Swordsman Archive

I wrote this whole thing first but decided I needed an intro based upon what I've seen since I started playing on Day 2. The message boards matter! I've been half way to master or master of 10 of the Elite Professions and I have always kept track of the profession on the boards, sometimes becoming active in the community such as in Commando (I quit it long before it became good because it was taking too long) and Combat Medic. Now when the people on the message boards are passive and complacent they get skipped over on the fixes and patches and get their skills worse nerfed and nerfed. I have seen this with a number of classes. For instance about 6-7 weeks ago the leaders of the TKA board tried to act "fair" and decided that some of the TKA powers should be scaled back. The profession was done horrible damage in one patch and is still recovering, but was incredibly c***y for a couple of weeks. This is just one example of many. When the people on the message boards all decide they want something, they usually get it within a couple weeks. I have noticed the people on this board are not very active in their profession. No one seems to care or wants anything better. They are complacent in being pretty good at killing monsters. Swordsman was intended by the Devsto be so much better and much different then it has turned out, they just have been busy juggling the wants of more vocal professions. People seem to think that this is as good as it gets but it is not so!

Now the biggest thing I ask of people in the swordsman community is this. There are two kinds of us - People who enjoy the game for non PvP action and people who enjoy the game for the potential to fight other players either in the Galactic War or in Guild warfare. People who do not want to be part of PvP don't have to! Now there are some tweaks that are needed to help out against creatures, but all and all I must say that the swordsman profession is very good at hunting. Some of the specials need to be fixed but we don't have much to complain about in the creature-killing aspect. Some of us however want more out of the PvP aspect of swordsman. I will not complain about not being able to catch a ranged user. I don't think we are at a loss beause of that. I do however want to see us more deadly in close range against other players with more PvP aiding specials, especially wounding ability, but I will get into it later.

What I am asking however is that those of us who do not participate in PvP be understanding of us who want the swordsman to be more competitive in PvP and not try and severely counter our desire to be better. I see many posts on this board from people who obviously don't PvP against people coming up with ideas to better the swordsman in PvP because it is not useful to what *they* do in the game.

Now to the meat...

Much of this post is concerning PvP:

First of all, while we all enjoy the many benefits of being a swordsman they are out of line in some, well, manyaspects. We definately are not overpowered and I don't think I ever heard anyone accuse of being so. Many people will say we are NOT underpowered, but even the Devs agree that melee damage is too low (there is a link referenced in another post about the upcoming potential combat changes). On my server, Bloodfin, there are pistols with MUCH better damages then powerhammers and 1 speed:

Carbineers - Have their own issues

Pistoleers - Masters are better at killing close range then any master melee class

Rifleman - Don't know about your server, but I just sold my prepatch T21 to a master for 300k, I'm sure I'll be 1 shotted with it in an ironic twist.

I accept the fact that a ranged user can kite us or whatever. It is our challenge tobe toast if we are running acrossthe plains, and to find some way to get close in towns.When it comes to close range, IE fighting in a building, I really think master swordsman should be able to completely destroy any ranged user with little chance of death. A master pistoleer will beat a master swordsman up close the greater percentage of the time. I honestly don't care if other melee classes are better then us or whatever, I just think that if we get within 5m of a pistoleer/commando/carbineer/rifleman they should be dead not beating our a** (with the exception of the rifleman). There are a number of ways of going about this...

One solution I believe is having the posture change timer remain 30 for ranged users. For melee users I think it should be unlimited against ranged users (meaning we can keep them knocked down if they have any ranged weapon equipped), and against other melee users and NPCsit should be 10-15 seconds. Of course even if everyone in the game agrees with this which is always unlikely, this may not be feasible programming wise, but if it is I think it would be the best alternative.

