Swordsman Archive
Thread: Swordsman > TKA
Okay, for everyone that thinks TKA can meditate bleeds away anytime they want please read...
TKA can not meditate whenever they want. There are a number of stipulations that must be met. First off, you can not me moving or have moved recently. After you stop moving you have to remain still for about 5 seconds before you can /meditate. It's on a similar timer to /startdance or /startmusic. Secondly, you can not meditate while you have a status effect on you. This includes, but is not limited to, stun, blind, dizzy, intimidate, etc. The only status effects you can meditate during are poison, bleeding and disease.
So, if you are a swordsman and you lead off with a bleed attack, then follow up with 2-handed area of attack 3 or intimidate. This will stop the target from being able to meditate until the effect (blind or intimidate) wears off, which will be long after they are dead with blind, and they will be in very bad shape if they have to wait off intimidate 1.
So right there you already have at least come to a draw (both players down) at the least. Also, if you run in and lead your attack with warcry (I recommend getting BE clothing for this) that will give you enough time to get off your bleed and your blind before he can attack you. Yes, TKA has warcry as well, so it comes down to whoever gets off the warcry first (20m range, so it's longer range than KD). If the TKA gets it off they will rush you and go for a dizzy/KD (which you have a chance to resist). If you get the warcry off you hit with a bleed and then a blind (which they can't resist). You can throw in a posture change to add a bit on the end of their delay if you like as well, though it's only a second or two.
People in this thread have been saying that bleed doesn't make up for all the advantages of being TKA. That would be true if you could heal mind damage, but you can't. And you can stop the TKA from meditating the bleed off as well. Plus, bleeds ignore all armor, toughness, etc. So if you normally hit for 300 damage against any given TKA, your bleeds will hit for 900. After that you just have to survive for 20 seconds so the Assuming you have armor on (say, 50% resist) and the TKA is using VKs then he will only be doing 100 damage per hit to you with UAH3. Taking into account HAM pool distribution this would mean 56.25 damage to health per hit (on average). If you have 1000 health it will take him 17 seconds to kill you. If he did Mind Hit 1 then it would take about the same amount of time to do 1000 damage. This is assuming that he dizzy/KDs you and you get one bleed off. So in his 17 seconds he has hit you for about 1000 damage. 3 seconds later he gets knocked down 900 damage from the bleed. He now has 20 seconds to meditate off 900 bleed damage. Now, let's say he doesn't get the KD/Dizzy off on you (you resist). You do your bleed and spend the next 17 seconds of your life doing mind hit. Assuming he is still alive at the end of the 17 seconds he will have almost no mind left, and 3 seconds later he is down.
The above is all unbuffed. No doctor buffs, spices,skill enhancers, etc.. You can assume the TKA has power boost on, but it won't help because your bleeds are doing 900 point chunks of damage.
I sincerly think that bleed is more powerfull than dizzy/KD. Dizzy/KD can be resisted.
The Tka's non combat abilities are a valid argument because no other melee profession gets something like them. IF tkas were weaker in combat than the other melee professions i could see giving tkas some special non combat moves, but nothing could be farther from the truth.
You are doing it again xol11. You cannot just compare an unbuffed tka to a swordsman who has tons of uber gear. You need to compare a fully bufed swordsman with skill tapes to a fully buffed tkm with skill tapes (probably unarmed damage/accuracy i guess). I still need to verify that armor is working how you say it is so i really can't accurately do any calculations, but it is just not practical for swordsmen to be required to get a high amount of uber loot just to compete with a tkm with basic equipment.
oh and if you can assume swordsman will have +100 dizzy defence and +25 speed skill tapes, i can assume that the tka has doctor and thus can cure those state effects easily. I am sure you can meditate away a mere 800 damage mind bleed if you had 3k mind and nearly 2k mind secondaries (very possible with the current buffs out there without using spices).
I am not, and have never, compared unbuffed vs buffed. Up until now all my comparisons were between a fully buffed Swordsman and a fully buffed TKA. My most recent, was between an unbuffed TKA and an unbuffed swordsman. Swordsman + Uber Loot is better than TKA + Uber Loot. Swordsman + Normal Loot is equal to TKA + Noral Loot.
