Shattered Kingdoms

So, following that logic, Tari, Maelgrim, and you should be cursed back to the stone age, eh?

Note: I don't want to rehash the past, but this was too tempting.

See also: Dreamscape.

And yeah, the mithril lions being light aura is brain damaged. Lighties are stuck trying to farm quicksilver worms.

You could also just get over it since they aren't sentient beings, but whatever.

No.

Pretty please with cherries on top?

Theoretically. In practice, riposte does not happen often enough, even when set to defensive. And swashbucklers do not crank out four attacks on defensive, even with a pair of sai and 25 dexterity. Additionally, I've seen entire logs of Callie getting smashed by Alaric where multiple rounds go by where Callie, despite being similarly buffed, cannot do anything about Alaric's six attacks a round.


Yes, true. You have to come out with a VERY specific weapon loadout and be willing to fight aggressively to get the benefit of a fifth attack. This specific weapon loadout will mean your damage is severely gimped.


I meant to say "they do not tank anywhere as well" as a heavy armor class there. My brain is fried, but this is correct: there's no real bonus to go defensive except for the dodge/parry boosts, of which dodge gets the bigger boost from (parry less so, from my experience with Takuma).


Your testing is limited. My testing is not... massive weapons definitely wtfpwn swashbucklers at the moment.


Only part of it is!


We'll see.


Mithril is disappointing for a lot of reasons. Breaks too easily, loses AC too quickly compared to heavy armor, isn't and simply never will be as good as heavy armor in raw AC (use compare to check), does not have the heavy armor bonus, etc.

Supernatural may have been irreparable, but there are methods to repair irreparable materials in the game now that can be used to maintain a supernatural kit. That said, supernatural is no longer in the game save as an unskinnable hide for monsters, so the point is moot.



I think the bigger problem is that there's no equivalent to energy for light armor, now that energy exists.



It is, admittedly, one of the more minor downsides.



Depends. One of the fixes is to simply remove a lot of the diamond/adamantite in the game...



I honestly am not sure. One of the proposed fixes by Dulrik on the forums was that spellcasting was slower when flying -- you can obviously just test that.



Iron IS a weakness, and it will be more noticeable when ironguard stops being readily available in super-high-level doses all around the MUD, which seems to be a thing right now.

Elf and deep-elf can never hit the final capstone of strength no matter what they do, and so I would argue that any race that actually can reach it at medium size is vastly superior if you are looking for damage output... and even then, it's not like you will ever get something that's equivalent to fury/specialize in terms of raw power. (Fury is insanely good.)



This does not actually solve the problem of being a passive class. I will still fly against a swashbuckler, because if all they have access to is trip, I would rather take my chances -- especially since they lack reach, which is ANOTHER point I forgot to make.

Trip and dirt are not unique anyway, and the other classes who have access to them very barely use them except in very specific scenarios. The problem with swashbucklers, really is that all their uniqueness is passive (riposte, dual wield). Mercenaries get a passive unique ability and a couple of active ones (rallying cry, blitzkrieg, retreat). Barbarians have a few active unique abilities (berserk/fury, headbutt, negate). Swashbucklers get taunt, which is of limited usefulness. It's really only good in gank situations, and even then it's a poor man's "stay here" option when compared to bash or even bolt of glory.

Another issue: Swashbucklers have access to skirmish, but do not get enough attacks per round to really take advantage of it, so they have a great ranged option, but suck at using it.



:|

W/r/t reach, swashies should get whips. I think they had them at one point.

Also deep elves can get to 25 str.

And w/r/t fury, swashies can get frenzy, which seems to modify damage output slightly more than fury does.

*shrug* Sargas, I just want to see what the fly change does before we all start crying about swashbucklers again. If it's already live then lol.

Dirt kicking isn't used by anybody right now because everybody flies in PvP to avoid trip, and being tracked. I can't even believe you brought up blitzkrieg. Nobody uses that period, and it's really not a boon to the merc class, because any situation you could use that in, your character will either be prone, or people will be trying to set her prone. Retreat, and rallying cry are awesome, yes, but you forgot to mention bash. And shields. Even though you argue with me over this point, having a shield versus not having a shield is way more awesome. Defensive merc/barb >>>> defensive swash.

And yeah, my testing is limited, and I'll admit not to my liking. I'll test again with this new swashbuckler when she hits GM.

They've never had whip so long as I've played. Other classes like the sorcerer did though. Deep-elves can only hit 24 strength, there's a +5 cap that gs allows nowadays and it's been that way for a long time.

Frenzy is good yeah, but nowhere near as good as the bonuses fury stacks. I think you just mean the damage and hit bonuses of berserk. Fury adds a whole new class of bonuses, and pretty much casts a heal spell when used.

...Barbarians are really spoiled.

Taunt is kind of stupid imo. Everybody runs around with int mods to negate the int penalty when taunted, just like characters can use str and con mods to get around the penalties of fatigue/weaken. It also can leave your swashbuckler unable to tank. It was fortuitous that during the time I played my swashbuckler I had a bard counterpart that would just tumble when we did the whole luring routine, but taunt pales in comparison to rescue in getting people to focus on the "tank" swashbuckler.

If you want to make them viable with ranged, then just slap rapid shot on them.

I can def agree with this. Not only will shields outright block attacks, but they reduce incoming damage just for being worn. That's a major bonus to a tank that doesn't require a brewer/script/herb to give. If finesse provided the same damage reduction that wearing a shield does, that might help offset the difference, but it would only be a starting point.

The way I've always looked at melee classes in SK is swash should be the best defensive frontliner, merc is a balance of offense/defense without being the absolute master of either, and barb should be full on rip your face off DPS. The latter two are more or less true right now (though some merc builds obviously favor one over the other of offense/defense), but swashies are extremely subpar defensive frontliners for a wide variety of reasons.