Intimidate1Context Source1
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Building a Template A brief look at the reality of game mechanics in SWG as of Patch 7, 4/21/04. Character builds are unique and diverse in SWG. Almost no two characters have the same exact set of skills and if they do give it a week. People shape their characters in a number of different ways. Roleplayers typically build a character around a profession and an identity they want to portray. Dabblers typically build characters for skills they want to experiment with or those they want to for convenience or preference. Min/Maxers typically build a character to maximize certain skills and minimize skill point waste to optimize their character for a certain purpose. Then lastly we have the Hologrinders that are just chasing little cubes in hopes of becoming a Jedi (Sorry, had to poke fun there). While I have stereo-typed players, in truth most of us are a mix of all of these stereotypes to a certain degree. What I am concentrating in this post is Min/Maxing and understanding game mechanics and skills. This is combat oriented. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Skills, Mechanics and Definitions Defenses There are 3 types of defenses in SWG. Primary, Secondary and State defenses. Primary Defenses Melee and Ranged Defenses are primary defenses. These defenses work regardless of what weapon a character is wielding. These defenses are rolled against accuracy to see if an attack is successful. Currently these defenses are capped at 125. Only Chef food, Squad Leader and City bonuses can take these over the 125 cap. Secondary Defenses Dodge, Counter Attack and Block are secondary defenses. These defenses are weapon dependant. Pistols and 1-handed melee weapons use dodge. Carbines and 2-handed melee weapons use counter attack. Rifles and Polearms use Block. These defenses come into play if and only if the proper weapon is equipped and a hit is successful against the primary defenses. These defenses do not block scatter hits, unarmed combos, bleeds or DOTs. Currently these defenses are capped at 125. Only Center of Being and Chef food bonuses can take these over the 125 cap. Center of Being is a brawler skill that boosts secondary defenses. The bonus is directly added to the secondary defense. CoB is also weapon dependant, meaning that if CoB is active for 2-handed Melee, it must be reapplied if you switch to a 1-handed Melee weapon. Defense Accuity is a Teras Kasi skill. Defense Accuity has a random chance to either Block, Dodge or Counterattack. While many complain that this skill is not working, my own testing shows that it does indeed work, is affected by CoB, but has a lower chance of working due to comparably lower value to the other secondary defenses. State Defenses Defense vs. xxx are state defenses. State defenses are a roll against accuracy to see if a state is applied. Each state skill then has an inherent chance to succeed upon a successful roll. Currently all these defenses stack across professions, but have a 95% cap. In other words, no matter how high your state defenses there is always a 5% chance that a succesful 'state hit' will be applied. When a successful 'state hit' is applied, there is then a percent chance based on the skill for it to work. Defense vs. Knockdown - This defense is currently working. 70+ in this skill is recommended for a noticeable difference. Thakitillo Chef food provides 80% defense for 10 minutes (Highly recommended for those lacking this defense.) Defense vs. Posture Down - This defense is currently working. It is more difficult to achieve high defense in this skill. No Chef food exsists. Defense vs. Dizzy - This defense is currently working. Dizzy is what makes Knock Down and Posture Down so dangerous. Any attempt to change posture, even if you are currently in that posture (i.e. hitting stand while standing) results in a chance for a person to fall down. Defense vs. Blind - This defense is currently working. Blind significantly lowers an attackers accuracy. It is estimated at applying -50 accuracy. Defense vs. Stun - This defense is currently working. Stun halves the attacker's damage and also lowers primary defenses by -50 defense. Defense vs. Intimidate - This defense is currently NOT working. Even at 90+ defense a novice brawler with no bonuses will land intimidate 50% of the time. Intimidate halves the attacker's damage, lowers state defenses and negates all secondary defenses. My experience has shown that certain state defenses matter more than others and that certain states are harder to defend against than others. It is also important to note that because accuracy plays a role in determining the success of a defense it is much better to have 100 in one defense than 50 in two defenses. A player with 75 melee, ranged and secondary defenses will be hit significantly more than a person with 0 melee and ranged defense but 125 secondary defense. A person with 50 def vs. knockdown and 50 def vs. dizzy will be much easier to apply kd/dizzy to