My most recent comparison was between two unbuffed and unenhanced players of master level with no secondary profession. If both classes were uber buffed (see past posts in this thread) then the TKA would not be able to drop the swordsman in 17 seconds, or anywhere near that. And therefor the swordsman's bleed damage would have plenty of time to run it's course (a 40 second fight will do 1800 mind damage plus whatever damage the swordsman does with mind hit. Meanwhile the TKA is pounding away using his/her mind hit for slightly more dps, but without the bleed.
Please quote where you think I am comparing buffed vs unbuffed because I had no intention of doing such.
-Micah
In previous posts, yes, the swordsman had skill tapes. And it was assumed that the TKA had skill tapes as well. However, what would the TKA get with his skill tapes that would be of use? Nothing nearly as effective as doubling or trippling their attack speed. Yes, the TKA gets the meditate line, and it's quite usefull in reducing downtime (healing wounds, curing disease, curing poison, and stopping bleeds). But none of the meditate line (except Power Boost) helps the TKA in combat. The entire meditate line is just something nice to have to make your life easier. With meditate you can not kill any more than you could kill without it. And I have taken Power Boost into account in all of my comparisons.
I took TKA mainly because of the meditate line. It will be the most difficult part of TKA to give up. However, the advantage that swordman get outweigh the advantages of meditate for me. There have been way too many times when I was out hunting that I was unable to kill something because it was medium armor, or even light armor with high resists. I never had this problem when I was a master pikeman, and I realise that now and better understand the combat system. And in PvP I have been killed by bleeds more than I have been killed by KD. Plus I have seen how often my dizzy / KD has been resisted. And on top of all that I have seen the power of mind damage. TKA does get a head hit attack, but it's not on par with stacked bleeds and a power hammer to the head.
Falator wrote:
Do you really think it is fair that a swordsman will only be equal to a tka if the swordsman has allof these top of the line items (Good luck getting these after that patch a while back that broke looting. I still rarely get loot when grouped with a pet)? The tka also gets the meditate line when no other melee profession gets any special non combat abilities.
Yes, I do think it is fair to compare this. I am looking at this in the long run, I do not want to roll up a character only to realize 3 months from now that it's obsolete because I didn't factor in skill enhancers, or buffs, etc. In too many games, too many people focus on their characters abilities at their current level, not at the level of play they will be in 3 months, or 6 months. Sure, TKA may be able to take a Swordsman if the swordsman is unbuffed, unprepared, and has no skill enhancers. However, if both parties are buffed up for combat and they both have their share of skill enhancers, then the swordsman takes the lead over TKA in PvP. I don't want to be getting wasted in PvP 3 months from now because I didn't take into account something that I can see coming.
Players of Asheron's Call will be able to easily understand what I am saying. If you have a mage and a melee duke it out and neither of them is buffed, the melee will most obviously win. However, if you have a mage and a melee and they are both buffed and prepared for combat then the mage will win (I haven't played in a while, things may have changed). Back when AC was still new, everyone created melee characters and archers because in unbuffed combat they ruled. However, people didn't look at the fact that in late game, everyone is buffed. No one runs around on Darktide (PvP server) without being ready for combat at all times, you become a 1-shot kill.
The non-combat abilities which TKA gets play no part in the actual outcome of the battle, so they are irrelivent in our comparison here.
First off, there is no need to be rude, I felt this was a fairly good discussion up until this point.
On the topic of being fair with the skill enhancers:
With +25 speed the swordsman will outdamage the TKA even if the TKA has +25 damage. And although I don't have the formula for +damage and how much it helps, having played TKA through to master I can tell you that +25 will not bring their damage / hit up to par with swordsman. Plus swordsman have AP:2 and blast damage (blast is usefull against Ubeses armor which has special protection against kinetic). So with a fair number of skill enhancers the swordsman will easily out damage the TKA.
I had forgotten that they removed revenge TEF. I was thinking that you could clone and come back and deathblow them after your bleed has killed them. I am sorry for my oversight.
