Help with Swashy

[Mynyel]

<div></div>Hiyas!  This might actually be somewhere in the tunnels of the forums but be hanged if I can find it and to be honest lookng through them all is a bit daunting. Here is what I have.I am a 36 Swashy.  I like my Swashy but feel she is sorely lacking.  I have no idea how to make her hit harder or solo better...I can't solo her, not unless Im fighting only blue mobs. So if anyone needs what she's wearing or what she has or whatever just let me know.  I really do like her I just need to tweak her =)MynyelRaychel (Heroes Unlimited) 36th level, Permafrost<div></div>

[ArivenGemini]

<div><span><blockquote><hr>Mynyel wrote:<div></div>Hiyas!  This might actually be somewhere in the tunnels of the forums but be hanged if I can find it and to be honest lookng through them all is a bit daunting. Here is what I have.I am a 36 Swashy.  I like my Swashy but feel she is sorely lacking.  I have no idea how to make her hit harder or solo better...I can't solo her, not unless Im fighting only blue mobs. So if anyone needs what she's wearing or what she has or whatever just let me know.  I really do like her I just need to tweak her =)<hr></blockquote>Start selecting gear with an eye towards +str and then +agi as your importance.. str modifies how much damage you do.Secondly, open up and look at ALL your combat arts... every single one.. start thinking about which ones do what.. I have 9 in a row on my first hotbar, when soloing my typical tactic is to open up from stealth with the stealth attack that has a stun, then lay in with two more rear attacks..  then I start in on the regular combat arts..Done properly, the mob should be close to 50% health before he even turns on you.  Yellows should be no problem (one up arrows will be harder, and brawler mobs harder as well).it is critical that you know what art does what debuff to know what order and what situations it is best on..  for example, one snare does damage, and another one debuffs one resistance... use the snare with damage when all your CAs are recycling... and learn that resist debuff on the other one so that you know -when- to use it (when you have the right group config)</span></div>

[Ookami-san]

<div></div><p><font size="5"><strong>1. Learn the swashy tactics...</strong> </font></p><p>Here's a quote from a tactics post:</p><p> </p><hr>Hands McGee wrote:<blockquote><div></div><div></div><div>This method has been around for a while, but I thought I'd bring some attention to it.</div><div> </div><div>1. Start in sneak</div><div>2. Open with brazen thrust, guile, lung pucture, and backstab combo</div><div>3. Hit cheap shot (turn auto attack off if mob is ^ or over and gonna be a close fight)</div><div>4. While stunned him him with flurry and gouge lines.</div><div>5. Mez it</div><div>6. Slip into stealth and wait for mez to run down.</div><div>7. Right before mez runs out brazen thrust, guile, lung pucture, and backstab should be backup</div><div>8. Unload on the mob again!</div><div>9. Go back to step 3 and repeat.</div><div> </div><div>I've never had a yellow ^ last more than 3 rounds, sometimes 2, add about 20 secs in for downtime and you can almost solo a yellow ^ every 2 mins.  At lvl 63 I was almost getting .5% a kill for them.</div><div> </div><div>notes</div><div>1. This really only works well with posions that don't have dot's on them, if you use a dot posion it will break your mez.  I'm acctually liking the new posion types.  Either the straight DD or the lifetap posion work great.</div><div>2.  Might want to take off imbued pants or anything else that procs damage when you get hit.  If mob has a dot on you and it procs it will break your mez.</div><div>3.  With this method anyone can solo any thing up yelllow ^'s with ease.  Orange is doable, but harder do to because of a lot of resists. </div><div>4.  Mez duration is 22.5 secs with a 30 sec recast.  Recast on backstab and lung puncture is also 30 secs.  With the 4 sec stun on brazen thrust and the 2-6 sec on cheapshot the mob should only get 1-2 hits in a round if everything goes right.</div><hr></blockquote><p><strong><font size="5">2. Use poisons</font></strong></p><p>Buy player made poisons and learn to stack poisons in the most favorable way -> Usually DD for soloing, poison or mitigation debuff and stun or stifles have worked for me</p><p><strong><font size="5">3. Gear up</font></strong></p><p>Get the best gear you can and make sure you are upping your STR (for more damage) and AGL (for power pool, avoidance and critical chance).</p><p><font size="5"><strong>4. MASTERS!</strong></font></p><p>Get as many Adept IIIs and Masters as you can.  This makes a HUGE difference in our soloability.  Some people might argue... but I think this and the right poisons make the most difference and increase your dps SUBSTANTIALLY.</p><p><font size="5"><strong>5. CHOOSE YOUR ENEMY</strong></font></p><p>We just don't do well against some mobs, for whatever reason... perhaps they have high poison resists or they stun alot, or whatever.  Choose other mobs.  Remember... capitalize on your strengths and minimize our weaknesses.</p><p><font size="5"><strong>6. HAVE FUN</strong></font></p><p>We're not the best class at anything... sorry... it's true.  But we are versatile enough that we do good in many different types of situations.  Just remember to have fun!</p>

