The Swordmaster Guide (Part 1)

Post by SwordmasterCyris
This guide will provide an introduction to the Swordmaster and give advice on how to play the class.

Who am I and why should you care?

I’ve been in WAR beta since before the High Elf/Dark Elf pairing was created. Since the Swordmaster class was released, I’ve been playing it alongside nearly every other class. As a Swordmaster, I’ve leveled from 1 through 40 over the course of multiple beta phases, I’ve tanked and DPSed nearly every PQ in the Elf and Empire zones, and I’ve run every instance currently in the game – including the King battle in Inevitable City. So when I say I know a thing or two about Swordmasters, hopefully you’ll believe me.



An Overview of the Swordmaster

The Swordmaster is one possible tank class that Order players can choose to play in Warhammer Online. Originally designed as an anti-magic tank, the boundaries have since become fuzzy. The strengths of the Swordmaster stem from the ability to wear heavy armor, and the ability to deal large amounts of spirit damage instead of physical damage. (This checks against Spirit Mitigation instead of Physical Mitigation) Additionally, recent changes have provided the Swordmaster with the ability to mitigate vast amounts of damage through damage absorption shields as well as provide minor group and ally healing.



The Swordmaster Mechanic

Swordmasters use a mechanic called Balance. It’s a fairly straight forward system in which certain skills require either Normal Balance, Improved Balance, or Perfect Balance to use. When these skills are used, your balance level changes. This means that as a Swordmaster, you are always working through "cycles" when you're in combat.

The path of progression through balance is as follows:

Normal -> Improved -> Perfect -> Normal

It is important to note that skills used from Perfect Balance do not consume any AP by default. A tactic is available later that reduces the AP cost of skills that stem from the Improved Balance line. Because of this behavior, spamming a normal balance skill very rarely advisable and when done, can quickly drain AP.

Currently, the balance mechanic does not let you use improved balance skills while in perfect balance. You can use normal balance skills, but you're stance will be set to improved balance. This means it is impossible to stay in perfect balance for more than a single attack. However, it is possible to alternate between normal and improved skill - but you run the risk of using all your AP fairly quickly.



What can a Swordmaster do in PvE?

In PvE gameplay, the Swordmaster is first and foremost a tank. Their job is to gain agro on one or more mobs and hold it, ensuring that other players are not being attacked. To do this, a Swordmaster must be skilled at more than simply spamming high-threat skills such as Graceful Strike. They must also know how to position a mob and when to use their defensive skills to reduce incoming damage.

The Swordmaster excels at both multi-mob tanking, and tanking without a shield. However, just because a Swordmaster can tank without a shield does not mean that they should. Depending on Mastery spec, there are some options that will only be available when using a greatsword, and some options that will only be available when using a shield. Currently, however, the benefit of being able to block far outweighs those gained from using a greatsword; this is because in Warhammer, blocking defends against ALL attacks – ranged and magic as well as melee.

Swordmasters who do not enjoy tanking are not completely a lost cause. By specing heavily into the Khaine and Hoeth mastery lines, they gain the ability to do more damage than a traditional tank while still having viable debuffing and crowd control abilities.

It should be remembered though that the Swordmaster is a TANK class. Not a melee DPS class. Anyone thinking they’ll play a Swordmaster and be topping the damage charts at level 40 will be very disappointed. You can do enough damage to solo in PvE, but when it comes to RvR fights against non-healers will be long, and fights against healers are a nightmare. Do not be fooled by numbers in the scenario window, they’re horribly inaccurate of what a class can actually do.



What can a Swordmaster do in RvR?

There are two main schools of thought about a tanks job in RvR. Some players feel that tanks should stand in the back and try to protect healers, and other players feel that tanks are front line assault warriors who should charge into groups of other players and get beat on.

It is my personal view that standing in the back and trying to protect a healer is a waste. There is no mechanic to force a player to attack you (e.g. Taunt in EQ2) and you have no way to remove CC from another person. Nearly every class in WAR has ample methods of CC – if a healer gets attacked by a melee class, they’ll be snared, silenced, and debuffed before you can even blink. At best you can snare the attacker or if you’re an ironbreaker, knock them down for a short amout of time and hope the healer can get away. Although chances are the healer is being focus fired, so it probably won’t do much good anyway. If I was forced to pick a tank class to stand back and “defend” the healers though, it would be an ironbreaker. They have many more tools for this at their disposal than a swordmaster does. (knockbacks, knockdowns, snares, damage-on-move debuffs, and the all awesome oath-friend)

Let us say then, for the sake of argument, that a Swordmaster’s role in RvR is to act as a front line assault element. Their high mitigation, numerous debuffs and crowd control skills, and ability to spec for damage makes them very, VERY deadly in this role. With proper healing, a Swordmaster can charge into a full warband of destruction and cause enough chaos to create an opening that other Order players can exploit. The intention of the Swordmaster is not to try and kill players in an opposing army, but rather to create opportunities in which his teammates can.