I know many people like to compare 1v1, but if you are in a group fighting situation and you get a bleed off it's way more effective.
ex: you bleed a TKA and he knocks you down. Your friend runs away but keeps the TKA targeted and in combat with him. The TKA finishes you off and DBs you. However, the TKA can't meditate off his wounds because he is in combat with your buddy. So he sits there bleeding to death while you avoid him. Now, the TKA does have a friend, but his friend won't do him any good because your buddydoesn't actually have to be close to either of them. He just has to stay within 128m while the TKA dies slowly. Then he can run over, DB, and go meet you at the cloning facility.
So basically, if you are in any form of group PvP the swordsman will always get at least one kill. Whoever he mind bled will die in time if your group is fighting smartly. The TKA does not get anything like this. Sure, there is a high chance he will dizzy/KD someone and get a kill, but there is also a chance he will get resisted and lose just due to damage over time.
KD2 is a very risky maneuver. A smart TKA will spam Unarmed Dizzy at you first until that lands and then do KD2. If you just do KD2 and your dizzy fails then you have used up your KD for that 30 second block and they get right back up. Assuming your TKA opponent is fighting smart and does this then you get at least one attack in (bleed). If your opponent isn't fighting smart then the whole battle rests on about a60/40 chance (With +20 dizzy and +25 KD resist the swordsman has 60% chance of being KDed and a 40% chance of resisting). Plus, there is still a chance that the swordsman will get first-strik (50/50) so he still gets his bleed off (see section on group PvP above).
I have always taken account for power boost in my previous posts. +400 to all stats is a big help, but not enough to stop a 900 point mind bleed from killing you.
As for meditate, as I have mentioned before, it's quite easy to stop a TKA from meditating. The TKA has to be out of combat and not moving for 5 seconds. Plus they can't have any status effects on them (ie: blind). So in a group situation you can just have a friend keep them in combat while they bleed to death, or in a one-one situation you can hit them with blind so they can't meditate. Plus, it takes about28 seconds for a TKA to go through 1000 health against an armored swordsman (Ubese) using UAH3. Andaround 40 seconds if you lead in with intimidate (20m range). So by the time the TKA has dropped your health off they have already taken a bleed hit and will soon after take their second (they will have taken 2 bleeds if they are intimidated). And they can not meditate until they incapacitate you. If the TKA does mindhit non-stop then it takes the same amount of time, just focused on one HAM pool instead of distributed (60/30/10).
The idea behind the bleed is that even if your opponent gets you onto the ground, you still will have incapacitate him.
No one bothered to mention that Swordsman got dizzy! You all realize that swordsman can knock an opponent onto their back (and keep them there) just as easily as a TKA. I missed that swordsmen get both a dizzy attack and a dizzy+posture change attack when going through the skilltree. This means that a swordsman has the same chance at a dizzy knockdown as a TKA. Therefore all the counterarguments stating that KD2 gives TKA an advantage are not true.
Plus, from what I understand, swordsman dizzy/posture down is on their 2HH3 attack which means you are
A) automatically doing it so that when the 30 second time runs out you attempt it again right away
B) you get to do a lot more damage with your dizzy/posture than a TKA does with his
So now TKA just has the meditate line and speed as their advantage. The speed advantage is easily overcome and the meditate line isn't really that big of an advantage, just something that is nice to have.
-Micah
How many times do you challenge a swordaman 1 vs 1 in real situation Xol11 ? Compare utility in pve or group vs group, not in a situation that almost never append.
Mmm and please go master swordman before speaking of thing you don't even know. If you try tkm AND master swordman YOURSELF, then ok I'll accept your conclusion and believe you. This is really not the case atm.
And about skill enencer, I don't know anyone on my server who have more than a +5 one. Who can actually drop them ? Tree month ago maybe they dropped more, but I wasn'teven novicetree month ago...
In fact I don't really cares if tkm are powerfull, I'm happy for them, but having more usefull attacks instead of 5 totaly useless area attack would be great (1 is usefull : area 3, and 5 are useless: spin 1, 2, swepp 2, area 1, 2
.
Getting someone on their back as a swordsman takes a great deal more effort than as a TKA.
TKA get the knockdown and dizzy in one move. If it's resisted, just do that one move til it isn't.
Swordsman have to land the posture change and dizzy at the same time, BOTH must land for the opponent to be on their back. With unarmed knockdown 2 if they resist the dizzy they're still on their back and have a 5 second delay.
