Swordsman Archive

Deciding between Head Hit 3 and Area Attack 2

What is the damage diff between head hit 2 and head hit 3

and...

What is the damage diff between area attack 1 and 2?

Just your own data would be useful - please respon quick!

Head Hit 3 is waaaay better. Use the mind bleed and then head hit 3 it to death. With a Power Hammer you hit for between 1K-4K combat spam damage (higher or lower in actualitybased on resists, usually higher). AA2 wasn't that impressive to me. Higher HAM cost than AA1, damage didn't seem much higher.

Head Hit 3 for sure pull or use a pet to take down one tough enemy at a time.

Area Attack is almost more annoying then its worth now. Get too many things swarming you can with no posture down you become ground beef. Only usefull against low lvl mobs now

Head hit 3 does lots more damage than head hit 2.

Don't really use the area attack ones that much since the knock down change, but for the most part the offense tree was just an irritation on the way to master.

Get area attack 2 first, you will reap in way more exp faster as the dmg increase from area attack 1 is much better. Its how i made 400k exp in 2 hours with another swordsman

OK... area attack 2 is a VERY effective tool and i used it a lot before master than after. The thing is that it is not as usefulcombat by combat as head hit 3 as you more times than not want to focus on a single large enemy rather than a horde. However,here is the deal for those who dont use area attack 2. with a hvy hitting low speed weapon (power hammer) you can clear out a small group of enemies if you have to (i can do here 2-4 k on 6 tgts per hit ends up being a single hit for avg 18k dmg). Things like huurton howlers and such on dantooine are a good example. This maneuvre also can save me and my friends on many occaisons... especially to get everything onto me and off the rifleman so my friend can get the pets on... then i run about till i lose agro...(you get hit less while running than when standingstill)this can work even when you get spawned on by a lair of rancors. Next... if you are a ch or have a ch friend youcan do this... pull with a medium sized pet... a gwrix is a good example or a grondar... After the entire nest gets on the pet and the pet seems stable (ie he isnt running like mad) then walk in to the center of the pet pick a mob and spam the aoe... i can kill 4-6 piket longhorns in about 15 seconds doing this (especially if i get some doc buffs) ch gets around 3k ch xp a pull and you get around 20k sword xp. i will admit this is a higher risk maneuvre but then it is very high payoff as well you have to practice to do it and expect to die a few times before you get the timeing and placement down right, and this tactic only gets better the more people use aoe at a time you can sloughter a large number of critters at a time useing this...

As has been said though head hit 3 is our bread and butter until we get hit three at master... then i use both depending on situation as a high health mob i like mind for the focused attack but on on a lower health mob (one i can 2-4 hit or 10khealth or less) i like the hit 3 as it costs a lot less ham per shot.

I find bleeds to be worth much much more than anything else... they ignore immunities so if you face say something that has 100% immunity to blast and you have a powerhammer you can stack the dots and just ride out the cbt till the dang thing dies... at least thats how i killboll crushers on dantooine.

basicly if i were to rate the sword skills it would go 1. techniques 2. offense 3. defense

side note: i am however a pure melee (master sword master brawler master prcision tera master stances fencer master defense pike first aid 3 explorer 3) so if you are useing sword more as backup weapon than prime dmg the following might not be for you.... I like to intimidate 2 all the tgts if i can before i stand my ground ( i will even kite them spamming it till it sticks then switch tgts and do it till ALL my enemies have it... i will then double dot and blind ( blind = unarmed 3) all my tgts switching to the lowest mind tgt to finish themoff with mind hit 3 1 by 1... i can kill severel rancors doing that at a time if i dont take the mind hits up front as with my melee defense (101) i dont get hit very often and can tank quite well although i cant tank any of the force weilders or better as any mob that can do a special and 1hit me is beyond me.... that still take a pet...

hope this is of some small help Shadowborne (bria)