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Delow · 07-25-2009, 03:08 PM

Poisons:

Swashbucklers are able to use poisons starting from level 1. Poisons coat your weapon and grant you a variate of added effects to your attacks. You can have 3 different poison types active at any given time, you cannot have 2 of the same poison types active. You have the ability to auto consume poisons, I would recommend this because poisons have a limit trigger number before they will fade away. Auto consuming poisons keeps them up all the time.

Turn auto-consume on:
1. Right click on the poison you wish to auto consume and select "Turn auto-consume on"
2. If you wish to auto consume a different poison of the same type you must turn auto-consume off on whichever poison you are already auto-consuming (of the same type) and then you can turn auto-consume on for the other poison (assuming you havent consumed all of the poison you were auto consuming first)

Poison types are:

Damage: these have a red icon when you examine them, red icon in your maintained spells window when you use them. These have 100 triggers before fading and will trigger an average of 4.9 times per minute.
- You want to at least always use this type of poison as you level. Starting after level 50 you will get access to Vitality breach poison which is a life tap (takes health from your target and gives it to you, healing you).
Debuff: these have a blue icon when you examine them, blue icon in your maintained spells window when you use them. These have 60 triggers before fading and will trigger an average of 2.9 times per minute.
Utility: these have a purple con when you examine them, yellow icon in your maintained spells window when you use them. These have 60 triggers before fading and will trigger an average of 2.9 times per minute.

Poisons to use:

The standard poison combination used, especially at the higher level game, is as follows:
- Caustics Poison: Direct Damage poison (damage)
  - When soloing you can substitute Vitality Breach poison for this poison (available after lvl 50), which is a lifetap poison.
- Enfeebling Poison: Debuff's offensive capability (debuff)
- Ignorant Bliss Poison: This is a threat decreasing poison (utility)
  - When soloing you can substitute Stupefying Poison for this poison, which will stun your combat target.
There are many other poisons in each of the above types but you will find the aforementioned combination the best in most cases.

Where to get Poisons:

The best poisons you can get are player made by Alchemists. Each Tier of levels has 2 types of poison, a handcrafted and mastercrafted for each type.
- Mastercrafted is the top of the line and is most expensive but gives the greatest benefit.
As you gain level you will get access to new poisons and the poison quality will increase. Keep this in mind as you level, make sure you use poisons appropriate for your level.
You can purchase poisons from merchants but they are of a lesser quality and you cannot find the above poisons on them.

Skills:

As scouts swashbucklers get a number of skills that are very useful and should be worked on as much as possible. List below are the primary skills that you should maintain as much as possible.

Combat skills:

Slashing: This determines how well we use slashing weapons, the higher the skill the better chance you have at hitting a target in combat with a slashing weapon (swords, axes).
Piercing: This determines how well we use piercing weapons, the higher the skill the better chance you have at hitting a target in combat with a piercing weapon (daggers, rapiers, spears, etc).
Ranged: This determines how well we use ranged weapons, the higher the skill the better chance you have at hitting a target in combat with a ranged weapon (bows, throwing weapons)

The hardcap for all above skills is: 6.5 * Level; so at lvl 90 it is 585.

Defensive skills:

Defense: This is avoidance, if this skill isn't maxed you will have low avoidance and will get hit more often in combat.
Parry: This skill also contributes to your avoidance, the higher the skill the better chance you have at warding off an incoming attack.
- Up both these skills by engaging in combat and taking hits from the attacker.
The hardcap for Defense/Parry skills are: 6.5 * Level; so at lvl 90 it is 585.
Riposte: This is an innate ability scouts have, it allows you to block an incoming melee attack and then perform a counter attack with your weapon.

Utility:

Disarm Trap: The higher this skill the better chance you have at disarming a chest.
- The only way to up this skill is to use it on every chest that drops.
- Recent changes have made it so if you open a chest you will automatically attempt to disarm it.
Safe Fall: The higher this skill is the less damage you will take from falling.
- To up this skill you must jump off high places, over and over again...

