Swordsman Archive
Thread: I'm missing the fun... at least so far.
I'm not having as much fun, or success for that matter, as most of you seem to be having with swordsman.
I'm about 40k away from actually reaching novice swordsman, so I'm sure that has a lot to do with it. But is it going to get that much better?
XP is slow to come by, at least at this point, although I will have enough combat XP for Finesse 1 and the mind bleed it gives me when I actually make it to novice.
Will that be enough for me to stop being so weak? I'm not expecting to be uber at novice, but I'm still kind of getting my butt kicked.
I guess it will change when I actually get in to swordsman and out of the two-handed brawler tree.
Right now, my mind hit isn't all that special, and neither is my area attack. Having a mind bleed will be a lot better for sure.
Thanks for the encouragement.
I would recommend getting master brawler. The attacks at master brawler will let you kill mobs quite a bit tougher. intimidate2, warcry2, lunge2, and you should have most things to half health before they get back up. If they survive for 10 more seconds after they get up KD them again. (remember you get a damage bonus if they are KD, so I use warcry to keep them down long as possible)
Get buffed up and try hunting quenkers on Dant. nice xp and not to hard. Some ubese will help.
define weak? I went out and have achieved novice of all the combat classes just to get a feel for them. This is how it went....
Unarmed: This stuff was a joke. Started out slow, and didnt get any better.I ended up having to having to bleed stuff and let its mind run down to get it done quicker, or i would have been grinding for. Took longest to get to novice..
Pike: Missed alot. A whole lot, but when i got the 3rd lance, i was able to do alot better. Starting out it was pretty slow. 2nd longest to get to novice.
Fencer: A good fast weapon, and a trail of dead kaadu got me novice. Couldnt hit for much, but health hit and dizzy lunge helped alot. second shortest time to get to novice.
Swordsman: Started out slow with your first weapon, but after you get the two handed axe, i blazed through to novice at an incredible rate. Poor accuracy, but even then I was still doign better dps that at the comparable trees of the other brawler classes. The ease at which i made it made me take up the class. Now, in pve i have devestating mind hits (3-6k damage, powerhammer), massive mind bleeds i can stack, and area attacks. The only thing we dont have as good as other classes it a dizzy attack, but with master brawler, i just unequip my hammer, dizzy with unarmed, re-equip armor, and lunge2. Normally i deal enough damage i dont worry about this. I just use my bleeds, and spam headhit3. If they are a tka or something that is gonna dizzy knockdown me, I use warcry2 first to delay them for 20seconds. Which is more than enough time to kill them.
Yeah, I stumbled upon how easy quenkers were last night. I was pretty pleasantly surprised.
I hadn't thought about mastering Brawler, but I don't guess it's out of the realm of possibility. I am having a numbers crunch with my skill points.
I'm hoping getting Novice Swordsman 0/0/0/1 right off the bat will be a lot better with a power hammer and a mind bleed.
I went from Novice brawler to 2h swords 3 (brawler tree) in about 4 hours, and then took me about another 4 to get to Novice Heavy Swordsman. The leap from 2h swords to Novice Swordsman is incredable - Get your power hammer and 2h Hit 2, which is great 
If you dont have much luck, see if you can group with other ppl, especially with pets, get the CH to send pets in first, and the go in yourself, you'll usually find that the mob is too busy fending off the pet(s) to worry about you.
Also, a good set of buffs (as the sig says) is a great improvement!
First, if you are not doing it, get buffed. You can take quite a beating even without armor if you are buffed.
The bleeds in conjunction with Headhits will help you level quicker.
Other weapons can cause bleeds without taking away from your Sword XP. Use them if you can. Apply the bleed, and go peace. Wait for the bleed timer to tick off, then attack with the sword. Bleeds do not count towards the XP granted (just make it easier to kill), so if you hit it with only a bleed from a different weapon then kill it with the sword, all the XP goes to Sword.Rifle bleeds are best because they are mind bleeds and they stack with our bleeds, but if you have a pistol bleed, for instance, you can use our random pool attacks with it. Ranged bleeds will also help you single pull a creature. Get out past 40m, hit it with a bleed. Move back to around 60mto 100mwhile waiting for the bleed timer to tick off, and when the bleed hits, only the one creature will aggro on you. You may be able to do this with melee bleeds (hit, peace, then run out), but someone else would have to address this since I have never tried it.
