New TWF style for Swashbuckler

[droid327]

Not that Swashbuckler needs any more improvement, but I do think this would open a new variant up that wouldn't be overpowered, just offer a different style of gameplay:

Main-Gauche: You can wield a Dagger in your off hand while Swashbuckling. You gain 20% offhand strike chance while Swashbuckling.
Wrist Cut: You make an offhand attack to your enemy's weapon arm with +1/2/3[W]. On damage, enemy's attack and casting speed is reduced 50% for 12s. 18s cooldown, costs 10 SP.

You don't benefit from SWF feats, like you do with Orb/Runearm/Buckler. This would be a way to make a TWF variant on Swash that didn't take SWF. Restricting it to daggers limits the effectiveness of this - no dual BS or dual Celestias, for example - and synergizes a bit with Ranger and Rogue. Obviously, no synergy with Ninja Spies for Bards :) It also would make the on-hit effects in Warchanter more attractive, especially if Melee Power ends up boosting them as it probably will. Exploit Weakness could be made to only increase mainhand crit threat (but increment on both and expire if you offhand crit), if that was technically easier and/or more balanced.

Thematically, a main-gauche is a perfectly acceptable form of Swashbuckling, too.

[Saekee]

cool idea. No reason to pigeonhole bards into SWF, even if it is powerful. Hey, we have armed monks, right?

[gwonbush]

I'd make Wrist Cut a simple +2[W] with one rank to keep in line with the other Swashbuckling Styles.

[unbongwah]

Even if you lose the atk speed & +200% dmg bonus from SWF, the crit bonuses from Swashbuckling stance might still make TWF OP even if you're stuck with daggers. Need someone who's better at crunching DPS numbers than me to work that out, however. Plus thematically I think it would make more sense if using a main gauche provided a defensive benefit, like a chance to parry incoming melee atks or extra dmg on Ripostes or something.

[droid327]

I'd make Wrist Cut a simple +2[W] with one rank to keep in line with the other Swashbuckling Styles.

That's right, the other styles aren't ranked. That's a better implementation.


Even if you lose the atk speed & +200% dmg bonus from SWF, the crit bonuses from Swashbuckling stance might still make TWF OP even if you're stuck with daggers. Need someone who's better at crunching DPS numbers than me to work that out, however. Plus thematically I think it would make more sense if using a main gauche provided a defensive benefit, like a chance to parry incoming melee atks or extra dmg on Ripostes or something.

I thought about it, but it seemed like with easily maxed Dodge on a Displacement class with Uncanny Dodge, another stackable avoidance would either be over powered or overkill. Plus the other two related attacks are CCs, which are useful in groups even if you're not holding aggro. Main gauches aren't really for defense anyway, they're for making a close-quarter attack when you have your blades engaged.

I guess you could make it a -25% to-hit debuff, but I'm not sure if that would actually end up being way OP or wholly pointless, especially for a light-armor class.

[Scrabbler]

Not that Swashbuckler needs any more improvement, but I do think this would open a new variant up that wouldn't be overpowered
...
You gain 20% offhand strike chance while Swashbuckling.
Increased offhand rate = Yes, it is overpowered. Particularly compared to other pure-class TWF builds like Kensei, Assassin, Ravager, or Tempest.

20% offhand rate is one of the leading attractions for Tempest, and it requires 12 Ranger levels. To provide that with only 3 Bard levels... well. For one very clear thing, Rog17/Bard3 would become undeniably* directly superior to Rog20 for melee with weapons. (The only way a non-staff melee Rogue could justify not taking Bard3 would be if he wanted Paladin and Monk splashes)


* Maybe not 100% undeniable, depending on how valuable Lethality is... but pretty close... and other melee classes don't usually have the kind of high-power level 18 core that Rogue Assassin does, removing a tradeoff for the 3 Bard splash.

[droid327]

Increased offhand rate = Yes, it is overpowered. Particularly compared to other pure-class TWF builds like Kensei, Assassin, Ravager, or Tempest.

20% offhand rate is one of the leading attractions for Tempest, and it requires 12 Ranger levels. To provide that with only 3 Bard levels... well. For one very clear thing, Rog17/Bard3 would become undeniably* directly superior to Rog20 for melee with weapons. (The only way a non-staff melee Rogue could justify not taking Bard3 would be if he wanted Paladin and Monk splashes)

I have to disagree with you there. 20% offhand (with 0.5 stat-to-dmg) is comparable to 10% DS from Scoundrel (compare to Kensei *capstone*), or 10% Dodge from Skirmisher. Even though, yes, its the same as Rgr 12 cores - Tempest also gets much more in the toolbox for TWF, Rgr also gets TWF free as autogrants, and Rgr can wield Scims or any light weapon in their offhand.

Rogue with various splashes is already superior to pure Rogue in terms of melee DPS, I don't see how this would change anything - just add another splash to the Rogue synergy. Rog/Rgr is already better than 20 Rogue if you want to dual wield daggers.

