Swordsman Archive
Thread: Reflections on lower HAM costs with new sword core
I had my favorite master weaponsmith make me a new 2H Curved Sword yesteray, and I told her to put experimentation points into lowering HAM, speed, and damage - in that order (I'm only halfway to master so I'm not hitting the 1s cap yet I don't think).
The HAM costs she got were low - really low. Since the game is down for a patch right now I can't get the exact stats, but they were on the order of 24 / 56 / 28. If memory serves, speed was 2.8 and damage was something like 38-217. I will post exact stats later. This is unsliced (and the slice failed on my sword, so I will have to buy another one soon.)
The thing I wanted to let my swordsman colleagues know is that with this sword I can use 2H Hit 2 on every single swing now, at least in my testing last night. I have Pharmacology 4 and an excellent supply of Stim C's, so I need to heal myself about once per fight against white/yellow cons, but that's the same amount of healing I was doing before.
I know the HAM costs on my sword that I posted above are only marginally better than some of the other HAM costs I've seen, but with the style multipliers, having a HAM cost be 5 points lower on the sword reduces the cost by 10 or more for most styles, and over the course of a fight, this adds up.
Aada wrote:
I will post exact stats later
My 2H Curved Sword Stats:
Damage: 31-217
Speed: 2.8
Wound: 32.5%
H/A/M: 26 / 59 / 31
Solaera wrote:
The sword I've been using for 2 weeks has a 65 action cost. The difference is only 6 points. Maybe I'm missing something?
Compare the mind costs on my new sword to yours - I suspect mine are lower, this is the lowest mind cost I've seen posted on these boards.
When you do a style, the HAM cost is the base cost of the sword, multiplied by a value of 1.0 to 2.5 (according to the Prima Guide). So a difference of 6 on the base cost could result in a 15 point reduction on each style. When you string together a lot, even this small amount adds up.
Ksyick wrote:
See.. thing is that it really sucks that you HAVE to have medic skills to use our specials in this profession...
Wrong. It is useful to have medical skills in order to constantly spam specials in our profesison (the same effect can be obtained through using a combination of chef foods, spices, weapon powerups, and doctor buffs), which I think is a fair price to pay for the benefit.
To my mind, specials should be special, not your everytime attack style.
Just because some other professions can spam styles doesn't mean that's the way the game should or is intended to work, and I'm fairly certain they'll be nerfed based on Holocron's comments. In other words, we aren't underpowered, they're overpowered, and Holocron has been pretty clear on this point. Comparing yourself to a profession that's temporary imbalanced and overpowered is pointless - compare yourself to the overall game dynamics and the way you expect things to settle out after they strike a better balance. When I do this, I'm pretty darn pleased with the swordsman's role and capabilities.
I know in these games it is tempting to constantly compare your profession to any other profession, but they can't always be equal, otherwise they would all be the same, and there would be no diversity. If you compare yourself to a profession that is temporarily and so obviously overpowered like the pistoloeer, you're just going to be unhappy. The best the game designers can do is achieve rough parity across balanced groups, and extremely rough parity between individual profesisons. In other words, there will always be a profession that is your special weakness, and your professional will always be someone else's bane. The key is balanced groups and coordination, not 1-vs-1.
Aada wrote:
Aada wrote:
I will post exact stats later
My 2H Curved Sword Stats:
Damage: 31-217
Speed: 2.8
Wound: 32.5%
H/A/M: 26 / 59 / 31
My 2HCS:
62-241, 2.6 speed. Action: 65, Mind: 35.
I use a 30% Mind Cost/15% speed reduction power up, which drops the Mind Cost to ~25ish. I also have my own, personal sword, sliced down to 2.0 speed...which comes down to about 1.5 with the Power Up.
Your sword: 44 DPS.
My sword: 58 DPS.
You would HAVE to use specials to get anywhere near my damage output, thus, you'd kill yourself with your sword a lot faster. I can afford to use specials once every other hit, and still have a DPS higher than, or at least equivalent to, yours.
