Spellswords! And their current state.

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Iceborn
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Spellswords! And their current state.

Post by Iceborn » Sat Oct 14, 2017 11:50 am

Okay. I'm pulling a new thread up since the last one has literally 15 pages.
Playing a spellsword, and with the class being as popular as it is right now, talking with plenty of spellwords around, I think I have a solid view of a few things that are harder to grasp on the glance.


:arrow: The State of the Imbues:
I can summarize the imbues (based on how they work right now), like this:

Fire: Good if you are AB-starved or hitting super high AC targets (great for an offhand)
Cold: Great at low level. Once you start fighting things with more than 2 attacks, it drastically loses its use.
Acid: Even bugged, it's a great source of damage.
Negative: You can literally play without carrying a single healing kit with it. Less useful in PvP, but still amazing - specially if you find a target with low will
Sonic: Death sentence for a mage if you land your strike first, so be it in PvP or PvE.
Magic: Rarely useful. Magic damage is amazing and all (even though it still gets blocked plenty of times in PvE), but the dispel is just too unreliable to even hope to work. Even using a double imbue for 15%x2 chances, even using a dual-wield 15x4 chances, I still wouldn't use it. My guess is that magic literally works as a greater dispel, and takes into account abjuration focus, but I don't have anything to corroborate this.
Electric: Completely useless since the target bounces wherever the hell it wants. Would probably work better as stacking electric aura.

Also, yes. Did you know that once you get the Greater Imbue, you can stack the same imbue twice in a weapon? This means that if you normally are healing yourself 20 per hit~, it can scale up to 40. It still has to pass the saves, though.

:arrow: Mage Armor

The buff to Mage Armor made spellswords actually playable without EMA (which in my case, I don't get until level 29. Kill me!), but this also means that most of your AC can disappear in a simple dispel (at low levels), or a breach (at any level, which the more you level, the more common they become). Suddenly dropping 12 of AC can be a death sentence.

This spell, at least, should be unbreachable for spellswords, as they already have other weaknesses.

:arrow: Shield AC
At low level, nearly any character can take a +1 tower shield for a gratuitous +4 AC.
As a spellsword, since you don't get shield feats, you can't. Which means that at low levels, you are stuck with an offhand AC bonus that is truly mediocre, and right until level 8 your AC doesn't get relatively any better, when other characters could freely start already assembling their gear or plotting with well-placed characters to sugar-daddy them. (Technically you can still get an addy helmet and a +3 cloth/plate, but since at level 15 these will cease to matter, it's not going to be an alluring option).

At least, the shield AC should have a +3 start, and upgrade to +4 at level 10, +5 at 20, +9000 at 30.


:arrow: Epic/Pure Class Bonus.
At level 21, you get greater imbue.
At level 22, you get your fourth attack.
At level 23, you get +1 AB and a wizard feat
At level 24, you get +1 Shield AC
And nothing more that is really relevant henceforth.
You get more CL, which is great because dispels suck.
Extra feat at 26 and 29, +1 AC, +1 AB, but multiclassing remains the best option because spellswords still get a very limited selection of skills, and if you want to survive in PvP (since Knockdown remains aggravatingly good), you still need to multiclass into something with discipline, and even better if you can get tumble and more feats.

I just like the concept of pure class builds, and there is no reason to build a pure class spellsword atm.


:arrow: STR spellswords are directly inferior to DEX spellswords.

One of the main things the spellsword has is flat damage potential. An epic spellsword hits like a truck, specially if you know what imbues to use. Thus negating the main reason to ever go STR to begin with - damage.

Let's assume that you still want to build a STR spellsword, because you have too much pride to be a rapier-wielding spellsword dexer like the other 4000 players that made one before you.

So what's the actual thing that makes STR spellswords inferior?
ASF.
You have two options here.

A) You go the Still Spell route to deal with it (because let's admit it, the fun of a battlecasters is being able to stab things in the face AND throw spells within the same battle), accept to employ less metamagic because you can't obviously multi-metamagic, change the armor to rest (How I hate this feature). Eventually, in epics, sink 3 feats into Autostill spell and hate yourself for not building dex.

