Shattered Kingdoms

Why do I hear so many negative things about this class. I never played one to GM, but from what I understand it is very poor in the PvP arena, Gear dependent, and boring to play.

I wonder if this is all true. Any ideas on how to fix these problems?

A thread like this comes up every couple of months. Dulrik said he is planning on making significant changes to the class to address the problems you pointed out. Swashies have few active abilities and are, in a sense, lousy in pvp.

I say "in a sense" because swashies only seem terrible if you work on the assumption that they are supposed to be able to stand toe-to-toe with the other melee classes (which Dulrik has said they are in fact supposed to be able to do). I think of swashies more as a support class that lets you land a kill against evasive characters. Taunt is the only way to kill certain people. A good barb/merc should always win against a swashie in 1v1.

Swashies are truly horrible for pve, also. Perhaps the last thing you'll ever want in your group in a pve adventure.

Why is that since they are one of two classes that can parry bare handed attacks? Or is it not that good compared to heavy armor?

They -can- parry bare-handed attacks, but parrying wild fighting PCs and NPCs (read: 90% of PvE) is not reliable, whereas shield blocking a wild fighting NPC is much more reliable. In addition, a merc/barb can still get 4 or sometimes 5 attacks while defensive, but a swash on defensive puts out craptastic damage: Even then, a swash on aggressive won't do as much damage in PvE than a merc or barb, because their weapons aren't that damaging given that finesse doesn't come into play in high-level PvE since mercs and barbs hardly ever 'miss' when buffed and aggressive.

Swashies also don't get heavy armor which means they do take more damage, and they also just don't have as many hps. They also cannot rescue, so in a lot of high-level areas they're best off in their own row unless the person behind them is a bard or someone who can take a beating from reach NPCs. Honestly, a well-geared rogue would probably tank better than a swashie in PvE just because they can use shields, and wouldn't do that much less damage either on defensive.

Swashies aren't -terrible- in PvE 'if' they're geared and buffed well, but they're definitely not the best choice either. They lack the strong avoidance of the other two melee classes and also lack the raw damage output as well.

So swashies need some sort of enhance Dodge? What about a third attack? Would that make them more viable?

As far as pve goes, there are 5 classes that might want to go in the front row: merc, barb, shaman, paladin, swashie. Of those, swashie is the only one that -has- to go in the front row, and it is the weakest choice of the five. Sure, a good group will do fine with a swashie in the front, but swashies are still extremely weak compared to other front row options when it comes to pve.

As far as pvp goes, I would ideally like some active skill to be added to the swashie skillset to bring them up to par, though I imagine some passive bonus would be easier to do. A strong bonus to disarm might be a good option since it'd encourage the use of an active ability.

I don't believe swashbucklers are that bad. Veret for example did pretty well relatively recently. Cazaril did pretty well too. Imp_Babble played a swashbuckler that really beat up on the MC not too far back. Pre-massive-weapon change, I think there was a significant stigma against them in the "power player" crowd that got them more grief than was probably deserved, and that as usual the power of a character class is usually perceived relative to the power level of players playing that class.

What they definitely aren't is quite as flexible in a day-today gameplay manner as other melee classes, but then again, lots of classes aren't incredibly flexible. I do believe that the recent change to massive weapons hurts them significantly but haven't seen enough to have more than a suspicion there. As imperfect as it is I think the easiest change is to give swashbucklers a passive significant dodge against massive weapons.

The class should never have existed in the first place, they need to be re-named as Pirates. Given a Pistol, a couple of coconut bombs and their choice of a monkey or parrot.

Mercenary is another class name that needs removed as well. Mainly because it implies someone hired for money to retrieve, kill or protect. Hard to find a Mercenary in Fantasy that is strapping on full plate armor, a big [REDACTED] shield and poking a dragon while protecting his party... (And not getting paid for the service). If anything the class falls under Warrior or Knight.

And while I'm at it, Why the hell would you name an Elementalist a Warlock? Warlocks are more dark / unholy magic with or without demonic influence. Even the title of Conjurer would have been more fitting for the class.

And now my biggest beef, why the HELL! DO Sorcerers not have their ultimate spell? The one found in pretty much any type of fantasy realm and game.... Where the &%$# is my FIREBALL!!!!

I'm done.

And where is my "like" button?!

Enhanced parry was "wimped" years ago to have the effect that the damage the swashbuckler or mercenary's attack to the limb only does half as much damage as a normal strike to an arm would do. I think the point about stances is very valid though. If I'm a swashbuckler on defensive I'd only get three attacks with 2 sais, whereas a specialized mercenary would get 4 to 5 depending on if they're hasted or not. I blame dual wield. Also enhanced parry is useless against massive weaponry, and the entire class is based around the parry skill.



This is patently untrue. Swashbucklers get the same hps as mercenaries, paladins, and hellions. The difference in damage reduction between a mithril plate, and an adamantite plate is negligible at best. Mithril is top tier armor even if the brittleness, and hardness of adamantite is better. However, if you take them up against someone who isn't wearing a weapon that ignores the parry skills they excel, they're actually really good. The use of shields is in my opinion way better than having 2 checks at parry, and the enhanced parry skill though. Rescue is generally better than taunt though