I am a Master Weaponsmith. I have made weapons with HAM experimentation. I'm also a Swordsman...not a Master, but still a Swordsman. I have used all of the Swordsman weapons, at the best of their abilities. It is absolutely NOT worth experimenting on HAM over damage...the resulting loss in damage far outweighs any sort of HAM decrease.
If you are soloing, expect to need Medic skills. That's just the way it goes, specials or not.
In a group, expect to need a Medic heal you. We take damage, that's just the way it goes, specials or not.
Those of you who want to be the uber tank, slaughtering everything, using every special imaginable, stop masturbating, please.
That being said, for those of us who are Medics, I would recommend not wearing a Helmet. Helmets only help against Head shots, which don't come very often. They also take a HUGE chunk out of your Mind pool (drop your Focus by 150 points, and see how much Mind you suck up trying to heal yourself). You're best off not using a Helmet. From my own personal experience, I can spam my 2H Head Hits pretty constantly, with my high HAM sword, if I take off my Helmet and use a good Mind Power Up.
Anyway...that's about all I can offer. Don't kid yourself thinking that low HAM 2HCSes are viable...try switching to another weapon type if you want low HAM. The Cleaver has a lower Mind cost...I'll have to check the other weapons, but I could post up some stats if you'd like to see.
Use food and weapon powerups.
Delnok wrote:
We should not have to be medics to user our specials with success. It should cost SOMETHING to use them, but not to the point that they are at now.
Ksyick wrote:
See.. thing is that it really sucks that you HAVE to have medic skills to use our specials in this profession... I tried out the rifle man and the pistoleer.. there HAM costs are MUCH lower.. they can chain nearly endlessly if they place their points in the right place. As a swordsman you have to have your stats perfect. You have to have either stim C or well made stim B.. just to survive using those specials without killing yourself. That does not seem very fair.. especially considering that the higher level pistoleer and rifleman skills do nearly the same amount of damage.
Don't complain: We out damage them without using specials, even when they're using specials.
Aada wrote:
CaidenVumes wrote:
Attack speed modifier is 1% for every +1. So if you have +25 then you have a 25% decrease in swing time. This has been started by Holo and I think one other Dev. Thus far, every +1 stated has been a 1% modifier.
I know Holocron has stated this, but respectfully, after seeing the way SOE misunderstood its own game mechanics with the T21, I'm not convinced that this is correct... particularly since many people have said the above does not seem to be true, or at least is different, when using styles. Remember, sytes cause an enormous increase to damage, and there are style speed and damage modifiers, so straight up comparisons just using the base weapon stats is nearly totally useless IMHO. So the DPS based on base weapon speed/min/maxthat people have been mentioning in this forum is a fairly useless stat.
The only two ways, besides anecdotal evidence,to settle the issue is a complete and accurate accounting of all of the algorithms by SOE (which I doubt they'll give and I'm not even sure it is a good idea, this is supposed to be a game and not a math contest, and we're supposed to discover what works best through playing, that's part of the fun), or reverse engineering the algorithm through a combat log parser and lots and lots of experiments.
Aada, it is correct. And, you don't need a parser to see you're swinging every 1 second. It's pretty obvious if you turn the time stamp on. A mistake a lot of people make is to only look at scientific facts and act like "anecdotal evidence" is worthless. Scientific evidence is unnecessary and overkill in a lot of situations. You don't have to scientifically test stabbing yourself to know it won't be good. You don't need scientific evidence for things that are obviously apparent without it.
Nagorak wrote:
A mistake a lot of people make is to only look at scientific facts and act like "anecdotal evidence" is worthless.
Agree. That's why I started the title thread with "Reflections" and made it clear my anecdotal impresions were that with a lower HAM sword I was able to use styles more often and kill mobs faster.
I only got steered into talking about pasing the combat log when people started mentioning algorithms that I'm certain don't take into account all the variables. (I.e., the standard DPS doesn't take into account the extra damage caused by styles that lower HAM usage makes possible to varying degrees.)
I'd extend your statement above to include "A mistake a lot of people make is to only look at scientific facts, or some subset of the scientific facts, or psuedo-scientific facts, and act like 'ancedotal evidence' is worthless".
'Nuff said.