B) Disregard still spell. Use greensteel armor. You have to up your standard dex to 13 to use a maximized cats and raise to 18 to enjoy the full bonus of your AC, which, is somewhat hard enough. As a full caster, you still need 19/20 int for all your spells. And you probably want a good starting STR score. But you also want a good Con since you are going to be taking a lot more hits than the dex build. After all, your standard dex build will have about 34-38 final dex, which at best is 14 AC. Scaling down to a heavy armor that's -5 AC you aren't getting. You you have a greensteel armor, which isn't 8/1. It's 4/4, so that's -6 AC less.
Which also accounts for the loss of 2 stats, 8 skills. Or saves, or what have you.
As a dex character you can wear any cloth you want, and enchant it with, say, +1 int, +1 dex, +2 disc, +2 concentration, +2 spellcraft, +2 spot.

Okay. What of the good side? STR spellswords get a scaaaaary damage (if they go the full STR/Int route, which is painful I'll remind you), and they get more discipline and carrying weigh, which is cool, though they still seem to come up short.

Now, I've met two favored souls that multiclassed as spellsword.
These two characters, that had 0 ASF, weren't remotely broken or overpowered. They were merely better playable in comparison to the non-FS-Spellsword.
At this point I'm wondering: Does ASF still play a part in balancing the spellswords, or is it merely a stain that is worsening an already-bad build path.


:arrow: The Endgame and the Potential

Since spellswords don't get any epic spells or command abilities, their only actual epic ability that they get is the Greater Imbue. Which is great, but it feels like it could have so much more.

I know Kirito said that he was going to work on epic spell-imbues. I'm holding to my seat on that one!

I wouldn't mind spellswords having other 'tricks' and little niche abilities. For example:
A "force" ranged touch attack, based on the damage type of their weapon (bludgeon KDs for 3 seconds, piercing induces heavy bleeding and stat loss, slashing reduces movement speed, for example). Usable once/day every 8 spellsword levels.
Epic School Focus improves certain imbues (because right now there is little reason to take any school focus), IE: Necromancy increases negative imbue DC and healing by 1/3, abjuration increases magic chance by 5% per foci and adds +2 to dispel CL, etc.


That's all I can brain for now.
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luciusnetheril
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Re: Spellswords! And their current state.

Post by luciusnetheril » Sat Oct 14, 2017 3:57 pm

Adding some kind of Epic Mage Armor enhancement would help-like, the more armor you wear, the more bonus you get for the spell?

Or, maybe allow to imbue armor with more than just spell trigger effects? Because, honestly, I find those to be situational, at best and metamagic doesn't seem to work with those, anyway.

And once again, make effectiveness of imbue armor ability depend on the type of armor? Like, the more armod you have-the more stable the basis is and the more power can be imbued in it?

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Re: Spellswords! And their current state.

Post by liver and bones » Sat Oct 14, 2017 10:38 pm

Yeah, I have to say wanting to wear armor is a killer. Admittedly, I do confess I understand spellswords weren't meant to wear full armor, but the above suggestion sounds great.

Maybe a scaling buff with a Shield spell imbue on armor? The stronger the armor, the stronger the buff with the max amount being "base STR mod/2".

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Re: Spellswords! And their current state.

Post by Iceborn » Sun Oct 15, 2017 3:44 am

For reference, I do not think that STR build needs more AC. The point of taking dex over str is precisely that - you tend to exchange damage for survivability.

Actually, you tell me STR people. Does it feel worse than the dex build?

To compile a little list:

STR:
+13~ damage
+13~ discipline
Can two-hand and wield two-handed weapons for even more damage
Carry weigh.
54 AC at end build.
Can Tower Shield with some wiggling
-1 item slot due to armor

Dex:
+13 reflex
Touch attack AC
Dex skills (open lock, stealth, ride, etc)
60 AC at end build
Can also tower shield (but if you tower shield with a rapier, I will find you, and I will make fun of you)
Can wear any cloth armor.
Can afford to dual wield.
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liver and bones
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Re: Spellswords! And their current state.

Post by liver and bones » Sun Oct 15, 2017 5:12 am

Iceborn wrote:For reference, I do not think that STR build needs more AC. The point of taking dex over str is precisely that - you tend to exchange damage for survivability.

Actually, you tell me STR people. Does it feel worse than the dex build?

