ExaltedGeico 3 Share Posted May 18, 2019 (edited) Note 1: Most if not all of my knowledge concerning the Swordsman class revolves around my experience in DBOG-- but I'd imagine the class will be quite similar in DBOUR as it was there. So if DBOUR were to change anything significant, then this guide may not be the most educative guide you can rely on as a source for what makes Swordsman function. Note 2: Naturally, when I do find out about changes they make I'll try to update this guide as soon as possible. Note 3: The first part of this guide will consistent of an overview of all of the Swordsman class' abilities, the second part will go into their different builds and the viability of each build-- while the final part will go into their equipment set ups for each build/tactic, and so forth. Note 4: If you're wondering when part 2 and 3 will be added to this thread-- it's whenever I feel like it. Making part 1 was tiring enough, so I'll probably do it today, tomorrow, or next weekend. Note 5: You're probably not going to want to upgrade your gloves as a Swordsman-- since past level 40/50, you can rely on sword skills entirely; physical or energy build. Part 1: The reckoning..... --Martial Artist Skill Tree-- Spoiler Double strike is the ability you're given just for being a Martial Artist. It's impossible to remove this ability from your build. I wouldn't recommend investing any stat points into this ability, it doesn't do nearly as much damage as your other abilities, and overall isn't viable in any kind of build; be it energy or physical. Spoiler Kidney Shot is one of the most useful PvP MA moves in the entire game. Without this, most Swordsmen builds just wouldn't function in PvP-- as this ability gives you 7 seconds to pound your adversary out of existence, and if you use the duration RP, you can increase it by 2-3 seconds/or you can use cool down RP to decrease it's cool down by a considerable amount. I wouldn't recommend CD RP, since with each use the stun's duration lessens, but if you're trying to knock your opponent out of the arena, it CAN be useful. It's just that with decent CDR equipment and duration RP you could do the same but better, since you wouldn't have to worry about your ability's duration lessening nearly as much-- in addition to that, it gives time for your other skill's cool down to end. I'd definitely recommend maxing it out for PvP. In terms of PvE, it's alright. It's pretty good for 1v1ing bosses, but outside of that-- I find it to almost be unnecessary. Spoiler Rock Paper Scissors a pretty basic, but somewhat pertinent physical damaging ability. It's not too great in PvP, since you'd most likely be busy using other abilities during high level PvP-- because you're either trying to KD lock your opponent, or have stronger moves off CD-- but it's decent in PvE. It's definitely nothing special, but I don't think it'd hurt to invest 1 SP into it just for the sake of having the move ready. It's definitely not something I'd recommend maxing. Although, do take note, this ability has a second's worth of confusion if you max it. But once again, that's nothing special. Spoiler Wolf Fang Fist in terms of usage, it's pretty much a quicker Rock Paper Scissors. It's probably not worth maxing it, but it's cool to have in PvE-- so you might as well invest 1 SP into it. Spoiler Quick Attack definitely a must max for PvP. It's a Martial Artist's PvP breadwinner, without this ability-- you'd struggle heavily against classes that can CC you from afar, and annihilate you while you're CCed, and since you're a human-- you most likely would not be able to survive their barrage of attacks. When it comes to PvE, however, it serves little use. I wouldn't recommend maxing it, unless you're going for a full physical PvE build. Spoiler Tunnel Slash This definitely is not worth maxing out for PvE OR PvP. I can't imagine the line of reasoning for why anyone would bother maxing this ability-- and it does not serve any use in PvP, as of right now. Perhaps in the future, if cast time moves can be canceled by this-- it'd have SOME utility. But overall, it's useless in PvP. But in PvP, it's good for sniping enemies from afar, getting them to combat you one at a time. I'd recommend investing 1 SP into this move just for the sake of having it, but if you don't like it-- it wouldn't hurt to get rid of it. Spoiler Concentrated Kamehameha This move is very good in PvP, if you're utilizing a KD lock build-- it buys them for your other abilities to get off their CD. In PvE, I never personally used it all that much-- but if you want it for the sake of having a knock down, go for it. I would not recommend investing more than a single SP towards this ability. Spoiler Energy Barrage This is one of the most irredeemably useless that Swordsman has. It's a lesser tunnel slash in the sense that it's only good for grabbing a singular mob's attention, it does horrid damage, and has no Knock down effect. It's only worth a SP if you're trying to get the skills below it. Perhaps this will not be the case once the staff of DBOUR play around with the MA skills-- if they do. But until then, I would recommend to avoid getting this skill for anything aside from unlocking the Final Effort/it's superior counterpart. Spoiler Final Effort Don't let the high energy damage % fool you, this is most certainly not one of the strongest moves in the entire