Post by Neek on Jul 18, 2005 7:26:46 GMT -5
Hi guys. Baile asked me to forward an email I sent someone as a guide to fighting with swords and since Ank'hara is also going swords, I tough i'd post the tips on this board for all the new swordsman out there. Here are my findings. You will realize that swordsman doesn't have many attack moves, which makes this easier.
1) Swordsman lacks defenses, so use the Center of Being all the time, macro it if you have to but it's a life saver. It adds 200 to the defense bonus. If you also have TK, you have the better CoB in your skills, use that, it has 500 defense bonuses. I have a cool macro that goes like this
{Macro name : CoB}
/CenterOfBeing;
/pause 36;
/addalarm in 0 0 Center of being is about to expire;
/pause 5;
/macro CoB;
That loops it, and also prints a system message and an audio alert when it's about to expire. That allows me to stop queing commands and let my action go up a bit to allow the CoB to work.
2) Swords is a killer on the action bar. Use food that has +200 action regen when needed. Brandy (+200), Blob candy (+180) or Mandalorian wine (+200) is what I use. Blob candy for grinding and hunting, wine or brandy when doing serious stuff
3) Speed is important. If you can, go get the FS Melee Speed tree, it helps a LOT
4) If you have enough skill points, and you aren't TK master, go get the pike column of brawler for the skill in the 4th box, which is an area knockdown. Very usefull to have but unfortunately, swords doesn't have a knockdown. I believe TK has one so if you're both TK and Swords, you have a knockdown already.
5) Weapon is important. Before, it was important because we could do kinetic (Scythe) or blast (hammer) damage. Now, just get a nice hammer. My good ones give me about 460 modified DPS (i have the melee speed FS tree) and usually hits around 850 without armor break, and 1100-1200 after the armor break.
--------- [ Combat techniques ] ---------
Once you are ready, and you have the CenterOfBeing running, you're ready to do some damage.
First up, use the best armor break skill you have. That will make you hit 50% harder (it's actually the Mob that's taking 50% more damage) but either way, every hit causes more damage. If you are fighting with a Jebi that does the Jedi armor break, then don't bother doing it. The armor break from Jedi will override the one for swords cause it's stronger.
Second up, I like to follow with Critical Strike. It doesn't always stick, but when it does, I seem to find that the Mob takes more damage and goes down quicker. Critical strike is on a farely long timer, so
Follow up with a HeadHit. That's THE most powerfull attack of the swordsmad. I'll usually keep doing the head hit untill the Mob is dead, keeping an eye on the armor break to make sure it's still there.
If you have a knockdown, it will help if you do it obviously, but I've noted it sticks about once per minute and never more.
While in combat, if you feel like you are taking a lot of damage, use Sword Flurry. That adds another 125 bonus in defenses but lasts about 10 seconds.
Stay away from power attack. It's probably broken. It has a wound up timer, and a big cooldown timer and from what I've seen, 95% of the time it will do less damage than the head hit. So i find it to be a waste.
Bleeding attack is also a waste. Mine does about 75 damage every click, so that's not even worth the time in my opinion.
Berzerk is fun, but not that usefull. It makes you hit faster for about 20 seconds, but to a cost in defenses and hitting faster means draining your action pool faster and you won't be able to hit anymore cause it'll be drained completely. I rarely use it.
--------------------------------------
And that's about all the moves a swordsman has. I keep armor break on F1, critital strike on F2, Head hit on F3 and my knockdown on F4 (i have to be careful because it's an area knockdown and therefor, attracts a lot of attention).
I have the center of being macro also ready to rock.
Swords also offers knockdown recovery, blind recovery, dizzy recovery and stun recovery which are great. Keep those handy.
And besides that, I don't think there's much more to know about swords. As a zabrak, I also have something called viatalize that gives me a lot more health (like a powerboost) but takes away from action regeration and with swords, stay away from anything that slows your action regeneration.
I also have little macro that does a /sit, pauses for 6 seconds and /stand. Just because when you're grinding, the action pool will drop low so you will need to take a break from time to time and sitting down makes you regenerate action very fast.
