Swordsman Archive

I used to think TKA was insanely powerful compared to swordsman, which basically used to be true. But what I have personally concluded, is that they both have their definate advantages. After playing TKM for quite some time now, I have seen many advantages and disadvantages over swordsman. Hehe, and please note that I am a swordsman at heart, and am planning on switching back (Once I finish a holocron profession or two...hehe).

First I'll go over TKA's advantages, which are pretty obvious:

1)Dizzy/KD - If you pull this off, which you do most of the time, you can beat on your opponent with ease. Probably their greatest advantage of all.

2)Unarmed toughness - Against another melee class, they take less than half damage, which is **edit** insane. And against mobs, you can tank very well.

3)Force of Will - Instant recap. With buffs, this can be pretty insane. But it is on a one hour timer...still very useful though, nonetheless.

4)Meditation - I was awestruck at how fast this heals wounds at mastery...it truly is a very useful skill.

5)Power boost - This can buff your HAM by 550, but only lasts for a short period and takes a couple minutes of meditating to build up. Currently you can exploit with this to get a larger mind buff from dancers, though that will be fixed soon.

6)Accuracy - TKM never misses....their accuracy is extremely high, and their weapons have good accuracy mods. Even someone with crazy +melee defense will get hit every attack.

But....here are the disadvantages I found:

1)VK's only have light armor piercing. Against someone with good composite armor, you will do squat for damage, and there's not a **edit** thing you can do about it. And people almost always get high kinectic defense on their armor. Believe me, this is one HUGE disadvantage. If you are a swordsman and are tired of getting beat by a TKM, try getting yourself an awesome suit of composit (Though it can cost you a pretty penny)...you will wipe the floor with them, even if they use dizzy/KD.

2)No bleeders....TKA's are all about front end damage. They dish it out, but they don't have any type of hit and run.

3)VERY high HAM costs. Each move as a TKA may not cost much, but when you hit like twice every second, it adds up QUICK. I'd never even use a VK in PvE without a musician buff...I'd kill myself every fight. Swordsman have pretty high HAM costs, but since our damage is done in big hits, it doesn't add up nearly as fast.

As for swordsman, here are our advantages:

1)Bleeders - Pretty obvious. We have the best bleeders in the game, and we can stack them. Unfortunately they can't incap anymore, but they are still quite useful, especially against armored opponents.

2)Medium armor piercing - We can still dish it out against armor pretty well. Combined with bleeders, we are pretty good at beating armor, unlike TKA's who have to bend over and squeel like a pig when they fight a heavily armored foe.

3)I can't think of anything else, but I didn't want the list to look so small compared to the TKA one.

Basically, to sum up my thoughts and opinions....it's hard for me to say which is more powerful. Potentially, TKA can do better in PvE, with musician buffs, but otherwise, swordsman is definately better, in my opinion. But they are both so good at it, it's kind of hard to compare. As for PvP, they both fill a different niche. The lack of armor piercing is what I find to be TKA's greatest downfall. The lack of having a sword that is better than a god-aweful powerhammer is what I find to be swordmen's greatest downfall (Of course, the lack of a KD or good dizzy move are up there too, along with the lack of meditation).

I'm sure I could ramble on about my thoughts, but this is basically how I feel about the two classes, and how they compare. I must say, I am quite eager to return to the way of the sword (and eventually the way of the power hammer...ugh. We need new swords damnit!)

Heh, my personal solution is to get both TKA and swordsman! Of course now I'm gonna have to beg for doc buffs, but oh well.

There is no need for doctor buffs.

Power boost with 1100 mind,drink breath of heaven,eat 2 ryshcate.<3

But power boost doesn't last long. There's no way I'd meditate every 5 minutes or however long it lasts, to boost again.

The problem is most people don't realize that all professions have strengths and weaknesses and whine about TKA all day long without realizing the strengths of their own profession.

I'm TKA but not because I want to be uber but because I enjoy it. I enjoyed swordsman a bit but personally I'm going pikeman to compensate TKA (yeah it may be tough but I like it)

each profession has strengths and weaknesses.

Kudo's to the devs for raising other melee professions up without nerfing the TKA.

Being a Master TKA is a blast. I've seen swordmans clearly outdamage me, but in the same note they took more damage and more hits. Its a close match I would say. Just have to use the advantages of your profession as stated above. I dont know about a tka being bent over like a pig if someone has armor.... Someone wearing armor has never been anything more then a delay unless they where buffed from the duels and raids I've been on. Even NPC's with high res and armor, isnt a big deal if they barely hit which is mostly the case. I do have to say that hammer/sword and bleeds is a pain when used correctly and can clearly be an advantage.

The reason i dont like TKA is cause with the right mix of proffesions they're basically null and void in pvp....if they can'tdo dizzy/kd they're left far more vualnerable. Not always a sure win cause they are still strong and fast but slap on some armor and save your ham by not doing specials and call it a day. If they're buffed well then ofcourse its gonna suck to kill them but people just put too much praise on a master TKA. they're not that tough to kill....honestly.

How do swordsman bleeds compare to rifleman bleeds? You said that swordsman have the best bleeds. I have gotten 2500 mind bleeders with a laser rifles before.

Regarding bleeds, I keep slapping it on until I get over 2000 at a minimum. I would say my average keeper bleed is around 3000 and my best are usually 3600-ish. These are using a dmg sliced Power Hammer.

>I dont know about a tka being bent over like a pig if someone has armor.... Someone wearing armor has never been anything more then a delay unless they where buffed from the duels and raids I've been on.

It is very easy to get 80% kinetic on composit armor, and it is very often the highest defense on people's armor. I was hitting a KDed rifleman once, for like 40-80 damage per hit, with a 35% damage sliced VK of top quality. Needless to say, with his mind buffs, I was hardly scratching him. Even with him dizzy/KDed, I couldn't do a **edit** thing to kill him.

One thing I feel they should do is replace the whole AE line (put them in another like like TKA), and give us some sort of non-combat skill, like meditate, but perhaps something totally different.

what makes swordsman better imo is that we can fix the problems we have.....

we can get powerboost and we can use warcry 2 and lunge 2 for our dizzy/kd and if your willing to do like me and alot of others do and get all the defenses from all the melee professions we can get our dizzy and kd defenses so high that theres no TKA that kd us and with melee defense at 171it just makes things even tougher on aTKA......TKA cannot fix their problems though...their VK is light ARP, their dizzy/kd tactic is taken away from them with high dizzy and kd defense, and a good set of armor negates any decent amount of damage they do. I have nothing but respect for the TKA as i have 2 trees from it and in defense of the TKA i really think verant should give them a good bleed (health bleed imo)as i think itll balance things more!

Bottom line is our weapon is medium ARP and we got mind bleeds (that stack i might add)

Dominoe - Lowca

Also of note, our bleeds give nice wounds to focus and willpower, this adds too the already large dot by keeping the mind from regenerating.