Swordsman Archive

Hi,
I just wanted to try something out. I wanted to have everyone vote on their vision of Swordsman. I was hoping that this could be somewhat of a companion to the In Concept threads. However lots of different essays on what a Swordsman can be makes it hard to develop a concensus view.

So, what I want to do is have a sort of poll where the possible selections are constrained so that we get more detailed metrics on where swordsman think they should be. This also helps with another problem: we all want Swordsman to be great, so in general we're going to over play how strong they should be. No harm, nor foul there. But with this you'll have to pick and choose strengths and weaknesses.

So here's the idea. There are going to be several categories. Each of these will have a few choices. For example, the first category will be offensive/defensive tradeoff. You will have 100 points to "spend" on each category. I might want Swordsmen to be 70% offense and 30% defense, and you would spend 70 points and 30 points accordingly.

Please formoat your posts as follows:

[category #1]
[option #1] -- [points for option #1]
...
[option #N] -- [points for option #N]

[category #2]
...

if you have any comments on the categories, please write them AFTER your responses and seperate with a horizontal bar. I may write a script to parse your replies and so if you deviate from this format your votes may not be tallied. I recommend you copy my own vote that will follow this post and change the values as you see fit.

-- Category #1: Offense/Defense --

Quite simply: how do you see the tradeoff between offense and defense for a swordsman.

Option #1: Offense
Option #2: Defense

-- Category #2: Specials --

Which of the following seem the most appealing for providing specialty offensive specials for swordsman. Try to pick only a couple as obviously Swordsmen cannot have everything, and allot your posts as you see fit. Unfortunately I cannot cover all possible types of specials so do feel free to put points into #6 and explain what makes sense to you.

Option #1: Bleeds/Wounds
Option #2: Delays (like warcry)
Option #3: Snares
Option #4: Knockdown
Option #5: AE attacks
Option #6: Intimidate
Option #7: Stun
Option #8: Blind
Option #9: Dizzy
Option #10: Other Affects (please explain)

This one is going to be tough and I don't even know if we'll get a meaningful result, but it's worth a try.

-- Category #3: Defensive Abilities --

Which of the following should be the most effective of Swordsman defensive abilities.

Option #1: Melee Defense
Option #2: Ranged Defense
Option #3: Counterattack
Option #4: Toughness
Option #5: Active Defensive Abilities

Option #5 refers to abilities like Center of Being.

-- Category #4: Weapons --

What should be the priority on Swordsman weapons:

Option #1: Damage
Option #2: Speed
Option #3: Armor piercing
Option #4: Accuracy
Option #5: Other (explain)

-- Category #5: Group Roles --

When you are in a group, what role do you think that you as a swordsman should fill:

Option #1: Tank
Option #2: Damage dealer
Option #3: Crowd Controller
Option #4: Utility
Option #5: Other (explain)

Utility refers to utilities such as loading a target full of status affects, healing members in the group, etc. Unfortunately there is a huge realm of possible roles here and I suspect that many will want to choose other -- that's fine.

---

Ok, I have some other ideas but none that I think are really easy to formulate here. There's no way we'll be able to accomodate all aspects of Swordsman, and maybe I'll add to this poll later. What I hope is that we can focus in on priorities here and then start some more detailed focus threads. For example, if we all say that we want Swordsmen to have snare and stun specials, we can discuss how this might best be achieved.

Enjoy!

StGabe.

Ok, use this as a template for your votes.

---

Offense/Defense
Offense -- 70
Defense -- 30

Specials
Bleeds/Wounds -- 30
Delay -- 30
Snares -- 20
Knockdown -- 20
AE attacks -- 0
Intimidate -- 0
Stun -- 0
Blind -- 0
Dizzy -- 0
Other Affects -- 0

Defensive Abilities

Melee Defense -- 10
Ranged Defense -- 10
Counterattack -- 20
Toughness -- 40
Active Defensive Abilities -- 20

Weapons

Damage -- 40
Speed -- 0
Armor piercing -- 40
Accuracy -- 20
Other -- 0

Group Role

Tank -- 30
Damage dealer -- 55
Crowd Controller -- 0
Utility -- 15
Other -- 0

---

Ok, so hopefully this format helps out. Later on I will edit this post with more details on why I pick these.

