But actually your comment on zipping with evading and staying in melee range which can lead you to get slammed pretty hard if you slip is true. I honestly don’t PvE enough to give you a thorough analysis there, but sometimes in expeditions ill be zipping and what not and doing mega dps which causes me to aggro the mobs from the tank. At that point, I usually slip and get hit, staggered, and piled by all the mobs which can often lead to me dropping to sub 30% health. I understand also that flurry can hit multiple enemies if they’re all bunched up which in turn refreshes flurry CD entirely if you get enough hits. I suppose in this case in terms of PvE flurry and evade may be interchangeable or equivalent. In PvP however, evasion is unmatched
That was a good read
Timing. Timing and positioning matter so much in NW and a lot don’t get that, they just spam.
1 Like
Lung distance on light, heavy thrust, and Flourish/Finish absolutely need to be increased. Also Evade needs more travel distance so we can use it offensively, not just defensively.
As you’re clearly a man who has spent a lot of time thinking about rapiers, I have what I believe to be a thought-provoking question. First, let me point out some quotes that seem to contradict each other:
The thing is I don’t really disagree with any of them, but do you see the issue? Let us follow some logic:
- The rapier has the highest potential (single-target) DPS.
- The rapier has not one, but two abilities that can replace a dodge roll and be used to avoid damage.
- Therefore, the rapier should be the best weapon for throwing on heavy armor and walking at someone.
How could a greataxe compete when it does less damage and doesn’t have evade/riposte? Yet, we don’t see heavy rapier users, almost ever. Light armor largely forces rapier players to avoid trades, but why do most rapier players use it? Are we just chasing that high-skill adrenaline high? Foolishly ignoring the true heavy-rapier meta? I doubt that, personally.
I have my own thoughts, two points specifically, but I’m curious about what you think and want to hear first.
I agree that decreasing the cooldown of riposte significantly lowers the skill ceiling of the weapon in pvp. At least it will keep GA/HT from spamming mindlessly whenever confronted, forcing them to think and time their engagements.
However, there is one aspect that you have not considered though for that change and that is evade tanking specifically in PVE. Despite the mobility you get with Grace, dodging/evading by itself is typically not enough to effectively evade tank. Some mobs/bosses have too many attack chains to completely avoid the damage through dodging alone. The cooldown reduction on riposte will allow for better aggro management as well as survivability for that purpose.
1 Like
I am a casual rapier player. Played in closed beta and also on live now . These are some of the issues I felt:
-
The fact that lounge locks on one enemy and “staggers” your camera needs to be fixed.
-
The whole grace tree feels inefficient for me because as soon as I am vs PvE I will start spamming lounge. This is fun AF but also Melts my weapon which costs gold to repair. This is a big deal for me, not just for rapier but all weapons should have light attack durability lowered.
-
I can’t reliably stay below 40% stamina because dodging= not damage. So I feel like I am loosing more than the 10% I gain.
I also agree with a plethora of stuff said before that I won’t repeat to keep this short
I don’t see how any of those statements contradict. The first two compliment and last two are the same In essence. First thing to think about is stats and attributes. How do strength attributes differ from dex.
But to answer your question the primary reason we are not using heavy gear is because we need mobility from light gear since we don’t have a lunge. Also our cc is not on demand and rapier abilities emphasize counter play more so than aggro GA. Charge, whirlwind, reap, gwell, they permit for a play style that simply differs from rapier and works with heavy armour. Truth is GA has more mobility than rapier. Most of our mobility comes from dodge roll.
If we are complaining that we have trouble locking someone down because a lack of lunge how can we expect to take away our dodge roll and perform effectively at all.
Rapier in full heavy probably has a niche time and place and I think in PvE it’s flexible because the stated issues above don’t apply as much in PvE setting. I think it’d be interesting to test full heavy rapier designated to fight on capture points in war as evasion would have 0 cool down,
I think our weapon block is also significantly weaker which would also contribute.
