Swordmasters 2H

[nwind2002]

Hello all,

I had a couple questions about Swordmaster 2H viability for scenarios and duo roaming with my friends Warrior priest.

1) How is the damage of Swordmaster 2H? I guess on a scale of 1-10

2) How is there survivability 1-10?

3) What should I spend my renown points on? I’m assuming parry chance and reduction in chance to be critically hit.

4) what kind of talent tree should I be using for 2H?

Thanks all,

Appreciate your time.

[Fenris78]

Hello,

1. By tanks standards, damage is very high especially since 80% is spirit, and you can AoE spirit debuff with baseline skill (also you dont have to invest into WS for armor pen.). From dps perspective, you can hope for half the amount of an average melee aoe dps wich is pretty good, but most will be "fluff" aoe damage. Single target damage "burst" is good only with ether dance having high baseline and hitting 5 times.

2. Survivability is as good as any other SnB tank, provided you spec defensively (renown) and dont neglect your defensive stats. Group absorb skill is also very helpful in that matter.

3. Parry 4, anticrit 3, Disrupt 4, rest depends on what you want : str for better damage, wounds if you are not in the 9k mark, or hardy concession if you want extra survivability (at the expense of some dmg).

4. Masteries are either :
- left tree with Ether Dance and Great Weapon mastery. You can pick Balanced accuracy but if you didnt spec into crit chances at all, better take Discerning Offense instead (core tactic) to ensure you hit consistently
- Right tree for KD (crashing wave), Group absorb (protection of Hoeth), and Whispering Wind (wich allow you to make group absorb every 5s for instance) if you play with classes that will benefit from it. WP is not very receptive to WW since most skills cannot be spammed with the buff, saving the cleanse ans mono heal (I presume your friend is more dps oriented, so he probably wont use 5s cd decrease much).
- Both left and right tree (Ether dance + WW, KD, Absorb and GWM tactic) but you need 6 pcs sov to get the +2 masteries (or you'll have to drop 2 of these).

With good use of your timed rotations, Potent enchantment tactics on top, you will be a good damage dealer, and ether dance + taunt after spirit debuff is very deadly especially when you stole init right before.
Plus potent enchantment instantly proccing on any first hit makes a good add damage (wich will ignore toughness and is spirit damage too).

[nwind2002]

Thank you very much for the detailed response I appreciate it. I think I’m going to give it a shot!

[warsynora]

Would you recommend using Blessing of Heaven?

[Paxsanarion]

Hello,

1. By tanks standards, damage is very high especially since 80% is spirit, and you can AoE spirit debuff with baseline skill (also you dont have to invest into WS for armor pen.). From dps perspective, you can hope for half the amount of an average melee aoe dps wich is pretty good, but most will be "fluff" aoe damage. Single target damage "burst" is good only with ether dance having high baseline and hitting 5 times.

2. Survivability is as good as any other SnB tank, provided you spec defensively (renown) and dont neglect your defensive stats. Group absorb skill is also very helpful in that matter.

3. Parry 4, anticrit 3, Disrupt 4, rest depends on what you want : str for better damage, wounds if you are not in the 9k mark, or hardy concession if you want extra survivability (at the expense of some dmg).

4. Masteries are either :
- left tree with Ether Dance and Great Weapon mastery. You can pick Balanced accuracy but if you didnt spec into crit chances at all, better take Discerning Offense instead (core tactic) to ensure you hit consistently
- Right tree for KD (crashing wave), Group absorb (protection of Hoeth), and Whispering Wind (wich allow you to make group absorb every 5s for instance) if you play with classes that will benefit from it. WP is not very receptive to WW since most skills cannot be spammed with the buff, saving the cleanse ans mono heal (I presume your friend is more dps oriented, so he probably wont use 5s cd decrease much).
- Both left and right tree (Ether dance + WW, KD, Absorb and GWM tactic) but you need 6 pcs sov to get the +2 masteries (or you'll have to drop 2 of these).

With good use of your timed rotations, Potent enchantment tactics on top, you will be a good damage dealer, and ether dance + taunt after spirit debuff is very deadly especially when you stole init right before.
Plus potent enchantment instantly proccing on any first hit makes a good add damage (wich will ignore toughness and is spirit damage too).

Great post! What tactics do you typically run?

[Fenris78]

Great post! What tactics do you typically run?

In most situations (rvr mainly), I slot :

• Rugged : you want that extra toughness since offensive endgame gear is around 400 base wich is not much for a decent tank, and the toughness buff from Nature's Blade is nice but also random. More survivability thus reliability for your team. It will gets you to 550 baseline, 660 buffed wich is enough without invest any talisman or renown into.

• Great Weapon Mastery : mandatory tactic with 10% damage applying on every damage and on top of taunt, baseline skills damage being high and you have barely other viable option for damage increase. The 5% parry on top is icing on the cake.
  Alternatively (or in combo) you can use Balanced Accuracy, but you cannot spec into crits in a defensive build like this (and you will probably run out of mastery points before), so GWM is a safer bet.

• Discerning offense : 10% parry st is probably one of the best tactic you can slot. You want to hit as often as possible on every target for your aoe damage, debuffs/cc and stat stealing by Nature's Blade (the more targets you hit, the more likely blade enchant will proc, adding another stat each time). Add the base 2H bonus and it's 20% block strikethrough, allowing you to reliably cc SnB tanks as well.