game. Even if you were to go full energy, with pretty good gloves, it's damage is mediocre at best-- or at least it was in DBOG. It certainly has it's uses in PvE, it's good to have an extra AoE KD just in case you're dealing with a large horde. Presuming that you're not alone, if you ARE alone-- then it probably wouldn't have any use in PvE. In terms of it's viability in PvP, perhaps you could make it work with VERY powerful energy equipment. But you'd take down humans at best, Namekians/Majins would probably survive, and then your stun would have finished. Spoiler Stronger Energy Barrage Another amazing energy KD, and the superior of the two energy barrages in the MA skill tree. This is very good in PvP when you have a KD lock build, or really any build in general. This is one of the 3 or so abilities that work in just about ANY PvP build. It's good for KDing Spiritualists from afar, preventing them from putting you under hypnosis. Good for getting the jump on other MAs from afar, when both parties have used their Quick attack. It's also viable in the same sense that concentrated kamehameha's good for buying time for your other skills to get off CD. Spoiler Spirited Roar This a must get for any Physical build-- it increases your overall physical damage by a substantial amount. Granted, it also nerfs your energy defense considerably, don't let that distract from the immense power you gain through this buff. You wouldn't have to worry about dying if you deal enough damage to where you could couple shot, if not one shot your opponent. I'd most certainly recommend maxing this buff. Spoiler Opening Roar This move isn't half bad, but since the Swordsman class has Energy Recovery; something I'll go over later down the ladder, this won't be viable. Spoiler Prepared to Roar This is pretty good for energy builds. It's literally an energy equivalent of the 30% physical attack buff, which increases the efficiency of farming substantially. I doubt you'd utilize an energy build for PvP, but if you like going energy, this is pretty good; it'd be worth maxing out. Spoiler Yield I wouldn't recommend using this ability, since it'd take up your SP-- but if you have a full physical PvP build There's not much to say about this debuff. Spoiler Intimidation This is pretty good if you're going for a full physical/dex build. In addition to having pretty good dodge, you'd murk your opponents hit rate-- making it extremely difficult for them to hit you. But this can be bypassed by status effects, like life steal and so forth. It's good, but do be careful when using this in PvP. As far as I know, it's not good in PvE, but maybe you could abuse it to benefit your party-- who knows. I wouldn't recommend investing any amount of points into it for PvE. Spoiler Speed Up This is cool to have a bonus skill, it's not worth investing more than 1 SP into. It's useless in PvE, but good for combating speed restrain when fighting Spiritualists. They'd slow you -> you kd from afar -> speed buff, and try to get within the range of your flash slash skill, so you can "teleport" behind them. Spoiler Fortitude I mean, I guess this skill exists? You probably don't want it, because the damage boost is almost non-existent-- but you're THAT against losing a good portion of physical defense, there's this. Spoiler Might - Spirited Roar: Might: Screw you Need I say more? It's terrible for the same reasons why Fortitude is. But if you don't like the energy defense nerf, this is your 2nd best option-- hardly. Spoiler Shake It's good for energy PvP builds, for getting that extra damage-- as well as wiping away a decent portion of Fighter/Swordsmen dodge rate. But it's like... why bother wasting SP on this, when you already have a lot of hit rate, and if you wanted more-- you could simply wear focus gear. Spoiler Roar Definitely one of the more better skills to invest SP into. You're going to want this for the decent hit rate amp, as well as the massive increase in physical hit rate. The reason why crit rate is so important is because it can make the difference between you one shotting your opponent with a critical-- or they body you, humans are glass canons after all. The only instance where I wouldn't put points into this is if you're going with an energy build. Spoiler Concentration This is one of Swordsmen's best buffs-- and arguably one of the best buffs in the entire game. It reduces CD by a considerable amount, making it possible to KD lock players in PvP-- enables you to spam your abilities in PvE, so you can farm more efficiently; it goes hand in hand with Burning Attacks. It also allows you to deal more damage, since you won't have to wait as long for your skills to come back. --Swordsman Skill Tree-- Spoiler Sword Slash It's a pretty good move, I'd use it instead of WFF or RPS just because of how fast the animation is-- and how low the cooldown. It's great for comboing it with MSS, you'd first use SS-- then hammer the rest of their health away with MSS. I wouldn't recommend investing more than 1 SP into it, since you'll want to spend the SP else where. It's good to use for a physical PvE/PvP build. Spoiler Flash This is a pretty good move as well-- and just like SS, you wanna combo this with MSS; for the sake of maximizing your damage output. From my experiences, it's much stronger than RPS/WFF, and it saves you the trouble of having to upgrade gloves-- since