Questions and Answers from the 9/17 Ask an Epic Swordswoman event.

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by necronut, Sep 18, 2021.

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  1. necronut

    necronut Avatar

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    Haven Ridge was host to Sara Draygon for a Q&A on Bladed Combat yesterday. The following is all the questions an answers from that event. MASSIVE thanks to @Sara Dreygon and Governor @Leucian for putting this together.

    Coswald Dirthmire: Not sure if you planned to talk about it already, but I was wondering if you went back and looked at the affect of Bladed Combat on glyph damage, since it seems it was changed to start affecting it again
    Sara Dreygon: Not yet Coswald but I plan to... been away for a few weeks and just getting back into the swing of things.
    ==========================================================================

    Bridge Troll: Why aren't axes blades?
    Sara Dreygon: Too axey
    ==========================================================================

    Nemhain: DO you think a non-magic blades user is viable?
    Sara Dreygon: Nemhain... yes, it is viable but takes a lot of discipline
    Sara Dreygon: I have never cast anything in game
    Sara Dreygon: No heals, buffs, etc. and I do quite well. I've gotten used to when to run, when to attack, and take advantage of everythin I'm able to
    ==========================================================================

    Vaiden Luro: Dual wielding or single two handed sword?
    Sara Dreygon: Vaiden... dual wield unfortunately
    Sara Dreygon: They made 2-H better but even with a super uber double-thrust 2-h sword (best you can have) it still lags behind my dual wields
    ==========================================================================

    Arthus Dimpleton: Will I ever get better at hitting ghosts, skeletons and liches with blade spec? Or is there a trick to do more damage to those?:S
    Sara Dreygon: Arthus... yes you will but don't discount dex... helps a lot with crits too but because you're missing a lot the crits matter that much more
    Sara Dreygon: I hit them enough but a few 1-2k hits go a long ways
    Arthus Dimpleton: ok thx :)
    ==========================================================================

    Slicktricks: when using Coup De Grace, how much does the threshold raise with specialization?
    Sara Dreygon: Slicktricks... good question. I'm not blade spec anymore... I do tastics and heavy however when specializations started it was 30% at L80 spec and I believe 37.5% at L120 spec
    Sara Dreygon: I heard recently that they may have halved the bonus though
    ==========================================================================

    Cowboy Bill: do you parry reposte?
    Sara Dreygon: Cowboy bill... riposte is still... lacking. Vesper and I tested and if I was scene master it worked for me and not for him
    Sara Dreygon: When he was scene master it worked for him and not for me
    Sara Dreygon: When it works it is amazing though
    ==========================================================================

    Vaiden Luro: What do you think are best materials for weapons and armor when speccing in blades?
    Sara Dreygon: Vaiden... best materials I believe are elven hilts (slight crit boost over meteoric)
    Sara Dreygon: Had a friend test it and the extra crit from Elvens did more damage in the longrun over meteoric
    Sara Dreygon: For blade
    Sara Dreygon: Meteoric for the longsword blade (main hand) and sylvan for an offhand dagger
    ==========================================================================

    Nemhain: What (except Dex) did yu do to get your crits up?
    Sara Dreygon: Nemhain... for crits
    Sara Dreygon: 168 vital points
    Sara Dreygon: 152 armor weak points
    Sara Dreygon: bonus from elven hilt and sylvan dagger
    ==========================================================================

    Cowboy Bill: do you parry at all and does the offhand dagger enhance it?
    Sara Dreygon: Cowboy Bill... I believe the offhand helps but have never tested
    Sara Dreygon: I go insane with defense (levels of defensive skills are obscene) and between parry, glancing, and dodge I get hiteith big crits or big hits very seldom
    Sara Dreygon: Especially since my super-parry and super-glancing last over 5 seconds each
    Sara Dreygon: With specs
    Cowboy Bill: aah nice
    ==========================================================================

