Swashbuckler

[ChicagoChris]

More in depth:

Core Abilities
1 AP, class level 1: Swift Strikes: Passive: +1% Dodge.
5 AP, class level 3: Swashbuckling: Defensive Stance: You gain 1% Doublestrike and Doubleshot as well as +1 to the Enhancement Bonus of the weapon in your main hand. Swashbuckling requires wielding a Finesseable or Thrown weapon in your main hand, wielding a Buckler or nothing in your off hand, and wearing Light Armor or no armor. (Druids cannot Swashbuckle while in animal forms.) Please add a "Throwing Expertise" Here a la Monk so that someone might actually consider throwing something other than Shuriken with Monk levels
Passive: In addition, while Swashbuckling, you gain +1 Damage, and the weapon in your main hand gains a Competence bonus to Critical Damage Multiplier that makes it x3 (ignoring other bonuses) and Critical Threat Range that makes it 18-20 (ignoring other bonuses). You can get this threat range basically with Rogue Tier 5 Knife in the Back or whatever for 15-20x3 knives. WIthout about 120% Doubleshot however, it still can't keep up with a Shuriken Thrower with 10k. That's why I say there needs to be a more general Throwing Expertise feat.
10 AP, class level 6: Uncanny Dodge: You gain the Uncanny Dodge feat. Passive: Swashbuckling grants an additional 1% Doublestrike, 1% Doubleshot, and +1 Damage.
20 AP, class level 12: Panache: While Swashbuckling, you gain +1% Dodge, 1% Doublestrike, 1% Doubleshot, +1 Damage, +1 Reflex Saving Throw, and the weapon in your main hand gains an additional +1 to its Enhancement bonus.
30 AP, class level 18: Roll with the Punches: While Swashbuckling, you gain +5 Insight Bonus to Character Dodge Cap, the Slippery Mind feat, +1% Doublestrike, 1% Doubleshot, and +1 Damage.
41 AP, class level 20: Evasive Maneuvers: +2 CHA, +2 DEX.While Swashbuckling, you gain the Evasion feat, +1% Doublestrike, 1% Doubleshot, +1 Damage, and the weapon in your main hand gains an additional +1 to its Enhancement bonus. Evasion should come MUCH sooner. Monk and Rogue Splashes give it at level 2. I suggest moving Evasion to Core 3; Level 6.

Completely agree with the statements on Evasion. Evasion is one of the few "must have" feats, and a significant number of builds take 2 levels of rouge or monk splashes to get evasion. And as mentioned earlier, as soon as you switch your weapon out (scroll heal?), you loose evasion.

Why don't you put evasion on Core 3 while in stance, core 4 or 5 out of stance, and improved evasion as capstone? Or Core 3 in stance, Core 5 out of stance? That would be *much* more useful for levels 6-20. Or does heroic just not matter any more?


Seriously, who's going to build a straight bard for capstone evasion when you get it so much earlier with a 2 level splash?

[DemonStorm333]

I say swashbuckler should be able to be used with any 1 handed sword and only get the benefits to threat range and crit mult. if the weapon is finessable

[zeonardo]

Sad to watch...
Still no reason to click on the bard class on character creation for me.

It would be perfect for flavor if it would come along with decent animations.
Slap in the Face and Elegant Footwork would look awesome!!




But to be more constructive, and add to the OP

What is missing:
Toughness - Lots of Toughness. 10+10+10/3AP minimum like pale masters. Or 5+5+5/3AP and +1 per AP spent in tree (Bards are d6, remember?)
Item Defense - Bards carry pots and scroll that are likely to get broken in melee.
Retreat - They need means to flee battle early in their life. Jump SLA, phasing tumble, auto diplomacy check on hit%, backwards Leap of Faith. Anything.

Potpourri - Like the Quicken Feat but For songs!! They should be able to chain songs while the previous animation is still playing (buff triggers on the start of the song and releases next cast). Bard buffs are awesome but the group is moving on after the 2nd song. Long and boring.

Dirty Fighting - Use the battleground as weapon - While Swashbuckling, any breakable attacked in melee deals [dice] damage and slows nearby enemies

En Garde/Touche: Disarm - While Swashbuckling and wielding nothing in your off hand, activate to deal 1 piercing damage. Damaged enemies receive a 5/10/15 penalty to attack and damage for 3/6/9 seconds and are knocked down for 1 second (Dexterity + d20 saves for the Knockdown). 25/20/15 second cooldown.

