This guide will provide an introduction to the Swordmaster and give advice on how to play the class.



Who am I and why should you care?

I鈥檝e been in WAR beta since before the High Elf/Dark Elf pairing was created. Since the Swordmaster class was released, I鈥檝e been playing it alongside nearly every other class. As a Swordmaster, I鈥檝e leveled from 1 through 40 over the course of multiple beta phases, I鈥檝e tanked and DPSed nearly every PQ in the Elf and Empire zones, and I鈥檝e run every instance currently in the game 鈥?including the King battle in Inevitable City. So when I say I know a thing or two about Swordmasters, hopefully you鈥檒l believe me.



An Overview of the Swordmaster

The Swordmaster is one possible tank class that Order players can choose to play in Warhammer Online. Originally designed as an anti-magic tank, the boundaries have since become fuzzy. The strengths of the Swordmaster stem from the ability to wear heavy armor, and the ability to deal large amounts of spirit damage instead of physical damage. (This checks against Spirit Mitigation instead of Physical Mitigation)



The Swordmaster Mechanic

Swordmasters use a mechanic called Balance. It鈥檚 a fairly straight forward system in which certain skills require either Normal Balance, Improved Balance, or Perfect Balance to use. In addition, many skills not only require a certain balance, but also increase your balance.

The path of progression through balance is as follows:

Normal -> Improved -> Perfect -> Normal

It is important to note that skills used from Perfect Balance do not consume any AP.



What can a Swordmaster do in PvE?

In PvE gameplay, the Swordmaster is first and foremost a tank. Their job is to gain agro on one or more mobs and hold it, ensuring that other players are not being attacked. To do this, a Swordmaster must be skilled at more than simply spamming high-threat skills such as Graceful Strike. They must also know how to position a mob and when to use their defensive skills to reduce incoming damage.

The Swordmaster excels at both multi-mob tanking, and tanking without a shield. However, just because a Swordmaster can tank without a shield does not mean that they should. Depending on Mastery spec, there are some options that will only be available when using a greatsword, and some options that will only be available when using a shield. Currently, however, the benefit of being able to block far outweighs those gained from using a greatsword; this is because in Warhammer, blocking defends against ALL attacks 鈥?ranged and magic as well as melee.

For those players who have picked a Swordmaster, yet lack the Zen required to be a worthwhile tank, fear not. For Swordmasters are able to pump out respectable damage with their greatswords and the help of mastery points spent in the Path of Khaine and the Path of Hoeth.



What can a Swordmaster do in RvR?

There are two main schools of thought about a tanks job in RvR. Some players feel that tanks should stand in the back and try to protect healers, and other players feel that tanks are front line assault warriors who should charge into groups of other players and get beat on.

It is my personal view that standing in the back and trying to protect a healer is a waste. There is no mechanic to force a player to attack you (e.g. Taunt in EQ2) and you have no way to remove CC from another person. Nearly every class in WAR has ample methods of CC 鈥?if a healer gets attacked by a melee class, they鈥檒l be snared, silenced, and debuffed before you can even blink. At best you can snare the attacker or if you鈥檙e an ironbreaker, knock them down for a short amout of time and hope the healer can get away. Although chances are the healer is being focus fired, so it probably won鈥檛 do much good anyway. If I was forced to pick a tank class to stand back and 鈥渄efend鈥?the healers though, it would be an ironbreaker. They have many more tools for this at their disposal than a swordmaster does. (knockbacks, knockdowns, snares, damage-on-move debuffs)

Let us say then, for the sake of argument, that a Swordmaster鈥檚 role in RvR is to act as a front line assault element. Their high mitigation and ability to spec for very respectable damage makes them very, VERY deadly in this role. With proper healing, a Swordmaster can charge into a full warband of destruction and take them all out one by one without risk of dying. Without healing, they can still survive long enough to create an opening that the rest of the Order players can exploit.



