Duelist: General Feedback and Discussion welcome

Peerless warriors of varying types, from hulking armored dreadnoughts to stealthy light-footed nightblades.
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Gorth
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Duelist: General Feedback and Discussion welcome

Post by Gorth »

The duelist:
I have played a Duelist to level 43 (About five months), and if I can toot my own horn, I’d say I did quite well with her. I certainly failed in places, and I’ll outline those below, but I very much felt the power that this class gives, especially combined with knowing how to time your attacks and use tactics.

First, we’ll talk about the class. Note that Duelist has lots of potential for very different visualizations than mine, but this is the one I like.

Pros:
- Duelists have perhaps the highest defensibility in the whole game. Using ‘Graceful Dodge,’ or even just having high ‘Dodge,’ with a high ‘Melee’ skill makes your dodge rolls ridiculous. High ‘Acrobatics’ means that ‘Tumble’ and ‘Flip’ proc almost as soon as they come off cooldown. If an attack makes it through both, Cloak Parry procs often, resulting in at minimum -5 balance, at most -5 balance and a disarm (including shields for shield bash). Of note is that I have never once seen a mob pick up a disarmed weapon, meaning if the mob somehow lasts long enough to have all their weapons removed, you are fighting an unarmed opponent.
- Duelists have ridiculous offensive potential. With ‘Sweep,’ they have another, lesser* (See Section on Sweep) knockdown that can be used as a good defense breaker. ‘Quick Strike’ allows you to make two attacks in the space of three seconds. ‘Armor Chink’, combined with ‘Tactics: Duelist,’ is an almost guaranteed ‘chink,’ partially dependent on weapon choice.
- - Duelists don’t require much more skills than the basic melee skills and Acrobatics, though Acrobatics can be ignored if you wish.

Cons:
- I will freely admit that Duelist does not do well against multiple opponents. One on one against a Duelist is suicide, but Duelists suffer all the same as anyone else from knockdown, stagger and most of there defensive options are short cooldowns, meaning you can easily proc one so your group member can get a raw attack of them.
- - Whilst Duelist can only use ‘light armor,’ there Defensive options MOSTLY make up for this (See point above). Additionally, ‘Tactics: Duelist,’ while it offers -30 percent reduction on ‘Light Armor,’ it does not offer any reductions on ‘Medium’ and ‘Heavy armor.’
- - Most of the Duelist abilities are shut off by ‘Medium’ or ‘Heavy Armor,’ making the class less RP flexible to different builds.


Takeaways:
Duelists are monsters in one-on-one fights, and still quite good when their group outnumbers the enemy. Duelists have lots of options to knockdown enemies and keep them on the ground, (see Tackle, Sweep and Flip).
Duelists have excellent defense but can easily be overwhelmed by large amounts of attacks. They struggle against ‘War Riders,’ ‘Other duelists,’ ‘Druid’s Claws,’ ‘Side by Side/Combat Choreography,’ et cetera.
Duelists are in the Midlane for versatility. On one hand, you can play it however you like, though several abilities get turned off by heavy gear. However, with careful management, you don’t always need every ability active.

Skill Caps:
‘Dodge,’ ‘Melee,’ ‘Shield Use’: 700. With 700 in ‘Melee’ and one of these defensive skills, you can reach D950 rolls. Granted, that is a massive skill point investment, but even with 700 ‘melee’ and 500 ‘Dodge,’ you can have an 800+ dodge roll.
‘Acrobatics,’ ‘Ranged Combat’: 600. This cap on Acrobatics, as mentioned above, means ‘Flip’ and ‘Tumble’ proc often. With ‘Graceful dodge,’ you can have highly respectable Dodge rolls without high Dodge. Additionally, Acrobatics is a big factor in Tackle defense rolls, adding yet another layer to Duelist’s defense. Ranged Combat can successfully be used with duelist, though I haven’t tried it past 150.
Armor Use: 500. The cap is lower than other warriors. However, Duelist only can usually use Light armor, thus only requiring a low armor encumbrance roll.
Arcana: 100. I’ll admit that I didn’t grab Arcana until I rerolled, so I can’t say much about it. However, Duelists can very successfully use Stealth, so advantages to that are great. Alternatively, with 400 perception plus the perception glyphs could make a great lookout. Even more alternatively…glowing your aura is just awesome, and perfectly on brand for Duelist. I’m ashamed I didn’t think about that until I rerolled and grabbed Arcana.

