Fencer Builds

With the recent update to Emp gear and Fencer gifts, I'm thinking it might actually be better to use Sword + Shield and spam Savage or Mistral in some content. Does anyone have a solid Sword + Shield build right now? Having +1000 TP bonus for every WS is just bonkers.

im using the sword and shield from unity and its doing amazing dmg, but it have acc issue on higher content because sword do not have 242 skills and acc boost. I dont remember if the new update have any better sword option.

Blurred Sword +1 is D115, OAT, 242 skill, and WAR can wear it.


Also, this:
https://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Blurred_Shield_%2B1


Looks like SE finally wants to make Fencer a thing.

Wouldn't Axe/Shield be better?

Probably not, because Axe doesn't get Savage Blade.

looks like SE way of fixing war is to use sword+shield combo. the new sword and shield are crazy. one question does oat and double ATT stack?, like both can proc in the same attack round?. if it dont stack might be better off using the none oat sword since war get like over 50% DA.

Typically they do not. The only exception is virtue weapons.

They cannot proc together, but can "add" to each other (obviously with diminishing returns the more DA you add on).

Isn't the cap at 80% + swing rate?

No. You can get 100% Double Attack. There is effectively no cap.

Also yes, it looks like Blurred Sword NQ is better than the +1 for WAR (assuming 40% OAT on the +1).

now gotta make another acro set with wsd.

WAR gets so much double attack naturally that things like OaT don't really add much. I was looking at that unity sword with absorb HP or an augmented Skirmish Axe. Mistral axe is almost as good as Savage Blade and with the higher skill and base DMG it might match it in general.

Savage @1000 (2000) TP
11.25 fTP 50% STR/MND

Mistral @1000 (2000) TP
10.5 fTP 50% STR

Kumbhakarna: 191 DMG, 322 Delay with +15 Atk / Acc and +4 DA

Makes an interesting build.

Worth noting: To Chyula "Amazing damage" is actually really low damage.

The real problem with 1 handed builds is that not a single Sword or Axe WS that War can use has a Light or Darkness property. Also what would be your source of JA haste? The best I can see is Haste Samba for 5% or having a group specifically built with a Dancer for the 10% merited Haste Samba they give.

Not gonna lie I didn't even realize War was on the Empyrean axe.

I thought this too but with how high fencer now is and how badly Great Axe WS's perform (excluding Mythic), raw damage starts to catch up. I'm gonna be screwing around to see what comes out at different buff and target levels.

The only 2H WS that has Light property for WAR is.... Ukko's Fury which has the following properties.

Ukko's Fury,
3.0 fTP, 80% STR, Can critical

When compared to the others above it's just pathetic. Hell even ... Cloudsplitter can be made to out damage it.

Cloudsplitter @1000 (2000)TP
6.69 fTP 40% STR/MND, magic WS

SE really needs to fix 2H WS's already, this is getting bad. Right now if I need to go to a fight where Light / Dark SC's are are expected / required, then I'm going BLU or SAM.

No but empy set bonus can go off in same round. stacks with crit, usually double damages the 2nd hit on a double attack. So say, 1300 a swing on a crit going to do 2600~ with bonus.

Ukko's is much better now,, right up with upheaval. Stacking +35% crit dmg, and 5% wsdng on svarga.

3.0 fTP severely limits your average damage. All I care about is average damage, not that time when you proced four crits with a double DA. Ukko's sucks horribly right now when compared to everything else. It's only redeeming quality is that it had L3 light properties. And by the way, Upheavel isn't that great either for similiar reasons.

3.0 ftp doesn't hurt as much as you think, with an average hit that close to doubles a one hander. Ukko's isn't half as bad as you are implying, it just doesn't have broken ftp values like sword, axe, dagger and GK.

However, I think empy axe might come close (with AM3). The ODD from ukon will ***over a sword's white damage. GA white:ws ratio is around 45:55 with Ukon's AM3 (probably closer to 50:50 with the odd empy armor proc). I'm guessing, but probably 10:90 with a sword fencer build?