Abilities, Tactics, and Morals

The Swordmaster is unique among most other classes in that nearly every skill has a well defined purpose in either PvE or RvR. Due to the Balance mechanic that a Swordmaster employs there is no one set skill that is best spammed until your target dies.

Exact descriptions of all the abilities, tactics, and morals that you can get as a Swordmaster have been done by other players to a much better degree than I am able in this guide. For example, the WarDB database has a very nice listing of all the skills and how they change with level. I will therefore not repeat their work. Instead, I will give a few short notes on the various skills and their uses.


A list of our skills that work off the balance mechanic is as follows:

Requires Normal Balance and leads to Improved Balance:

Graceful Strike 鈥?A physical based DD+DoT attack that also increases hate
Ensorcelled Blow 鈥?A spirit based DD attack
Sapping Strike 鈥?A physical based DD attack that also drains 50 AP over 5 seconds
Gryphon鈥檚 Lash (Khaine Mastery) 鈥?A physical DD attack that cannot be blocked or parried

Requires Improved Balance and leads to Perfect Balance:

Eagle鈥檚 Flight 鈥?A physical based DD attack that increases your chance to parry
Crushing Advance (Khaine Mastery) 鈥?A physical based DD attack that increases your Armor and chance to Block as well as interrupts your target
Quick Incision 鈥?A physical based DoT attack that also snares your target
Dazzling Strike 鈥?A physical based DD that increases your target鈥檚 build times by 1 second for 5 seconds
Gusting Wind 鈥?A spirit based AoE DD attack with a 10 foot range
Phoenix鈥檚 Wing (Khaine Mastery) 鈥?A physical based frontal AoE DD attack that also increases hate
Intimidating Blow 鈥?A physical based DD attack that also reduces your target鈥檚 morale

Requires Perfect Balance and leads to Normal Balance:

Bluring Shock 鈥?A physical based DD attack
Wrath of Hoeth 鈥?A spirit based AoE DD attack with a 30 foot range that also reduces spiritual resistance
Dragon鈥檚 Talon 鈥?A physical based DD attack that hits twice and reduces your target鈥檚 damage by 20%
Ether Dance (Khaine Mastery) 鈥?A spirit based DD attack that hits 5 times
Whispering Wind (Hoeth Mastery) 鈥?A spirit based DD attack that hits twice and silence your target
Crashing Wave (Vaul Mastery) 鈥?A spirit based DD attack that hits twice and knocks down your target
Protection of Hoeth (Hoeth Mastery) 鈥?Creates an shield around you that absorbs damage


In addition to skills which work on the Balance mechanic, we also have a number of useful buffs:

Taunt 鈥?Interrupts your target and increases damage you deal to them by 30%
Guard 鈥?Your target鈥檚 hate and damage taken is split 50/50 with you

Juggernaut 鈥?Removes most CC from you, but does NOT make you immune to further CC
Aethyric Grasp 鈥?PBAoE root

Heaven鈥檚 Blade 鈥?Buff that adds a DD proc to all melee attacks
Nature鈥檚 Blade 鈥?Buff that adds a stat drain proc to all melee attacks
Phantom鈥檚 Blade 鈥?Buff that adds a morale drain proc to all melee attacks

Aethyric Armor (Hoeth Mastery)鈥?30 minute buff that increases armor and disrupt chance


We also have a number of passive buffs, called tactics, that we can use. The number of tactics you can have depends on your level, capping at 4 class tactics at level 40. I鈥檒l describe the more interesting ones that I typically use here:

