Planning to go sword & board with Arna, but would love some help with my build. (Combat Mastery vs. Shield?)

[Jamers]

Thanks so much for reading.

I had in mind to build a tanky, sword & board Arna, but after reaching, level 2 and investing my first points (Sword + Combat Mastery), I'm reading some conflicting things about investing in Shield.

I don't want to spread myself too thin, and Sword + Combat Mastery + Shield feels a bit dicey, so I'm wondering which of these trees I should be prioritizing.

I've not yet invested anything into Shield, so I suppose it's not too late to pivot and focus on Dual Wielding swords instead of going sword & board, but that also involved investing in the Dual Wielding tree, I imagine.

My build so far:

---

Level 2

All stats points into Strength (shall I continue doing this?)

Cleaving Strike (Swords)

Seize the Initiative (Combat Mastery)

Defensive Tactic (Combat Mastery)

----

So far I've been opening with crossbow shots, then using Defensive Tactic as an enemy approaches. Open with Seize the Initiative, then hit with Cleaving Strike, then regular attacks, finishing off with crossbow shots if they flee.

I haven't engaged multiple enemies yet, so the Cleaving Strike is really just for the counter bonus.

Any help at all with skill, stat or rotation advice is appreciated!

[Rabid]

Цитата допису CritMasterFlex:

Цитата допису HeronVII:

probably the strongest melee build in the game. On par with Great sword in my opinion.

Do you still feel that way about GS in current content?

Just curious. I haven't tried it again since the charge skill got moved to the bottom of the tree.

It's much less consistent now because you can't apply stagger so easily. You used to have 100% chance with heroic charge and some strength, so you started every 1v1 fight with your opponent being staggered.

On the other hand, energy management is a lot easier and parry got buffed slightly, and it's still the only weapon class which has multiple ways to apply stagger.

[MagikarpMagi]

Цитата допису Rabid:

Цитата допису CritMasterFlex:

Do you still feel that way about GS in current content?

Just curious. I haven't tried it again since the charge skill got moved to the bottom of the tree.

It's much less consistent now because you can't apply stagger so easily. You used to have 100% chance with heroic charge and some strength, so you started every 1v1 fight with your opponent being staggered.

On the other hand, energy management is a lot easier and parry got buffed slightly, and it's still the only weapon class which has multiple ways to apply stagger.

Yeah, that hard and fast engage early was my favorite thing about the GS tree. Just felt good. But it still sounds worth a shot, I'll have to try it again next. Thanks!

[funkmonster7]

Цитата допису Jamers:

Thanks so much for reading.

I had in mind to build a tanky, sword & board Arna, but after reaching, level 2 and investing my first points (Sword + Combat Mastery), I'm reading some conflicting things about investing in Shield.

I don't want to spread myself too thin, and Sword + Combat Mastery + Shield feels a bit dicey, so I'm wondering which of these trees I should be prioritizing.

I've not yet invested anything into Shield, so I suppose it's not too late to pivot and focus on Dual Wielding swords instead of going sword & board, but that also involved investing in the Dual Wielding tree, I imagine.

My build so far:

---

Level 2

All stats points into Strength (shall I continue doing this?)

Cleaving Strike (Swords)

Seize the Initiative (Combat Mastery)

Defensive Tactic (Combat Mastery)

----

So far I've been opening with crossbow shots, then using Defensive Tactic as an enemy approaches. Open with Seize the Initiative, then hit with Cleaving Strike, then regular attacks, finishing off with crossbow shots if they flee.

I haven't engaged multiple enemies yet, so the Cleaving Strike is really just for the counter bonus.

Any help at all with skill, stat or rotation advice is appreciated!

Yeah, it looks about right. You can get Taking Aim from Ranged Weapons skill tree if you want, but I don't think you'd need to as eventually you'll get Onrush which is just as good for catching stragglers.

If you're running sword/shield, don't put everything into Strength until you get 30 Strength, although since you only have 1 SP per level, you'll be doing exactly that but probably until you get to 20 Strength. From there, get VIT to 15, and then the rest is up to you.

Sword/shield is the tank build, but currently in this game if you have negative dodge, it increases enemy's accuracy against you. Enemies generally don't have 100% accuracy so if you increase their accuracy by having negative dodge, that means they'll land every hit on you, and that's not always desirable because they will tink on your armor and force you to bear high repair costs, especially in the meta. So, it's up to you how you want to deal with this...

If you block with your shield a lot, your shield will take a beating = repair costs. Dodge builds currently are nice because you don't need to repair if the enemy simply missed. (Fumbles still do less damage.)

As for skills, you absolutely want the skill that lets you retreat back a tile. Enemies will most often chase you, so you will hit them when they do. (Just don't do this to 2h axe when their hook skill is ready, and also spear enemies who have 2-tile attacks.) Cleaving Strike is just a bonus.

Sword/shield can autoattack and drag the fight out a bit more. So you don't need to worry too much about Cleaving Strike. But generally you want to focus on counter-attacks and bleed, and sword/shield is good with these because you don't have many active skills that you can use for burst damage. (Axe for example relies more on burst damage and bodypart damage.)

The other alternative you can explore is the single-sword duelist 'build'. This means you only use your shield if you need to get defensive, but otherwise you have your other hand empty. The skill above Seize Initiative is a passive that gives you more weapon damage and a slew of other bonuses, if you stack that with other bonuses, sword duelist is very powerful, you can possibly get +40% weapon damage just from that. (You'll need some heavy investment into Athletics for this.)

Currently the game doesn't really favour defensive builds. You can still play them but repair costs will be a pain.

[DacianDraco]

Цитата допису Adruk:

eh, search function was in lesson 1, check the date I guess is lesson 2 XD
Rondache is the best, but I can't find it anywhere... I've alredy killed the troll with the buckler and well, I'm just wandering if the rondache has been just removed

Have not looked for it specifically in this update, but i don't see why it would have been removed. Before it didn't require much REP, i think at Amity in Osbrook and Benevolece in Mannshire you could get it. I don't know if it changed but if it did it may have increased the level by one. Unsure if it moved to Brynn as some of the endgame items did, but maybe it did.

[Fang]

I can't think of a good reason to use a shield at the moment, the damage with a 1h is so low

[Heau]

Цитата допису Jamers:

I've not yet invested anything into Shield, so I suppose it's not too late to pivot and focus on Dual Wielding swords instead of going sword & board, but that also involved investing in the Dual Wielding tree, I imagine.

I can't say too much about sword and board that would be helpful, but I will say that if you are invested deep into a 1h tree, you really only need 1 pt in DW(DW Training) to make DW work. You can probably get a similar offensive boost from 1h with an empty OH with 2 points into combat mastery instead of 1pt DW.

It's possible if you plan on running very heavy armor with extremely limited energy that you would need more DW buffs for passive autos reliability, but skill based, DW training alone is enough.

I just did daggers(7) combat mastery(6) DW(1) athletics(3) and it was like knife through butter. I'll probably replay it down to dagger(4) or (5) eventually as I think it can be trimmed down for faster troll kills. I was just being extra safe on permadeath.