To compile a little list:

STR:
+13~ damage
+13~ discipline
Can two-hand and wield two-handed weapons for even more damage
Carry weigh.
54 AC at end build.
Can Tower Shield with some wiggling
-1 item slot due to armor

Dex:
+13 reflex
Touch attack AC
Dex skills (open lock, stealth, ride, etc)
60 AC at end build
Can also tower shield (but if you tower shield with a rapier, I will find you, and I will make fun of you)
Can wear any cloth armor.
Can afford to dual wield.
I made a new spellsword that wields a 2hander, and I will say the damage is just disgustingly fantastic.

End-game, though? I feel I can see the STR build being better once the imbues are fixed.

To fight other melee, acid/cold or cold/fire sounds ridiculously strong, but both acid and fire are broken.
To fight other casters, magic/silence also sounds ridiculously strong, but magic just doesn't seem to work properly.

Either way with both the EXTRA damage sounds really fantastic even with the punishing -6 AC, unless you go the route I plan to take (no EWS, no great INT = -5 damage, auto still spell = addy armor = +5 AC).

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Re: Spellswords! And their current state.

Post by luciusnetheril » Sun Oct 15, 2017 6:06 am

I've been running with one-handed weapons, so far, because I've found that two-handed weapons were getting me killed faster.

Now, I'm only mid levels and maxed out, but so far, off-hand armor and vampiric regeneration allows me to barely survive.

It feels kinda underwhelming, even when compared to my barb, to say nothing about cleric. Does it gets the job done, being STR based spellsword-sure it does, but there are better ways of doing the same thing.

Honestly, it doesn't even have to be armor, but perhaps utility? Maybe spell resist, additional saves, or damage resist?

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Re: Spellswords! And their current state.

Post by Peppermint » Sat Oct 21, 2017 5:34 pm

Running a STR-spellsword, mid levels now. Feels fine to me. You don't want to use off-hand armor until epics. Early on, a shield is best. Be sure to rock expertise while tanking too!

I can't say it feels particularly difficult, but maybe that will change?

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Re: Spellswords! And their current state.

Post by Invader_Nym » Sat Oct 21, 2017 8:05 pm

Last spellsword I encountered was doing about 45 damage per hit at level 17 with a 1-handed weapon, which is the same damage my epic level 30 ranger/weapon-specialized melee does.

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Re: Spellswords! And their current state.

Post by Dreams » Sun Oct 22, 2017 10:57 pm

On the multiclassing thing mentioned by OP, I thought it is worth pointing out that Spellsword in itself is not a 'pure' concept. It takes from magic, it takes from melee and it finds a place in the middle. Never before has multiclassing been so absolutely appropriate to go hand in hand with a class. Spellswords can get more CL and benefits to their magic stuff if they don't multiclass, or they can pick up utility skills and abilities, or they can add more to their melee potential. There's a huge amount of room for changing it to suit what you want to play.

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Re: Spellswords! And their current state.

Post by Astral » Sun Oct 22, 2017 11:12 pm

played a str based to high teens and I felt like the class is really strong. I was able to match cleric ac and get really high damage and ab respectively. Further more, this path is a legit 3 lvl dip for a dex based in which gives access to uncanny dodge, arcane magic, imbue and spellcraft. It has great synergy with paladin and ranger classes and just seems great both thematically and mechanically.
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Re: Spellswords! And their current state.

Post by cptcuddlepants » Wed Oct 25, 2017 1:29 am

Going to voice something that people don't want to hear, but the class is far too strong - it has the same AC as a cleric, almost the same AB as a weaponmaster, high damage, along with wizard spells at wizard DCs, and an immense amount of skill points. The only "drawback" it has is limited access to the ESF perks and epic spells. Low-ish health is offset by the fact that they're difficult to hit and also able to passively lifesteal everything back.
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Re: Spellswords! And their current state.

Post by Orian_666 » Wed Oct 25, 2017 2:10 am

cptcuddlepants wrote:Going to voice something that people don't want to hear, but the class is far too strong - it has the same AC as a cleric, almost the same AB as a weaponmaster, high damage, along with wizard spells at wizard DCs, and an immense amount of skill points. The only "drawback" it has is limited access to the ESF perks and epic spells. Low-ish health is offset by the fact that they're difficult to hit and also able to passively lifesteal everything back.