Focused Offence 鈥?Increases all damage you do by 25%, but increases all damage you take by 20%
Rugged 鈥?Increases your toughness by 160 at level 40
Menace 鈥?Increases all threat generated by your attacks by 100%
Centuries of Training 鈥?25% chance to proc a DoT lasting for 5 seconds
Ensorcelled Agony 鈥?Ensorcelled Blow now adds a DoT lasting for 5 seconds
Potent Enchantments 鈥?Each time your enchantment procs, a DoT is applied for 9 seconds
Gryphon鈥檚 Precision (Khain Mastery) 鈥?25% chance to stun your target for 1 seconds when you use Gryphon鈥檚 Lash
Perfect Defences (Vaul Mastery) 鈥?Increases your chance to Block and Parry based on your Balance level
Bolstering Enchantments (Hoeth Mastery) 鈥?When your enchantment procs, your target is drained of spiritual and corporeal resistancefor 10 seconds and you gain the amount drained.
Volatile Enchantments (Hoeth Mastery) 鈥?Increases your enchantment proc rate to 50%
Deep Incision (Khaine Mastery) 鈥?Increases the DoT component of Quick Incision
Vaul鈥檚 Buffer (Vaul Mastery) 鈥?On a successful block, dodge, parry, or disrupt you become surrounded by a small absorption shield for 10 seconds




From first glance, there is an obvious synergy between various skills. I will list the most common chains below:

(1) Graceful Strike -> Eagle鈥檚 Flight -> Dragon鈥檚 Talon

This chain is your bread and butter tank chain. You open with a high hate attack, then follow it up with a blow that increases your chance to avoid damage, and finish it with an attack that mitigates any damage you do take. In addition, this chain can be used while wielding a greatsword.

If you have chosen to put points into the Path of Vaul and plan to use a shield, then you can switch in Crushing Advance for Eagle鈥檚 Flight. This allows you to increase your armor well as your block value; the results are both an increase to physical mitigation, and a higher chance to outright avoid all types of damage. Crashing Wave can also be alternated with Dragon鈥檚 Talon in order to knock your target down, thereby preventing them from doing anything for the duration. However, the cooldown on Crashing Wave is on the longer side, so it鈥檚 not a skill that you can use every time perfect balance is achieved.


(2) Ensorcelled Blow -> Gusting Wind -> Wrath of Hoeth

This chain is your basic spirit attack chain that you can use against heavily armored opponents (such as destruction tanks). Every skill does spirit damage, and Wrath of Hoeth lowers your target鈥檚 spiritual resistance. Additionally, this chain can double as your basic AoE chain, allowing you to take on multiple targets at the same time. However, this is not the chain you should use for AoE tanking.


(3) Graceful Strike -> Gusting Wind -> Wrath of Hoeth

This is the chain you should use for AoE tanking. As long as your party members are attacking your target, graceful strike will build enough hate to ensure you keep agro. The damage from Gusting Wind and Wrath of Hoeth will ensure that healers will not accidently pull agro. This chain can also be used to multitank when other classes are AoEing. The cravat is that they need to wait a few moments so that you can build initial agro.

If you have gone down the Path of Khaine and picked up Phoenix鈥檚 Wing, then you should switch out Gusting Wind for it due to the increased hate it generates. However, to do this you must be tanking with a greatsword.


(4) Sapping Strike -> Dazzling Strike

This partial chain can be weaved into other chains for RvR battles. The 10 second cooldown on each skill prevents them from being used in the same manner as other Normal and Improved balance sills, but their impact can be enough to turn the tide of battle in your favor.


(5) Gryphon鈥檚 Lash -> Quick Incision -> Ether Dance

If you plan to DPS as a swordmaster, this is the only chain you need to know. The ability of Gryphon鈥檚 Lash to bypass block and parry makes a huge difference in the DPS dealt compared to other attacks. Quick incision not only adds a large DoT, but it also ensures that your target stays nice and close. Finally, Ether Dance is able to deal over 1000 damage per cast is you build yourself correctly. Put all this together and you have a heavily armored melee DPS character that can put real MDPS classes to shame.



As mentioned before, these are only a few very basic chains. In actual practice, your tactics and mastery choices dictate what skills you are most likely to use. For instance, picking up Ensorcelled Agony makes Ensorcelled Blow much more attractive for general damage if you aren鈥檛 Khaine spec. And I you鈥檙e full Khaine spec, then you would want to use Ether Dance over Wrath of Hoeth in chain (3).