Swordsman Archive

This thread is commenting on the new test change about "75% damage reduction in PVP".

I am either thrilled or concerned with this change. It all depends on how a few other things pan out. Let me explain my thinking.

I am going to seperate this post into PRO and CON

PRO CHANGE:

We do more damage than any other class, saved maybe fixed commandos. Vs unarmed targets, at barely over "novice" level I can do damage in the 1000's. So, figure that if we get high up (master with +30 speed) we can get Power Hammers sliced to an effective. 2-3sec attack speed including our bonuses. That will make us do good damage reasonably fast. - 3-4 hits should be all it takes. (considering we should still be able to do 200-300 damage a hit even after reduction.

The only problems we will have in PVP are people who can target Mind (BH. Riflemen) since we can always pick up medic to counteract the action/health shots. We can stack a Mind DOT on our targets as well, which will be more useful since we will live longer. One tick of two 150's could halve someones mind.

So overall I think we will still be able to do enough damage to be the heavy damage dealers in pvp. And we may live longer now thanks to more difficult knockdown and others doing less damage. Armor is still key here.

CON CHANGE:

We are an "upfront" damage dealing class, much like the assassin in DAOC. We rely on doing most of our damage in a few hits, so the damage we do do is important. If you are doing 150 a hit every second, now you do 45, total loss of 100 damage or so per second. If we do 1000 every 4 seconds, and drop to 250 every 4 seconds....that means we are only outdamaging our friend by 50 points, instead of the previous 400 points. The ratio is the same but the reduction can mean the diffirence between insta incap and a longer fight. Which is what the devs WANT but I dont know if it will be good for us.

Ultimately it really depends on what the devs invisioned for pvp and us - how do we fit in? What was the plan for us? I don't have answers to these questions, these are just ideas I thought we could talk about.

So what do you guys think?

I guess the only way to find it out is to see it actually happen once the patch is going live.

By numbers it looks logic. I'm not much of a PVP'er and don't really intend becoming one. But if i look what you wrote it seems to me that it's definetly positive. To be honest i don't fully understand (call me stupid) where the neagtive aspect in your Contra is.

Alltogether it seems to me that with all the changes coming with this patch things might get passively better for us....passively because it's basically not us getting better, but changes in our environment will make things better for us (higher cost on knockdown, 75% on PvP, improvements coming for weaponsmiths)...

Now i hope that some of our solutions regarding ourselves will get through as well and we will get out with pretty much what we were seeking for in this profession...

Greetings

Gorecki

Gor - the reason it could be Con is because the hit that used to incap in 1 may now take 2-4 hits. That gives our opponants more time to kite us around and stack effects and bleeds on us. The % of us doing damage more is the same, but since everyones damage is reduced we wont be able to get our oneshot kills anymore.

It's not good.

Our quick-kill ability was all that made us decent. Since we suffer from knockdown already, that was the only way to win, kill before we get knocked down. Now with a longer fight that's changed.

However, since knockdown can't be spammed...who knows. We'll have to see how that plays out.

Having to hit someone 4 times, while they are kiting you would just be too frustrating. A pistoleer will have an easier time hitting us 10-15 times then we will hitting them 3-5.

Plus knockdown will be even more effective.

I'm leaning toward the Con side. Most of my kills to date have been from 1-hitting someone shooting at my friends... After getting smacked for 200-300 mind damage (a significant amount post-patch) do you think anyone is going to sit still and get hit again? They don't even have to shoot back at us to be virtually invincible. The only advantage for us is that Mind damage is going to be even more effective than the other two types. My 2 cr.

~Skippey

i see...thx

well....in my opinion the positive still outweighs ...

..but that's my personal opinion

Greetings

Gorecki

It still works in our favor. The hit that used to incap in 1 now incaps in 4.

However, for pistoleers, the hit that used to incap in 3 now incaps in....20...30...40...50.... depends on when the other guy runs out of healing power!

I'm a medic and I travel with a medic, so this change is great for me. Medic was worthless in PvP because it all happened too fast, but now that I'll have time to heal myself I think that riflemen are going to be a force to be feared.

Pistoleer and pistoleer vs rifleman and rifleman, I'd put my money on the pistoleers.

Pistoleer and pistoleer vs rifleman and doctor, I'd put my money on the rifleman and doctor, no doubt.

(Whereas with 100% PvP damage, it still would have been the pistoleers. You just can't outheal 600 point shots hitting you once per second from one pistoleer. Now that 600 = 150, those heals will be useful.)

I think this will actually help us a lot. We are mind damage, we may not hit as hard or 1 hit kill anymore, but its not like they are going to heal the damage we are doing. If you run around with a healer or combat medic then chances are you are going to live for a while in PvP now, the only damage that will be all that beneficial in my opinion IS mind damage. Health and action will be able to be healed a lot faster than it can be dealt out. Every time I have died in PvP now has been on the approach, all I have to do is land that first lunge and they are a goner, but I die from shots on the approach, now I can withstand the approach a lot better to get that posture change in.

Siake

How are you guys hitting once and getting kited? Don't you realize we have a posture change attack that does damage??? With a fast Curved Sword you can perform the attack again before they can stand up. That's not even mentioning the 2H knockdown you can get if you go Master Brawler.

There's just no excuse for getting kited if you get even a single hit in.

Honestly, it seems like a lot of people just like to whine and complain about how things are so tough, instead of just learning how to adapt to the situation. I've had great success using my sword in PvP so far because I know what it can do, and what it can't do. Don't go charging solo into a marksman, wait till he's distracted by other shooters. Or lure people inside, that tactic works great.

does the posture change works very randomly for everyone else?

maybe its just me.. but mine works 30% of the time =/...

(or against the jedi, less... more like once every 5 attempt)