Fencer Archive

I know there is tons of talk for months on what a fecner is, should be, and so on. I would liek a moment to explain what I would like to see, and entertain any ones comments (for teh record I am a master fencer and have been oen for monts, I PvP and PvE, but never with armor and only with 2000 buffs (only ha!), nad have no uber weapons, my weapon of choice is the curved sword).

The biggest problem I have with any change to fencer is that fencer is a great profession now. The major two issues facing us are sadly trivial in comparison to other professions (but still very improtant to us).

Issue 1: Spin attack 2 versus blind attack 2, both are AoE (spins) and both drop teh blind state, adn both do roughly the same damage (I think spin is slightly stronger). A solution I would like to see is that the spin attack 2 have an AoE posture down attack, with our low damage, it makes sense we were intended to be the tank of choice, and allowing us to dizzy, blind, posture down will compensate us for our low damage output. Other suggestions have been to add an AoE bleed, or stun.

Issue 2: Low damage output. This is huge now for PvP (not so much with PvE except we can not kill certain high end mobs). Many suggestions were made to improve our damage, give us medium armor piercing, give us more damage types. I think we should have one new weapon with armor piercing, make it certified at novice fencer (why are we the only prfession without an elite weapon?), and call it the vibrosword. I would like to see elctricity damage, but would be happy with light armor piercing, kinetic damage in the range of a gaffi stick. This will make us slightly stronger (we can finallydamage a fully buffed player quicker than their regen). While many would like to see many new damage types, I would not, I like the idea that each melee profession has a special damage type (pikeman=electricity, TKM=fire soon, swordsman=blast, and us=stun).

Now how do we balance what we want with everyone else? If we keep our great defenses, and armor is reduced, buffs reduced, and our damage is greatly increased, then we are too strong. So the question is, what are we? I hope to see in the combat balance every profession being able to solo up to a specific level. After that level, it is for groups. I would liek to see PvP take place so that any one elite master combatant is equivalent in combat to another (not including templates). This doesn't mean every PvP will end in a stale-mate, but either profession is capable of winning. Such as a Swordsman vs a Fencer. Fencer will do less dmg adn hit mroe often, the swordsman should hit less frequently but hit harder. With this scenario, the secondary skills play a much more important role, the specials will affected the fight, and the strategy used.

In my mind, fencers should be light soldiers (limited to padded armor), striking fast and precise, while avoiding damage to themselves. We should be able to kill a solo oppponent but also hold the ground setting up a front line for the range professions to shoot safely. We should be bleeding and wounding our foes, crippling them in damage (how cool will it be if we can target a leg and decrease the opponents terrain negotiation, or hit an arm and decrease attack speed and accuracy). This to me is a fencer.

We can all hope that the combat balance improves the game for all, and I hope they will only improve us, and use as a model to adjust the other professions. Happy dueling all.