Rapier has one of highest crit modifier in the game so using light gear bonus dmg further capitalizes on this.
All in all it comes down to efficiency. If you’re in heavy gear it just doesn’t make sense to pick rapier instead of GA.
Phenomenal post. I am really really bad with rapier, I over abuse the evasion in dungeons, but I did not really take advantage of the core mechanics as you do here. I think this will help tremendously.
How do you manage damage in large groups of mobs? I know with Fleche you take damage even mid animation. With say 7 mobs all attacking it seems like an endless attack without pause sometimes. Perhaps having a perk with fortitude would alleviate this? I presume you avoid the situation entirely lol.
1 Like
And the Rapier movements remind me of fencing and Zoro and I said yeah I’m changing my weapon.
Fortitude perk sounds like it would help. Unfortunately, I don’t PvE enough to give any advice confidently. I don’t use fleche for dmg in expeditions, more so to get behind a mob if there’s too much clutter in front of me. Otherwise I just rely on evasion for dmg in dungeons.
Fantastic review! Nice work.
From a not very good Rapier player.
thanks for that post i am going to have to put aside some time to study it
After finally testing in OWPvP and OPR, Id say the number of rapier players on my server have increased very slightly overall and most just use it as a secondary for their main, typically FS or Musket/Bow users with the occasional LS. They only use fleche or riposte when confronted with a melee up close and use those skills to gain distance before swapping to their main again. Only ever saw one person actually using it as a primary in a fight and they were performing ok with it.
It definitely has encouraged rapier to be more of a quick get away choice for ranged people against melee opponents, which is sad to see, though it has been rather effective in said use. However, with the buff to momentum and nerf to heavy healing i notice that im MUCH more capable of taking down an enemy’s backline healers/squishies by myself as well as in most 1v1 scenarios. Evade is definitely still king for applying consistent pressure though flurry is now more consistent and can be used more reliably for those who want to do more skirmishes/trading with other melees or simply have more dmg applied during group ccs.
Ive yet to test tondo, though i can imagine it being more viable in pvp with the lower cd
2 Likes
I’ve had the chance to play 15+ OPR games on the new blood build can say the tondo buff has made it playable but it’s still significantly outmeta’d. The only way its possible to play at this point is in medium/heavy gear with 200 con for the armor bonus and the remaining in dex. Not enough defensive to be played with light gear.
Still outclassed by grace by miles.
The point is when I’m farming or doing something in the game that is serious and not willing to die, i am forced to switch back go grace which is a shame. At this point in time I’ve begun the extremely expensive grind to 200 weaponsmith to try it with the voidbringer rapier since it has incredibly complementary perks on it.
1 Like
whew, Cliff notes… anybody got some??
TLDR; Rapier got buffed in the wrong ways. They should have massively buffed blood tree instead of grace since the blood tree is basically not worth running at all.
Also, about the lunging issue. I could see the second middle swipes having a greater lunge cause more often then not, when light attacking, I can usually get the first hit in the chain, but the second hits tend to miss cause you barely move forward in that specific animation.
Tl;dnr
Less words.
I skimmed the first part.
Too much “guys listen to how awesome I am” and also “let me tell you all the reasons you are all bad,” with a dash of way too much ranting about crap that isn’t the rapier ability.
Even worse than clickbait articles.
I rapier main with Tondo, F&F, Fleche in heavy armor. I use musket as secondary for traps debuff and grenade some burst/slow. They compliment rapier EXTREMELY well. Plus the 18% haste from traps perk gives me enough time to stay extremely mobile in heavy(or just wep swap for 10%)
In OPR I’m able to participate in fights inside of the forts with much more ease and cleave much more damage compared to being heavy grace tree. 100 con. Although I’m not lone wolfing, my teammates are great so heals are sufficient.
You’d be surprised how often you can get a double or triple stack F&F off.
I agree blood still needs “something” like flurry animation speed up, but I’m very happy with it and a heavy armor playstyle.
This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.