Flavor:
Mustache (Hello QuartermasterX ?)
Visible Cloak.
Sticks and Stones - Imnate sonic resistance and resistance to any spell with a verbal component (now that would be tricky to code! )

[IronClan]

This is weaksauce. I mean come on . . . IT'S A FRIGGIN BARD . . . you could easily err on the side of over-powered and be safe.

^^^ This in a nutshell is my objection as well.

Light pick +1 range? LOL Turbine imagine if I told you 15-20X6 would still be weak next to a Centered Kensei? Yep I'm telling you...

Play your game Developers stop acting like a little lethality would be OP for a melee class in a game where a PM can insta kill everything in it's path in 99% of the game...

You could quite literally make all melee attacks True Vorpal on a 19-20 and a melee would still be woeful DPS compared to a Draconic sorc doing 20,000 AOE damage once or twice per room, or a PM "smart bombing" an entire room full of EE trash mobs obliterating the entire room...

Join a PUG Wheloon EE with a 70-ish DC PM... then come back and talk of +1 crit range Light picks LOL

[jakeelala]

Completely agree with the statements on Evasion. Evasion is one of the few "must have" feats, and a significant number of builds take 2 levels of rouge or monk splashes to get evasion. And as mentioned earlier, as soon as you switch your weapon out (scroll heal?), you loose evasion.

Why don't you put evasion on Core 3 while in stance, core 4 or 5 out of stance, and improved evasion as capstone? Or Core 3 in stance, Core 5 out of stance? That would be *much* more useful for levels 6-20. Or does heroic just not matter any more?


Seriously, who's going to build a straight bard for capstone evasion when you get it so much earlier with a 2 level splash?

Awesome suggestions. Anything less than Improved Evasion for a pure Bard at 20 would not be compelling.

Also, who in the world is more appropriate to have Improved Evasion than a freakin rope swinging, dancing, fencing SWASHBUCKLER?
No one.

[Lauf]

just wanted to say, please add scimitars to the swashbuckler's list of weapons.

[Seikojin]

I say that either Warchanter or Swashbuckler should have the ability to add CHA to attack and Damage with finessable weapons somewhere in the tree. Preferably Tier 1 or 2, or by level 6 in cores. You could even put the limitation in that it needs to be a finessable weapon, while wearing a buckler or no shield and light or no armor.

I am thinking further down the line, Warchanter will, or at least should get cha to damage. And swash should get dex to damage. Or more on the lines; they both are non-spell trees, so they should focus on bards respective main and secondary favored stats: charisma and dexterity.

Warchanter gets cha based switches, gets some self, friend and combat friendly songs.
Spellsinger gets boosts to sonic, dc's, and snog saves and utility (like a song based ottos sphere).
Swashbuckler gets dex based switches, and can expend songs to do other utility (like the taunts/insults), instead of using spell points. The sonic procs are the swashbucklers melee sla's, so I am fine if they consume sp.

I think the tier 5 precision enhancement should make precision the feat passive. This would open it up to a whole new level.

[jakeelala]

just wanted to say, please add scimitars to the swashbuckler's list of weapons.

Agreed, it's a cutlass basically. Also, they already have the tech to do so with Tempest line.

[Cardtrick]

18: Again nice but the bonus to dodge cap needs to also raise armor max dex bonus. There are few light armors which would allow 30 dex to use the cap increase, and I do not think the class should push people into cloth armor to utilize its unique dodge modifiers. Have it add +5 to max dex, AND the other bonuses... so its 5 more dodge no matter what swashbuckler gear youre in, but the unique part is it also raises the cap if youre there.

Excellent point. One of the innate bard features is spellcasting while wearing light armor, so let's not encourage going in robes.

I realize most trees have some kind of skill mod thing with a benefit on the 3rd rank, but no ones going to use this one (not that anyone uses the others either).

The Henshin monk one that gives ki regeneration bonus on the 3rd tier is awesome. Then again, it's a monk thing, so go figure, right?

Sword Dance is cool, finally a guard which might not fail. BE SURE that it does NOT break fascinate. Like log in a bard, go make a train of guys in dev-invincible mode, and spam fascinate to BE SURE it does NOT break it. If fascinated mobs in the middle of the last swing hit you, miss, take guard damage, and wake up except a rage letter. Thats just not acceptable. Thanks.

Again, a fantastic point. It's really important that this tree be considered in the context of the class itself, and Fascinate is a core ability.

But I do love that this scales with spellpower. This is the kind of thing we need more of -- abilities that will appropriately grow in power as a character levels.