-Their AC is their main strength, in my opinion. But a lot of it can be removed by a single spell, most of it by 2.
-The AB is on par with a very bad WM or any other 3/4 BAB class.
-A lot of their damage is negligible, most of the bonus damage being nullified by defensive essences, prot from ele spells, high saves, and for their favored imbue a simple prot from neg potion.
-Not Wizard DCs, they (mostly) aren't going to get +6 from any ESF because that's a waste, and they have less Int.
-They do get a lot of skill points, but what does that give them? Disc, UMD, Spellcraft, and Tumble. The skills that everyone already takes anyway, and then some flavor and RP skills which have no impact on their strength and as such are redundant for your point.

No one is denying that they are strong, but they also have a lot of very obvious, very easily exploited, weaknesses and counters. Almost any decently built character with half a brain will be able to exploit these weaknesses and balance out a fight with them.

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Re: Spellswords! And their current state.

Post by cptcuddlepants » Wed Oct 25, 2017 2:36 am

Orian_666 wrote:-Their AC is their main strength, in my opinion. But a lot of it can be removed by a single spell, most of it by 2.
From the sound of things, their AC is undispellable outside of mage armor, which is only 4.
Orian_666 wrote:-The AB is on par with a very bad WM or any other 3/4 BAB class.
3/4 BAB classes don't get high-40s AB
Orian_666 wrote:-A lot of their damage is negligible, most of the bonus damage being nullified by defensive essences, prot from ele spells, high saves, and for their favored imbue a simple prot from neg potion.
80 damage per hit isn't negligible, and protection from elements only takes off 30 damage before fading.
Orian_666 wrote:-Not Wizard DCs, they (mostly) aren't going to get +6 from any ESF because that's a waste, and they have less Int.
I'm assuming most of them are taking epic abjuration to become nigh-undispellable, but outside of that particular spell focus, that's fair.
Orian_666 wrote:-They do get a lot of skill points, but what does that give them? Disc, UMD, Spellcraft, and Tumble. The skills that everyone already takes anyway, and then some flavor and RP skills which have no impact on their strength and as such are redundant for your point.
Non-wizards only have enough skill points to take those four skills and nothing else. That's the tradeoff for them. Spellswords don't have to make any tradeoffs to be unbeatable in melee on top of having more skill points than any other melee class, barring rogues, will ever have.
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Re: Spellswords! And their current state.

Post by Orian_666 » Wed Oct 25, 2017 2:41 am

A lot of their AC is dispellable/removable, but FOIG.

Neither do Spellswords, they get low 40's, mid if they're very very well built, and that's only when fully buffed, unbuffed they hang around high 30's. (dispelable on a lot of SS builds btw)

Most of that 80 isn't physical damage and that's on a crit. Non crit damage you're gonna be looking at around 20-30 tops physical, 40 for a Str build. Your defensive essences however remain constantly and the average ele damage of each type from imbue is 6-7 (before bonus Acid or Neg damage which can be saved and negated), so 1-2 after essences.

Don't need epic abj for dispel resist, just normal abj focus and then arcane defense, so no.

But it still doesn't impact their mechanical strength, which was your main point.

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Re: Spellswords! And their current state.

Post by Invader_Nym » Wed Oct 25, 2017 2:50 am

Orian_666 wrote: No one is denying that they are strong, but they also have a lot of very obvious, very easily exploited, weaknesses and counters. Almost any decently built character with half a brain will be able to exploit these weaknesses and balance out a fight with them.
I hear this argument a lot. Just because there's a counter for something, doesn't mean that that thing is automatically perfectly balanced. That's not a deductively valid argument.

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Re: Spellswords! And their current state.

Post by Orian_666 » Wed Oct 25, 2017 2:52 am

If you want perfect balance then you're in the wrong place, no one has said they're perfectly balanced because of their weaknesses.
I simply said that many of the strengths they benefit from can be countered by most characters, bringing them down to a level where they are balanced, in many cases considerably weaker. How is that not valid?

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Re: Spellswords! And their current state.

Post by Dreams » Wed Oct 25, 2017 2:58 am

cptcuddlepants wrote:Going to voice something that people don't want to hear, but the class is far too strong - it has the same AC as a cleric, almost the same AB as a weaponmaster, high damage, along with wizard spells at wizard DCs, and an immense amount of skill points. The only "drawback" it has is limited access to the ESF perks and epic spells. Low-ish health is offset by the fact that they're difficult to hit and also able to passively lifesteal everything back.
I disagree. Clerics have much easier access to AC with less cost overall, WMs have far more AB and it is ridiculous to even make the comparison there. Damage is high if you invest enough. Wizard spells at wizard DCs is misleading - they're likely to have far lower DCs than other wizards due to the INT bonuses capping out and needing to cover on more physical abilities, in addition to not taking Epic Spell Focus feats. The skill points are obviously going to be based on INT score, but wizards only get 2 points + INT, which is on the lower end of the spectrum.

