Swordsman Archive
Thread: Swordsman > TKA
>An overt TKM tookdown two overt rebels, one a pistoleer, the other a swordsman, at the same time. He dizzied both of them, KDed both of them, and they fell over trying to get back up. He then proceeded to spam UH3 for 450 damage every second and deathblew them both before the swordsman bleeds even ticked once. Then he proceeded to meditate the bleeds away before they ticked a second time. Bystanders were laughing at how easy the fight was for him.
Again, Dizzy is god in PvP, these numbers are assuming that the devs realize dizzy should not be handled as it is. If you were to give a dizzy attack to swordsman, or any class,they would have done the same thing.
I have a solution for all your dizzy/KD worries. Go out and collect skill enhancers to get up to +100 dizzy resist or knockdown resist. It will take a lot of work and a lot of hunting, but if you get +100 then you will never be dizzied again. Swordsman get +20 dizzy defense and +25 knockdown defense, so you only need +80 more dizzy defense. Again, this is a lot of work finding these things, they are the one rare loot drop in the game worth getting. But I am comparing high level content here, not newbie duals. I am looking at what the game will be like in a few months, after everyone realizes the potential of skill enhancers and starts hunting them exclusively. Look at other games, like AC, comparing a fight between two newbies is _much_ different than comparing a fight between 2 skilled players that are properly prepared for the battle.
-Micah
Fair enough.
But meditate > bleeds.
TKAs also have the ability to buff themselves beyond what a doctor/chef/dancer/musician can do for the swordsman. I'm assuming that you know of the skill PowerBoost. Is a fully buffed (externally) swordsman THAT much more powerful to be able to take on a fully buffed (externally AND internally) TKM?
If you can say yes and prove it with numbers, then I'll admit defeat.
Buffs for 2 hrs? How many times are you in a large group where the doc buffs you fully every time you die? Don't tell me in pvp battles you never die. Not everyone has a fully cohesive guild group with the doctor handout free buffs every 5 minutes in a battle at AH or bestine.
You are saying, if
1) Both characters are fully buffed at all times, by some god given friend doc that's always there
AND
2) Both characters are masters (otherwise power hammers will miss so much as to be useless)
AND
3) Both characters have access to +20 speed enhancer tapes (which I haven't seen any swordsman on my server have yet)
AND
4) Dizzy is removed from TKA (which hasn't happened yet)
THEN
Swordsman >= TKA because of mind bleed.
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LOL, I don't even have to state my opinion if you put it that way.
Whatsoever. Swordsman has Area Attacks, TKA has not. Swordsman is not meant to win against TKA in 1v1.
What you may argue, is that our Area Attacks are broken to some extent, as three attacksbasically do the same thing...And I agree on that. But it's something else.
Now if you really want to compare two Melee Classes, then take Fencer and TKA. Both do not have Area Attacks, thus are not meant to be most effective in group PvP (as far as I know). In that case, just considering theoretical PvP, the Fencer should win, as the TKA with Meditation and such has powerful and especially-meant-to-be-used-in-PvE-abilities which the Fencer has not.
Anyway, Swordsman is meantto be useful inGroup-PvP, nearly as much as Pikeman.
>Unarmed toughness is also a percentage reduction in damage. TKMs have it in the fifty-somethings if I remember correctly.
You are correct, I forgot to take into consideration the melee toughness that TKAs get. Though, swordsman also get this bonus it's not as high (TKA takes 30% damage and Swordsman takes 50% I think). Although this is significant, I do not think it outweigs the other advantages swordsman have.
No one has mentioned the AP yet. I think that you are all missing the fact that a swordsman is doing way more damage/ second than a TKA (+100 speed for both).
Let's take a scenario:
TKA: armored (composite +50%), shielded (+15%), buffed (doctor, dancer, musician, food), Power Boosted using VKs with 2400 to all HAM stats.
Swordsman: armored (composite +50%), shielded (+15%), buffed (doctor, dancer, musician, food), using power hammer, skill enhanced to +100 speed and +100 dizzy (so we aren't looking at dizzy/KD alone which I have said already is god in PvP) 2000 to all HAM stats.
