Shattered Kingdoms

They do. You'll rarely see an offhand riposte, though which leads me to believe you get a second parry, but at a highly reduced chance.

Ardith quick question about your speed leveled swashie did you get mastered in parry and Eparry? Not being a master may be way your merc was a much better at parrying than your swashbuckler.

I think a skill that would let you apply the equivalent of weapon enchant on your weapon per 10 levels would work well for swashbucklers. Letting them up their damage output significantly when not being focused and increasing their accuracy when being focused. It would help limit the I must have two weapons perfectly enchanted because even if I have 1 enchant less than the merc or barb when I turn my skill on I have four more than them. It would be an easy to tune skill as you could add an extra enchant or take it away depending how powerful it showed to be.

Also Taunt makes your target easier to parry unless I was lead astray in 2002 when I last played a swashbuckler so its not useless. Taunt is also swashbucklers you cant run away now ability.

Swashbucklers do have access to reach although I have no idea how it would play out if they used it to soften someone up before they ended up at the front row. Probably nothing special.

Why do swashbucklers need a new skill when a simple code fix to shields will solve their damage output problems?

Finesse is enough to increase damage anyway, but with armor protection and shields the advantage a swashbuckler gets with finesse is completely removed, and they are left completely unable to outdamage their heavy armor wearing opponents.

It's sort of sad to be honest. A naked barbarian can walk up to a top of the line swashbuckler that's tricked out with giant strength and haste and murder that swashbuckler with wild fighting.

The problem isn't that swashbucklers are bad. It's that other classes are way too good.

Simple answer ardith because the rest of combat is balanced around a shield. Two hand vs sword and board, PvE. Not to mention other classes that can use a shield like priests. If you nerf shields you have far reaching impacts in the game which you need to keep tabs on. If you buff swashbucklers then you only have to worry about what swashbucklers are doing. Also the idea of an ability for a swashbuckler to switch in combat helps fight against the other problem of boring combat. It also the ability I have suggested helps to limit swashbucklers dependance on gear and enchantment. Or rather at least gives them a reasonable chance well recovering. They would be innately better with weapons than other people.

Swashbucklers already have plenty of skills. They have roughly the same as mercenary. Adding new skills to swashbucklers isn't going to help them when the existing skillset isn't even working.

I propose two changes to swashbucklers to help bring them into balance:

1) Swashies should be able to riposte against bare fists; and if it doesn't already, each bare-handed attack should have to overcome an accuracy check for both held weapons. It should be advantageous for swashies to disarm, not a punishment. Futhermore, the damage dealt on a successful e-parry should be counted as a free attack from the weapon that parried it.

2) Taunt should be changed so that it causes a corresponding buff / debuff in accuracy based on the current concentration capability of your victim. In other words, a high int caster-class might actually gain an increase in accuracy, but a mercenary (and especially barbarian) would suffer heavy accuracy penalties. Effectively, this penalizes the barbarian for berserking when fighting a swashbuckler, which I think would make for a much more interesting dynamic.

It would also be a nice side effect if you could not trip while flying, or if you have no legs.

However, your testing against Peso is not exactly conclusive, as Yerryn is easily one of the toughest characters in one-on-one PvP.

Dude wtf, that's already built into e-parry.

Curious, given all things equal, who usually wins between barb v merc? Or is it down to who gets the bash/trip?

Me.

We know that, but who has the advantage generally in that fight?