Shattered Kingdoms

swashies are not underpowered...they tough guys, well-balanced, like a diamond in the rough. they require polishing with a few active skills...and maybe one passive.

Well said. It isn't about active skills, it is about skill activity.

Is it me or is there a consderable lack of drawbacks to the suggested skills? I don't consider having the swashbuckler leaving a group to be anything of the sort. If you walk in knowing that's going to be the tactic, your formation will be fine. A chance to get hit more and take more damage should be a more suitable drawback for any of the suggested buffs. As for non-combat, scrying shouldn't be considered. Finding your target is half the trouble, as it should be.

This is an excellent thread. I GMed a swash years ago, an elf one, and he lasted all of a month. They just get old for some reason. What I would like for swashbucklers to spice them up without buffing them is...? I donno yet. I like the thread though.

Persuade!

I really do agree, but it's kind of a hard line to walk. Swashbucklers have what is probably the most used class-unique active skill among the 3 warrior classes, when in PK. Then following that you have quaff, and then you have order. Measure them up compared to mercenaries and barbarians - barbarians used berserk/fury as their active (head butt in PK compared to bash is not really likely, though I have to admit a long time ago I used it for some amazing all-or-nothing scenarios) - their real intrigue comes from how you build them. Mercenaries have retreat, which is about (again) the only active skill used besides bash. Unless any of these classes get SUPER bored and have nothing better to do than spam disarm, you really have to measure it up with the other people in the warrior classification.

From my perspective, I think there's two directions this could go to really fill the void. First, swashbucklers seem short only because they're missing that tactical quirk (that is underused, but is there for the plucking for someone which seems to just lift the boring idea, even if not used) - mercenaries get to play around with specialize and skirmish, barbarians get their toughness, counterstrike, and wild-fighting. Beyond that, the active skill usefulness is skewed in FAVOR of swashbucklers as far as useful active skills besides bash. Sorry, editing here, I forgot to finish this paragraph - utilize a throwing-dagger sort of viability for swashbucklers, or an in-city camo (sort of "siegebreakers" or assassins in the war against tribunal turtling).

The second direction would be far more effort, but could be an interesting new twist on PK - incorporating prone-state into active skills - either a sort of "dirty fighting" concept that is only effective on prone players, or could be used to truncate the prone-state entirely. The problem with this is this would need to be disseminated through the classes (why go through all the effort for only one class that's already in the game?) Swashbucklers could use a get-out-of-jail-free card (ground fighting to improve prone evasion/remove its detrimental hit effects, and an active component to have a chance of getting out of prone with the fail chance being extending prone). Consider an only-when-prone attack - dirty fighting, which has a chance to bring the opponent to the ground with you, or a sort of on the ground swashie-version of headbutt - junk shot or something.

You could incorporate blitzkrieg and headbutt in a way that would drastically improve effectiveness/usefulness - which is relatively balanced because a warrior realistically gets only 1 round of prone before having to bash/trip again (IF that), it's not something too spammable unless you have other people doing the bashing. But even then, more use of active skills is better, right? Blitzkrieg could be an improved chance of sever on prone, headbutt could be improved chance of knocking unconscious.

But through all of that, I'll be honest - active skills in this mob-wars shift of the game just seems counter-productive. The two most used active skills to date still are quaff and order, and that is a serious problem for any arguments on behalf of active skills.

I may be sort of outdated, but I think the fundamentals haven't really changed. I skimmed through some logs and feel pretty validated in it. Opinions, thoughts, comments, ideas?

blitzkrieg should just be removed. It was cool back when weapons could do upwards of 200 damage a hit, but now it's just kind of meh.

I agree, blitzkrieg has pretty much eternally been #*(&ing terrible except for a year or so sweet-spot where you had a few super high-damage slashing weapons besides the infernal halberd disseminated amongst the merc populace, before the weapon changes went in. And even then, I can count the number of worthwhile blitzkriegs ever typed into this game on one hand. There has never, ever, ever been a reason to use blitzkrieg in PK unless you have two other people to do the bashing and you're not getting damaged. Swashbucklers have better active skills than mercenaries. Mercenaries might be able to keep a group alive on the very situational chance retreat is useful, swashbucklers can assure people die. No one brags about NOT dying, do they?

Lots of players brag about not dying. Of course, you also have to have landed a couple of kills in pvp. Anyways, retreat is an amazing skill.

The focus on this whole "I don't die" thing is centered around honest idiots turtling. Sure, there are the rare few who go out and actively PK and keep themselves outside of fortresses to keep the game spiced with fair-hearted antagonism, which are the rare few who I respect - but mostly it's your generic people who can sit behind 10 rooms of NPCs, in a tribunal with 2 NPCs infront of them and the ridiculous amounts of defensive potions/wands/staves on-hand, and brag about surviving PK attempts. Sadly, as the playerbase dwindles, this sticks out more and more as just terrible. However, that's a side-tangent.

I'm not taking away from retreat, I'm just saying that it's infinitely more situational than taunt - arguably they are equivalent, and you could just as easily find one advocate to say taunt is more useful, and one who would say retreat is more useful. I think taunt is more powerful, if in certain situations less useful. It only promotes the point I'm trying to make, though. Swashbucklers have, what, 7 less skills? In the same breath they are short in useful active skills in no way.