    Lebu LionHeart: eagle eye?
    Lebu LionHeart: is your eagle eye 150+?
    Sara Dreygon: Eagle Eye 143 however doesn't affects blades (unfortunately) ;-)
    Lebu LionHeart: is there a reason why eagle eye does not work for blades?
    Sara Dreygon: Required equipment "Ranged"
    Sara Dreygon: Would work if you could carry and bow and a sword at the same time ;-)
    Lebu LionHeart: but it also says melee and ranged?
    Lebu LionHeart: its misleading.
    Sara Dreygon: The name of the skill buff is melee and ranged crit
    Sara Dreygon: They didn't make a stat for one and not the other until recently
    Sara Dreygon: But since you couldn't have both equipped at the same time it worked fine
    ==========================================================================

    Enfo Enfo: What changes would blades spec need to make you want to spec into it instead of lets say tactics?
    Sara Dreygon: Enfo...
    Sara Dreygon: Tactics is BY FAR the best spec
    Sara Dreygon: Would never give it up as...
    Sara Dreygon: Stacked crit bonus with berserker when tactics specced is now 145%
    Sara Dreygon: But...
    Sara Dreygon: Heavy is great for body slams (I can 6-stack stun for 20 seconds) so make killing bosses much easier
    Sara Dreygon: And great for PVP
    Sara Dreygon: Heavy and Blades spec are close though
    Sara Dreygon: I do miss blade spec a lot... it's still good
    ==========================================================================

    Cowboy Bill: do you use the backstab at all?
    Sara Dreygon: Cowboy Bill... the skill backstab or the innate?
    Cowboy Bill: the passive
    my XP) I body slam and attack from behind with swashbuckler and swashbuckler gems for an additional 22.5%
    Cowboy Bill: aah nice
    Cowboy Bill: yes you have a stun so makes sense
    ==========================================================================

    Coswald Dirthmire: How much effort do you put in to increasing attack speed? How much of your overall damage is from auto-attack
    Sara Dreygon: Coswald... I hate busting up my sword with autoattack... I actually turn it off sometimes when fighting easy stuff
    Sara Dreygon: But... I've attentuated twice today and auto attack did...
    Sara Dreygon: 96k compared to thrust 163k
    Sara Dreygon: double-slash 147k
    Sara Dreygon: Rend 112k
    ==========================================================================

    Lebu LionHeart: do you craft your own swords or buy them from crafters?
    Sara Dreygon: Lebu... I craft everything myself. Armor and weapons. I took blade masterwork to 152 a long time ago as it gives even numbers... 17%, 17.5%, and 18% for bonuses
    ==========================================================================

    Enfo Enfo: What scenarios do you see polearms or bludgeons having a use over blades ?
    Sara Dreygon: Enfo... polearms is AMAZEBALLS in PVP
    Sara Dreygon: The armor avoidance is insane and without that blades hit hard but armor mitigates that a lot
    Sara Dreygon: Other than that... polearms
    Sara Dreygon: Great against super heavily armored mobs like the lava boss, rock boss
    Sara Dreygon: I use polearms against them instead of swords
    Sara Dreygon: Also... if fighting the giant I often use polearms so other people can do swords so I can ensure we have the skewer and punture debuffs on it the whole time... other people can get the rends
    ==========================================================================

    Volgarr Despleigh: Dual daggers? Yay? Nay? Pointless?
    Sara Dreygon: Volgarr
    Sara Dreygon: At my level with my crits and a couple of great daggers, I kill ABOUT as fast as I do with my normal deck
    Sara Dreygon: It is very close... might be a tad behind but not by much. Daggers are a lot more expensive to bust up though than a longsword
    ==========================================================================

