Thoughts on Swordmaster?

[kevin_63643221]

Used to be a background that I thought belongs to the trash can, but after many adventurous noble I hired ended up being a banner, now I find myself hit the town actively looking for them as soon as I got a nice 2 hander drop. They are proficient 2 hander users out of the box, and you are paying for that only . If you got lucky with the stars, oh boy….

[CHOO CHOO]

I like to use mine as nimble dodge duelists, and they tend to do very well until an unlucky hit does them in. Fun while they last. Not optimal, I know, but it seems a good thematic fit for what these characters are meant to be according to the lore.

[Lampros]

Garbage: Throw away.

[turtle225]

Excellent background. Always excited to find one each game. I only hire one though as you can cure Old with the Waterskin, otherwise getting Old really stinks.

I also like to build them as Nimble Dodge Duelists for thematic reasons. You have to baby them at low levels but they can usually get enough hp eventually to be able to take a few hits with Nimble, and that's good enough.

With defense stars they are insane.

Safer approach is to just do a fatigue neutral 2Hander or Polearm, but that's not as fun imo.

[kevin_63643221]

Originally posted by turtle225:

Excellent background. Always excited to find one each game. I only hire one though as you can cure Old with the Waterskin, otherwise getting Old really stinks.

I also like to build them as Nimble Dodge Duelists for thematic reasons. You have to baby them at low levels but they can usually get enough hp eventually to be able to take a few hits with Nimble, and that's good enough.

With defense stars they are insane.

Safer approach is to just do a fatigue neutral 2Hander or Polearm, but that's not as fun imo.

Yeah, I really wanted to make the duelist work but I think their base HP and initiative doesnt really support Nimble dodge, I tend to just fix hp a bit to a reasonable level and grab nine lives for those unlucky one shots, and focus on fatigue for a BF Greatsword ( I mean they are Sword masters), and I really dont like those armor pen crossbow hits, so anticipation it is, lore fitting as well, a sword master should be able to parry arrows right?

[Tlewnipla]

When I hired a swordmaster, I always built them nimble. Dodge depends on the mdef starting value / star distribution. I skipped dodge on the last swordmaster I trained because he ended up with 48 mdef which is enough for a nimble frontline with my playstyle.

[A5G_Reaper]

I like running swordlance backline on them, they just chunk reliably even through shieldwall while being able to quickhand and beat up any enemy that bypass the frontline. Kinda too squishy to be full time front line for my taste.

I'd love to try experiment giving the banner to one of them, but it's nearly impossible to find a swordsmaster before finding any random bro with good resolve.

[Heron]

They're my favourite background and very strong imo.

[Tephros83]

Originally posted by kevin_63643221:

Used to be a background that I thought belongs to the trash can, but after many adventurous noble I hired ended up being a banner, now I find myself hit the town actively looking for them as soon as I got a nice 2 hander drop. They are proficient 2 hander users out of the box, and you are paying for that only . If you got lucky with the stars, oh boy….

I don't hire them, but if I accidently hired a "good" one, their stats lend towards an overpriced nimble polearm.

Sure, their base defense is good, but ♥♥♥♥♥♥ hp and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ fatigue. And ♥♥♥♥♥♥ initiative is the most annoying part they suck at using dodge... Due to ♥♥♥♥♥♥ hp wouldn't put them in front, but could still be passable endgame due to being so hard to hit. And easily reaching 100 melee attack is good for a polearm. The fatigue is a bit of an issue though for swordlance.

[kevin_63643221]

Originally posted by Tephros83:

Sure, their base defense is good, but ♥♥♥♥♥♥ hp and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ fatigue. And ♥♥♥♥♥♥ initiative is the most annoying part they suck at using dodge... Due to ♥♥♥♥♥♥ hp wouldn't put them in front, but could still be passable endgame due to being so hard to hit. And easily reaching 100 melee attack is good for a polearm. The fatigue is a bit of an issue though for swordlance.

Yeah, thats the reason why I thought they belong to the trash can, but you effectively paying for the melee attack and defence, since those are the most valuable stat in the game, I tried many times to make a nimble character but the dude is just too old for it, he needs armor protection. Having your aoe miss is the worst thing that can happen to a 2 hander, and it is often why my 2hander gets killed. It just doesnt happen that often with Sword master out of the box, and hes got great defence on top of it. Fatigue and HP can be easily fixed to a reasonable level, same cant be said to matk/def, and just forget about initiative.

Polearm is just not very demanding on the melee skill part, local farm boy can do it (Personally I settle with retired soldier, another flawed background), not 2 hander, you better make every hit count.

[kevin_63643221]

Originally posted by A5G_Reaper:

I like running swordlance backline on them, they just chunk reliably even through shieldwall while being able to quickhand and beat up any enemy that bypass the frontline. Kinda too squishy to be full time front line for my taste.

I'd love to try experiment giving the banner to one of them, but it's nearly impossible to find a swordsmaster before finding any random bro with good resolve.

Bannerman needs hp to withstand the ranged focus fire, and good fatigue for rally when needed imo, and melee attack is the last thing they need imo.

