[Thinking About] Revisiting the Magic Swordsman (as a Tank)

It was my first attempt at a build in the game. I built it to be a DPS. It failed. Failed hard. The failure of which discouraged me enough to drop the game for a while, due to all the time I put into it.

But that was then. Now that I'm back, more focused and am racking up some experience with the game, a lot of things occured to me. I won't be building it any time soon of course. Still need to get a useable main completed. But I cant help to think about it.

As I said, I built it as a DPS. That was, I now realize, my first error. It was never going to be a good DPS. But what I'm thinking of now, is, what if it's better suited as a tank class?

A full Vit with Dex or Int build. Magic doesnt miss so accuracy with skills wouldnt be a problem. Lots of high cost skills to draw aggro, sword user so access to the knight aggro sword skills. Perhaps a heal if using Int. Rampage for ampr.

That's as far as my thinking goes. I'll keep thinking about it but any other thoughts on it would be welcomed. Could it work? Or is it one of those things that "you could do" but the better question is "should you do it,"?

 

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Definitely do it if you're having fun and its effective for the party. Jbazt has a great 1hs shield tank build, he's also on youtube. Watch a few of his videos and see if its your style of play. I watched all his posted videos before deciding if I wanted to do 1hs or knuck tank.. They helped a lot.

Good luck

 

Magic indeed doesnt miss but has low aggro, and without crit knight skills aggro is useless unless provoke. If using provoke might as well go staff maximizer, hence again magic swords idea will never take off

And no crit means no ampr, hence staff maximizer again. If has crit...its called a normal 1h tank with magic proration which all mages hate

 

Just give the swordsman finale. Automatic 300 aggro.

 

Thanks, I'll give him a look!

 

Good points lol.

 

Magic Swordsman is a breaker build, it's just as complex as Dual Swords.

at the current time you can't expect to compete for attacker ranks against all the cheap trick attacker builds

 

Care to explain that more? Lol

 

Never heard of storm users getting breaker rank, much less finale. Mages can only ever get atker or support iirc, tank is hard but breaker is impossibru

 

Before i reset my mage its main combo used impact and stun with storm in the middle (sometimes javelin to flinch). I'd cast impact right beside bosses.. I always got breaker unless a knuck user or snipe was in the party. I also got tank rank.. rarely if ever did I get attacker tho. Storm spam was terribru..

 

If you normal attack and use interrupting moves, getting breaker is a cinch. As a magic swordman though, i can see the dps route open due to how a finale user can have only about 500 matk and still do 500k (total) damage. The move is brokenly strong, so tying it up with some buffs like say Buster and Trigger Slash could easily provide overwhelming damage. Team it up with matk gear and ampr gear, you'll have a pretty legit magic knight. Not the most sublime in damage but definitely something

 

Yall giving me a lot to think about lol. I need to get to 150 so I can actually use the lvl 4 moves though. Only at 100 so far.

 

Gonna repeat again since the old threads got burried.
Breaker rank has NOTHING to do with INTERRUPT skills.
A breaker in party is the one who balances the proration the most with the most number of attacks.
That is if phys proration is the highest doing more physical skills gets you more breaker points. In a party full of phys spammers like halberds doing lots of normal attacks as a tank gives you easy breaker as well.
Mages can not get breaker because skills like finale having 6-7seconds delay gonna make the total number of attacks less. Also extra buffs skills like mp charge and maximizer do not garner breaker points either.

@Wolf King As for your original question if you define tank as just an aggro holder yes any class can do it. Theres other factors to tanking too tho like what else can you offer as a supporting char in a party aside from holding aggro. You can not give guardian buff to your party without shield, you also can not give good chakra buff without knux, how about prorating?
Try to consider these. For me 1h+Shield or Knux+Shield still feel the most viable. However you need not stop trying something new because of my opinion.