TKA does 2000 damage / hit or so, before PvP reduction, before armor, etc. while using UAH3
Swordsman does 2000 damage / hit or so, again, before all reductions and using 2HH3 (let me know if Swordsmans base damage before reductions is higher than this, I think it might be 3000 but I don't know for sure)
TKA's 2000 damage is reduced by 75% from PvP to 500 damage, then it's reduced by toughness to 250 damage, then it's reduced to by composite armor to 125, then by shield generator to 107. So the TKA is doing 106.25 damage per second.
Swordsman's 2000 damage is reduced by 75% from PvP to 500, then reduced by toughness to 150, then by armor to 150, by shield to 150. It is increased by high AP to 187.5 So the swordsman is doing187.5 damage / second.
As you can see, the swordsman outdamages the TKA. The swordsman will miss more than the TKA, so in the end they even out I think.
After running these numbers it appears that they are on equal footing. So I will concede that Swordsman == TKA.
I would like to know what the base damage with a Power Hammer is while doing 2HH3. I think it's higher than 2000 damage on an average hit, but I didn't want to guess too high. I remember Long Vibro Axe doing 3000-4000 damage per hit and I heard somewhere that LVA and Power Hammer are on par with each other.
-Micah
I will test this out later.
Xol11 wrote:
>Resists still affect your weapon damage if you use a ap2 weapon.
They do not. If your AP is higher than their AR then resists have no effect. If your AP is the same as or lower than their AR then resists take effect. If your AP is lower than their AR then you suffer reduction from the resist as well as the 50% reduction from low AP. I have done extensive in-game testing on this with hundreds of datapoints and the calculations work out exactly. If you doubt, find a friend with AR:1 armor (all player armor) and hit / shoot at him with an AP:0, AP:1, AP:2, and AP:3 weapon. You will see the damage before armor, but his combat window will show how much damage his armor soaked up. When you hit with AP:2 and AP:3 his armor will soak up nothing. Also watch the numbers above creature heads as you fight with various AP weapons and compare that number to to the number in the combat window using the formula I mentioned and you will fand that it works out.
There is currently some debate whether this is a bug, or a feature, but unless it just got fixed, it does exist. Check out the pistoleer board where the pistoleers are complaining about how the ap is broke on their dx2. Check out the rifleman board and check out some of their posts about ap. I noticed this most when i was a commando using a heavy particle beam cannon. I would actually hit things with low energy resist (like some of the mid level tuskans) for more than i would hit mereks (vulnerable to energy).
Xol11 wrote:
>Also, ap is currently bugged in that if something is vulnerable to your damage type, your ap value is basically thrown out. This means you get no damage bonus at all against people not using armor.
I am unaware of this bug and unless it's a new one with the patch last night I don't think it exists, I will look into it in the next couple days.
Xol11 wrote:
>TKAs do as much damage as we do, hit faster, are more accurate, have better defences and they have special abilities (power boost for example). TKAs are the bh of the melee world.
Assuming that both TKA and Swordsman are unbuffed masters then I agree that the TKA is slightly more powerfull. However, when they are both buffed and skill enhanced the TKA loses the advantage of speed and HAM costs. As for accuracy and defenses, I have noticed that these are pretty irrelivant overall. The swordsman will miss a tad more than TKA, but it's not that big of a difference in the long run. As for special attacks, yes, dizzy/KD needs fixing, it's too much of a game ender, but TKA doesn't get bleed while swordsman get mind bleed.
A mind bleed is a guarenteed KO because bleed damage is:
A) not effected by armor; your full damage is bled every tick
B) stacks with other bleeds; you can stack Mind Hit 1 and Mind Hit 2 (not to mention rifleman bleeds)
C) is damage over time; 2 minute duration for MH1, 3 minutes for MH2 and ticks every 20 seconds
If you hit someone for a125 damage bleed with MH1 they will take125 damage every 20 seconds for 2 minutes giving you a total damage of750 damage. If you follow that with a MH2 for 250 damage every 20 seconds for 3 minutes that is another2250 damage. That is a total of 3000 mind damage from just 2 swings. Even if you do die he is still going to get KOed. This is why you always travel with a covert faction buddy, so they can come in and do the cleanup work for you after you die.