Anyhow, does the idea make sense?

Message Edited by StGabriel on 02-05-2004 11:18 AM

-- Category #1: Offense/Defense --
Option #1: Offense -->70
Option #2: Defense -->30

-- Category #2: Specials --

Which of the following seem the most appealing for providing specialty offensive specials for swordsman. Try to pick only a couple as obviously Swordsmen cannot have everything, and allot your posts as you see fit. Unfortunately I cannot cover all possible types of specials so do feel free to put points into #6 and explain what makes sense to you.

Option #1: Bleeds/Wounds
Who's not gonna bleed after having a sharp 2 handed weapon hit the?

Option #2: Delays (like warcry)
Option #4: Knockdown

These two could go together as a combo. Maybe level 1 is just 10 sec delay, level 2 is 20 delay, level 3 would have the chance (fairly high) to KD. We swing the heavy weapons. If a Powerhammer hits you...you're going to go down and be down for awhile. As a side idea, I wonder if the devs could make weapons that had effects (like EQ procs). IE the PH would do a KD, Scythe would do bleeds, etc.

-- Category #3: Defensive Abilities --
Option #1: Melee Defense
Option #4: Toughness

We swing 50lb hammers, axes, etc. We should be tough. We're not limber enough to dodge, or quick enough to counter with 50lb weapons.

-- Category #4: Weapons --
Option #1: Damage
Option #3: Armor piercing
Option #4: Accuracy
Option #2: Speed

In the above order. I don't mind being slow if I can connect with my hits. By Master we've swung around the swords enough to be very accurate with them.

-- Category #5: Group Roles --
Option #2: Damage dealer

I want to amend my answers to includestate defenses, forgot about those.

Offense/Defense
Offense -- 80
Defense -- 20

Specials
Bleeds/Wounds -- 25
Delay -- 0
Snares -- 0
Knockdown --5
AE attacks -- 25
Intimidate -- 30
Stun -- 15
Blind -- 0
Dizzy -- 0
Other Affects -- 0

Defensive Abilities

Melee Defense -- 0
Ranged Defense -- 0
Counterattack -- 20
Toughness -- 40
Active Defensive Abilities -- 0
State Defenses -- 40

Weapons

Damage -- 40
Speed -- 0
Armor piercing -- 40
Accuracy -- 20
Other -- 0

Group Role

Tank -- 35
Damage dealer -- 50
Crowd Controller -- 0
Utility -- 15
Other -- 0

Offense/Defense
Offense -- 70
Defense -- 30

Specials
Bleeds/Wounds -- 30
Delay -- 30
Snares -- 20
Knockdown -- 0
AE attacks -- 20
Intimidate -- 0
Stun -- 0
Blind -- 0
Dizzy -- 0
Other Affects -- 0

Defensive Abilities

Melee Defense -- 10
Ranged Defense -- 10
Counterattack -- 20
Toughness -- 40
Active Defensive Abilities -- 20

Weapons

Damage -- 40
Speed -- 0
Armor piercing -- 40
Accuracy -- 20
Other -- 0

Group Role

Tank -- 30
Damage dealer -- 45
Crowd Controller -- 25
Utility -- 0
Other -- 0

This is excellent. Thanks very much for organizing this Gabe.

Offense/Defense
Offense -- 75
Defense -- 25

Specials
Bleeds/Wounds -- 25
Delay -- 15
Snares -- 15
Knockdown -- 50
AE attacks -- 0
Intimidate -- 0
Stun -- 0
Blind -- 0
Dizzy -- 0
Other Affects -- 0

Defensive Abilities

Melee Defense -- 10
Ranged Defense -- 10
Counterattack -- 20
Toughness -- 40
Active Defensive Abilities -- 20

Weapons

Damage -- 20
Speed -- 20
Armor piercing -- 20
Accuracy -- 20
Other -- 20

Group Role

Tank -- 30
Damage dealer -- 70
Crowd Controller -- 0
Utility -- 0
Other -- 0