than a person with 0 defense vs. knockdown and 100 defense vs. dizzy. Min/Maxing of skills is just that. Maxing what skills you choose to and minimizing wasted skill points. Accuracy Accuracy is very simple. The higher your accuracy the better chance you have to hit something and applying a desired effect/state. Accuracy should be maxed if possible, especially against targets with high defense. It is important to understand that your posture, the target's posture, the target's defenses, intimidate on the target, stun on the target, blind state on the attacker, aim, range modifiers on the weapon and rate of movement of both you and the target severly affect accuracy. Use all these to your advantage whether you are the attacker or the defender. Speed Speed works on an exponential scale in SWG. It is a continous curve that is near constant at lower speed and then rises sharply as speed approaches 100. Speed is capped at 1 second in SWG. Any attacks that appear faster are due to lag. Due to SWG's speed formula any weapon can be used at 1 attack per second at 100 speed. Due to inherent weapon speed and special attack delay modifiers, all weapon have a different cap which is below 100. What is most important to note is that as you approach 100 speed, each bit of weapon speed significantly increases attack speed until you hit the one second cap (i.e. the difference between 75 speed and 85 speed is significantly lower than the difference between 85 speed and 95 speed when using a 5.4 speed Power Hammer with Head Hit 3 in 2-handed melee). http://killyourpc.org/swg/speedguide.html offers an excellent indepth view of the weapon speed formula in SWG. Damage Random HAM vs. Targeted HAM. Random HAM attacks are typically higher damaging attacks. Targeted HAM attacks are typically lower damage but only hit one pool. Your target, your special attack and the group you are attacking with all determine what is the best type of damage to deal when comparing Random HAM vs. Target HAM attacks. Mind Damage vs. Health/Action Damage. Mind Damage is unhealable in SWG. The Mind stats are also the most difficult to buff. In PvE, the difference between attacking a targets mind vs attacking health or action is not real significant. The only exception is against certain NPCs that can heal themselves. In PvP, mind damage is king. Health and Action stats are often times 2-3x higher than mind stats. Given the reduced pool size, reduced regeneration and unhealable quality of mind, mind attacks are far more effective than health/action attacks in PvP. Mitigation There are two types of mitigation in SWG, melee and ranged. Mitigation reduces the difference between max and min damage on an attackers weapon. Mitigation 1 is 20% reduction, Mitigation 2 is 40% reduction and Mitigation 3 is 60% reduction. Example: An attacker is using a weapon with 50-150 damage against a Mitigation 3 target. The attackers damage spread is 100. Mitigation reduces this by 60% making it a 40 damage spread. Effectively, the attacker's weapon now is a 50-90 damage weapon. Mitigation cannot be stacked. Mitigation is always in effect regardless of the weapon you are using. Your highest level of mitigation will always be used. A person with Ranged Mitigation 1 from Carbine, Ranged Mitigation 3 from Rifle, Melee Mitigation 2 from TK and Melee Mitigation 3 from Fencer will always have Ranged Mitigation 3 and Melee Mitigation 3. Armor My quick opinion. Most people wear too much armor or too little. For 99% of PvE Kinetic Ubese is all you will ever need. For 99% of PvP High Stun/Base Resists Helm and Chest with the rest average resists is all you need. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Analyzing a Build To close things up, I'm going to critique my own build, which is designed to be an effective soloer in both PvP and PvE. It can't do it all, but it does 99% of it very well. Hopefully, this sheds some light in what you might do in applying the reality of game mechanics into your own build. My Current Build Wylie Kai'Odi Human Master Heavy Sword / Master Brawler / TK 4304 / Fencer 4400 / Medic 4000 HAM 400/400/400 400/400/400 1100/800/1100 Melee Defense: 156 (163) Ranged Defense: 134 (137) Counter Attack: 110 CoB: 125 Mitigation: Melee Mitigation 3 Def vs. KD: 95 Def vs. PD: 90 Def vs. Blind: 20 Def vs. Dizzy: 25 Def vs Stun: 65 (85) Def vs Intimidate: 20 (25) 2h Speed: 80 (90) 2h Accuracy: 130 (135) Weapons: Power Hammer (5.4 spd 178-709 damage w/ power up), Scythe (2.0 spd 200-330 damage w/ power up) Armor1: 73% Kinetic Ubese with Encumberance Slice Armor2: 84% Base/37% Stun Composite with Effectiveness Slice (Helm and Chest); 78% Kinetic/69% Base/4% Stun Composite with Encumberance Slice (The Rest) Accesories: +10 2h Speed SEA's, +5 2h Accuracy SEA's, +8 Def vs. Intimdate SEA's, +20 Def vs. Stun BE Shirt, + 7 Melee Defense BE Shirt and Pack, +3 Ranged Defense Pack. Comments Human - Humans have no real bonuses or special abilities. What they do have is the most flexible HAM stats of all races. Master Heavy Sword - Specializes