    Nemhain: DId you get magic resistances and if yes, how?
    Sara Dreygon: Nemhain... magic resists
    Sara Dreygon: I took the requisite attunement (like 93 in each so an average of 93 between the top 10 skills)
    Sara Dreygon: I also took each warding in the schools to between 100-120 except for life
    Sara Dreygon: I also had tactics warding which was great in PVP
    Sara Dreygon: I remember a fire made attacking me once... a very good one... and arrows were ticking 0-0 and fire circle thingy was ticking like 8
    Sara Dreygon: But dropped it because there was a bug where I was taking 1000/tick in lava and other stuff was behaving weird, too
    Sara Dreygon: 20x more than other people
    Sara Dreygon: Yeah... magic resist is great. I also have a lot of magic resist armor and stuff...this deck
    Bridge Troll: magic warding?
    Sara Dreygon: Yeah, magic warding
    Bridge Troll: one of us just GMed that - now lava will torment me?
    Sara Dreygon: Jump in some lava BT:)
    Volgarr Despleigh: Is Tactics warding fixed?
    Volgarr Despleigh: Or no?
    Sara Dreygon: Volgarr.... not that I know of but never heard it was and haven't tested lately
    ==========================================================================

    Leucian DeMorte: how do you handle dark areas with resist, and the low time of night vision or light
    Sara Dreygon: Leucian... some scenes are dark for me:-D
    Leucian DeMorte: i wondered
    Sara Dreygon: I allow others to cast buffs, heals, light, etc. on me
    Volgarr Despleigh: You need a torch of Jerik? I might have a few... hundred... thousand.
    Sara Dreygon: But I also carry light stuff like this deck
    Sara Dreygon: Nice mining helm and cloak:)
    ==========================================================================

    Slicktricks: does rend damage scale with stats?
    Sara Dreygon: Slicktricks... for rend
    Sara Dreygon: Yes, it scales with STR
    Sara Dreygon: Rend something and look at the damage and then add a brittle brawn and you'll see the damage if the rend increase
    Sara Dreygon: Make sure you take rends to 101, 121, 141, 161, etc. as you get an extra tick (2 seconds) at those levels
    Slicktricks: but the tick doesn't stack if you reapply?
    Sara Dreygon: yes, it'll overwrite the oldest rend. The ticks are set so mine lasts...
    Sara Dreygon: 26 seconds with no stacking...
    Sara Dreygon: Double or so that 6-stacked... with flails twice that again
    Sara Dreygon: If fighting bosses, I often apply rends with dual flails and then switch to my main weapons.
    Sara Dreygon: The time from the flails stays but the damage updates when you switch back to main weapons
    ==========================================================================

    Coswald Dirthmire: What is your strategy for situations where one would normally use a lot of purify, like fighting Xen?
    Sara Dreygon: Coswald... I have a lot of unicorn pots just in case... they clear pretty much everything but they're spendy so I only use as last resort
    ==========================================================================

    Arthus Dimpleton: Does combos really not worth it?
    Sara Dreygon: Arthus... combos are unfortunately not worth it to me... some are good like sawblade and hamstring for extra DOTS
    Sara Dreygon: But each takes up an extra spot in my deck for a rotating whirling or trip
    ==========================================================================

    Slicktricks: how do you 6 stack if you don't specialize?
    Sara Dreygon: Good call Slicktrick... meant 5-stack
    ==========================================================================

    Nemhain: do you use separate attack and defense decks?
    Sara Dreygon: Nope... I have a buff deck that I really only use before PVP and a potion deck I use when I start killing mobs or PVP... other than that and when doing PVP I use the left side of my bar for attacks and the right side of my bar for the best available defensive buffs for that scenario
    Sara Dreygon: My whole build is built on KISS
    Sara Dreygon: Keep it simple stupid
    Sara Dreygon: If you're thinking you're doing less damage
    Sara Dreygon: If you're healing you're doing less damage ;-)
    Sara Dreygon: This actually being helpful?
    ==========================================================================

    Coswald Dirthmire: Have you tried wicked king gems to increase the rate of glyph attacks?
    Sara Dreygon: Coswald... yes I have a deck with all 3. They're very nice.
    Sara Dreygon: Have to add filler attacks which I usually don't need to do as 14-15 is enough
    Sara Dreygon: With wickeds I do like 20 or so
    Sara Dreygon: Many gems are underwhelming but I really like wickeds... rends... and swashbucklers depending on what I'm doing
    Sara Dreygon: For jewels... dodge is amazing.
    Sara Dreygon: Says my dodge right now is 50.5
    Sara Dreygon: With all 3 and whatever base is
    ==========================================================================