• Potent Enchantment : it's proccing with Nature's Blade so it becomes 30ft AoE, ignoring both toughness and armor (hitting spirit despite tooltip), and since you debuff spirit you will have consistently instant add damage DoT of about 160 (after what left from enemy mitigation) wich is very nice to add burst, and makes a good sustained aoe pressure (at least for a tank).

Other options are switching either Rugged, DO or PE with :
- Isha's protection : when you lack healers or if you want more sustain with plenty heals (but your healers need to heal you ofc :p).
- Adept Movement : you'll be constantly AP deprived since no AP tactic and barely any regen on stuff, so if no healer is supporting you with AP tactic you can use this. Otherwise AP pots are mandatory.
- Lingering intimidation : very useful to shut down healers since you will both debuff morale, crit chances and cast times with Dazzling Strikes. Useful in city too on DPS/Healer champs.

[Aethilmar]

Great post! What tactics do you typically run?

• Potent Enchantment : it's proccing with Nature's Blade so it becomes 30ft AoE, ignoring both toughness and armor (hitting spirit despite tooltip), and since you debuff spirit you will have consistently instant add damage DoT of about 160 (after what left from enemy mitigation) wich is very nice to add burst, and makes a good sustained aoe pressure (at least for a tank).

I don't know if it used to work this way but was just testing this out on some spiders and while NB definitely procs on the group with a single target hit, PE only procs on the target itself.

[Fenris78]

Great post! What tactics do you typically run?

• Potent Enchantment : it's proccing with Nature's Blade so it becomes 30ft AoE, ignoring both toughness and armor (hitting spirit despite tooltip), and since you debuff spirit you will have consistently instant add damage DoT of about 160 (after what left from enemy mitigation) wich is very nice to add burst, and makes a good sustained aoe pressure (at least for a tank).

I don't know if it used to work this way but was just testing this out on some spiders and while NB definitely procs on the group with a single target hit, PE only procs on the target itself.

Yes You are right, my bad. Targets need to get hit by damage to be affected by PE, Nature's blade alone is not enough yes, you need AoE skills as well.

[Karl]

Great post! What tactics do you typically run?

In most situations (rvr mainly), I slot :

• Rugged : you want that extra toughness since offensive endgame gear is around 400 base wich is not much for a decent tank, and the toughness buff from Nature's Blade is nice but also random. More survivability thus reliability for your team. It will gets you to 550 baseline, 660 buffed wich is enough without invest any talisman or renown into.

• Great Weapon Mastery : mandatory tactic with 10% damage applying on every damage and on top of taunt, baseline skills damage being high and you have barely other viable option for damage increase. The 5% parry on top is icing on the cake.
  Alternatively (or in combo) you can use Balanced Accuracy, but you cannot spec into crits in a defensive build like this (and you will probably run out of mastery points before), so GWM is a safer bet.

• Discerning offense : 10% parry st is probably one of the best tactic you can slot. You want to hit as often as possible on every target for your aoe damage, debuffs/cc and stat stealing by Nature's Blade (the more targets you hit, the more likely blade enchant will proc, adding another stat each time). Add the base 2H bonus and it's 20% block strikethrough, allowing you to reliably cc SnB tanks as well.

• Potent Enchantment : it's proccing with Nature's Blade so it becomes 30ft AoE, ignoring both toughness and armor (hitting spirit despite tooltip), and since you debuff spirit you will have consistently instant add damage DoT of about 160 (after what left from enemy mitigation) wich is very nice to add burst, and makes a good sustained aoe pressure (at least for a tank).

Other options are switching either Rugged, DO or PE with :
- Isha's protection : when you lack healers or if you want more sustain with plenty heals (but your healers need to heal you ofc :p).
- Adept Movement : you'll be constantly AP deprived since no AP tactic and barely any regen on stuff, so if no healer is supporting you with AP tactic you can use this. Otherwise AP pots are mandatory.
- Lingering intimidation : very useful to shut down healers since you will both debuff morale, crit chances and cast times with Dazzling Strikes. Useful in city too on DPS/Healer champs.

Nice write up, thx!I'm curious why you don't use BA tho?

[Fenris78]

Nice write up, thx!I'm curious why you don't use BA tho?

Balanced Accuracy is a nice tactic, but if you get to choose, better use GWM since +10% damage = +20% crit on average, and you got the 5% parry on top.

And the main issue is when you want both Whispering Wind and Ether Dance, with the +2 masteries, you have to drop one utility in order to spec both Balanced Accuracy and GWM, and I think it's not an option since you lack ST punt, you absolutely want the KD, and the group absorb + WW is just too huge to go without.

Balanced Accuracy could be nice, but you'll need to invest renown into crit chances, and the loss in defensive is too high to my taste since you cannot rely too much on passive defenses (while Crimsonwind proc is very good in that regard, it wont get you much more than ~30% disrupt/dodge and ~43% parry when up - and maxed def renown -, it's barely enough when you are litterally into the blob).

And the current anticrit meta will not worth the hassle if you cannot go over 20-25% base crit with stuff and renown.

I prefer rely on the initiative stealing to give my realm 5-10% more crit on targets, and get minimal crit chances from stuff.
If I can play my main tank role, wich is also the point here ; a decent tank with decent damage and same durability as a SnB, it's IMO better than a squishy target wich will be instafocused as soon he hit the backline with M1...