Swordsman Archive

OK did I read this wrong or do they do the exact same thing? Area attacks lower posture, sweep attacks lower posture. I have two questions:

1) What's the point? Why should the swordsman be wasting XP climbing two different skill trees only to get the exact same attack results? Wouldn't it make better since to add knockdown or stun or dizzy or some other skill?

2) Since that's not likely to change from the developers, what's really the difference? Is one attack better than the other? If one attack is better than the other, would anyone ever really want to use the weaker attack?

Maybe this has been addressed below, I'm not certain. Also, I agree with about everyone else here that being pistol-whipped is ridiculous. Absolutely, completely, totally, foolishly ridiculous. Let's give one of the developers and unloaded pistol and Joe X or Susie Q a sword and see how close they get...

Flick

Far as I can tell area attacks are better cause at area attack3 you get a nice dizzy chance. Sweep needs something special added to it to make it useful. Perhaps a SMALL area of effect mind bleed? Not quite as powerful as a Combat Medic's bleed though. I don't wanna play god.

I would really like to know what tree to take next. I'm almost done with Master of Techniques. It sounds like offense is the next tree. I really hate not having a good knockdown though. It means that I can never be the first to hit a Tusken captain or Warlord unless im fully buffed. So if im reading you right, perhaps offense is better because it not only lowers the posture but does damage to a greater extent.

The other thing I find is that I dont seem to be using my head hit much. I usually bleed them then use 2 hand hit because all other players seem to be focusing on the red bar. Also, is it just me or does the head hit give you less xp than the hand hit? I find that odd since it is lower on the skill tree. Anyway I appreciate the help..