Shattered Kingdoms

Swashbucklers by their nature are extremely nimble blade wielders, capable of superior swordplay they are extremely difficult to land blows on thanks to their superior evasion tactics.

I propose a new skill for swashbucklers, trainable at around veteran/expert level called Feint. As stated above, swashbucklers are extremely nimble swordsman, and as such should be very difficult to keep tripped or bashed(moreso than they are now).

Feint would basically just be a passive skill which is in practical purposes an enhanced dodge, that only work on skills such as Gore/Bash/Trip. Skills designed to keep enemies on the ground, lagged out. The chance to successfully feint would obviously be based on the swashbucklers dexterity vs his opponents dexterity(or perhaps even intelligence). A successful feint would enable the swashbuckler to easily avoid a bash or trip or gore aimed at the swashbuckler, and act as a failed trip/bash/gore for the swashbucklers opponent.

Although I believe what I'm stating is easily understandable, the visuals seemed to be a big success so I'll demonstrate again.

P.o.V = Mercenary
Valthanos = Swashbuckler

Successful Feint



So basically, a successful feint as demonstrated allows the swashbuckler to avoid trips/bashes and in the case of bash the opponent falls on his/her face and is lagged three rounds, just like a normal missed bash. In the case of trip, you can have either the critical misses, in which the person attempting trip fails, and is lagged three rounds, or you can have the non-critical misses, in which the trip fails, but the person attempting to trip is only lagged one round.

A failed feint would obviously result in the swashbuckler being bashed/tripped.

I've always been of the opinion that swashbucklers were lacking in comparison to mercenaries, and even barbarians to a slight extent. They're still competative usually, but when a mercenary/barbarian in stellar gear comes along, swashbucklers just get schooled hard.

Feint I think would even the playing field significantly, having a very high chance to avoid trip/bash/gore enables the swashbuckler to almost always stay on his feet and use his abilities such as dirt/disarm/taunt/kick in an attempt to swing the battle in his/her favor. It also allows them the liberty of quaffing flasks/herbs regularly. Another reason I think such an ability would be highly useful, is because swashbucklers are the only melee class that can't afford the luxury of standing behind a pet while still dealing damage. In order for swashbucklers to deal any effective damage at all they have to be in the front row, and always in danger of being bashed/tripped. This ability would allow them to do so with a far greater chance of survival.

Thoughts, questions, comments?

That would be a great idea to help make swashbucklers the creme da la creme of melee combat like they should be.

Swashies don't need anything. They are just fine.

I'd disagree.

I think swashies are fine just as they are. Riposte, dodge, enhanced parry, parry. They're monsters if you try to attack them with a weapon. Their only real weakness is bash, in which they can trip you before you bash them, unless your opponent is flying.

If you give them this, it'd make them far too powerful that other melees wouldn't stand a chance and they'd become far too common. Barbarians and fists / claws seem to be their only real weakness if a swashie gets spelled up nicely. That's just from my views of course.

Any highly accurate weapon on a mercenary specialized in it will rip a swashy to shreds. I've seen it countless times when I played my swashbucklers and mercenary, and even more recently PKing with and against swashbucklers and mercenaries.

Everyone flies in PK, trip is usually useless. Not to mention, as I've already said they -have- to be front row, nor can they reach the second row. Mercenaries and barbarians and any other class will always hold that advantage over them, even if they were to get this skill. As it is, swashbucklers deal inferior damage to mercenaries and barbarians, they're worse tanks than mercenaries, and if they want to kill anyone, they have to first hack through the pet. Swashbucklers do really get the short end of the stick in melee combat, they should be the unquestioned kings of melee, not the whipping boys of melee combat. As it is, a skill like feint wouldn't even make them hands down the best class in melee, but it would at least bring them in line with mercenaries/barbarians.

Actually having been playing a swash for the last 6+ months, and quite a few others before that also.
Any Merc/Barb with half a brain can beat even a prepared swash 90% of the time.

Any half accurate, non-dagger/sword weapon can destroy a swash. Especially if said weapons are unparryable.

This is not the most over-powering idea I've heard, in fact it would quite nicely put a swash at par with the other fighters PvP and would really make a merc/barb have to think and plan a tactic before taking on a swash instead of plain bashbashbashbash.


I like this idea.

I think it's over-powered. It's not easy as hell to bash a >23 dex swasie. Also a swashbuckler can join two cabals for a similar advantage. So a swasie in a tribunal is a like an indirect wimp of these cabals. I've always believed and still do that in most cases it's swasie>merc>barb>swasie. In other words a common swasie can kill a common merc. The same merc kills a common barbarian. And a common barbarian kills the said swasie. It's like each class has its counter class. A change like this would make swasies almost invulnerable among the warrior classes. I still agree though that they may need something to counter their "weakness" of first row.

Edit: Since we are talking about an ability that works while they are bashed here's an idea:

"It's well known how accurate a dual wielder's hits can be. Some of them though have the ability to deal devastating hits to the limbs of the warriors that come too close to them. It's then when a swashbuckler has the chance to strike in a way that will cut his opponent's arm or leg much easier than any other trained warrior would."

This can be a small bonus to dmg when aim mid/low, or a bit higher chance of cutting the limb after the target is below 40% (choose any number that suits better), or something similar. But he won't be almost immune to bash/trip quaffing dozens of heal vials.

Bash is also based on size, giants have an easier time bashing things than halflings for example.

Feint also does not help avoid any normal attacks, nor does it give the swashbuckler any bonuses other than avoiding bash/trip/gore. Said other cabal skills still provide a whole slew of other benefits that Feint does not.

I would also agree with you that a common swashy beats a common merc, etc... That's not the problem however, a high end merc almost always beats a high end swashy, that just really shouldn't happen.

The helpfiles lead one to believe that swashies are meant to be the kings of melee encounters, but they aren't, they aren't even balanced in melee combat with the other two classes. I'm personally of the opinion that they should be better than mercenaries and barbarians in straight up melee, as mercs and barbs still have other ways of killing opponents. For example both can kill opponents in the second row, a mercenary is also a powerful ranged combatant, second only to scouts. Swashbucklers, well they just have to sit and fight whatever's in front row.

I don't know if you saw my previous edit but another solution would also be a small buff to default hp of swasies. I want to agree with you because I have fought giant mercs with bspears behind fire elementals/tribunal NPCs with my swasie but in a pure pk situation, let's say in Teron, with 2v2 and no pets the mercs/barbs would have no chance with faint.