How come there are no duelists?

Double Post sorry

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renroval wrote:

I suppose.

But how, makes me wonder how this got skipped in closed beta.

Didn't get "skipped".

Duelists are in a much better spot than they have been for quite a while. Recently we've seen very substantial buffs to the duelist start area.

Some other big reasons beyond what I said already:
- They're just kind of unpopular right now because the recent buffs haven't had time to settle in.
- Hybrid defense. After the addition of that new L+S circle, buffs to base hybrid gear values, and buffs to armour affix values, hybrid defenses should actually be okay now. But it's still not amazing like a fully focused life-stacker build. Or even a moderate-life armour stacking build, or a moderate-life A/PA build.

Really, I still blame axe/sword and early specialization for most of it. And resolute technique, and blood magic. And maces.

As for bow, ice bite and fury bolts make an ice shot duelist perform quite well, maybe even better than a templar, probably on par with ranger (just in the area of a different defensive grid). But, because of catalyze/arcing blows, a templar/shadow will be lots better at lightning arrow. And templar will be considerably better with elemental hit. Ranger will be better with just about every other ability. So if you're maxing, the only reason to be bow duelist is in a defensive ice shot physi/IAS mana build.

I'm REALLY disappointed they moved IR out of his main area, since that is the ONE thing duelists have in this game. Now it's shared with the ranger. Extremely bad design choice.

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tinghshi wrote:

I'm REALLY disappointed they moved IR out of his main area, since that is the ONE thing duelists have in this game. Now it's shared with the ranger. Extremely bad design choice.

I was thinking the same thing. IR is very much duelist centric, armor and evasion combo and all

Is there any chance that they are buffing the duelist tree?

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Repeats wrote:

There are plenty of successful Duelists out there, just not many. Since dual-wielding has no AoE skills yet, making a pure dual-wield character is basically impossible. Also, I am very shocked that there are no life on hit nodes near the Duelist since he specializes in attack speed. His tankiness is rather low compared to a Maurader, yet he has the biggest hp regen nodes. There are just a ton of things wrong with the Duelist area that they are not very viable past Cruel.

You can use any skill you would use on a 1 handed + shield character for dualwielding, but not all of them use it as much as cleave do... but you still get the 10% IAS bunos from dualwielding so it can be worth it (e.g. use Lighning strike - getting the speed bonus can make it easier to damage the mobs more often while they are shocked and it certainly makes it easier to stack more shock on them (thanks to the faster attacks...))

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renroval wrote:

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tinghshi wrote:

I'm REALLY disappointed they moved IR out of his main area, since that is the ONE thing duelists have in this game. Now it's shared with the ranger. Extremely bad design choice.

I was thinking the same thing. IR is very much duelist centric, armor and evasion combo and all

IR is more of a rejection of the Duelist's natural hybrid defence. It just turns him into a posh Marauder.

IR is a much more interesting choice for Rangers and Shadows, because they have no other way of focusing on Armour.

Some of the strongest ele rangers right now are duelists. Honestly, it doesn't matter too much between mara/duelist/ranger when you all get essentially the same nodes.

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Zakaluka wrote:

Two big reasons.

Most classes have to pick a vague direction to move in for their start area. Example, templar: 1-hand melee, 2-hand melee, spell. Duelist have to make a much more specific choice: Bow, 1-h/shield, 2h, dual wield. It's a little restrictive and limits your equip options along the way Buying shield passives will make you feel like you always have to wear a shield. buying dual wield passives will make you feel like you always have to be dual wielding. But what if you bought shield passives and can't find a good shield, but have two good 1h weapons? What if you bought dual wield passives and can't find a good second weapon? It's restrictive.

Second: sword/axe, and skill support for those weapon types. Enough said.

No way. The real problem is that melee duelists have to get up in close, don't get the huge passives the Marauder gets like +5% max resistances, and can't do significantly more damage. So in the end they have to use a tank build and only take a handful of weapon passives.

Duelist starting area doesn't have enough survival nodes. Period.

I had to go all the way fucking over to Marauder starting area for their very clearly superior survival nodes that are conveniently all grouped together. Especially the 30% reduction in enemy extra critical damage. That's rather huge for any melee, since it's the large hits that cause death.

As a level 78, I have a total of about 7 nodes that can be counted as "offense". To have to devote nearly your ENTIRE skillset into survival is fucking bullshit, period. Why even have any specializations at all if this is what's being forced on players, especially melee players? I get the extra Frenzy/Endurance charges, Diamond Skin, and the life nodes in Duelist area and then vacate it, basically. Useless.

My gear is pretty damn good right now, too. I have a 6L Kaom's Primacy FFS, and I'd say my gear altogether is worth well over 20 Exalted. Yet I can still get my ass handed to me by chaos damage or stupid shit like Charging mobs that nearly instant-kill you in sufficient numbers from across the screen (god I hate you Elite Black Guards and Rhoas). 11k Armor, 2800 Health, maxed resists (ignoring the almost-impossible-to-gear-for-chaos-resist). Sure, I could probably boost my survival a bit by taking out my item find and stacking more +health (even though most of my items have it) - but that's the main point of the friggin' game. Grinding for Gear!

They seriously need to beef up the skills near the Duelist area, especially life nodes. There's no reason to have all of those specialization nodes right there at the beginning, either. Zero reason. Duelists lose too much ground by having to go halfway across the skill tree just to be halfway decent at something, or to get to superior areas that the other classes start with.

OH, AND FUCK THE ENDURANCE CHARGE ABILITIES/SYSTEM. ANNOYING AS FUCK TO UPKEEP.