Swordsman Archive

i'm one of those players that wants to be everything in the game (so far i've been medic, chef, pikeman, bio-eng, ranger, ch).

i want to try and play with swords, but the combat professions are usually the hardest to master and once you do, you don't ever want to drop it. i'm a little bit into pikeman right now, but i'd like to try swords and know nothing about them. should i? what can you guys tell me?

i see we do mind damage and bleeds and have posture downs. how's our HAM costs? as bad as pikeman? how about speed and accuracy? i couldn't hit my own foot with my pike. damage? i do almost as much as a novice brawler with a heave axe as i do with the pike i have. what's it like down the road?

also, is there post or can someone give me a good breakdown of weapons? which ones i should use early and which ones i should wait until master to touch. there's only 3 pike weapons to worry about, is that the same case here? i don't know anything about sword weapons, so anything you guys could tell me would be wonderful.

thanks a lot.

Be a swordsman if that's what you feel you would enjoy doing. The true power of a meleeplayer will come from his senseof combat and hisstrategies used while in closecombat depending on the enemy he is fighting, since we are all at a disadvantage to begin with.

If you're looking for straight power, a swordsman will usually pack harder and faster blows then a pikeman. But that does not make him a stronger opponent.

The most powerful melee professsion right now is TKA.

I have a similiar play style as the orginal poster. I tend to want to try out everything (Save for the crafting professiosn). I started out as a Swordsman/Rifleman, dropped it and almost Master Bounty Hunter (couldn't take investigation farther than Invest 2), then dropped all of it and went Doctor/Swordsman, which I'm working on now. Heck, I'll probably drop Swordsman eventually just caase I like variety, but I LOVE Doc buffs, and the only defense right now against disease/poison is to be able to heal it yourself (something which NEEDS to be addressed).

I chose sword, however, because a) I feel a doc/sword combo is as close as I'm gonna get to being a Jedi in this game, b) Sword moves are freakin' cool looking! c) Finally, mind attacks rule this game. With Doc buffs in PvP, only mind attacks are effective. So if I'm going to be melee, might as well be one who can attack the only non-healable bar.

" c) Finally, mind attacks rule this game. With Doc buffs in PvP, only mind attacks are effective. So if I'm going to be melee, might as well be one who can attack the only non-healable bar. "

Im not up-to-date on everything - but Entertainers can buff mind, and unless im mistaken (it does happenquite a lot)Mind Stims are supposed to be coming in-game at some point when exactly, who knows

I don't know how swordsman compare with pikeman, but here is a quick run down on the most commonly used weapons :

(note : all have medium armor piercing)

- curved sword : bread and butter weapon. Looks like a katana.The one you'll get the cert earlier (level 2 in brawler tree). Fast, accurate, very good dps. Because of speed and accuracy, it is a no brainer choice during your brawler, and novice swordsman career - as cleavers and especially power hammer only start to shine with good speed and accuracy mods.But itis still good and effective during all of your carrer, up to and including master. Downsides are a big variance (some annoying low damage hits), speed capping at high levels, and HAM costs, while overall moderate, a bit heavy on the action side (as most of our special moves have hefty actionmultipliers)

- cleaver :Looks like a huge "techno" two handed sword, pretty nifty. You get the cert at level 4 in the brawler tree. Medium damage, medium speed, less accurate than curved sword, lower dps too, but speed mods help bring it back into line as you climp up the swordsman tree. Pluses are, besides looks,a well balanced HAM cost that do not deplete action too fast, and a nicely tight damage variance.

- power hammer : Get the cert at novice swordsman. Very high damage, slow, very low accuracy. Extremely hard weapon to use efectively until you get a lot of speed, and especially accuracy mods, the weapon only truely shine in the hands of a master (although it can be decent earlier) .Great for big hits, especially bleeds.

Note that cleavers and swords are kinetic damage, and the hammer is blast damage, so it is generally advised to match your weapon with the opponent's vulnerability.

great, thanks for the help.

With kinetic weapons how do I counter the abundant mobs with kinetic protection... I mean everything i go to kill has kinetic protection. and yes I know effectiveness is different from protection.

enerything the guy with the long reply said

sworsdman is bad off right now, but its not nearly as bad as pikeman. so itll be an upgrade for you, and i guess youll enjoy it more, if swords are your thing. we have a pretty high dps, the highest during the brawler segment, since they moved the 2 handed curved down to tier 2. in pvp we have all the same problems that you all do, except we got mind bleeds, which make us (currently) much better than you all. i think we have the same defense, so your gonna get beat up by the tougher mobs, but theyll go down faster as a swordsman.

our accuracy is much better than your alls at the moment, and same with speed. one of our best weapons, the 2 handed curved, has +8 to all range mods. well, i guess thats it, but once they fix the other brawler elite proffesions pikeman might be on par with the rest, well, hopefully

so if your the type thats willing to surrender some skills to try something out, which youstated,go right ahead, and enjoy your self!