in Heavy Mind Damage. AP2 weapons and Blast damage kill things very quickly. Master Brawler - 20m ranged KD is great. Intimidate2 lasts much longer than Intimidate1. The added speed, defense, CoB and accuracy also make it attractive. Teras Kasi - Meditation and Defenses. Meditation cures bleeds, poison, disease and wounds. It also provided PowerBoost and Force of Will. Fencer - Defenses and Blind/Dizzy AOE attacks. It also gives me a stun damage option. Medic - I have played builds without medic, but felt that the ability to heal self and others in combat is critical, especially in high end PvE. Medic 4000 lets me cure bleeds and provides 1k+ heals with stim b's. Novice Medic is also the coolest title in the game. I missed not having that. HAM - I always play buffed. My stat migration gives me a very even stat balance after buffs. 3300/2100/2100 3300/2200/2200 3500/1800/2400 are what my stats look like after buffs, powerboost, composite armor and stacking two brandies (my standard set-up). Melee/Ranged defenses - I'm over the cap for two reasons. First, I'm lazy. I should probably drop to TK 4302 and pick up some Aukuan rings and SEA's to optimize. I could then go Medic 2040 giving me 1.5-2k heals with stim D's. Second, I'm convinced that stun is applied to defenses before the cap. This means that when I'm stunned my melee/ ranged defenses are 103/87 rather than 75/75. Counter Attack/CoB - I'm 235 in secondary defenses with CoB running on a looping macro. I have a +10 Counter Attack SEA to add when I get around to it. This makes up for my lack of ranged mitigation in PvP. Melee Mitigation 3 - This makes a huge difference in both PvP and PvE. I can take a lot of melee damage. High Secondaries make up for my lack of ranged mitigation except in high end PvE against ranged opponents. Super Battle Droids hurt. This is my main weakness as defenses don't do much against high level PvE MOBs. State Defenses - I am near impossible to Knock Down or Posture Down. This makes up for my low dizzy defenses. High Stun defenses make stun very difficult to apply. Defense vs. Intimidate is broken, so I gave up on that defense (I used to have +91). Blind is a major weakness against melee attackers, but doesn't seem to hurt too badly if they are intimidated. Against ranged attackers, I have a 2.5x to-hit modifier, making Blind inconsequential. 2h Melee Speed - I am very close to the speed cap with a 5.4 Power Hammer (1 attack every 1.25 seconds with my slowest special). I hope to get some nice SEA's to complete my set up. 2h Melee Accuracy: Every bit helps. Swordman have poor accuracy compared to other Melee classes. Accuracy powerups, SEA's and Intimidate help make up the difference. Weapons - One heavy hitting Blast damage weapon and one accurate Kinetic damage weapon. I also carry a speed sliced power hammer (fighting w/o SEA's), a damage sliced 2h curved sword (for lairs to limit decay on Scythe), a stun baton (fencer), and a few DOT weapons when I need an edge. Armor - I wear my Ubese almost all my PvE. The lower encumberance and cheaper cost of replacement make it attractive. My Composite is full of SEA's and is pretty expensive to replace. I wear it for PvP and some high-end PvE. I kill NS Elders in my Ubese. Accessories - I have a few skill tapes that I use as well as some BE clothing and +skill items. A few high value SEA's in a Ubese shirt, Ubese bandolier and Mabari belt would be ideal due to no decay, but this works for now. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Summary I have completed, tested and played various build in SWG: CH 4404/ BH 0004 / Novice Medic MCH / BH 0004 MBH / CH 1100 / Novice Medic MBH / Pistol 0030 / Novice Medic MBH / Medic 3200 MBH / Carbine 0403 Master Carbineer / BH 0430 Master Heavy Sword / Master Carbineer / TK 4004 / Novice Medic Master Heavy Sword / Fencer 4440 / TK 4004 / Carbine 0030 Master Heavy Sword / Master Fencer / Master Brawler / TK 4304 Master Heavy Sword / Master Brawler / TK 4304 / Fencer 4400 / Medic 4000 I am most happy with by current build. With it, I've soloed around 20 NS Elders, I've soloed 2 Giant Canyon Krayts, I've killed the Giant Dune Kimo solo a number of times and I'm able to run most of the Geonosian Caves without armor. I never wear armor doing faction missions, running average MOB missions or fighting average NPC's. In PvP, I can solo multiple elite professions quite succesfully. My only real weakness in PvP is Combat Medics, but that's the case for most non-Doctor builds. I have yet to lose to a Combat Medic 1v1, but add in a group and they become very powerful. I was asked by a few people to make this post and share a little knowledge on the reality of game skills and mechanics. I can't cover everything and I'm sure things will change. Of course, most of what I've written is subject to opinion and personal experience. I just hope that this summary of 6 months of reading, trying and testing builds in both a PvE and PvP enviroment helps some understand the poorly documented and complicated combat system in SWG.