Elegant Footwork sounds lame. Im assuming that its something (made up numbers inc) like 5% chance to knock a guy down when he hits you, but then 12s cd happens after it fires? Thats just so minor given the number of swings that come your way, especially on a class like bard with decent CC abilities. Id prefer an AC/PRR choice here with the same name. This is a class likely to be subject to a lot of melee attacks. It needs some defense too, and there wasnt a lot in the core besides dodge. So that leaves mitigation. Try "Elegant Footwork: 1/2/3 tiers, +5prr per tier". Boring, perhaps, but necessary to survive ddo nowadays.

Yes. I get that the flavor of the tree is about dodging, but for what seems to be largely a defensive melee tree, the lack of PRR is going to be very problematic. No defensive stance, no medium or heavy armor, no monk earth stance, no eldritch knight shield SLA, no warpriest PRR. Without some PRR, this is going to be a defensively weak tree, and that's something it can't afford to be given the obvious DPS limitations of going with one weapon.

[Silken-Akira]

First of all thanks for sharing this so early.
I do like most of it. Bits I have some comments on are:
- 'limber up','En Pointe' and 'Aqua Vitae': don't see many use in any of these 3 at all personally.
- the one weapon nothing in off hand I am a bit afraid about it will not give enough to be balanced out against 2WF, but maybe all this changes by some specific feats for this.
- I was expecting 2 other things in this tree. something cha based and similar to that something perform-skill based. as for the perform-skill based side I was thinking in the direction like insults. Good thing about this is that it would scale as you level and keep deciding to put points into this

[thegreatneil]

1) Why is Improved Weapon Finesse not in this tree anywhere. Add it.

2)•5 AP, class level 3: Swashbuckling: Defensive Stance: You gain 1% Doublestrike and Doubleshot as well as +1 to the Enhancement Bonus of the weapon in your main hand. Swashbuckling requires wielding a Finesseable or Thrown weapon in your main hand, wielding a Buckler or nothing in your off hand, and wearing Light Armor or no armor. (Druids cannot Swashbuckle while in animal forms.)

So no rage or Adrenaline, right?

3) Uncanny Dodge: You gain the Uncanny Dodge feat. the passive bonus to Dodge at levels 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, and 20, the 25% active clickie or both?

[Lauf]

Tier Two

1. Aqua Vitae: Heal 1d6 HP every two seconds while the temporary hitpoints persist. (Long cooldown).
2. Sword Dance: While Swashbuckling, when enemies miss you in combat, you deal 1d10/1d12/1d20 Sonic Damage. Scales with Spell Power. (This triggers off of various miss chances, including Dodge, Armor Class, Displacement, etc.)

the healing (1d6) doesn't scale with levels (intended or did you forget text here?) and will become useless (assuming it is ever useful) before long.
the damage is (as mentioned earlier) way too high for heroics, and amusing in epics.

after giving those some thought, I would suggest making the following changes to the numbers:

1. Aqua Vitae: Heal 1d6 HP for every bard level you have. (every 2 secs etc. etc.). Scales with Spell Power.
2. Sword Dance: you deal 1 / 1 /1d2 Sonic Damage for every bard level you have. Scales with Spell Power.

[jakeelala]

1) Why is Improved Weapon Finesse not in this tree anywhere. Add it.

2)•5 AP, class level 3: Swashbuckling: Defensive Stance: You gain 1% Doublestrike and Doubleshot as well as +1 to the Enhancement Bonus of the weapon in your main hand. Swashbuckling requires wielding a Finesseable or Thrown weapon in your main hand, wielding a Buckler or nothing in your off hand, and wearing Light Armor or no armor. (Druids cannot Swashbuckle while in animal forms.)

So no rage or Adrenaline, right?

Does Rage dismiss all Defensive stances?

[FrancisP.Fancypants]

I personally think the Cannoneer part of the Swashbuckling Style should just give you Runearm Proficiency Feat automatically (Or have the Runearm Proficiency as an actual, trainable feat by the next update, in the least).

Otherwise, you're forced to take two levels in Artificer to get the Rune Arm Use.

And if you're splashing 2 arti levels on a bard, you'd be better off using a repeater than a finesse weapon anyhow.

Do we lose Swashbuckling stance if we have a scroll or wand in our main hand?
Bards are a UMD class. If I'm going to lose my Swashbuckling stance every time I use a heal scroll or cure wand and have to manually re-enable it afterward, you can bet I'm not going to have a lot of fun.
Beyond the sheer annoyance, that means you also lose Evasion at one of the times when you want it most -- when you're in trouble and need to pop a Heal scroll.

Absolutely. And evasion at 20? Again, why wouldn't you just splash rogue?