WS frequency is almost certainly going to be lower one handed, due to not having hasso.

GA offers a bit more in terms of ws properties and versatility with Weapon/Armor/Full break.

Interesting stuff though.

Honestly I find it hard to imagine any setup on Warrior without Hasso or LR is even close to viable. It's already a huge deal that Warrior only gets 78%~ Haste (without a Cor providing Samba) with Hasso. There's a reason that the Empyrean Legs or previously the AF Hands for Sam were considered the most important armor pieces, they cap delay with Hasso. If you are using a Sword the best you can hope for is to sub Dnc and get 75% unless you have an outside main Dancer giving you JA haste.

3.0 fTP hurts a lot because it acts as a global limit that prevents pumping the WS up. Any amount of WSC you add will barely move the final damage value. Those "broken fTP values" are precisely what makes those weapons so strong.


The math comes out very interesting. Hasso's 10% JA haste is definitely a big increase, going from 68.75% haste to 78.51% haste is a flat 45% increase in DPS. The question then becomes, does going from Ukko Fury / Upheaval / Resolution spam to Savage Blade / Mistral Axe spam, along with the +crit (9~??%) from Fencer balance that out. In lower haste situations, like haste spell + gear haste, the single wield builds easily win. And that was before the new shield, Emp +2 pants and gift bonus. Now we are looking at +1000TP on every WS done while having access to two WS's that ridiculous TP scaling. Not to mention what Savagery Warcry does for those same WS's.

Sangarius +1 = 158 DMG would turn into something like this
280 STR = +140 WSC, +21 fSTR (200 VIT, pulled out of my a$$)
160 MND (stat vommit) = +80 WSC
399 base DMG
4488 after fTP
10,098 with 2.25 cRatio

Svarga = 324 DMG (286+38, mine)
280 STR = +224, +21 fSTR
569 base DMG (42.6% higher then Sword though it's 92% higher delay)
1707 after fTP
5121 with 3.0 cRatio (both hits critical)
6913 after +35% Critical Attack Damage

That's just some napkin math to highlight how ridiculously different those two WS's are and how much the low fTP hurts Ukko's. In those calcs I actually favored Ukko's a lot more then Savage by not calculating in WSD though extra hits favor Ukko's slightly. I also gave Ukko's a full time 100% crit rate when doing the CHD, which isn't going to happen whilst Savages damage doesn't rely on a random roll. All in all I'd say Savage is 80~90% stronger then Ukko's, which is why I'm even bothering investigating this type of build anyway.

Losing 45% DPS from no hasso is bad, but gaining 80~90% WS damage might outweigh it. If I add in Haste Samba from /DNC then the difference in attack speed is 22.6% instead of 45%.

Now this comparison left out two things, first is that Conqueror exists and does lots of things that throws this comparison out the window. Also I didn't factor in doing skillchains, which given today's tactics really might change things. Savage is Fragmentation and needs a Fusion WS, Mistral Axe is Fusion and needs a Fragmentation WS, Ukko's is Light / Fragmentation and can make light with another Light or Fusion WS.

And as always, the correct answer is SE buff Great Axe / Great Sword weapon skills already.

For shits and giggles I'll do the math for just the first hit.

Phorcy's has 7% WSD, Blurry Shield +1 has another 7% WSD, could get some from Acro but I have no idea what the optimal build would be so leaving those out for now. So 14% WSC

Sword
399 * 10.25 = 4089 * 2.25 = 9200 * 1.14 = 10448

Svarga doing Ukkos @ 100% crit hit rate
569 * 2.0 = 1138 * 3.0 = 3414 * 1.35 = 4608 * 1.07 = 4930

WSD definitely favors Savage, throw as much of it as you can realistically find.

We all know one handed weapon skills are currently better and understand exactly what you are saying. GA ws does need buffing, but you seem to be ignoring the ws frequency and white damage completely. Your comparison is only half the story if you are ignoring half the damage.