If you are having difficulty leveling, get in groups. Less XP per kill, but you can go through a lot of higher level creatures that you would not normally attempt, so there is more to be gained.
Ximma,
Just one minor correction, we do have a Dizzy attack. Both Hit3 and AreaAttack3 have a chance to dizzy. Of course, Hit3 is obtained at Master and AreaAttack3 is in the 4th tier, so they are not quickly obtained, but we do have them.
And to the original poster,
Even if you do not get Master Brawler, setup a macro to run Intimdate1, Warcry1, and CenterofBeing and use it each time you start to attack. If Intimidate and Warcry stick (CoB always works if you have the appropriate weapon equipped), you will delay the creature (10 seconds for Warcry1) and get hit less (Intimidate and CoB). Master Brawler is helpful because Warcry2 adds 10 seconds to the dealy and is a cone effect, andLunge2 at Master Brawler has a knockdown chance.
Everyone always is so on the idea of getting Master Brawler, bah get Master Doctor you will be much better off. I think more people should learn how to play the game without relying soo much on kd and dizzy. I do realize that there are real benefits to getting Master Brawler, but imo they are very limited compared to the benefits of getting master doc.
With Master Brawler, you get warcry2 intimidate2 and lunge2, thiscan be a big advantage in pvp. When people try to kite you, you can hit the lunge and stop them. Also for pve the combination of lunge and warcry can knock down your target, and keep them down for a while. While these benifits are good, they are also very limited. You have the disadvantage of some of these specials having a cone effect, and possibly agroing other targets. Also the benifits of this are for yourself only, and don't help out friends, groupmates, or guildmates.
With Master Doctor, you are much tougher, can take a LOT more damage, and don't have to worry about the high HAM costs of swords. Buffing though is just one of the advantages getting Master Doctor gives you. You also have the advantage of being able to heal yourself very well, and healing many state/effects and wounds. Another distinct advantage of being Master Doc is that you can heal/buff/cure your friends, guildmates, and people you are grouping with. Also Master Doc gives you the opportunity to make some extra credits by selling med supplies, buffing or healing wounds.
Of course all of this is just my opinion, and if Master Brawler/Master Doc/ Master Swordsman was an option I would do this, but with the limited amount of skill points we have available, I think Master Doc is a better option.
I reached Master Bounty Hunter last Sunday (3 days ago). It took me 6 months to get there. Checked my holocron and it tells me Master Swordsman. I dumped many BH skills to start working up the Brawler 2-hand tree. Within hours I was at 2-hand level 4 in the Brawler tree. In another night I completed level 4 and started working toward Novice Swordsman. Last night (in 1 night) I finally made Novice Swordsman.
I met up with my PA mateson Dath and went Rancor hunting. In about 4-5 hours, I made 120,000 2-hand xp, just pushing me over the top to make Novice Swordsman. Compared to BH, the xppracticallypours in. Of course, I was with a full group, including a Master Doctor who buffed me big time. But it just proves the whole point of this game - get with a good group, on a high xp world and hunt high xp creatures and you will earn...guess what...high amounts of xp.
Torkal ~ Chilastra
Master Marksman
Master Scout
0/0/4/0 Brawler
0/4/0/0 Creature Handler
Novice Medic
Novice Swordsman
I started with Two-Handed from previous TKM, about 2 days ago. I got box 1-3 in Two-Handed in a rather short period of time, and then got help from a friend to reach fourth box and novice swordsman in a couple of hours. (He bleeds, I finish off). I had capped combat xp so I got 0003 instantly and that made the play a lot easier.
I started doing Savage Quenkers on Dantooine outside Imperial Outpost for xp and I get about 4k xp for each one and considering how easy they die, that's A LOT. I run around master doctor buffed, with a 50% resist composite (not good 
) and a damage-sliced powerhammer and I just tend to plow through everything.
About 20k xp is gained per Savage Quenker mission and considering they take barely 5min to do, woopiee! Got from 0103 to 0303 in about 3-4h today so I guess that's rather good. All done solo, only had a little happy staying mount in town grouped with me for group xp-bonus.
I reccommend these to most players, as piket longhorns give you roughly the same xp (about 4k) but are a lot harder to finish off. And I can promise this; getting the 2nd bleed straight away is a GOOD thing. Makes xp so much easier. Btw, these missions pay around 7k each and spawn in total 6 mobs. (A couple of those might be babies though). Have fun and good luck. I'm off to master it this weekend if possible! 