And yet, like the other bard trees, at a glance it looks like it should synergize with multi-builds.. except that the restrictions completely gut that idea. Warchanter barb is a good way to gimp a barbarian for the sake of some CLW, for example. This tree has some attractive dodge and crit bonuses, but between the finesse weapon requirements and swashbuckle being a defensive stance, there's nothing there beyond a flavor build. Even within the other bard trees, there's not much of a useful mix.

So it looks like a tree that needs to be the main focus on a toon, which is not really a fun idea for clever toon building (and obviously not an optimal one). Add some sonic damage and a small-percentage stun proc on a melee hit, and this could be a more interesting. As a second or third tier core ability, Dex or Cha based damage might even make it sorta viable. Ditch the thrower enhancements, replace them with sonic-boosting enhancements. Raise your numbers until you start to really panic that it's OP, and then remember that it's fine because you can't splash monk on a bard. Then maybe this will be worth the time.

[IronClan]

The way you described Adrenalines working was materially different to how it actually works, both in relation to MaddMatt's earlier point, and your own in the post responding to his that I responded to.

It's not a dig, it's a clarification. Some of us believe details matter. Matt was suggesting this build would regen adrenalines VERY fast. He was wrong about that, because they regen about 20x slower than he was suggesting.

However, they do regen. Which is materially different than you suggesting they don't. This build would presumably have a high rate of attack with new one weapon fighting feats and close to 100% doublestrike. It would regen adrenalines potentially faster than a THF build, though that's a is not a given depending on the new feats.

When you make a mistake or a material omission, and someone simply corrects you without prejudice, you should either just move on, or say thank you. Not argue with their motivation in making the correction, constructively.

When you see an irrelevant omission that would derail the discussion because you're picking nits you should just move on or say "that's got nothing to do with this". Not try to one up the poster because you've got a beef with people on the PC and want to try and show one of them up as unknowledgeable.

Seriously it is truly tedious trying to discuss things like this when people like you force everyone write long winded expositions about ground that most of us already understand and isn't even tangentially related to the subject. Who gives a s*** about how fury eternal works, your Adrenalin's are 1 shot, they are limited and they are part of an ED that has no bearing on the discussion of the relative weakness of an enhancment tree because ALL melee trees can use that ED.

[Grimlock]

Half of this ENTIRE PRESTIGE REVOLVES AROUND THROWING.

Not my idea, it was the devs.

Half is extreme. There needs to be multiple choices for people wanting to go ranged and we have that between Shiradi and Fury, but the system is broken and not balanced or even close to balanced when compared to the other destinies. The trade off for making a ranged character who wants to fight from a distance needs to be said character has a fraction of the damage output potential currently in place.

[Lencrennis]

Um,

You lose Dex based chance for extra shuriken in Ninja Spy. That's an ENORMOUS loss of damage. And you can only use Shuriken Expertise with Shuriken.

You're still arguable down from any Monk/Shuriken based thrower because your procs are so much lower (number of projectiles). How in the WORLD are you calculating a 75-80% throw rate of a monk?

A monk Shuri thrower with 70 Dex throws 1 + .7 +.7 Shuriken per animation. That's around 2.4 a second, BEFORE double shot or 10k.

I don't understand your math. This needs a NEW feat called "Throwing Expertise" That allows for extra ammo on all or specific Throwing weapon types at the VERY least to compete. We don't need 2 sources like a Monk with Shuriken, but make a Level 3 Tiers 2 Core Enhancement like Monk that allows for a Dex based Proc chance of any or a type specific (Thrown Hammer, Thrown Dagger, whatever, selector if it needs to be) thrown item.

THEN all of this starts to maybe be attractive.

The math works. Not going to spend my time with your attitude, though. I'll just run circles around you when it goes live

[Cardtrick]

Does Rage dismiss all Defensive stances?

Typically it's the other way around -- defensive stance makes you immune to Rage and can be used to dismiss Rage. I don't see any reason to believe this stance would be different.

Although this is the first time a class that can cast Rage has had a defensive stance, as far as I can think.

[jakeelala]

Half is extreme. There needs to be multiple choices for people wanting to go ranged and we have that between Shiradi and Fury, but the system is broken and not balanced or even close to balanced when compared to the other destinies. The trade off for making a ranged character who wants to fight from a distance needs to be said character has a fraction of the damage output potential currently in place.

Incorrect. See Spell Casting.

You can also just increase incoming damage to Ranged/Ranged Spellcasting characters.

You're 0 for 2 now. What else you got?

[Grimlock]

I think evasion needs to remain at cap. Its a great reward for going pure.

This. Many have said this before and it needs to happen - and not only for Bard.