[turtle225]

Adventurous Noble is a better Banner than Swordmasters are, if you are looking for premium.

But I also just tend to roll with whichever first cheap dude has decent Resolve and then never end up replacing him.

[Lampros]

Originally posted by Tephros83:

I don't hire them, but if I accidently hired a "good" one, their stats lend towards an overpriced nimble polearm.

Sure, their base defense is good, but ♥♥♥♥♥♥ hp and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ fatigue. And ♥♥♥♥♥♥ initiative is the most annoying part they suck at using dodge... Due to ♥♥♥♥♥♥ hp wouldn't put them in front, but could still be passable endgame due to being so hard to hit. And easily reaching 100 melee attack is good for a polearm. The fatigue is a bit of an issue though for swordlance.

My sentiments exactly.

[Tephros83]

Originally posted by kevin_63643221:

Originally posted by Tephros83:

Sure, their base defense is good, but ♥♥♥♥♥♥ hp and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ fatigue. And ♥♥♥♥♥♥ initiative is the most annoying part they suck at using dodge... Due to ♥♥♥♥♥♥ hp wouldn't put them in front, but could still be passable endgame due to being so hard to hit. And easily reaching 100 melee attack is good for a polearm. The fatigue is a bit of an issue though for swordlance.

Yeah, thats the reason why I thought they belong to the trash can, but you effectively paying for the melee attack and defence, since those are the most valuable stat in the game, I tried many times to make a nimble character but the dude is just too old for it, he needs armor protection. Having your aoe miss is the worst thing that can happen to a 2 hander, and it is often why my 2hander gets killed. It just doesnt happen that often with Sword master out of the box, and hes got great defence on top of it. Fatigue and HP can be easily fixed to a reasonable level, same cant be said to matk/def, and just forget about initiative.

Polearm is just not very demanding on the melee skill part, local farm boy can do it (Personally I settle with retired soldier, another flawed background), not 2 hander, you better make every hit count.

I mean, it doesn't take am amazing guy to be passable as a polearm given +5 or +10 accuracy on many attacks, but endgame still has polearms and having very high melee attack is good to, e.g. hit all 3 targets with reap and then another 2 more after berserk, or to kill an ancient undead with the polearm and then finish off two others (without armor remaining on body) with a whip in the same turn. Doing things like that requires very high melee attack. Most of the time 2h weapons can do more damage, but the reach of the polearm allows you to bring in more damage per turn from the rear while keeping better-defense guys in front of them. In the endgame instead of shields the front carries mostly 2h weapons. So like for the front a minimum endgame stat is like 90-30, or 85-30 attack and melee defense, but for the back it's more like 90-20, with a guy like a swordmaster with good melee defense being most likely on the rear flank. And he can rotate with the guy next to him when he gets hit twice, lol.

[kevin_63643221]

Originally posted by Tephros83:

I mean, it doesn't take am amazing guy to be passable as a polearm given +5 or +10 accuracy on many attacks, but endgame still has polearms and having very high melee attack is good to, e.g. hit all 3 targets with reap and then another 2 more after berserk, or to kill an ancient undead with the polearm and then finish off two others (without armor remaining on body) with a whip in the same turn. Doing things like that requires very high melee attack. Most of the time 2h weapons can do more damage, but the reach of the polearm allows you to bring in more damage per turn from the rear while keeping better-defense guys in front of them. In the endgame instead of shields the front carries mostly 2h weapons. So like for the front a minimum endgame stat is like 90-30, or 85-30 attack and melee defense, but for the back it's more like 90-20, with a guy like a swordmaster with good melee defense being most likely on the rear flank. And he can rotate with the guy next to him when he gets hit twice, lol.

Ideally every melee dps should have high melee skills in late game, I am more talking about early game. like, when you got a Greatsword drop, need someone to use it, your farm hands cant hit ♥♥♥♥, cant parry ♥♥♥♥ without a shield. Although I am a big fan of retired soldier polearms, it seems 60ish for 2hander is just a bit low, swordmaster, in the 70ish out of the box, couple levels in you are looking at 80~90 melee attack. and their hiring price is very reasonable considering they usually come practically naked, unlike a hedge knight with all the fancy crap that I dont want to pay for at that stage.

[Melkolf]

Originally posted by kevin_63643221:

Ideally every melee dps should have high melee skills in late game, I am more talking about early game. like, when you got a Greatsword drop, need someone to use it, your farm hands cant hit ♥♥♥♥, cant parry ♥♥♥♥ without a shield. Although I am a big fan of retired soldier polearms, it seems 60ish for 2hander is just a bit low, swordmaster, in the 70ish out of the box, couple levels in you are looking at 80~90 melee attack. and their hiring price is very reasonable considering they usually come practically naked, unlike a hedge knight with all the fancy crap that I dont want to pay for at that stage.

I've just experienced an interesting recruit pool containing both Hedge Knight and Swordmaster. I plumped for the latter purely on the grounds you mentioned. That Hedgie just looked far too expensive for what he was bringing to the table whilst the Swordie looked far more useful in the short to medium term. I didn't know this was typical though until I read your comments - thanks.