you can just spam sword skills. I wouldn't recommend investing more than 1 SP into this skill. Spoiler Multiple Sword Slashes This is literally the Swordsman class' strongest technique BY FAR. It's the reason why SM use physical builds over energy ones, despite having a passive that increases their focus-- due to it's KD effect, it allows you to do considerable damage, while knocking your opponent down. This enables Swordsmen to prevent their opponent from dealing damage, while killing them-- and even if you were ignore the KD effect, if you use with power RP and it does a critical attack-- it'd virtually one shot most classes in the entire game, if you're geared well enough. Spoiler Flash Slash This ability is pretty good for closing the distance between you and spiritualists. But outside that and it's occasional penetration effect; ignores enemy defense, it's not too amazing. It's good nonetheless, but I wouldn't recommend investing more than 1 SP. Spoiler Gravity Break This is the Sword Slash equivalent for energy Swordsmen. I wouldn't recommend investing more than 1 SP. Spoiler Focused Kamehameha It's a lesser Concentrated Kamehameha due to it having a 2 second cast time. I wouldn't recommend using it, much less giving it more than 2 SP. It can be good in specific PvE scenarios; although you'd probably just be spamming Burning Attack-- but it's without a shadow of a doubt useless in PvP. Spoiler Focused Gravity Break This is the MSS equivalent for energy swordsmen-- at least in terms of damage. It lacks the KD effect that MSS has, but it's pretty decent in terms of dealing damage. I wouldn't recommend using it over Burning Attack in PvE, but it's there to deal mono-target damage. I'd recommend maxing if you're an energy Swordsmen. Spoiler Burning Attack This is Swordsmen's best PvE move. With strong weapons, good CDR equipment, CD buff, and the CDR RP you can annihilate hordes with relative ease. Although, I would recommend being buffed, since you're going to need the survivability and damage increase. Spoiler Penetrate If you've got nothing else to invest your SP into, and you're going with a physical build-- you might as well throw some points at this skill. But if not, I wouldn't recommend putting more than 1 point into it. You're also probably not going to want to waste time in a ranked match using this skill-- since there are other better buffs, and you wanna be conscious about the duration of Kidney Shot/Quick Attack. Spoiler Energy Recovery This is the skill that makes it possible for Swordsmen to continuously KD lock their opponent-- but I wouldn't recommend investing anymore than 4 SP into this ability. Since at that point you can gain 2 RP balls from using it, and the extra 2 points for CD reduction just isn't worth it. It doesn't have any worth outside of PvP, since there are items that fill your RP orbs. And you have the time to charge your orbs. Spoiler Glaring Slash This is by far the best debuff in all of DBO, hands down. By reducing your opponent's attack/defense properties, you're effectively reducing their damage by a considerable amount-- while increasing your own. This gives Swordsman the opportunity to become the best CC tank class-- you can essentially reduce a boss' damage to ZERO, if you have the right attributes and 100 props-- while simultaneously doubling your DPS. I don't think I need to explain why you'd want to max this regardless of your build. Spoiler Major Speed Up I don't recall if you can stack this ability with the other movement speed amp, but I doubt that you could-- if you can't, then it's useless. But even then, you wouldn't to invest more than 1 SP into it-- since there are more important skills to place your SP in. It's only utility would be combating speed restrain. Spoiler Scintillation This is a pretty good skill for buying time, since you have a 100% chance of blocking your opponent's attacks while guarding. It's decent, but you probably wouldn't have enough SP for it-- if you're using a dodge build. It's good for dealing with Karmas/Plasmas in a 1v1 scenario, and arguably Ultimates as well. --Passives-- Not all of these passives are necessarily good for you. Depending on your gear some aren't worth the SP. Spoiler Swordsman Mastery You'll probably want to max this passive, due to it's P. Attack increase as well as an immense boost to success/hit rate. Spoiler Increase Hit Rate as the name suggests, it's a passive that increases your hit rate. I'd recommend getting it, since it pretty much guarantees a hit against most classes. Spoiler Increase Critical Hit Rate I'd recommend capping this for the same reason why you want to put points into the crit rate and hit rate buffs-- it increases the chances of you one shotting your opponent. That's not to say criticals will always one shot your opponent, but with a strong sword-- you'd be surprised at the amount of damage you'd be dealing. Spoiler Evade Up This by itself isn't good without Dex equipment-- since you wouldn't have enough dodge to where a little bit of focus wouldn't just override it. Unlike Fighters, Swordsmen don't have the luxury having a dex passive-- so without dex equipment you wouldn't have enough dodge to where it actually counts. You could also take the Con armor/Prop accessory route and not level this passive. Edited May 18, 2019 by ExaltedGeico 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
