Gaderiffi Baton 137dps vs. 119dps
Vibroblade 98dps vs. 82dps
Ryyk Blade 122dps vs. 109dps
Stun Baton 112dps vs. 99dps
Advanced Footwork (+60 Speed):
Curved Sword 120dps vs. 161dps
Gaderiffi Baton 178dps vs. 170dps
Vibroblade 98dps vs. 131dps
Ryyk Blade 122dps vs. 163dps
Stun Baton 112dps vs. 149dps
Master Footwork (+80 Speed):
Curved Sword 120dps vs. 161dps
Gaderiffi Baton 178dps vs. 238dps
Vibroblade 98dps vs. 131dps
Ryyk Blade 122dps vs. 163dps
Stun Baton 112dps vs. 149dps
Master Fencer (+90 Speed):
Curved Sword 120dps vs. 161dps
Gaderiffi Baton 178dps vs. 238dps
Vibroblade 98dps vs. 131dps
Ryyk Blade 122dps vs. 163dps
Stun Baton 112dps vs. 149dps
In terms of fundamental raw damage, here are the results:
Curved Sword: A speed sliced Curved Sword begins to shine at Expert 1hand, but caps out at Novice Fencer due to the speed cap. At all stages of progress, a damage sliced Curved Sword will be outperformed by another weapon.
Gaderiffi Baton: A speed sliced Gaderiffi Baton shows the promise of what is to come immediately, but looses this lead in Expert 1hand. However, by Intermediate Footwork the speed sliced Gaderiffi Baton makes a comeback, which it holds until Master Footwork. At this point the damage sliced Gaderiffi Baton fully matures into the raw damage powerhouse, and it holds this lead all the way through Master Fencer.
Vibroblade: The Vibroblade never makes a good showing here; bringing up the rear every time. It isn’t out of the running, though. The Vibroblade is a sleeper. It will wait until latter in the comparison to make its move.
Ryyk Blade: The Ryyk Blade manages to stay fairly competitive through the entire development, but it never takes the lead. What the Ryyk Blade lacks in power, it makes up in style and appearance, right? It’s probably our coolest looking weapon.
Stun Baton: Just barely edging out the Vibroblade, the Stun Baton never takes a leading role. Like the Vibroblade, the Stun Baton is another sleeper. It will have its moment of glory later on.
Next we need to look at the impact of our target’s Mitigation skill. You will encounter Mitigation from combatants that are fairly advanced in their melee skills. By the time you are regularly facing off against such foes your speed will have already capped. This means that your average damage will become your DPS. As you know, Mitigation reduces the damage range of your weapon by 20%, 40%, or 60%. This has the effect of reducing the average damage of the weapon, and therefore the DPS. Let’s see what happens to the average DPS of the above weapons. First we see the average damage with no Mitigation, followed by Mitigation1, then Mitigation2, and finally Mitigation3. The numbers in parenthesis are the damage reduction percentages from the average hit.
Curved Sword [94 point damage spread]
No Mitigation: 73-167 = 120
Mitigation1: 73-148 = 111 (-8%)
Mitigation2: 73-129 = 101 (-16%)
Mitigation3: 73-111 = 92 (-23%)
Average reduction: 16%
Gaderiffi Baton [91 point damage spread]
No Mitigation: 132-223 = 178
Mitigation1: 132-205 = 169 (-5%)
Mitigation2: 132-187 = 160 (-10%)
Mitigation3: 132-168 = 150 (-16%)
Average reduction: 10%
Vibroblade [105 point damage spread]
No Mitigation: 45-150 = 98
Mitigation1: 45-129 = 87 (-11%)
Mitigation2: 45-108 = 77 (-21%)
Mitigation3: 45-87 = 66 (-33%)
Average reduction: 22%
Ryyk Blade [98 point damage spread]
No Mitigation: 73-171 = 122
Mitigation1: 73-151 = 112 (-8%)
Mitigation2: 73-132 = 103 (-16%)
Mitigation3: 73-112 = 93 (-24%)
Average reduction: 16%
Stun Baton [43 point damage spread]
No Mitigation: 90-133 = 112
Mitigation1: 90-124 = 107 (-4%)
Mitigation2: 90-116 = 103 (-8%)
Mitigation3: 90-107 = 99 (-12%)
Average reduction: 8%
Here we see something very interesting. The Vibroblade seems to take the harshest reduction (11-33%) when attacking a target with Mitigation. This is due to the Vibroblade having the lowest minimum damage and the largest damage spread. The Ryyk Blade and Curved Sword seem to fair about the same (8-24%). The Gaderiffi Baton seems to hold pretty strong with only half the reduction of the others (5-16%) due to its higher minimum damage.
