As the joke goes, "How do you dps as a Swash? Betray." While I cannot promise this will make you better than a brigand, this is the second best solution I've been able to find outside of betraying. Unfortunately, swashbuckler CA dps exists in what I like to call the Lag Zone: the amount of mobs needed to do any real CA dps results in horrible lag during raids, causing cast delays and delayed auto attacks. Pretty much, It's hard to play a swash in raid as you would heroics. A note, I am assuming you have access to 3/3 potent gear / some raid gear, as this is largely to improve Guardian's Edifice / Dominion parses, not really a fresh level 95 swashbuckler sort of thing. The short answer (TL;DR) The short version, you want to beef up auto attack over all else: Poop CA's, instead use Aerakyn Card + Draconic Effigy and get beast stats. DPS + Haste on every item, honestly 260 potency / 3k abil mod is fine, try for 60s range static flurry (over 70 with effect triggers solo), over 900 dps mod, some accuracy and what ever MA is left over. Never stack finesse + ruthless cunning, never risk delaying auto attack, always focus on casting lucky gambit over everything else. #1. Stats, gear, AAs and you! I will admit I have nice items, but potent 3/3 / overcharged isn't too far off, only major skews come from me having both Zlandicar 4.0s and uplifting swings / criticals. GEAR: The best armor to get has WDB, dps mod and haste. Flurry is amazing, and sadly we don't get any love on our myth buff to that end (just an insulting 10% potency), the good news is that in this setup there's very few stats to worry about reforging into. As for adornments, purple: flurry on shoulders and a 15% AE auto on forearms, crit bonus everywhere else. White adornments: I focus on weapon skills, dps mod, cast speed, reuse speed and agility. The goal is to save as many reforges as possible. WAR RUNES: Screams of battle is huge, 5% flurry and 20% AE auto, that's part of how I waste no reforges on AE auto. Other than that, Spirit of the Jester isn't too bad to save a reforge or two. The rest are really personal preference / what you're able to get. Food / drink: garum steaks are amazing, if you can get the spectral residues it's worth it for raids. Setian wine is so-so, it's fine to just use Draconic Miscreant's Intoxicating Brew or something... Most important is the garum steak for the flurry. Jewelry: Fabled Ear of Souls is awesome, 8% flurry in combat. I use Fanatic's Stud on easy zones, but find a spare for some of the harder fights in Guardian's Edifice *it's a nice amount of potency / not losing WDB to get it*. Belt / Cloak get the flurry + weapon skills, maximum flurry! Ring / Wrists, damage procs / CB procs are win. Uplifting swings / criticals if you can. Finally, charms... Aerakyn Novelty Card and Draconic Effigy. The trick is to let auto attack hit, click the Effigy, wait a sec and click the Novelty card before the next auto attack... This should hopefully let you detaunt at the end. AAs: There's some things I'd change on mine for a minimal boon but I'd rather not get carpel tunnel.... Rogue tree: Str / AGI lines + end lines ; 1 point in boot dagger and get the DPS mod from the WIS line. At the bottom, going with Reuse and Coordination is a nice fit to save a little reforge and better hit rates. Dance of metal is not vital at all, but meh it's only an extra 4 AAs to get. Swash tree: I trust your judgment, improve the temps / AEs, debuffs... Reach, Advance Warning, and I do the 13% resistibility over poison proc %. Bottom line I took both Viscerate options, though I would probably do Slice and Dice + Flash of Power... Again, no thank you carpel tunnel fixing it on my own. Shadows tree: Most people are good on this one, spend the minimum here: food duration + 1 other /// Quick strike + offensive prowess /// circle of blades + battle endurance /// flamboyant swashbuckling + 1 other, I chose countering blow.... and all of the end lines. Heroic tree: my big tree! Any of the top line is fine, but 10 cb // 8 reuse // 10 thieving essence // 10 Perfect Form, and take sunder + pris de fer.... Pris de Fer is amazing in Guardian's Edifice, and you'll