Shattered Kingdoms

IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE. Jeeze. Otherwise swashbucklers would be the PERFECT melee class.

Except a mercenary can take a swashbuckler in straight melee, and has the ability to reach second and even third row effectively.

I guess you're right though, without that weakness swashbucklers would basically be mercenaries, the PERFECT melee class.

I don't agree. It's not that cut and dried, even if you are talking gaxes (except for giant mercs, which are almost a whole other class in themselves). Stock kama/khopesh swashbucklers are in general superior to mercenaries. In my experience if you were to give them both similar enchantments, spell-ups, class-respective gear and assume a bashbashbash scenario, the mercenary will wind up trying to flee unless he has heal vials.

It really is, I've played two GM swashies, and most recently a GM merc.

My mercenary had the best gear possible iron citadel loot out the wahzoo, fully enchanted, I could tear through swashies in straight melee combat in 3-4 rounds, even Ghustaph who was also decked in full IC loot, spiral wires, GGI's armor.

Valthanos had the best gear in the game for a swashy, so naturally I dropped almost all average geared mercs around, but whenever I fought mercs with gear equal to mine(read: Aedus) I usually got reamed.

Sure I'll give you when two scrub characters go up against each other, a swashy will usually win in straight combat simply because in inferior gear it becomes more about the evasion skills the swashy has vs the actual equipment/enchants each class has.

But if we're talking about two competent PK'ers who know what they're doing, and are both in equally good gear the mercenary is going to win more often than not.

You take that and then toss in the fact that the merc can stand behind a guard or pet and still be just as effective, or target a warlock/scout behind a pet without having to chop through the pet first, and you definately have to give them the upper hand in terms of PK potential. I don't see how anyone could really argue with that, you'd have to close your eyes to not see it.

EDIT: I'm also not talking about great-axes at all. That's a horrible weapon choice to face a swashy with. You have to get something with high accuracy to cut down on the parries/ripostes. The weapon I was spec'd in was Battlespear. First the Void Spear, and then later I switched to the Unholy Spear of Dark Energy.

Spiral wires suck. Valthanos is an example that is outdated in general as he was around for only a short while after the weapon changes. Aedus is not a good comparison because he was leet pre-weapon change with his mottled lance.

Not sure about your GM merc since he was a Fist, which is not applicable here since the best melee class in the game is a Fist shaman. What weapon were you using?

I think that both Arsilan and Mitch's Harlie swash would have wiped the floor with your merc.

Do non-tribunal mercs usually run around second-row these days looking for PK? If so, what pet do they use?

EDIT: Great-axe is one of the highest accuracy weapons.

Krakish trashed everything. Swashies were easy.

Crossbow spec and being third row....

Also Krakish v Aliquada, her no-dachi and sai, against my kama and shield. Both fully decked in sacred suits.

Krakish won.

It doesn't even matter what weapons the swashies switched out too. We tried Khopesh/Kama combo's, dual Waks, Sickles, pretty much anything out there that was half-way decent.

The fact that I was Fist also has nothing to do with it, since I was using a weapon and not my Fists. I also said in my previous post I was using battle-spears. Void Spear and Unholy Spear of Dark Energy.

As for the other two swashies, we really have no idea, nor will we ever. But in my experiences well geared mercs always wipe the floor with well geared swashies.

Well it sounds to me like your scenarios were not live. The spell-ups are where it really makes a difference for the swashbuckler (read: 25str/25dex). Otherwise the merc will definitely outdamage the swash.

I agree with you but I'm making a distinction. I, too, believe mercenaries are overall superior to swashbucklers because of reach/bash/trip. That's not necessarily true in a 1v1 situation.

We're quibbling over 5% endgame melee leetness for anyone new to the conversation. And no, Algon, before you post, I don't think you faced any decent enemies, and that your tests were skewed.

???
Do you mean that a dazed character will have all his skills dropped to good or something? So a merc vs merc becomes a joke with the dazed player not being able to dodge, use his weapon, dirt, etc etc. Unless you mean something else.



Barbs should dirt or quaff heal between their bashes. There isn't even time for a well placed head butt!

And I agree with Stratford. A swasie should have the upper hand in most cases vs a merc. Even if the merc wins it's not as easy as Sypher says.

Of course Sypher, if you did spam mastered blitz alongside flamberge/landy against a swashbuckler and still lost like you usually would, I would be completely wrong in all this. I understand that you never lost to a swashbuckler. Fine, fine. It doesn't matter then that you'd have to post logs of blitz-vs-swash where you lose to make me take back what I've said.

Yes, it's that good.

I like blitzkrieg.