We get an interesting surprise from the Stun Baton here. By having a relatively large minimum damage and the smallest damage spread, the Stun Baton is able to shrug off most of the effects of Mitigation and only suffer minimal (4-12%) damage reduction. In fact, by the time we face an opponent with Mitigation3 the Stun Baton has the second highest average damage, beaten only by the Gaderiffi Baton. Combining this with what we already know about vulnerabilities, resists, and armor ratings and you begin to see why the Stun Baton is such a vital weapon to have available.
These results are worth taking into consideration when facing off against advanced melee combatants, as the impact on our damage is quite noticeable.
Next we should consider the potential defenses our weapons will be confronted with. There come in the form of Armor Rating, Resistances, and Toughness. Since Toughness is a percentage reduction, and does not discriminate between weapons or damage types, then we do not need to consider it when deciding which weapon to use. Armor Rating and Resistances, however, do discriminate between weapon and damage types.
As we already know, for every AR level the target has over the AP of our weapon, our weapon damage is halved. Just with this knowledge alone, the Vibroblade gains its first advantage over all of the other weapons since it is the only weapon with AP1. Since being AP1 allows the Vibroblade to escape the first round of 50% damage reduction, you can essentially double the damage of the Vibroblade when comparing it to the damage of any other Fencer weapon as long as your target has AR1 through AR3. If doubling the damage for the Vibroblade for your skill level (seen above) makes it superior to another weapon, then it will generally perform better against an armored opponent. A quick look at our initial raw damage comparisons above demonstrates that this would grant the Vibroblade more damage at every skill level.
After the Armor Rating has had its impact, the damage will be reduced by any applicable resistances. Fencer weapons currently come in two flavors, Kinetic and Stun, so those are the only Resistances we are concerned with. If any Kinetic Resistance is present, it will affect all of the above weapons equally, with the exception on the Stun Baton. Hence, it has no bearing on determining which of the Kinetic weapons are any better than the others. The only thing it changes is the effectiveness of the Stun Baton compared to the other weapons.
Stun Resistance is much less prominent than Kinetic Resistance, and even when present it is often (but not always) much lower than the Kinetic Resistance. This allows the Stun Baton to retain more of its damage in these scenarios. In fact, if the opponent is vulnerable to Stun damage, then not only is the Stun Baton not reduced through Resistance, but even the Armor Rating is ignored. Combined this makes the Stun Baton far superior to any other weapon (including the AP1 Vibroblade) when confronted with a heavily armored and Kinetic Resistant opponent if it happens to be vulnerable to Stun. To see more details on this, see the FAQ on Stun Batons.
Everything above is to be taken into consideration when performing normal attacks. However, when performing specials things become more complicated. You now must keep everything above in mind, as well as the HAM costs of the specials you intend to perform, the HAM costs of your weapons, and the management of your HAM stats (to include migration, various buffs, and armor encumbrance.) Combined this becomes a fairly complex mixture.
The easiest way to approach this is to first take at look at how you manage your HAM. What do your HAM stats look like most of the time while you are fighting? Account for any Doctor, Performer, and Spice buffs if you reserve your fighting to those times when you have them. Also account for the total encumbrance of any armor you usually where while fighting. Something to note is that for every +1 Strength, Quickness, and Focus the end cost of a special will be reduced by 1/1200th.
Next look at the Ham costs of the weapons. Not just the total cost, but the distribution of the cost between the Health, Action, and Mind pools. These are the base cost of performing specials with these weapons. Each special also has its own multipliers that modify (some become lower, most become higher) these costs. These multipliers tend to be identical for Health and Action, but are generally higher for Mind. This all needs to be considered if you intend to perform any amount of specials with a weapon.
A weapon that hits the Health or Action hard can be a threat if you do not have very significant amounts, or if you have no way to quickly restore the lost Health. You might also consider that a larger portion of attacks (unless specifically targeting a particular HAM pool from a special attack) will hit the Health than any other pool.