Abilities, Tactics, and Morals

The Swordmaster is unique among most other classes in that nearly every skill has a well defined purpose in either PvE or RvR. Due to the Balance mechanic that a Swordmaster employs there is no one set skill that is best spammed until your target dies.

Exact descriptions of all the abilities, tactics, and morals that you can get as a Swordmaster have been done by other players to a much better degree than I am able in a guild. For example, the WarDB database has a very nice listing of all the skills and how they change with level. I will therefore not repeat their work. Instead, I will give a few short notes on the various skills and their uses.


A list of our skills that work off the balance mechanic is as follows:

Requires Normal Balance and leads to Improved Balance:

Graceful Strike – A physical based DD+DoT attack that also increases hate
Ensorcelled Blow – A spirit based DD attack
Gryphon’s Lash – A physical DD attack that cannot be blocked or parried
Sapping Strike (Khaine Master) – A physical based DD attack that also drains 50 AP over 5 seconds


Requires Improved Balance and leads to Perfect Balance:

Quick Incision – A physical based DoT attack that also snares your target
Eagle’s Flight – A physical based DD attack that increases your chance to parry

Intimidating Blow – A physical based DD attack that also reduces your target’s morale
Gusting Wind – A spirit based AoE DD attack with a 10 foot range
Dazzling Strike – A physical based DD that increases your target’s build times by 1 second for 5 seconds
Phoenix’s Wing (Khaine Mastery) – A physical based frontal AoE DD attack that also increases hate
Crushing Advance (Vaul Mastery) – A physical based DD attack that increases your Armor and chance to Block as well as interrupts your target


Requires Perfect Balance and leads to Normal Balance:

Bluring Shock – A physical based DD attack
Wrath of Hoeth – A spirit based AoE DD attack with a 30 foot range that also reduces spiritual resistance
Dragon’s Talon – A physical based DD attack that hits twice and reduces your target’s damage by 20%
Ether Dance (Khaine Mastery) – A spirit based DD attack that hits 5 times
Whispering Wind (Hoeth Mastery) – A spirit based DD attack that hits twice and silence your target
Crashing Wave (Vaul Mastery) – A spirit based DD attack that hits twice and knocks down your target
Protection of Hoeth (Hoeth Mastery) – Creates an shield around you that absorbs damage


In addition to skills which work on the Balance mechanic, we also have a number of useful buffs:

Taunt – Interrupts your target and increases damage you deal to them by 30%
Guard – Your target’s damage taken is split 50/50 with you and you gain 35% of the hate they generate

Juggernaut – Removes most CC from you, but does NOT make you immune to further CC
Aethyric Grasp – PBAoE root

Heaven’s Blade – Buff that adds a resistance debuff proc to all melee attacks
Nature’s Blade – Buff that adds a stat drain proc to all melee attacks
Phantom’s Blade – Buff that adds an absorption shield proc to all melee attacks

Aethyric Armor (Hoeth Mastery)– 30 minute buff that increases armor and disrupt chance


We also have a number of passive buffs, called tactics, that we can use. The number of tactics you can have depends on your level, capping at 4 class tactics at level 40. I’ll describe the more interesting ones that I typically use here:

Focused Offence – Increases all damage you do by 15%, but decreases your armor value by 33%
Rugged – Increases your toughness by 160 at level 40
Menace – Increases all threat generated by your attacks by 100%
Centuries of Training – 25% chance to proc a DoT lasting for 5 seconds
Ensorcelled Agony – Ensorcelled Blow now adds a DoT lasting for 5 seconds
Potent Enchantments – Each time your enchantment procs, a DoT is applied for 9 seconds
Gryphon’s Precision (Khain Mastery) – 25% chance to stun your target for 1 seconds when you use Gryphon’s Lash
Perfect Defences (Vaul Mastery) – Increases your chance to Block and Parry based on your Balance level
Bolstering Enchantments (Hoeth Mastery) – When your enchantment procs, your group receives a small Heal Over Time effect for 10 seconds
Blessing of Heaven (Hoeth Mastery) – 25% to add a reverse damage shield to your target when you use a Hoeth attack
Deep Incision (Khaine Mastery) – Increases the DoT component of Quick Incision
Vaul’s Buffer (Vaul Mastery) – On a successful block, dodge, parry, or disrupt you become surrounded by a small absorption shield for 10 seconds
Balanced Accuracy (Khaine Mastery) – Increases your crit chance based on balance stance
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