Another solution I think would be to have some "trap" like creation that slows an enemy down. In other words like the trap in the hunting tree that slows animals down for however many seconds, maybe like 8-10. Or possibly something like Boba Fett uses, that wire wrap that ties the enemy up. There would be some kind of certification for this in each of the novice elite melee trees. Of course the solution would have to not backfire and be able to be used by melee to slow us down or we might as well just call it quits.

Honestly though I think the first and foremost issue is with our specials.

s you may or may not know, our advantage before the patch was the various area attacks we have. This is what separated us from the harder hitting pikemen (with reported hits up to 18k and an intermediate knockdown skill), and the faster fencers with their array of negative state attacks. Both classes right now are in a worse state then we are, but this is the swordsman board so I will only discuss us. With the posture timer our specials are effectively ruined. True they still work and do damage and the higher levelattack inflicts blind/dizzy, but very few fights even last 30 seconds let alone in PvP. Thus we have a lot of misplaced and useless "power".

But before this I must say one thing that I really really really think should be changed is the "stutter step". We have a hard enough time as it is catching our targets, I think that Initiating Combat should not cause us to stop, and NO specials should cause us to stop. Can I get an Amen?

Now here are someideas forour specials.

1. MIND HIT 1 and 2

"WOUNDS the targets mind pool"

Now the reason WOUND was capitalized in the description of Mind Hit 1 and 2 is because that is a pretty special ability. BHs, Pistoleers and Commandos get fire damage wounds, CMs get disease. We were supposed to get mind wounding but apparently it didn't work.

Okay personally I want them to work like they say. I like to PvP and the whole reason I chose this class is because I believed the description for these skills. Faction and Guild battles in town just become clone center "zerg fests" where people are just butchering each other until the battle gets closer and closer and finally ends up in the clone center. Wounding is the only way for this to end and I was really hoping that I would be blackingmind bars.

Heres what I propose:

Mind Hit 1 - Does theMind Hit 2 bleed

Mind Hit 2 - Applies a small amount of bleed (the current Mind Hit 1). Like Head Hit3 except applies some percent of the damage to wounding - say 33%-50%. So in PvP after the 75% reduction 33%-50% of the damage is applied as wounding. Therefore assuming the opponent dies they would have 2/3to 1/2of their mindbar left.

Now a lot of you who probably have not PvPed much probably don't see a major purpose in this, but to someone who frequently participates in Guild and Factionbattles for townsthis would be one of the most prized skills. It is not very "griefy", healing mind damage doesn't take that long, doesn't costanything in terms of healing equipment, and would support the entertaining community even more. All it would do is give us the ability to stop the ridiculous spawn battles that occur so often. And for people who don't PvP who cares you get the powerful mindbleed sooner.

Considering that a Master Pistoleer can still drop you in 5-10 seconds I don't think this is too much to ask.

2. Area Attacks

Okay we have 5 posture lowering attacks 4 of which are garbage. Even without the KD timer Area Sweep is just useless. I think they should change 1 or 2 of the area attacks to the following:

either Area Knockdown - or Area Bleed (1) - or Area Head Hit (2)

I think that will balance out the specials and fulfill this class. A dev made the analogy that Fencers are like the pistoleers of melee. Pikeman would be the rifles (heavy damage) and we are inbetween which would make us "carbineer" like. Carbineers have ranged area knockdown and ranged area bleed. I think for us to have 1 or 2 of these abilities CLOSE RANGE is not unfair - rather would start bringing some fairness to our class.

Lemme know what you think guys we really need to get together and become more vocal as a community. Don't just settle having a low-to-mediocre ELITE profession!

Ketaken Liie - Master Doctor 2 4 2 2 Heavy Swordsman

Oh 1 more thing...

The powerhammer belongs in Lord of the Rings not Starwars Galaxies. Can we get some futuristic swords please? (not a big stupid looking primitive hatchet or a dumb everquest "powerhammer"). I hate the fact that the best weapon to use as a master is this dumb hammer. Make a huge sword or something for the heavy damage.

Buster sword....*grin*

interesting ideas, will read again when awake in the morning.