Can you read? Its sounding like your only hearing part of what I said and then inventing the other part and arguing against it. I specifically mentioned what your talking about and gave numerical goals. Under optimal circumstances for Ukko's, it's 80~90% behind Savage Blade, under realistic circumstances it's much worse off. You would need to deal more then double your WS damage in melee (not f*cking white, this isn't WoW) in order to break even.



Your just inventing stuff without quantifying it because you feel something instead of knowing something.

I'm still working on optimal sets to get a better idea of the real DPS difference but it's looking good for Fencer setups so far.

I don't find it too hard to believe that Fencer setups could beat non-mythic setups, just because of how absolutely horrid non mythic setups are currently. I wouldn't underestimate the ability to make Light though if you are comparing to Savage, it's a huge deal not only for SC damage but also MB damage of your Geo(s) or whatever extra nukers you have.

Honestly the answer to playing War is to have a mythic if you want to even do low end DPS.

I excluded Conq because it changes so many things with AM3 and Berserk that I'm positive it wins even when being handicapped with Great Axe WS's.

As for light, Savage Blade most certainly makes Light. It needs a Fusion Property WS done first though so it really depends on your partner and how good you are at timing each other. Mistral makes Fusion and is nearly as strong as Savage, both work really well with Fencer setups. Two WAR's, one doing Mistral, the other Savage, will produce a constant stream of Lights. Even Ukko's -> Savage makes light. A WAR by himself could make light if he had songs, Red Lotus Blade -> Flat Blade = Fusion -> Savage Blade = Tier II Light (+150% WS damage). Then there is cloud splitter, which is weird but pretty good if you can get enough TP, MAB and some WSD. I do lots of stuff that involves doing multipart SC's for really big magic bursts. The other day we did CDC -> Leaden Salute = Darkness + Rudras = Double Dark + Nukes. Our Geo was doing Malise and Accumen to produce some ridiculous skillchains. Dropped Bee Delve from 97% to 30% in one volley.

There is more to skillchaining the smashing the same WS over and over again.

:Edit:

Actually, the more I look at cloud splitter the better I think it could be for SCing. Skillchains take into account the MAB of the closing person vs the MDB of the target, CS being a magic WS would be enhanced with MAB gear and the buffs / debuffs from the GEO would synchronize really well with that. Indi-Accumen + Geo-Malise would have some pretty silly Could Splitters being done that form even sillier Darkness's.

Hmm anyone have a link or a chart to how ilevel works for determining base D on Magic Weapon Skills? It used to be LV+2 but then SE changed it and I can't find any info regarding the testing, makes determining Cloud Splitter damage really hard.

Smashing the same WS over and over tends to be a pretty good strategy, especially if you are playing with other players that may or may not be good. Making a 3 step with Flat Blade and Red Lotus is also pretty shitty.

Cloud Splitter was brought up earlier, it's not as strong as Savage but having a light property is such a big deal now. 2 stepping with Sam or Blu is really what you will be doing in most groups unless you only go with LS members that are super coordinated.

It only takes two melee's on ventrilo / teamspeak or skype. They get a pattern down and then stick with it, eventually you get to the point where you can anticipate each other's TP usage. When usually did stuff with two BLU's and we could coordinate either light or darkness on the fly. Light would just be CDC -> CDC but dark would be Requiescat -> CDC. Later we switched to SAM + BLU and did Fudo -> CDC for light or Rana - > CDC for darkness. This is really important on NM's that shift their weakness's like Perfidian or Pluton. For doing the SC + magic burst we would do various SC's depending. This is really not hard and if a group can't get something like that down then they got FAR bigger issues then which weapon a DD is using.

The reason I mentioned CS is that the buffs required to make obscene skillchains are the same to make obscene CS's. Magic WS's are normally weaker then physical but do to how MAB/MDB work they can become much stronger with the right buffs / debuffs. I'm talking 20K leaden salutes, 18K Flash Nova's, and possibly ~15K Cloud Splitters since there is no cap on mRatio (MAB/MDB).