Swashbuckler Alternate Advancement Abilities:

Notes about AAs:

You begin gaining AA XP starting at level 10.
1. You can control the amount of AAXP you are gaining by using the AAXP slider in the AA window)
AAXP is gained from quests, killing "named" NPCs and once your level capped your combat XP is diverted to AAXP until you are capped on AA.
1. If you want to know if an NPC will grant AAXP it will have a star in the upper right corner of the target window when you target it.
I suggest not neglecting your AA's as you level up, it becomes difficult to gain AAXP once you get higher in level (often times it requires mentoring to do lower level zones to get named kills).
You are able to respec your AAs by visiting an Alternate Advancement Counselor within your guild hall or home city. The costs to respec increase progressivly as you respec, the cost will reset after 30 days of no respecing.
1. We are also granted occasional free respecs that will appear within your AA windows under each tree.
2. - Respec 1 : 1s
  - Respec 2 : 13s
  - Respec 3 : 1g 3sp
  - Respec 4 : 13g
  - Respec 5 : 1p 3 gp
  - Respec 6+ : 13p

Your AA builds can change as you level up, it all depends on your play style. I will offer an overview of the AA lines to help you choose what works best for you. I suggest searching the swashbuckler section for AA information, the builds I outline below are optimal DPS builds for higher levels and assume max AAs and Level.

Rogue:

Strength Line

This line boosts offensive ability. It grants 2 additional combat arts along with boosts to your Critical Hit chance. As a side addition it also boosts your defense some.
Traumatic Swipe is granted in this AA tree.

Agility Line

This line boosts offensive ability. It grants an addition combat art, this CA forces your target to face away from you so you can backstab them, and it grants an additional innate proc when you are behind/flanking your target.
The final choice in this line increases your casting and recovery speed by 25%.
- Recovery time is the time it takes before you can execute another combat art.

Stamina Line

This line boosts your tanking ability. It grants additional taunts, increases hitpoints and defensive abilities (boosts to shield effectiveness as well).

Wisdom Line

This line boost offensive ability, only when you are not wielding a weapon in your offhand. It will increase your doubleattack chance and grant a boost to your offensive/defensive skills.

Intelligence Line

This line boosts your ability to avoid aggression from your target while in combat. It grants the boot dagger combat art (takes you into stealth when you execute it, so you can use our stealth back attack).
This line's final ability grants you the ability to Feign death (fake death) once a minute and it has a 30 second duration.

Optimal Spec (DPS and HP Spec)

Pick Pocket 1
STR 10-4-10-1
AGI 10-4-10-1
INT 3
STA 4-10

Swashbuckler:

Potency Line

This line improves the effectiveness of our mitigation debuffs and several poisons.
The final choice in this line increases the trigger chance of ALL poisons by 6%.

Reach Line

This line increases the range of our Area of Effect abilities and improves the trigger chance of Hurricane.
The final choice in this line increases the range of our melee and ranged weapons.

Style Line

This line gives improvements to the reuse speed, duration and trigger chance of several of our special abilities.
This is one of the best DPS improving lines and will generally be your first choice.
The final choice in this line gives us a 13 second duration immunity to AoE effects to us and our group (5minute recast).

Debuffs Line

The line improves the effectiveness of our debuffs (offensive and defensive).
The final choice in this line adds an effect to our Snap of the Wrist CA that increases the chance our targets spells will be resisted.

Below is the most optimal build options for increasing DPS for the Swashbuckler line (Order Style-->Reach-->Potency-->Debuff). This assumes max level and AAs

Potency
- Kidney Stab - 5
- Offensive Poisons - 5
- Turgur Poison - 5
- Flurry of Blades - 5
- Potency - 1

Reach
- Lucky Gambit - 5
- Dashing Swathe - 5
- Arctic Blast - 5
- Hurricane - 5
- Reach - 1

Style
- Sneak - 3
- Avoid Blame - 5
- Perfect Finesse - 5
- Inspired Daring -5
- En Garde - 5
- Advanced Warning - 1

Debuffs
- Flash of Steel - 4

Shadows:

Everything in the shadows tree is going to be geared towards improving your DPS, because of that I will just list the best choices in each tree. This assumes max level and AAs.

General

These are just general abilities, you will most likely choose 'Hearty Constitution' and 'Enhance Mind' since they increase your health and power pools.

Scout

Quick Strike - 5 (increases base damage and critical damage of Flash of Steel)
Sinister Strike - 5 (Improves reuse speed of Sinister Strike (master strike))
Evasive Maneuvers - 1 (High damage CA that lowers your thread position by 1)

Rogue

Rogue's Flurry - 5 (increases base damage and critical damage of Snap of the Wrist)
Circle of Blades - 5 (increases base damage and critical damage of Lucky Gambit)
Battle Endurance - 2 (adds STA and improves the stat bonus of the rogues self buff)
Poison Mastery - 5 (increases poison damage)
Thieving Essence - 1 (Medium damage CA that takes spell and melee damage of target and gives it to your group)