Hahah thats pretty much exactly what I was thinking... FF7 fan here...

I'll just keep posting my ideas over and over... thats what you want right?

Remove, Posture Down timer. Replace it with % to posture down

AH1=25%

AH2=30%

AH3=35%

and NO, sweep attack shouldn't be a KD move, leave KD for the pikeman and Teri Kasi. Sweep Attack should be aSINGLE target attack only

Sweep1=25%

Sweep2=35% (SINGLE TARGET) same damage as AH3, but less HAM

And the DIZZY Posture down expliot should be fixed. You should only have a 35% chance to fall down while dizzy and posture changed (otherwise we would be a bit to powerfull). And a 0% chance to fall down while getting up from falling

BTW, mind hits DO mind wound damage, its just in the secondary stats (willpower and focus). However, a helmet reduces the wound damage ALOT. I hit my helmetless friend withone mind hit 2 and gave him 150 focus damage

I think you are posting some very valid points. I think I can answer why there isn't the huge cry from the swordsmen simply because we are a dying class... this is the case with most of the melee classes people do not choose them simply because they do now have the power of the ranged weapon classes. I also second the thoughts about the close combat classes having a chance to pin the ranged ones if they get in close.

Most of what you posted was about PvP, and since that doesn't interest me, I am not qualified to comment ont int. I have to disagree with your comments on those who complain the most get the most. In another life I am a BE. These guys have been complaining since day one about being completely broken. Only now are some small changes starting to happen. Both of mymains are also CH. The more these guys complain the more they get nerfed. You will not find two more vocal groups than BE and CH and neither of these seem to be getting the fixes that you hint will come if they just speak up.

Good post and points. I agree with your point that melee classes should be "deadly dangerous" in close combat, but it never happen in this game.I really can't understand why a ranged people can use a gun to KD a person but we can't, while using a big sword. Actually we can blow away their head like baseball... but it's only in my imagination. One of my friend is a BH (not master), sometimes we played PvP game in our PA hall. Although both of us stand in 10m range, I can never catch him because he keeps running and I have to chase him. He can also use KD or bleed to kill me if he wants.

As a swordsman, we don't look like a swordsman. We only have a thin 2handed curved sword and an ugly powerhammer. Cleaver is better but it's not a heavy sword IMO. I really hope the designers will spend some time to watch an excellent Japanese comic/animation called "BERSERK".What we want the heavy swordsman is this! (picture from Yong's Berserk page)

http://65.26.51.142/berserk_1977/images/gallery/berserk_img_050.jpg

Our area attacks need to cause a new effect, now that posture down is useless.

An area bleed makessense, if you think of the traditional use of the 2H sword:it was a weapon for the battlefield,where powerful cutting attacks were used to wound and counter multiple enemies at the same time.

Or an area intimidate would be fine, too. Each higher area attack wouldhave more damage, and a higher chance of intimidating.

Also I agree stutter step needs to be fixed asap, and we have to be able toattack while moving.

NIce post. We didn't really stop talking but since Gorecki resigned from an already dead correspendant program and no one seems to have reapplied.. we kind of lost our megaphone.

The responses we got from the devs on the email (i think they only resonded to one) was mostly an insult (though not intentional). It was so vague and "lazy" it kind of hushed us up. You're right we do need to clamor more but we did a lot in the beginningabout the same few things with so little response it just feels a bit useless atm.

I pvp quite alot. I can do fairly well if I don't chase anyone for too long and /or get lucky and guess which way they are running. The biggest concern I have had (after pvping an entire saturday 919/03) is the with poison and burn. Both of these do wound damage but our mind bleed, which should be our skill equivliant, does not. Your comments about that are right on.

My biggest gripe all along is that most of the posture specials we get are useless and mostlythe same. Kind of like the old joke...

two people a restaurant..

diner one: "This food is horrible!"

diner two: "Yea and such small portions!!"