probably pull aggro with the draconic effigy anyways, so be safe. Dragon tree: Right half of the tree! Claws line 10-10-1-9-1, Wrath 10-10-10-0-1. Damage from Evade, extra potency / 22.5 cast speed, and more auto attack goodness. Also the port is nice for jousts / some fights. Prestige: You want the left side with Pirate's Fancy, Daring Leader and Advance Scout.... do NOT waste a single point on Pirate's Spin... if 20 dps mod is why your tank dies I feel sorry for them, group-wide 3% flurry proc is infinitely better than the 50-70k dps you'll see from Pirate's Spin. Reforge! So, if you do things right you'll be near 70-75% cast speed and 70% AE auto (90% if you have screams of battle), and some reuse to boot before worrying about reforges / item stats. The goal of your reforging is to get dps and haste on every item if possible. My stats: 84.4 reuse, 71.5 casting, 3k abil mod, 922.5 dps mod, 953 haste, 350 MA, 100.7 AE, 12.3% accuracy, 68.6 flurry. Potency I only have 285 solo, part of my stats comes from using the scream of battle, sublime viciousness and spirit of the jester runes. I use forerunner temps and Garum steaks for extra <3. The key is to keep raid buffs in mind and know the stat formulas, I've been getting a tank group lately so I generally get EV, MA buffage and hardly any haste. Order of importance: 800+ dps mod / 100% AE auto, ~80% reuse, ~10% accuracy, and then focus on as much haste as possible (should be able to get 800+). Ability mod you can honestly stop at 3-4k, it doesn't matter. Reuse isn't too bad to reforge, and cast speed should never be reforged into. #2. CA's / focus during combat There is no CA cast order, merely suggestions. I follow a general guideline for the start of the fight, and afterwards it's just focus on AEs and maintain debuffs. On incoming, you want to activate either Perfect Finesse or Ruthless Cunning... DO NOT STACK BOTH. EVER. They're only good for debuffs. Then use En garde and Inspired Daring before mob is in position. After, mit debuffs first, and always use Dragon Claws before Sunder. I use Effigy / Card ASAP, but will wait for adds on some encounters. Only one CA matters: Lucky Gambit. Your other AEs are only good for resetting Gambit and triggering procs... Using another AE while Gambit is available = wasted cast. Don't sweat the DoM chains, maintaining flawless auto attacks > DoM chain. #3. Raid fun! So, this last night I had a tank group with EV most of the night, on the Zlandicar burn I did not have EV, we were an odd hodgepodge group and I decided to try the right prestige for seafury thrust (bored). The brigand and I are pretty evenly geared, I use both consumer 4.0s, uplifting swings / criticals, and we both had a tank group for AS / Jardin. Accursed Sanctum Zonewide: I used no tomes, Marn / Emperor / Legionaires removed (the stop dps scripts): * A group of guildies killed some of the trash in the first half of the zone Jardin: One blob only on raid: Zlandicar Burn, weird group: I know this whole idea is silly, but with as little potency as possible and almost no ability mod I was able to hold my own on the parse. Even without my weapons / uplifting items though, it should be very feasible for a swash to parse 3.5-4mil on Jardin with only one blob present. Also, on trash fights you can get some lols parses like this: < Conclusion > Well that's about it: auto attack, effigy + aerakyn card, just be sure to get some awesome weapons first I guess. I find it amusing that this setup gave me the best dps results, though it's probably not a good idea on too many other classes that actually have CA dps. Feel free to tell me I'm playing the class wrong tho It won't make a raid guild want you any more than they already don't, a brigand will still be better in every possible way, but this a way to amuse yourself at least. . . . . . . . Feel free to call me crazy, ask questions, comment, or post bunny pictures below. Especially bunny pictures.
Show the sad state that swashes are in that one of the only ways to make them truly viable is to basically completely ignore CA except for one. But thanks for the write up, maybe it will breathe some light into my favorite scout.