Last tip, get a buff
The added 40 points of combat speed, and the 10% action regeneration help a lot.
1) Swordsman lacks defenses, so use the Center of Being all the time, macro it if you have to but it's a life saver. It adds 200 to the defense bonus. If you also have TK, you have the better CoB in your skills, use that, it has 500 defense bonuses. I have a cool macro that goes like this
{Macro name : CoB}
/CenterOfBeing;
/pause 36;
/addalarm in 0 0 Center of being is about to expire;
/pause 5;
/macro CoB;
That loops it, and also prints a system message and an audio alert when it's about to expire. That allows me to stop queing commands and let my action go up a bit to allow the CoB to work.
2) Swords is a killer on the action bar. Use food that has +200 action regen when needed. Brandy (+200), Blob candy (+180) or Mandalorian wine (+200) is what I use. Blob candy for grinding and hunting, wine or brandy when doing serious stuff
3) Speed is important. If you can, go get the FS Melee Speed tree, it helps a LOT
4) If you have enough skill points, and you aren't TK master, go get the pike column of brawler for the skill in the 4th box, which is an area knockdown. Very usefull to have but unfortunately, swords doesn't have a knockdown. I believe TK has one so if you're both TK and Swords, you have a knockdown already.
5) Weapon is important. Before, it was important because we could do kinetic (Scythe) or blast (hammer) damage. Now, just get a nice hammer. My good ones give me about 460 modified DPS (i have the melee speed FS tree) and usually hits around 850 without armor break, and 1100-1200 after the armor break.
--------- [ Combat techniques ] ---------
Once you are ready, and you have the CenterOfBeing running, you're ready to do some damage.
First up, use the best armor break skill you have. That will make you hit 50% harder (it's actually the Mob that's taking 50% more damage) but either way, every hit causes more damage. If you are fighting with a Jebi that does the Jedi armor break, then don't bother doing it. The armor break from Jedi will override the one for swords cause it's stronger.
Second up, I like to follow with Critical Strike. It doesn't always stick, but when it does, I seem to find that the Mob takes more damage and goes down quicker. Critical strike is on a farely long timer, so
Follow up with a HeadHit. That's THE most powerfull attack of the swordsmad. I'll usually keep doing the head hit untill the Mob is dead, keeping an eye on the armor break to make sure it's still there.
If you have a knockdown, it will help if you do it obviously, but I've noted it sticks about once per minute and never more.
While in combat, if you feel like you are taking a lot of damage, use Sword Flurry. That adds another 125 bonus in defenses but lasts about 10 seconds.
Stay away from power attack. It's probably broken. It has a wound up timer, and a big cooldown timer and from what I've seen, 95% of the time it will do less damage than the head hit. So i find it to be a waste.
Bleeding attack is also a waste. Mine does about 75 damage every click, so that's not even worth the time in my opinion.
Berzerk is fun, but not that usefull. It makes you hit faster for about 20 seconds, but to a cost in defenses and hitting faster means draining your action pool faster and you won't be able to hit anymore cause it'll be drained completely. I rarely use it.
--------------------------------------
And that's about all the moves a swordsman has. I keep armor break on F1, critital strike on F2, Head hit on F3 and my knockdown on F4 (i have to be careful because it's an area knockdown and therefor, attracts a lot of attention).
I have the center of being macro also ready to rock.
Swords also offers knockdown recovery, blind recovery, dizzy recovery and stun recovery which are great. Keep those handy.
And besides that, I don't think there's much more to know about swords. As a zabrak, I also have something called viatalize that gives me a lot more health (like a powerboost) but takes away from action regeration and with swords, stay away from anything that slows your action regeneration.
I also have little macro that does a /sit, pauses for 6 seconds and /stand. Just because when you're grinding, the action pool will drop low so you will need to take a break from time to time and sitting down makes you regenerate action very fast.
Last tip, get a buff
The added 40 points of combat speed, and the 10% action regeneration help a lot.