[Scrabbler]

(compare to Kensei *capstone*)
Yup, looking at the Kensei capstone is an easy way to see that it's overpowered.

We already know that Swashbuckler is excessively good compared to most melee trees, but it's at least limited to SWF or S&B. Making it better for TWF as well...


PS. Before the devs announced their plans, my own suggestion for Swashbuckler was that it's primarily a TWF tree, with a fallback to SWF if you wanted half as much melee benefit for 3 less feat investment. That would've avoided all these concerns about SWF feats being too strong next to alternatively THF and TWF...

[the_one_dwarfforged]

20% offhand (with 0.5 stat-to-dmg) is comparable to 10% DS from Scoundrel (compare to Kensei *capstone*)...Even though, yes, its the same as Rgr 12 cores...

glad to see that you recognize why this suggestion is awful as presented.

if you are going to give something access to twf, it isnt going to need any bs buff that would be steppin on tempests turf and is immediately compared to a lvl 20 enhancement.

just give an enhancement allowing swash to use a dagger only in their offhand which would gain no benefits from swashbuckling at all. that seems a lot more fair to me, and if you argue pigeon holing id like to point out that if you want to twf or thf or even swf as a bard, you can. just go do it...

[autochthon]

Main Gauche
You can Sawashbuckle and benefit from Single Weapon Fighting with a dagger in your off hand.

That's all it would need to be. 1AP to be able to benefit from both SWF and TWF lines is huge. Also +0.2[d4] on hits, whish is basically +0.2[w]

[unbongwah]

1AP to be able to benefit from both SWF and TWF lines is huge.
You cannot take both TWF & SWF feats; they're mutually exclusive. Well, you're not supposed to be able to; there is (or was) a workaround, but it's not WAI.

In any case, this would be OP if it worked like you wanted it to, IMHO. Nice try, though. ;)

[droid327]

glad to see that you recognize why this suggestion is awful as presented.

if you are going to give something access to twf, it isnt going to need any bs buff that would be steppin on tempests turf and is immediately compared to a lvl 20 enhancement.

just give an enhancement allowing swash to use a dagger only in their offhand which would gain no benefits from swashbuckling at all. that seems a lot more fair to me, and if you argue pigeon holing id like to point out that if you want to twf or thf or even swf as a bard, you can. just go do it...

You really think 20% offhand is grossly more powerful than 10% Dodge or 10% DS? I wanted to make sure that TWF Swashbuckling wouldn't be mathematically inferior to either of the SWF combat styles...you're already trading -30% attack speed and -10% DS and -100% stat-to-dmg for the second weapon, which is restricted to Dagger, but you think it should be capped out at 80% offhand too?

Honestly, I imagine that most MGs would end up splashing /6 Ranger for Tempest line anyway, I don't think its a "turf" issue anymoreso than Kensei and Monk fight over "turf".


You cannot take both TWF & SWF feats; they're mutually exclusive. Well, you're not supposed to be able to; there is (or was) a workaround, but it's not WAI.

In any case, this would be OP if it worked like you wanted it to, IMHO. Nice try, though. ;)

Yeah that was the only reason I proposed this in the first place...if you could do both, then this would be the unequivocal BEST way to build a Bard, and I didn't want to go too far THAT way either :)

[the_one_dwarfforged]

You really think 20% offhand is grossly more powerful than 10% Dodge or 10% DS? I wanted to make sure that TWF Swashbuckling wouldn't be mathematically inferior to either of the SWF combat styles...you're already trading -30% attack speed and -10% DS and -100% stat-to-dmg for the second weapon, which is restricted to Dagger, but you think it should be capped out at 80% offhand too?

Honestly, I imagine that most MGs would end up splashing /6 Ranger for Tempest line anyway, I don't think its a "turf" issue anymoreso than Kensei and Monk fight over "turf".

i dont think that any ability or enhancement which is supposed to be one of or the primary appeal of being a certain class should be given to any other class, period. the fact that you have already mentioned that many builds that would use this enhancement would splash 6 ranger for that bonus is exactly the point. if you want it go ranger, if you dont, you can take more bard levels. that makes more sense than just giving it fully to bards and eliminating the need for ranger (it takes more investment in ranger levels to get that extra 20% under your suggestion btw, thats just wrong).

it isnt about what youre trading by going from swf to twf, its about what you are able to do as a twfer.

[Oberon_Shrader]

After reading this thread it strikes me that this is a style that should really be available to Swashbuckler. +20 percent off-hand doesn't strike me as too much, provided you cannot benefit from TWF feats as well. This poses a problem for Ranger/Bard mixes, but I cant see how it's not overcomeable. I'm sure the Devs an figure it out if they wanna make it happen, and they should. After all, this is a classic style of fighting for the swashbuckler types that have been throughout history!