    Lebu LionHeart: do you use bladed combat gems or would you do rend over those ones?
    Sara Dreygon: Lebu... I use the other gems as bladed wasn't really adding anything to damage (bug now fixed) but I haven't tested since then as I was away
    Sara Dreygon: Should contribute to damage now and will be worth a look
    Sara Dreygon: I'll have to test
    Sara Dreygon: I also dropped bladed from 170 to 160 as a result and may now take it back up
    ==========================================================================

    Arthus Dimpleton: I've heard bladed combat gems only added dmg to basic attacks, was that the bug? Does they now add dmg to skills aswell?
    Sara Dreygon: Arthus... yes and that's the rumor
    Leucian DeMorte: I missed that.. so bladed combat does affect glyph damage now?
    Sara Dreygon: My understandign was that half the damage from a glyph came from the glyph level and half from the base weapon leve;
    Sara Dreygon: Because in development people coule make bladed L40 and Thrust 160 and save XP as thrust is all that mattered
    Sara Dreygon: So they made is a split... 40+160 / 2 = equivalent 100 thrust damage
    Sara Dreygon: Needed both base skill AND glyph to maximize glyph damage but this was not the way it was working apparently.
    ==========================================================================

    Nemhain: do use use crafted jewelry? or artifact?
    Sara Dreygon: Nemhain... I use mainly crafted since imbued jewels appeared... but an epic lagomorph is great
    Sara Dreygon: Brittle brawns work great if you're stunning and attacking from behind or killing with rend
    Sara Dreygon: Pretty much crafted though
    ==========================================================================

    Coswald Dirthmire: Ah! Speaking of, what foods do you use, and what are your thoughts in general on the ones avaialbe to blades players?
    Sara Dreygon: Coswald... I currently use all three crit foods
    Sara Dreygon: Spiced tea, Ysa..., and Coel...
    Sara Dreygon: Ysaranth's stew is 10% crit which is amazing
    Coswald Dirthmire: Ysaranth should be 10% Thrust
    Sara Dreygon: So tea for the 5% crit, Coel... for the 7.5% crit, and Ysaranth's for the 10% thrust
    Coswald Dirthmire: Ah, very nice\
    Sara Dreygon: Aye... typo:)
    Sara Dreygon: During last two attenuations today... thrust was critting 1074 plus/minus 428
    ==========================================================================

    Arthus Dimpleton: What are your main active skills (non-situational) or which one would you recommand?
    Sara Dreygon: Arthus... Thrust and d-slash and offhand
    Sara Dreygon: Mainly those... Coswald has shown riposte is great if something meleeish is attacking you
    Sara Dreygon: But I don't get hit a lot with what I'm killing
    ==========================================================================

    Vaiden Luro: What is best armor material to use?
    Sara Dreygon: Vaiden... I like constantan (plate if not casting and chain if casting)
    Sara Dreygon: Gives the weapon bonus and gives focus
    Sara Dreygon: Epic for boots, gauntlets, and helm
    Sara Dreygon: Augmented for leggings... for optimal bonuses\
    Sara Dreygon: If use attacks... I'm always been successful with...
    Sara Dreygon: Offhand in slot 1, and thrust and d-slash in slot 2
    Sara Dreygon: Mash... I have button set for each and just mash it
    ==========================================================================

    Starkonja: better to mash than to charge?
    Sara Dreygon: Yes Starkonja
    Sara Dreygon: Much
    Sara Dreygon: Except for rend of course... and coup sometimes
    Starkonja: i was wondering about that, thank you. If you specialize in blades, do you know how much coup's minimum health is affected?
    Sara Dreygon: Coup WAS 30% at L80 and 37.5% at L120... heard they cut it
    though but not blades spec anymore
    ==========================================================================

    Sara Dreygon: Gift bags good?
    Volgarr Despleigh: This dagger doesn't have parry, I got robbed. lol
    Sara Dreygon: Heh... none have parry noob


    EDITOR'S NOTE: I did my best to put this together in a couple hours this morning, if you were at the event, feel free to take a look at your chat logs and send me any I've missed, or post them below.