Swashbuckler

Pirate Swipe - 5 (improves damage, reuse speed and increases hit chance of Traumatic swipe)
Flamboyant Swashbuckling - 5 (increases base damage and critical damage of Dashing Swathe)
Kidney Slice - 5 (increases base damage and critical damage of Kidney Stab)
Countering Blow - 5 (Improves trigger chance when using a combat art and damage of En Garde)
Precision Striking - 1 (Improves base damage of all combat arts with a 30 second or higher reuse timer by 10%
and increases their critical damage by 5%)
Enfeebling Whirl - 1 (Blue AoE attack that does high damage and decreases INT and STR of all targets struck by 66, 1 minue reuse)

Sentinels Fate

The Sentinels Fate line is pretty much geared to DPS, it should be pretty simple to determine the optimal spec for DPS. If you are having issues with agro substitue the DPS abilities for the agro reducing ones (Evading Awareness, Skilled Deception)

Rogue Tab

Cunning Prowess - 8 (Boosts Potency of all Abilities)
Capo Ferro - 8 (Increases ability reuse speed)
Ruthless Riposte - 2 (grants a change to inflict damage on a successful parry)
Coordination - 8 (Accuracy boost on successful snap of the wrist attack)
Dance of Metal - 2 (Progress damage boost for each successful successive combart art attack up to 8 triggers)

Swasbuckler Tab

Viscerating Stab - 5 (Improves base damage of Viscerate line)
Punctured Lung - 5 (Improves base damage of Lung Puncture line)
Flash of Power - 5 (AGI tap on successful Viscerate attack)
Swarthy Expertise - 1 (Adds 10% strikethrough to Ruthless Cunning and Perfect Finesse, reduces casint speed of Inspired Daring by 1s and adds 3s to duration)

Useful references and tools

http://eq2.zam.com/ - Linked with SoE's database, great resource for items, ability lists, current broker listings, quests etc.
http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/EverQuest..._Wiki:Main_Page - Player maintained Everquest 2 wiki, good resource for quest and level information.
http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Solo_Timelines - Solo Questing Timeline
http://advancedcombattracker.com/ - Parsing tool to track DPS, Raid mob AoE timers and help with autoattack timing.
http://www.eq2interface.com/index.php - Downloads for custom in-game UI's
http://maps.eq2interface.com/ - Downloads for in-game maps.
http://www.eq2flames.com - Another Everquest 2 forum.
Swashbuckler skill list

One final note: FORUM SEARCH IS YOUR FRIEND!!