Also the chances of the dizzy/posture change working are a lot less than the dizzy/knockdown on the TKA. I know, I used to be Master Balance Conditioning (UKD2) myself. I would open with that and more often than not land both. It's a rather rare occurance that Area Attack 3 actually both dizzies and posture changes. Nevermind the fact that even if you do land both those there is still a chance the opponent can stand and NOT fall (since they have to pass a check) so it's STILL not a guarenteed knockdown.
I find conversations of which melee class is 'stronger' than which to be pointless myself. We both have different strengths and different uses and different weaknesses. I enjoy what I'm made to do (do the most damage to the most opponents possible, which we do hands down over the TKA) and I'm sure the Teras Kasi Artists out there enjoy the incredible defenses their class holds.
Another point to consider, of all the melee classes only the swordsman can effectively damage ATSTs and turrets. I've seen firsthand the kind of damage we do to these things now with our power hammers. I'd like to see another class even attempt to try that. Does this mean swordsman are 'better' than the rest? No it just means we have another use the others don't.
-Shi
I'm Imperial, so that doesn't do jack squat for me.
And you can't even compare Area3 to Knockdown2. Area3 has maybe a 30% chance of doing dizzy on them, so you're lucky as hell if you manage to get them stuck on their back. I don't know the details of knockdown2, but it seems to always land dizzy whenever it is used on me, so I assume it always deals dizzy. As for dizzy defense...I don't think it does jack squat yet. With all my BE enhanced clothing, I get +98 to stun defense, but I have not noticed the slightest difference...I get stunned just as easily as ever.
NashDarksabre wrote:
I'm Imperial, so that doesn't do jack squat for me.
Psst....rebels can build bases with turrets too.
-Shi
I think thisDPS comparisonis more fantasy than anything,it supposes the swordsman has a +25speed enhancer so they can spam hit3 once a second... anyone care to guess how many peopleactually have such a thing, across all servers? Not many I'd say...So you might as well take all the swordsman DPS figures and divide them by 4, because that's the present reality. Sure, in the future, the skill enhancers might become more of a factor,[maybe if they dropped more often and you could put more than one in each piece of clothing... /rolleyes],butthe devs have stated elsewhere, that classes being able to spamtheir most damaging hit once a second, wasunintended, and is unbalancing the game.So when comparing swordsman to TK, it's unrealisticto factor inuber crazy speed mods like that, because practically nobody has them.And nobody knows howthey will work in the future, either,because attack speedsare going to get looked at, and likely changed, withdifferent speed caps on various weapons, etc. So there's no way to know.
Anyway, in the here and now, I seem to kill stuffquicker (pve) as a novice TKwith only power techniques 1-4, spamming unarmedhit2, than I do as a master swordsman. This is with a 167 damage knuckler versus a 600 damage hammer. On the other hand, there are things like ancient bull rancors, whereif I used TK, I doubtI could kill it at all, because you have to get so close to kung fu it, but as a swordsman, I can sneak in the mind bleeds and somehead hits, and get out of there alive, while the pettanks it.So I'm finding that there are situations where swordsman > TK, and vice versa. But for raw DPS, not counting godlike +25 speed mods, my experience is that TK > swordsman.
First of all, you are judging off the basis that the swordsman owns basically an impossible amount of skill enhancers. But for some reason you forget the fact that to be on an even playing field, the TKA must also have the same amount of skill enhancers (Perhaps +unarmed damage or +counterattack, or +melee defense, or anything useful like these.).
Also, you claim our mind bleeds can kill them, even after they kill us (Which is usually not the case, thanks to meditate and first aid.). But that is absolutely not true. Yes, it can INCAPACITATE them, but the only person DEAD is the swordsman.
Oh, and you conveniently overlook knockdown 2, the best "I win" button next to fire knockdown. Well, if by your mixed up logic, you can pull that out of the equation when comparing the two classes, then you have to also take our most powerful move out of the equation as well. You can't be compairing classes and just overlook the overpowering ability of one of them.
Oh, and did I mention power boost and meditate? But I don't think I need to, thanks to the countless posts already made about them.
I could go on and on, but to do so is rather pointless. I actually feel like I just wasted a few minutes of my life even bothering to reply to this.