On the other hand, buffs for Health, Strength, Constitution, Action, Quickness, and Stamina are a bit more “practical” and easy to apply on the battlefield than those for Mind, Focus, and Willpower. Also the Mind cost multipliers on specials is approximately 50% larger (on average) across the board than those for Health and Action. For basic comparison purposes, you can add 50% to the Mind cost of a weapon when determining the ratios of HAM costs.
For the above weapons, the results end up as:
Curved Sword: H-23 A-46 M-47
Not bad on the Health, but hits the Action and Mind pretty hard.
Gaderiffi Baton: H-54 A-32 M-23
A big drain on the Health, reasonable hit to Action, with fairly low Mind cost.
Vibroblade: H-11 A-22 M-17
Barely noticeable Health drain, fairly low Action cost, and the lowest Mind cost.
Ryyk Blade: H-45 A-35 M-45
A hard hitter to both Health and Mind, and a moderate cost to Action.
Stun Baton: H-15 A-44 M-56
Very gentle on the Health, a hard hit to Action, and a big drain to the Mind.
By looking at these you can better prepare your stats to compensate for the costs of the weapon. Something else you can learn to do is swap out weapons based upon which stats are being targeted. IE: If someone is trying to kill your Health pool, you might not want to help them by spamming specials with a Gaderiffi Baton or Ryyk Blade. If someone is targeting your Action pool, you might refrain from spamming specials with a Curved Sword or Stun Baton. Or if they are targeting your Mind pool, you may wish to avoid spamming specials with a Curved Sword, Ryyk Blade, or Stun Baton. This is just another reason to consider having more than one type of weapon at your disposal.
I hope the above will help you to decide which weapon is the “best” for you. Just keep in mind your skill level (and speed); your anticipated opponent’s AR, resistance (mainly vulnerable to Stun or not), and Mitigation. Balance your desire to perform specials against your HAM make-up, and the HAM costs of your weapons. In the end, there is no “one best weapon,” only the weapon that serves you best under very specific conditions. It comes down to your ability to identify those conditions quickly, and be prepared for them by having the appropriate weapon handy.
Well done, indeed
I usually use vibro blade to use special move like bleed,blind,dizzy, and such, then switch to other weps depending on what am I fighthing with.
Nice work.
I would like to mention though that against a AR 1 opponent, the vibroblade still doesn't out damage a Gaderiffi Baton. If I'm thinking right, the vibroblade will never outdamage it either, since as the AR goes up, both will start to take the 50% hit to damage.
Of course, the lower HAM costs help balance it a bit, but in my opinion, it's not worth it. Of course, I'm also a master doctor and use moun gold on top of 1k mind, 600 focus and 700 willpower. HAM costs don't bother me. It is slightly faster than the baton though, which does help slightly but not very much when you factor in the +speed bonus.
I would really like to see a tighter damage range and higher overall damage on the vibroblade.
Something else worth noting in your damage calculations is the ability to "front load" damage.
Consider the example of a character fighting newbie creatures. Against these creatures, one or two shots may suffice to down them. In between each attack there will often be a short delay while you retarget. The gaderiffi baton will be much preferable to the curved sword in this situation even if the DPS of the curved sword is slightly better, simply due to the fact that it has a much higher chance to 1-shot kill and the delay after this 1-shot will tend to be subsumed by the time you take to retarget and advance upon your next enemy anyway.
The standard DPS calculation is simply:
DPS = damage/delay
Front loading of damage happens because your first attack has 0 delay and essentially is "free". Taking this into account we can use a different DPS calculation:
flDPS = damage/(duration of fight) + damage/delay
Suppose you have a 200 damage, 4s delay weapon and a 100 damage, 2s delay weapon. Suppose that your average fight lasts around 10 seconds. Then their DPS with an accounting for front-loading will be:
flDPS = 200dmg/10s + 200dmg/4s = 70dmg/s
flDPS = 100dmg/10s + 100dmg/2s = 60dmg/s
We note a 16.6% advantage for the higher damage weapon for a fight of this duration. Even this formula isn't perfect as it fails to account for the true granularity of these weapons but it is pretty darn close.
Also the formula doesn't work if you 1-shot kills (you have to divide by zero), but as I've discussed above, if 1-shot kills are possible you will probably want to go with the weapon that has the highest chance of a 1-shot anyway (barring an incredibly high delay).