The only thing we get over tkas is bleeding pretty much. Tkas are still more accurate and have better defences. I have not tried it out, but i would guess that a tkm meditating cures 100 bleed damage per second based on how first aid works and how much novice meditation cures. Then there is also power boost which gives them an extra buff. Even if you do a 1000 damage mind bleed on the tkm, he would probably survive with the nice new entertainer buffs going in and meditate.
oh and to the guy who said tkas don't get a area effect attack: They get two actually (unarmed spin 1 and 2).
Xol11: I haven't been able to check out if what you said about ap and resists is true or not yet, but the dev's armor guide does state that resists will apply after adjustments made due to armor rating. It also states nothing in the armor rating section about resists being ignored if the armor piercing value of the weapon is higher than the armor's armor rating.
Of course, that doesn't mean you aren't correct. The dev's armor guide also states that a ap2 weapon against ap0 armor gets 2 25% damage bonuses, but this is just not the case (unless they fixed it).
Xol11, did you read my previous post?
You contrive some elaborate situation of your choosing where swordsman barely equals TKA damage. And that's assuming no dizzy/KD. Which means that that rare situation turns into one which NEVER occurs in the game as it is.
So, in an imaginary situation that never occurs, swordsman might be able to do the same damage as a TKA.
And you 'conclude' that swordsman == TKA overall as a class? I apologize for my 3rd post on this thread, but I simply don't get it. Does anyone else see why I'm at a loss?
I was posting at the same time as you so I didn't read your post before I made mine.
Also, I do not feel that the situations I have drawn up are really all that rare, first off, your best bet is to hunt skill tape for yourself or with a group. The people that are out hunting Jedi aren't going to sell skill tape for measly credits (what are they going to buy with credits, they have best weapon and armor already?). I was unaware that they changed skill enhancers to not stack across multiple pieces of clothing, I will look at this next time I get to my bank (I have some enhanced cloths there), if this is the case then I have been proven wrong. My argument is based on getting +100 speed which, up until this recent patch, was very feasable.
As for getting doctor buffs, it's possible to take master doctor + master swordsman, so that is one option if you don't know any doctors. Also, you can buy your enhance Ds from another doctor and just take 0/4/3/0 in the doctor tree and save some skill points. The other option is to buy your enhances from someone. Add every master doctor you meet to a "doctor" group in your friends list, when you need a buff see if any are online and nearby. And even without the doctor buffs, the numbers still hold true as long as you eat Ryshcate + BoH so your specials cost no HAM.
The dizzy / KD issue is still a problem, however, depending on the trueth of the skill tape issue mentioned a above it may be possible to get +100 dizzy defense. The other option is to take up a secondary class that offers good dizzy resist, or a partial class. However, this is going out of the scope of single profession combat, everyone will have something to go along with swordsman, be it rifleman, doctor, fencer, etc. and the TKA will also have secondary classes.
Again, I will admit that dizzy is overpowered, by far. But I stand by the other things being easy to come by. I have never had a problem finding doctor buffs.
As for the damage difference between TKA and Swordsman, the only thing that assumes is that you have armor/shield gen on. You could be unbuffed and the damage / second would come out the same. HAM pool costs are easy to get around with a little food you can buy from any master chef.
And to assume that both classes are master is not too far off I think. There is a ton of differences between nonmasters, example, TKA damage is 300 (bare fisted) damage less per hit with master vs non-master. And they don't get UAH3. One box less and they don't get dizzy/KD combo move. Too many factors here, and most comparisons are made against masters unless you are comparing entire templates (multi-profession). Plus, master is easy to get in this game. It's not very uncommon these days.
-Micah
>Of course, that doesn't mean you aren't correct. The dev's armor guide also states that a ap2 weapon against ap0 armor gets 2 25% damage bonuses, but this is just not the case (unless they fixed it).
I don't know how they worded it, but it's not 1.25+1.25... it's 1.25*1.25.
So if I have AR:0 and am getting hit with AP:2 (difference of 2) I would take 1.25*1.25*damage or 1.5625*damage.