    Finally, @Sara Dreygon I have put together the unanswered questions here at the bottom. You were very diligent as there were very few questions left unanswered.

    Coswald Dirthmire: What do you think accounts for the difference between 2h and DW power. Offhand attack, sylvan daggers etc.

    Arthus Dimpleton: Any tips on which gems/jewels to chose for a dual dagger crit build?

    Coswald Dirthmire: Was that contrary-effect bug only on tactics warding as far as you can tell?
     
    Last edited: Sep 18, 2021
  2. Violet Ronso

    Violet Ronso Avatar

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    Hahaha yeah that Volgarr fellow got scammed

    Thank you very much for this, love to read resources like this, and thank you so much for all 3 of you, Lucian and Sara for this kind of event! I really hope we can get the ball rolling on masters of their arts sharing their knowledge!
     
  3. Leucian

    Leucian Avatar

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    Violet Ronso (your still my hero), I am all about the masters of this game coming to speak at the Lute/Haven Ridge/Pavilion. I really would like to do Meet and Greets every couple of weeks. If anyone is interested in coming to speak/chat/hang out. Drop me a message on the forums or in game.
     
  4. Coswald_Dirthmire

    Coswald_Dirthmire Bug Hunter

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    Thanks for taking the time to format and post this. Great resource!

    There might be more to add to the Tactics Warding question you tagged as unanswered, but I think it was at least addressed in the course of conversation:

    [9/17/2021 3:24:08 PM] [3:24 PM] Sara Dreygon (To Zone): But dropped it because there was a bug where I was taking 1000/tick in lava and other stuff was behaving weird, too
    [...]
    [9/17/2021 3:24:43 PM] [3:24 PM] Coswald Dirthmire (To Zone): Was that contrary-effect bug only on tactics warding as far as you can tell?
    [...]
    [9/17/2021 3:25:49 PM] [3:25 PM] Sara Dreygon (To Zone): Yeah... I was with people who had everything else I had and they would chill in lava with 50/tick
    [9/17/2021 3:25:57 PM] [3:25 PM] Sara Dreygon (To Zone): I dropped tactics warding and now 50/tick
     
    Last edited: Sep 18, 2021
  5. necronut

    necronut Avatar

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    Yeah, I started working on it around 5am while I was still drinking my first cup of coffee, using Notepad++ Find > Bookmark > Delete and Find > Replace to handle a lot of the formatting.

    Because there were a lot of lines in between questions and answers, I was moving things around and up and down in the document, I'm sure there's a few chunks missing. Good catch.

    EDIT: More specifically, I tended to just glass over and look for lines near when Sara would say a person's name, and take that for the answer.
     
  6. Bayard

    Bayard Avatar

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    Amazing thread with great info! Thank you all for taking the time to hold the event and share the results.
     
  7. Sara Dreygon

    Sara Dreygon Avatar

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    Tested this today... Results below and quite interesting:

    Level 10 Bladed Combat
    Thrust @170 - 257 attacks for 107.90 non-crit average
    D-Slash @170 - 426 attacks for 65.60 non-crit average
    Auto attack - 1071 attacks for 8.78 non-crit average

    Level 160 Bladed Combat
    Thrust @170 - 257 attacks for 151.25 non-crit average
    D-Slash @170 - 426 attacks for 90.60 non-crit average
    Auto attack - 1071 attacks for 34.94 non-crit average

    Glyph damage increase per Bladed Combat level: about .22% or 2.2% per 10 levels which isn't horrible
    Auto/charged attack damage increase per Bladed Combat level: about 0.925% per level or 9.25% per 10 levels which is actually pretty good
     
    Last edited: Oct 17, 2021
  8. Sara Dreygon

    Sara Dreygon Avatar

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    My math was bad... fixed it on previous post.
     
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