Attributes: Attribute choice doesn’t change the game, as is intended. However, there are certainly *better* choices than others. Please don’t pick an attribute purely on numbers, though, it kills the spirit of the game, at least for me.
Strength: Damage bonus makes Duelist output an unreal amount of damage, especially pared with Quick Strike and Feinting. Also, it means you can keep low encumbrance much easier. It also affects Tackle offense, which is of course very helpful.
Agility: The increased aiming chance, especially on top of Combat precision, means that you can hit vitals, or even disables like the legs very, very easily. Granted, a Quick Strike and a Chink or attack to the chest is usually plenty to kill people. Also, Agility features in the defense rolls of many important disablers, like Shield Bash, Sweep, Shield Charge and most notably, Tackle.
Constitution: 600 energy pool is often overlooked. Paired with Adrenaline Rush, this Duelist never gets tired. Additionally, negation of blunt damage is quite nice, especially considering the class mainly uses light armor.
Intuition: his attribute factors into several things, including the offense of Circle, Feint, Deft Recovery, Combat analysis and Amor Chink. It also factors into several defense rolls.
Willpower: The only thing in the Duelist toolkit that this stat affects is Channel Adrenaline, though it does minorly factor into a few of the more unique defenses.
Awareness: Paired with high perception and the perception glyphs, this could be a good option for the Duelist who doesn’t want to be assassinated. Other than that, it affects very little.

Abilities:

Armor Chink: One of the staples of the class, this allows us to get into that pesky Medium and Light armor with our one-handers. It gains an automatic +2 rerolls, so I often will use it on unarmored foes just for the extra damage chance.
Cloak Parry: A major defensive tool, in the current game this also can proc while disabled in many ways (Surprised, Staggered, Knockdown or even Unconscious). Several people have called for it being nerfed, and I am in high favor of it. Its low cooldown means it can often be a balance killer, and even leave you open to being attacked while you scramble to retrieve your weapon.
Combat Analysis: This skill fills up quite fast and carries over to other mobs of the same type, so it means that Duelists can camp well. Adding to defensive rolls as well means that it makes them very difficult to get down.
Combat Mobility: a minor skill, though getting to stand before an attack is very nice for the negative rerolls.
Deft Recovery: This is a great ability. Being able to recover from the long staggers like Tackle or Dirt kick, and surprise from stealth is very, very nice.
Flip: Flip Flank is quite great. It offers just a bit more balance reduction, surprises for some time, but most importantly, can be used to increase the time someone is staggered or on the ground. I.E., if you tackle, quick strike and then flip, you can keep that mob on the ground even longer so your group can get more attacks in.
Main-Gauche: I don’t play a build that uses this ability, but it can be quite good. It doesn’t respect aiming very well, though, so I find it too random to use myself.
Quick strike: This is quite possibly the best ability Duelists have. As mentioned before, it offers a very quick, safe way to deal damage, can be used to force abilities like Cloak Parry, and really doesn’t do that much reduced damage.
Sweep: This is an interesting one. While it only staggers for about five seconds, it is affected very heavily by Agility. My Sweep roll is commonly 150 or 250 sides above my Tackle one, so if I just want to kill balance, it’s usually the one I go for.
Tactical Dodge: This doesn’t proc all that often, due to Flip and Tumble, but when it does it’s very helpful. +3 balance isn’t a game changer, but it doesn’t hurt in any way.

This has been quite long, so I will do Guild abilities and a final thoughts in a second post. If there are any points people would like me to cover, any information I left out/got wrong etc., feel free to yell at me and I’ll pay attention.
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Marcuson
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Re: Duelist: General Feedback and Discussion welcome

Post by Marcuson »

This is good general feedback, and I agree with all of these observations. I'd just like to chime in and say that I play an Intuition Duelist. Because my character is not Undying, I thought very long and hard about which Warrior class to pick that would offer him the best individual defense, and I eventually decided on Duelist. That choice has served him well.