I am the brig in the listed parses and I can attest that the swap katana made from balancing some potency and ability mod to full out WDB, Flurry and DPS mod, dropping much ability mod and potency was a very significant increase in the dps of a swashbuckler. My brig has a balance of CB, WDB, Potency and usually 16kish ability mod and often with procs and clickies I sit anywhere from 900-1200 cb/potency on raid and even then my auto attacks were only spiking upwards of 1.5 mil a hit doing around 1.9 enc dps vs Katanas 3-3.5 mil enc dps. This is exactly how dirges if geared and adorned properly are doing a lot of dps and getting awesome VCs. While this is an effective way to bolster a scouts dps it is not a very fun way to do it. You could literally turn on auto attack and afk a few mins. As soon as this expansion released (I was still a swash at that point) I knew I was going to go full WDB, dps mod and flurry because of the fact that the swash combat arts are so very lack luster. Anyway, it's a tough situation because how do you balance it from here? If a dev sees a swash on par with brigand because of maxing out WDB and Flurry what room do they have to increase the combat art damage without having to raise that of the counterpart of the rogue pair? I find it enjoyable to have both on raids but there are few slots available to do that sometimes and some raid guilds flat out deny swash because of dispatch and whatnot. I have said it before and I will say it again, the easiest way to balance these two out without causing a poo storm is to combine them with a balance of their class abilities. Otherwise its ends up being a flimsy balancing act. Just my opinion.
Draconic effigy seems bad. The 'benchmark' for killing chamber is approximately 400k EncDPS. Reverse engineering the above, Total WDB = 85 (gear) + 200 * 18/120 (charms) + 80* (uplifting swings) = 195 = 2.95 multiplier5,500 EncDPS * 0.66% AA * 1/2.95 (WDB) = 1,230 k AA EncDPS before WDB1,230 k AA EncDPS * 2 * 18/120s (charm active) = 369 k EncDPS369k < 400kThere are some assumptions here (e.g. uplifting swings does not 'start' at 80 WDB and the encounter had infinite duration), so there is an argument for running the effigy over KC. This is a 'quick calculation' rather than a detailed simulation. However, I find it difficult to justify an AA spec for a charm that is very comparable and doesn't occasionally kill you.
/combat_filter 1 No lags (and no parses) Quick and easy option, when it's just needed to spam aoe. But it's interessant to see how it's possible to go with a auto-atk spec. Nice job. I m brig, and i m building my gear to be balanced (maybe more in potency way), but it could be interessant to have different gears in the different situations.
I'd trade my "swashbuckler" hat in for a "rogue" hat to get back to how things were long ago, on a D&D board far, far away. This idea should also apply to the crusaders, summoners, and shamans. Give these 8 classes pure neutrality by scaling them back to 4 classes. This game just should have started out with half the classes that it did. The only scout classes that should have been in this game at launch should have been: bards, beastlords, rangers, and rogues. I don't want to see our DPS to be up there with assassins and rangers, but I'd really love to see our utility and debuffs be on par with what the brigands have to offer. Our AoE blocker is nothing compared to what the brigands have now.
Bravo to the OP for making some lemonade. As intriguing as the arguments to condense classes might be, let's be real, that's way too radical to ever happen. What if your AE avoidance were raid-wide? It might not bridge the gap, but at least it would be unique! kono
I remember when Swashies ruled and Brigs were kicked to the curb....it's frustrating to see classes diminished to alt fodder or caught up in the endless betrayal process.....it's also ridiculous to see other utility classes out parsing either of these two.....never understand why the developers seem to have such a hate for rogues.
