Comprehensive Duelist feedback

I will just somewhat repeat what has already been said. :)

Lately I have been taking a break from playing duelist and levelling other characters and that has made me realize just how terrible the duelist starting area is. There was a thread in general a few weeks ago about who is the best dual wielding swordsman and people were suggesting between duelist and a ranger... Well, it turns out the answer is a goddamn marauder.

I mean just look at how people posting builds in the duelist subforum always seem to be going all the way around and connecting the starting nodes of the marauder - because they are that good. Which brings the question "Why am I not just making a marauder and playing him the way I would a duelist?". Just slap on a jade ammy at the start and you can play exactly the same style as you do duelist without having to take the terrible nodes at the starting zone. Which brings me to...

The first 10 points you will spend as a duelist are probably the worst 10 points you can spend anywhere in your entire build - so many useless 3% attack speeds, 6% physical - these are all junk nodes. You only pick those so you can get to the good stuff. And don't get me started on Water dancing - candidate for the most terrible notable in the game. Seriously the only stuff I can describe as useful are the 10% melee dmg nodes and the 6% attack speed.

Let me illustrate how worthless a 3% attack speed node is. If you happen to be using the fastest 2+ base attack speed rapiers(which most people won't be using) a 3% attack speed node will be 0.06 overall attack speed increase - this is so bad it needs no comment.

The duelist really needs to distinguish itself as the attack speed class as it is the only thing that makes sense - there isn't any critical stuff near, no elemental nodes either. There have to be more notables and more powerful nodes that would make people playing other classess want to swing by the duelist starting zone to buff their attack speed, the way a witch will go deep in the shadow side to build crit.

Also early game survivability needs to be addressed - during normal and cruel I personally don't care that much for damage passives. Life and armour passives are much more relevant at that point. I mean when the base damage numbers are low it doesn't matter how much you multiply them - they will still be low. So it is much preferable to have a bit more life - we all know monsters are tweaked to hit quite hard in this game.

On the topic of rapiers I want to point out that nobody cares that much about the implicit modifiers on the swords - crit multiplier, local accuracy - really does it matter? Most duelists are running Resolute technique anyways, because there aren't enough crit nodes to justify missing attacks. So a rapier immediately becomes the best weapon as it is the fastest one. 1.70 base aps rapier with Infamy mod rolls to 2.12 I believe. Why would I be using slower swords or axes... Here I'm talking late game stuff obviously. During levelling we use what is available at the time.

/rant :)

I'm glad people are starting to agree with my view on the starting area. The first few comments where people who thought there was no issue even one guy saying he thought it was the best opening area which baffled me.

I really think with some of my ideas to adjust the starting area (just moving shit around rather than adding in more) we'll see more duelist on the top of the 3hr race ladders.