In groups, I tend to play my Duelist as a support character. While it's absolutely true that Duelists just aren't very good when going up against groups, they can also be, contrary to expectation, quite good at crowd control. They have three abilities (Tackle, Sweep, and Flip) that allow them to modify the overall flow of combat by staggering opponents, thus allowing the Duelist's comrades to get attacks in. Just watch your energy levels!

Because I decided to focus on Shield Use, my Duelist is armed with a buckler and usually either a rapier or a cutlass. Rapiers have more armor chink chance and are better defensively because of their length, but cutlasses have more DF. I would imagine that shortswords are also useful for Stealth-based Duelist builds, but I haven't experimented with those.

Shield Use puts Duelists in an interesting situation, because even though Main-Gauche allows them to bash with their buckler occasionally, that only procs on a successful parry, not block. But with enough Melee Combat skill, you'll have options whether you want to sacrifice a bit of defense for an extra bashing attack or if you want to just focus on blocking.

Managing a Duelist's gear and keeping them below Encumbrance 2 (especially while killing mobs and taking their loot) is probably the most challenging part of playing one. That's another reason why I picked Shield Use: the roll isn't suppressed by encumbrance.

I deeply enjoy playing a Duelist. The class feels fun to play, and it's fun to imagine the sort of cinematic things they can do. It's like being able to roleplay old-school swashbuckling films or the adventures of Zorro.

(A few people have suggested that I write a guide about how to play warriors cautiously but effectively, and I'm in the process of doing that.)
Gorth
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Joined: Sat Nov 13, 2021 11:53 am
Location: Michigan

Duelist - Part II: Guild Abilities and Wrap-up

Post by Gorth »

Guild abilities

Adrenaline Rush: this ability is good for everyone. It’s situational for Duelist, though. If you are the kind of Duelist, like me, who guards, you do tend to take damage more than a non-guarding Duelist. Often, though, your incredible Defense is enough to turn away most wounds.
Combat Precision: I touched on this earlier, but I do think that if you were to Nerf Duelist, they don’t need the extra bonus from this. It doesn’t change all that once you get to higher melee, though, so it might be a redundant nerf.
Combat Readiness: Another skill that every Warrior should get sooner rather than later. This means that with only one Circle, your Armor Chink comes online. With how quickly you can build Balance, and kill your opponent’s Balance, this is just an extra push.
Graceful Dodge: Just another layer of Defense. While Dodge will *eventually* outclass this, Acrobatics ties into other Defensive Abilities and Flip Flank, making this just complimentary.
Side by Side: I don’t think I even need to give that much on this one, but I will say, Duelists can be Offensive Rerole monsters with this.
Tackle: People often discount Tackling in a group, as sometimes you can just out damage opponents before they know what to think. However, there is something to be said for Tackling when your group doesn’t have optimal damage types for a certain mob. As mentioned before, you can get an attack off before flip flanking to increase the duration for a little bit.
True Strike: I know several people who swear by this. I have literally never used it to any real noticeable effect. However, if you can camp in an area with high balance, it is just more reroles, so there’s no real downside as far as I can see.
War Riding: I have no personal experience with Warhorses on this class, or at all, so I can’t say much. Often, though, Duelists use shorter weapons. It doesn’t seem like an over all better or worse choice, but probably one I prefer less, because I like to Tackle and Flip. Due note that you can Flip from Warhorses, though, which is quite good.

General Takeaways:
Duelists are really, good in most circumstances. As mentioned before, there light armor means they can get torn apart by large ‘Death Stacks,’ as Teri calls them. If you want to use Tactics: Duelist with a Main-gauche weapon or shield, you do lack some reach. Rapier is a decent substitute for my build of offhand Longsword, but it still is only mid-range and can be beat out by most things.
Overall, Duelist has little flaws, and I love the class from both a statistical and RP standpoint. Saying this, I did rerole away from Duelist, but that was for both character points and…because I was kind of bored with it. I will likely come back to the class on another character sometime in the future, but I felt that my Duelist needed something different.
Regardless, I’m curious on people’s thoughts as well. I don’t claim to be the best Duelist, or the best player, or the best at balancing/analysis, and the beauty of this game is that everyone fights slightly differently.
If people want, I might post later and describe some of my personal choices for my duelist, her style and her gear choices, but I am biased on those.
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Proud owner of the ten thousandth post.
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