I'd be fine if they fixed some of the class issues: Revise the debuffs in all of the classes to make our offensive debuffs more meaningful, nuke Sleight of Hand, and nuke Swarthy Ways. SoH I've yet to use seriously since it came out, the only good it does is as a fun spell to wipe the raid. Swarthy Ways, the 10% potency is insulting and useless, the dot effect does maybe 1-2k dps, hate transfer is so-so, and *shrug* on the -10% potency debuff. It's one of the worst (if not the worst) epic buffs. No real comment on class merge, doubt they'd do that any time soon. I use all of the lag reducing tricks but some fights there's just no helping it, and I think you forgot to calculate the position of Jupiter in the night sky for that there Koko :3 Also I have some heroics parses to post here in a bit, more fun images coming soon
#4. Heroic parsing I decided to keep the same set up for the heroic runs today to see how it performed, here's the results. Hive: Stratum: Picklaw and also High Keep were almost identical to the Hive parse, mid 2mils range with 60% auto attack. Stratum we had a few sloppy pulls messing up everyone's zonewide. So yea, this setup works pretty much anywhere :3. Also, talking with Ruckus in tells today it is viable to pick up Coule instead of Dance of Metal and still spend the same amount of points in the tree. I'll endorse that, extra debuffage and the dps will probably be the same lol.
By the time I get DoM started, I figured I could be focusing on hitting Lucky Gambit more and other CAs to get LG to refresh faster. Plus, you have 10s to get 8 CAs in (that's if one doesn't miss) and the lag. Yeah...I figured that Coule would help my mid level guild more than the DPS DoM might spit out.
Yea I'll probably share my AA when I fix it to have Coule in it, carpel tunnel inc! Also, here's more fun, 3.9mil auto attack:
Thank you for the thread Katana. I do have one question for clarification. In the OP you recommend using left prestige until the end of the post where you switched to right side out of boredom but ended with good results. You later gave some parses in heroic zones with the right side as well. Am I to take it that your current recommendation then is to switch to the right side for most everything or am I misunderstanding? I ran my swash up early in ToV but really have been letting him mostly sit as I've been focused on other characters. I've been thinking of getting him running again though and appreciate your expertise and time.
Oh it was just the one parse that I used the right side, and only that one fight. If you look at the breakdown, Seafury Thrust = right side and Pirate's Swordplay = left side. Zlandicar (Consumer of Bones) has absolutely nothing to AE if your'e on the named, so it was irrelevant which prestige I was using. Clarification Time: It's my fault for not explaining in the OP, but you should almost never use the right prestige tree. Even though CA damage is irrelevant for us, AEs are proc machines, and the left prestige gives you two bonus AEs and a good shot at resetting your two main AEs. Basically the left side gives you more AEs to cast, which will do more CA damage but more importantly proc stuff like crazy, and the right side eliminates that variable DPS potential for a super low set in stone amount. If you'd like to though, there's no real harm in trying the right prestige for the following mobs: Crumbling Emperor, Rarthek the Swiftclaw, Grendish, Andreis the Culler, Klandicar and Zlandicar. I mostly just don't want to bother with changing AA specs and rebuffing.
Not a problem, and yea if anyone else has any questions please feel free to ask. I have my profile open, so you guys can see my AA setup here... Or download it. Also, this auto attack focus is still super viable in AE fights, here's the entire Commanders ring event:
Katana, this makes me sad. I played a swash for a VERY long time, and I can remember sitting down with you back in EoF up to oh, TSO. Getting beat on the Commanders fight to an *** and Brig is just /cry. I cannot do better, I am just pointing out the fact that we are so low on a constant AE Encounter when we used to be on top. That same encounter style back in DOV Launch would have been destroyed by a Swash.. Now I play a Bruiser main and Betrayed my swash to brig for guild needs. I wanna go back Swash but it is disheartening knowing what we once were lol
Hey! Maybe that brig is just really cool or something like that.. not that I know the guy or am the guy or anything. Just saying lol. I do think that on aoe fights like commanders that the full WDB and flurry build would not be quite as effective as a build more balanced between those and potency/abil mod to ramp up the output of resetable blues.