07-25-2009, 03:08 PM	#2
Delow General Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 180	Poisons: Swashbucklers are able to use poisons starting from level 1. Poisons coat your weapon and grant you a variate of added effects to your attacks. You can have 3 different poison types active at any given time, you cannot have 2 of the same poison types active. You have the ability to auto consume poisons, I would recommend this because poisons have a limit trigger number before they will fade away. Auto consuming poisons keeps them up all the time. Turn auto-consume on: Right click on the poison you wish to auto consume and select "Turn auto-consume on" If you wish to auto consume a different poison of the same type you must turn auto-consume off on whichever poison you are already auto-consuming (of the same type) and then you can turn auto-consume on for the other poison (assuming you havent consumed all of the poison you were auto consuming first) Poison types are: Damage: these have a red icon when you examine them, red icon in your maintained spells window when you use them. These have 100 triggers before fading and will trigger an average of 4.9 times per minute. You want to at least always use this type of poison as you level. Starting after level 50 you will get access to Vitality breach poison which is a life tap (takes health from your target and gives it to you, healing you). Debuff: these have a blue icon when you examine them, blue icon in your maintained spells window when you use them. These have 60 triggers before fading and will trigger an average of 2.9 times per minute. Utility: these have a purple con when you examine them, yellow icon in your maintained spells window when you use them. These have 60 triggers before fading and will trigger an average of 2.9 times per minute. Poisons to use: The standard poison combination used, especially at the higher level game, is as follows: Caustics Poison: Direct Damage poison (damage) When soloing you can substitute Vitality Breach poison for this poison (available after lvl 50), which is a lifetap poison. Enfeebling Poison: Debuff's offensive capability (debuff) Ignorant Bliss Poison: This is a threat decreasing poison (utility) When soloing you can substitute Stupefying Poison for this poison, which will stun your combat target. There are many other poisons in each of the above types but you will find the aforementioned combination the best in most cases. Where to get Poisons: The best poisons you can get are player made by Alchemists. Each Tier of levels has 2 types of poison, a handcrafted and mastercrafted for each type. Mastercrafted is the top of the line and is most expensive but gives the greatest benefit. As you gain level you will get access to new poisons and the poison quality will increase. Keep this in mind as you level, make sure you use poisons appropriate for your level. You can purchase poisons from merchants but they are of a lesser quality and you cannot find the above poisons on them. Skills: As scouts swashbucklers get a number of skills that are very useful and should be worked on as much as possible. List below are the primary skills that you should maintain as much as possible. Combat skills: Slashing: This determines how well we use slashing weapons, the higher the skill the better chance you have at hitting a target in combat with a slashing weapon (swords, axes). Piercing: This determines how well we use piercing weapons, the higher the skill the better chance you have at hitting a target in combat with a piercing weapon (daggers, rapiers, spears, etc). Ranged: This determines how well we use ranged weapons, the higher the skill the better chance you have at hitting a target in combat with a ranged weapon (bows, throwing weapons) The hardcap for all above skills is: 6.5 * Level; so at lvl 90 it is 585. Defensive skills: Defense: This is avoidance, if this skill isn't maxed you will have low avoidance and will get hit more often in combat. Parry: This skill also contributes to your avoidance, the higher the skill the better chance you have at warding off an incoming attack. Up both these skills by engaging in combat and taking hits from the attacker. The hardcap for Defense/Parry skills are: 6.5 * Level; so at lvl 90 it is 585. Riposte: This is an innate ability scouts have, it allows you to block an incoming melee attack and then perform a counter attack with your weapon. Utility: Disarm Trap: The higher this skill the better chance you have at disarming a chest. The only way to up this skill is to use it on every chest that drops. Recent changes have made it so if you open a chest you will automatically attempt to disarm it. Safe Fall: The higher this skill is the less damage you will take from falling. To up this skill you must jump off high places, over and over again... Swashbuckler Alternate Advancement Abilities: Notes about AAs: You begin gaining AA XP starting at level 10. You can control the amount of AAXP you are gaining by using the AAXP slider in the AA window) AAXP is gained from quests, killing "named" NPCs and once your level capped your combat XP is diverted to AAXP until you are capped on AA. If you want to know if an NPC will grant AAXP it will have a star in the upper right corner of the target window when you target it. I suggest not neglecting your AA's as you level up, it becomes difficult to gain AAXP once you get higher in level (often times it requires mentoring to do lower level zones to get named kills). You are able to respec your AAs by visiting an Alternate Advancement Counselor within your guild hall or home city. The costs to respec increase progressivly as you respec, the cost will reset after 30 days of no respecing. We are also granted occasional free respecs that will appear within your AA windows under each tree. Respec 1 : 1s Respec 2 : 13s Respec 3 : 1g 3sp Respec 4 : 13g Respec 5 : 1p 3 gp Respec 6+ : 13p Your AA builds can change as you level up, it all depends on your play style. I will offer an overview of the AA lines to help you choose what works best for you. I suggest searching the swashbuckler section for AA information, the builds I outline below are optimal DPS builds for higher levels and assume max AAs and Level. Rogue: Strength Line This line boosts offensive