The drawbacks are severe:
- No summons at all.
- No access to Conjuration school at all.
- No access to <their choice> school at all.
- No epic -command abilities.
- No epic spells, apart from EMA which is absolutely essential otherwise you're toast.
- For the above reason, being toast any time someone dispels you.
- Low AB.
- Lower DCs than other wizards.

The only time they can passively lifesteal health back is when the opponent is failing will saves. This seems to work fine in low-level PvE, but I've heard barely works on higher level spawns, and isn't likely to make that much of a difference in PvP.

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Re: Spellswords! And their current state.

Post by cptcuddlepants » Wed Oct 25, 2017 3:13 am

Their AC still winds up roughly around the same level, 60-ish.

Spellsword gets mid-high 40s AB from what I've seen, and the weaponmasters I've made on the PGCC have roughly the same.

I'm guessing that anyone who plays a spellsword is investing in that damage.

Wizard spells at wizard DCs is maybe the only fair point.

How much base int do spellswords usually run with? Guessing maybe 20 (for a +5) at minimum, probably higher. That's, at the very least, 7 skill points a level which is a lot more than other classes, barring rogue and ranger, get even counting their int bonuses.

They don't exactly need summons with how tanky/damaging they are, and they do have access to conjuration spells, just not the summons.

The point I'm trying to make is that they're ridiculously strong in a "can do everything, has cake and eats it too" sense, rather than a numbers-too-high sense.
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Re: Spellswords! And their current state.

Post by yellowcateyes » Wed Oct 25, 2017 3:22 am

cptcuddlepants wrote:3/4 BAB classes don't get high-40s AB
Not true, actually. You only need to look so far as the Bard. You're also overstating the AB that a Spellsword can get. It's certainly not on the level of a decent WM.
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Re: Spellswords! And their current state.

Post by Iceborn » Wed Oct 25, 2017 3:28 am

Dreams wrote:
cptcuddlepants wrote:Going to voice something that people don't want to hear, but the class is far too strong - it has the same AC as a cleric, almost the same AB as a weaponmaster, high damage, along with wizard spells at wizard DCs, and an immense amount of skill points. The only "drawback" it has is limited access to the ESF perks and epic spells. Low-ish health is offset by the fact that they're difficult to hit and also able to passively lifesteal everything back.
I disagree. Clerics have much easier access to AC with less cost overall, WMs have far more AB and it is ridiculous to even make the comparison there. Damage is high if you invest enough. Wizard spells at wizard DCs is misleading - they're likely to have far lower DCs than other wizards due to the INT bonuses capping out and needing to cover on more physical abilities, in addition to not taking Epic Spell Focus feats. The skill points are obviously going to be based on INT score, but wizards only get 2 points + INT, which is on the lower end of the spectrum.

The drawbacks are severe:
- No summons at all.
- No access to Conjuration school at all. They can use Conjuration just fine. Just not actual summon spells
- No access to <their choice> school at all.
- No epic -command abilities.
- No epic spells, apart from EMA which is absolutely essential otherwise you're toast.
- For the above reason, being toast any time someone dispels you. Until EMA, you are awfully dependent of your spells. Afterward you can survive with nearly no buffs, but of course, buffs maximize your performance.
- Low AB. Not true. Spellswords have the standard 3/4 AB, sticking somewhere a low and mid 40s
- Lower DCs than other wizards.

The only time they can passively lifesteal health back is when the opponent is failing will saves. This seems to work fine in low-level PvE, but I've heard barely works on higher level spawns, and isn't likely to make that much of a difference in PvP.
A few of these are wrong.

Regarding intelligence, intelligence may be just as valuable as wisdom, or not. Depending exactly how you put use to your stats. Wisdom can be translated as AC if you have monk levels. It can be spot/listen ranks against stealthers. It directly translates as Will saves.

Intelligence, other than skillpoints, is good for assassin DCs, the language system (how I abhor it), and the only combat skill that it adds to is spellcraft - which translates usually as a +2 against spells. For spellswords, this goes a notch further since it directly translates as damage as well.
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