[SageGaspar]

<div>I didn't use any Adept III until I was in my 50s.</div><div> </div><div>The trick is good poisons (no real reason not to use rares, as they cost about the same for alchemists below 60) and knowing how to keep them stunned. That last tactics post actually didn't mention another one of our stuns, the Swathe line. Decent cast time, but it has a knockdown component that you can use to get more backstabs in. I'm not a fan of the mezz tactics myself, especially below 60 when you're using DoT poisons.</div>

[Ookami-san]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>SageGaspar wrote:<div>I didn't use any Adept III until I was in my 50s.</div><hr></blockquote><p>You CAN do it... but I garuntee you that you will do better WITH the Adept IIIs. </p><p> </p><blockquote><hr>SageGaspar wrote:<div>The trick is good poisons (no real reason not to use rares, as they cost about the same for alchemists below 60) and knowing how to keep them stunned.</div><div><hr></div></blockquote><div>Remember, parsers show poisons only account for 30% of our dps.  BUT, that doesn't factor in the usefulness of utility poisons.</div><div> </div><div></div><blockquote><hr>That last tactics post actually didn't mention another one of our stuns, the Swathe line. Decent cast time, but it has a knockdown component that you can use to get more backstabs in.<hr></blockquote><div>Actually, I didn't.  I find that if you use the techniques above, it's rare that you back attacks are up enough to use them outside of the above chain.  If you find that they are up more often for some reason, then by all means... use Swathe/Jump/Back attack.</div><div> </div><div>Again... this is the versatility of the Swashbuckler... you don't just finger-waggle or suck up the damage... you have multiple strategies you can employ.</div><blockquote><div></div><blockquote><hr>SageGaspar wrote:<div> I'm not a fan of the mezz tactics myself, especially below 60 when you're using DoT poisons.</div><hr></blockquote></blockquote><div>Keep in mind, things are different now than when we leveled.  Gone are the days of snaring and kiting with DoT poison.  Realistically, when soloing, you should be burning down a mob before the DoT poison would actually do more dmg that the DD.  I've parsed both for the last 3 teirs and I consistantly do more dmg with the DD poisons and the fights are shorter.  Granted, I'm not all the way through T7 yet (64), but so far the same thing is holding true.... mostly.  I have finished getting parser data from using the vitality breach, however... I do notice that my DOWNTIME is shorter using vitality breach.</div><div> </div><div>Basically... find what works best for you... and do it.  Again... that's the beauty of Swashbucklers... we're extremely versatile.</div>

[riblete]

Another thing to try is which stance to use, order for CA's, and timing, depending on the mob type. I can not remember all the names of the CA's from level 36, but the tatics are the same.Casters:Use offensive stance, dual weild, and pace yourself on the CA's to get the most interupts. Debuffing mitigation is not as important, so stealth in, stun from stealth attack, both backstabs, cheap shot, I tend to lead off with the taunt/remove positive buffs attacks then unload damage CA's saving the triple attack for last. When you run out of attacks if it is not dead, mez. Move to the back, stealth and repeat. Dont forget your Ruthless Cunning (35) from bloodlines on harder mobs.Healers:Healers tend to be easy as they dont hit hard, and they don't have that good of mitigation or avoidance. Use the technique from above. But if they tend to be damage-shielded then lead off with the taunt/remove positive buffs attack, cheap shot, both backstabs, then the other CA's, making to ot get the interupts when they try to heal themselves.Scouts and Fighters:Use the defensive stance. Using a 1-hander with shield can work well against these types of mobs. Use the steath, debuff, stun, attack technique. And dont forget to mez in order to que up your attacks for a second go at it. You may also want to mix in the in-combat-stealth followed by the out-of-stealth attack for the knockdown and stun. Jump over, and hit the fast casting debuff from the back. You can keep the mob's mitigation debuffed slightly more often this way.Using slows for kiting:  at the lower tiers it is easy, but not efficient, to kite mobs by slowing them, and use good DOT poisons. You should be able to keep three slows stacked on the mob at most times, and jump in for some melee every 30 seconds with the multiple high-DPS attacks. Works best in wide open spaces with most mobs non-agro.<div></div>

[SageGaspar]

<div>I went from 36-60 in February, doing the 53-60 stuff post-KoS, so I do have a fairly recent perspective <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></div><div> </div><div>Every poison, even the DD one, has a DoT component until 60. They haven't updated poisons 1-59 yet, so you're still using the same old High Damage-Low DoT or DD-but-really-DoT poisons. Which means mezz gives you a maximum of six seconds, but realistically you'll have somewhere in the vicinity of three seconds.</div><div> </div><div>30% of your damage is nothing to sneeze at, either. And rare poisons are much, much easier and cheaper to get a hold of than Adept III on my server. For the cost of one Adept III I found an alchemist who was willing to turn out a big batch of rare poisons for each tier. It's not a bad idea to make friends with an alchy for later on (or be one yourself, of course).</div>