ability. It grants 2 additional combat arts along with boosts to your Critical Hit chance. As a side addition it also boosts your defense some. Traumatic Swipe is granted in this AA tree. Agility Line This line boosts offensive ability. It grants an addition combat art, this CA forces your target to face away from you so you can backstab them, and it grants an additional innate proc when you are behind/flanking your target. The final choice in this line increases your casting and recovery speed by 25%. Recovery time is the time it takes before you can execute another combat art. Stamina Line This line boosts your tanking ability. It grants additional taunts, increases hitpoints and defensive abilities (boosts to shield effectiveness as well). Wisdom Line This line boost offensive ability, only when you are not wielding a weapon in your offhand. It will increase your doubleattack chance and grant a boost to your offensive/defensive skills. Intelligence Line This line boosts your ability to avoid aggression from your target while in combat. It grants the boot dagger combat art (takes you into stealth when you execute it, so you can use our stealth back attack). This line's final ability grants you the ability to Feign death (fake death) once a minute and it has a 30 second duration. Optimal Spec (DPS and HP Spec) Pick Pocket 1 STR 10-4-10-1 AGI 10-4-10-1 INT 3 STA 4-10 Swashbuckler: Potency Line This line improves the effectiveness of our mitigation debuffs and several poisons. The final choice in this line increases the trigger chance of ALL poisons by 6%. Reach Line This line increases the range of our Area of Effect abilities and improves the trigger chance of Hurricane. The final choice in this line increases the range of our melee and ranged weapons. Style Line This line gives improvements to the reuse speed, duration and trigger chance of several of our special abilities. This is one of the best DPS improving lines and will generally be your first choice. The final choice in this line gives us a 13 second duration immunity to AoE effects to us and our group (5minute recast). Debuffs Line The line improves the effectiveness of our debuffs (offensive and defensive). The final choice in this line adds an effect to our Snap of the Wrist CA that increases the chance our targets spells will be resisted. Below is the most optimal build options for increasing DPS for the Swashbuckler line (Order Style-->Reach-->Potency-->Debuff). This assumes max level and AAs Potency Kidney Stab - 5 Offensive Poisons - 5 Turgur Poison - 5 Flurry of Blades - 5 Potency - 1 Reach Lucky Gambit - 5 Dashing Swathe - 5 Arctic Blast - 5 Hurricane - 5 Reach - 1 Style Sneak - 3 Avoid Blame - 5 Perfect Finesse - 5 Inspired Daring -5 En Garde - 5 Advanced Warning - 1 Debuffs Flash of Steel - 4 Shadows: Everything in the shadows tree is going to be geared towards improving your DPS, because of that I will just list the best choices in each tree. This assumes max level and AAs. General These are just general abilities, you will most likely choose 'Hearty Constitution' and 'Enhance Mind' since they increase your health and power pools. Scout Quick Strike - 5 (increases base damage and critical damage of Flash of Steel) Sinister Strike - 5 (Improves reuse speed of Sinister Strike (master strike)) Evasive Maneuvers - 1 (High damage CA that lowers your thread position by 1) Rogue Rogue's Flurry - 5 (increases base damage and critical damage of Snap of the Wrist) Circle of Blades - 5 (increases base damage and critical damage of Lucky Gambit) Battle Endurance - 2 (adds STA and improves the stat bonus of the rogues self buff) Poison Mastery - 5 (increases poison damage) Thieving Essence - 1 (Medium damage CA that takes spell and melee damage of target and gives it to your group) Swashbuckler Pirate Swipe - 5 (improves damage, reuse speed and increases hit chance of Traumatic swipe) Flamboyant Swashbuckling - 5 (increases base damage and critical damage of Dashing Swathe) Kidney Slice - 5 (increases base damage and critical damage of Kidney Stab) Countering Blow - 5 (Improves trigger chance when using a combat art and damage of En Garde) Precision Striking - 1 (Improves base damage of all combat arts with a 30 second or higher reuse timer by 10% and increases their critical damage by 5%) Enfeebling Whirl - 1 (Blue AoE attack that does high damage and decreases INT and STR of all targets struck by 66, 1 minue reuse) Sentinels Fate The Sentinels Fate line is pretty much geared to DPS, it should be pretty simple to determine the optimal spec for DPS. If you are having issues with agro substitue the DPS abilities for the agro reducing ones (Evading Awareness, Skilled Deception) Rogue Tab Cunning Prowess - 8 (Boosts Potency of all Abilities) Capo Ferro - 8 (Increases ability reuse speed) Ruthless Riposte - 2 (grants a change to inflict damage on a successful parry) Coordination - 8 (Accuracy boost on successful snap of the wrist attack) Dance of Metal - 2 (Progress damage boost for each successful successive combart art attack up to 8 triggers) Swasbuckler Tab Viscerating Stab - 5 (Improves base damage of Viscerate line) Punctured Lung - 5 (Improves base damage of Lung Puncture line) Flash of Power - 5 (AGI tap on successful Viscerate attack) Swarthy Expertise - 1 (Adds 10% strikethrough to Ruthless Cunning and Perfect Finesse, reduces casint speed of Inspired Daring by 1s and adds 3s to duration) Useful references and tools http://eq2.zam.com/ - Linked with SoE's database, great resource for items, ability lists, current broker listings, quests etc. http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/EverQuest..._Wiki:Main_Page - Player maintained Everquest 2 wiki, good resource for quest and level information. http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Solo_Timelines - Solo Questing Timeline http://advancedcombattracker.com/ - Parsing tool to track DPS, Raid mob AoE timers and help with autoattack timing. http://www.eq2interface.com/index.php - Downloads for custom in-game UI's http://maps.eq2interface.com/ - Downloads for in-game maps. http://www.eq2flames.com - Another Everquest 2 forum. Swashbuckler skill list One final note: FORUM SEARCH IS YOUR FRIEND!! __________________ Retired from a world that lost its wonder.