Duelist build
-
Despite playing CoA for 12 years I am still rubbish at the mechanics side of things.
So:
-
What would be a solid "duelist" type build
-
Is a parry build actually worth doing, or is it just a bit naff
I want that lovely blend of nice RP flavour and not having to run away from bats at the first sign of a fight
Thanks team!
-
-
While I am not CB or Dobby, I had limited fun when trying to go the Parry route. Since Mortui and CB broke the Bravo fighter kit, I would suggest either a rogue / fighter ordeal, or a bard approach. But your best bet is to go on irc, and find CB when he is not busy.
-
My general recommendation based on PC survival as a duelist rather than mechanics:
- Earn respect by building yourself up from failure
- Challenge various PCs to duels and learn their weaknesses from day 1
- Be aware of your own weaknesses and learn how to counter them
- Most major PvPs boils down to consumables and allies, rather than lvl and build
- If you die and you have resources in your inventory, you died cause you were being cheap
- Have one weapon for every enemy
- Accept that you wont be winning every fight against every PC and turn your loses into victories
-
Yeah got all that Puffster, I just literally don't know where to start with it is all!
I've also heard that Parry is "broken" so don't want to go balls deep into something that doesn't work!
-
Whenever I want a build, I write up a character summary and then ask the mechanically savvy people what they would build to reflect the PC. I recommend doing that if you need stats, level advice and such! Otherwise your entire build is gonna be available to read on the forums :)
-
I saw parry work for CB, on a halfling using daggers. But my usual reasoning for seeing him do insane shit, is that it is him and not the character itself.
Last I went Parry, I felt it worked like shit. It can work well in one vs one scenarios, but when questing, I never got it to work for me.
If you remember Mumad Tom, I can give you his build. He was a dex based fighter who flourished.
-
I do remember him, yep! If you wouldn't mind sending that over it would be swell.
And Puffy, I'm not fussed about that really!
-
Parry can work well in some cases (I've seen it once or twice) but for general use, I'd just go with a pure rogue myself and rp the whole duelist thing.
Rogue fits better thematically than a fighter, anyway.
-
Ranger could also work, with the correct background.
-
I just played a ranger with parry, and had some success with the skill, however i needed to take improved parry, and sf parry. You need to get the skill to really high ratings for it to be worth a damn.
Applefritos helped me with the build itself. It is a good skill but you need more attacks than your opponent to make it work. My understanding of parry is that each parry uses an attack, and each riposte costs an attack, so a rangers 4 attacks at lvl 6 is a huge benefit.
As with all things mechanical though, your best bet is to message Cb or Applefritos
-
I believe that you only get to riposte if the enemy made a successful to hit roll too, so low ac means more ripostes but low ac means you get hit more. I had a fighter with about 26 parry at level 5 - it struggled constantly as could only parry one attack so if there were two enemies they just cut me up.
so if you do build aim for other options to increase ac for when you get stuck in melee, expertise/imp expertise maybe?
-
I had a greatsword parry monk on CoA for a while who was great fun (Kensai style).
Parry was situational but badass. It can work, great for some bosses but it's more for cool factor than effectiveness in my experience. And nothing wrong with that, CoA tends to reward less than optimal builds to make them viable anyways.
Also I think Parry kicks in even if they fail to actually beat your AC with their roll?
-
Parry is a ...weird system, and only effective 1 vs 1. Not for use against large groups of enemies.
-
From my experience, parry is only useful against weaker PCs (same level + worst build, or lower level than you). If you're going to rely on risposte attack, if someone has a kickass AB and extended critical range, you'll end up losing.
Against monsters is good when you are tanking a boss. Unless the boss has several APR's. Then big chance you are dying also.
-
A 20 will always hit, regardless if you're in parry mode or not.
However, a high Parry of (20+) is extremely effective against high level pcs and even dm monsters. Of course, stepping backward and throwing darts is the best counter for this.
I once watched a parry build duel the big bad monster of an entire chapter in EFU, before it landed 1 to many natural 20s on her poor ass.
-
High Dex builds always do better than strength builds in terms of AC. Just multiclass into rogue for tumble, or ranger.
I recommend rogue for sneak attacks though.
-
Might be able to do some kind of weird parry staffmonk. Taunt to lower their ab then parry.
-
Seems nice but taunt lowers AC not AB.
-
Staff Monk kit makes their ChannelKi taunt their AB instead of AC.
-
Parry is a 1v1 counterattack system, though that's what a "duelist" means if you look at it one way, so it might not be a bad thing for your roleplay. The funny part is that if you face off against another duelist, you can't really pit your parries against each other; One will have to go on the attack, which sadly, reduces quite a bit of the dashing swordsman trope.
Generally, yeah, you can pull off parry, but it's going to take some good building. While I've played duelists, after my initial experimentation with parry, it just became a chore rather than something that really added to the fun factor in the end.
However, solarfall, the best way to see if it's right for you is just make a throwaway PC and test it out yourself.