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Sword Fight Beginners Guide
(valid for game version 0.15.3)
Sword Fight is a game full of nuance due to its many interacting elements and, as such, when newer (and even somewhat experienced) players ask, “What is the best <stance/style/weapon/rival/skill/etc.>,” the answer is usually going to be, “Well, it depends.” Just because the best post-endgame setup might boil down to a single top-tier build (Dual Claymore Barrage w/ Drevon & Erik 0033/1140 in the current meta as I write this, btw), that doesn’t mean it’s also best for a first-run, early-game, mid-game, or late-game player. The problem is that a lot of players don’t understand why some specific build is preferred or optimal. The purpose of this guide is to not only get new players started with a solid build for their first-run and a solid strategy for the early-game, but also to help them learn why and to be equipped to develop their own understanding of the game. In short, you need to learn how to learn and that’s why you’re here. After all, these strategies didn’t just fall out of the sky; they were developed by people stumbling through the game, learning the nuanced mechanics, and developing these strategies little by little.
Note: If you notice any grammatical errors or any sections that are unclear, note them as suggestions for me.
Basics
There are only a few major stats to consider in the beginning of the game: Attack, Hit, Defend, Damage, HP, and Stamina. Other stats like critical rate and special attack rates will come into play as the game progresses and some early considerations, like Stamina and HP, will become negligible.
Attack: This is how the game determines who is attacking in a given round of combat. You and your opponent each have an Attack% ranging from 2-98% and is based on the difference between your Attack stats. Only the difference goes into the formula so it doesn’t matter if it’s 100 Atk vs 50 Atk or if it’s 10,100 Atk vs 10,050 Atk, the difference is 50 points in either case and will result in an Attack% of 59% vs 41%. In this example, for any given round, the game rolls a 59% chance to attack for the fighter with the higher value. If they succeed at the roll, they attack, and if they fail, their opponent attacks.
Hit: This is how the game determines whether an attack hits or misses its target. Hit% also ranges from 2-98% and is calculated the same way as Attack, except that it uses the difference between the attacker’s Hit and the defender’s Defend. So, again, 100 Hit vs 50 Def or 10,100 Hit vs 10,050 Def results in the same 59% chance to land your attack vs 41% chance that you fail to land.
Defend: This is how the game determines whether a defender avoids an attack or fails to avoid. It follows the same rules as described above for Attack and Hit, comparing Defend vs Hit to create a Defend%.
Damage: This is how much base damage you will deal when you land a hit on your opponent. There is no randomness inherent to this value; if it says your damage is 1,000, it really means 1,000 damage and not 1,000 +/- x% damage. Bonuses to damage will be specific and predictable; +20% damage means 20% more damage than you are currently dealing. Even though Dual Swords style shows a “range” of damage, it isn’t going to pick from all possible numbers in that range; only what corresponds to the specific damage of your right-hand weapon, left-hand weapon, and the double-swing value (right-hand weapon + 25% of left-hand weapon).
HP: This is how much damage you can sustain before losing the fight. It is very self-explanatory.
Stamina: This is a somewhat nuanced and poorly understood stat for most people. Each and every action you take, whether offensive or defensive, consumes Stamina. How much Stamina it consumes depends on what the action is and there are a few subtle differences. For example, dodging an attack takes 6 Stamina whereas parrying with your weapon only costs 4 Stamina. Making an attack will normally cost 10 Stamina, but some kinds of special attacks may increase or decrease this cost (by a consistent and entirely predictable amount, mind you). The only real variable factor is losing Stamina due to taking damage, as the amount you lose depends on the damage you’ve suffered. By my best guess, whatever percentage of your max HP you lose, you lose half that percentage of max stamina (eg. If an attack deals 30% of your max HP, you’ll lose 15% of your max Stamina). If your Stamina drops below the Green/Yellow threshold, you’ll start losing Hit and Defend stats. Once you drop below the Yellow/Orange threshold, you’ll suffer a chance to “drop” your attack each round, which opens you up to being attacked by your opponent even if you win the Attack roll. This “drop” chance gets worse the lower your Stamina, resulting in a 100% chance to drop at 0 Stamina. If your opponent tries to “pick up” your dropped attack, but he is also below the Stamina threshold, he must also check for a “drop” and, in the event both combatants drop the round, both will rest and recover Stamina for a short period. Lastly, once you drop below the Orange/Red threshold, you’ll lose flat Hit% and Defend%. Additionally, if you are using equipment that is too heavy for your current Strength skill, you suffer additional Stamina usage per action equal to 1% times the recommended Strength minus your current Strength. For example, if you have 5 Strength, and a Claymore recommends 8 Strength in 2-H style, you are 3 Strength short so you’ll use an extra 3% of max Stamina on top of the normal Stamina cost for all actions (dodging, blocking, attacking, getting hit).
Not all these stats are of equal usefulness in a fight. For example, if you have a very high Attack%, then you’ll be using your Hit and Damage far more often than you’re relying on your Defense and HP. Furthermore, your goal is generally to defeat your opponent which can only really be done by dealing enough damage to him. For these reasons, Attack, Hit, and Damage are of greater importance than Defense and HP and the gap only widens as the game progresses. A high Attack% pulls double-duty as a soft defense since, if you’re attacking, your opponent is not attacking.
Effective Thresholds
Stats have effective thresholds, points at which more doesn’t really help you any. For example, Attack%, Hit%, and Defense% cap at 98% which happens if you beat the opposed stat by 740 points. So, once you’re ahead by 740, stacking more won’t really help any; all you need to consider is if your opponent starts pulling ahead and drops your lead down below 740. Likewise, if you’re behind by 740, and stacking more of the stat doesn’t bring you up above 740, then you’re “buried in the floor” and you might as well ignore that stat since, no matter how large your disadvantage grows, that success-rate for that stat won’t go below 2% anyway. Similarly, if you deal enough damage to drop your opponent in a single attack, then stacking more damage won’t improve the quality of your victory. It will only stave off the opponent gaining enough HP that you can no longer one-shot them. And, vice versa, if your opponent has enough damage that they drop you in one hit, stacking more HP probably isn’t going to help. Once you get your fighter established with his foundational skills and weapon upgrades, most fights boil down to a game of rocket-tag where both fighters are glass cannons and the first one to land a solid hit wins.
Weapon Styles
Styles are the different equipment combinations available; Two-Handed, Dual Swords, Sword and Shield, and Fencing. When you first start, you’ll be locked on Two-Handed, but you’ll quickly unlock the Equipment tab which lets you switch to other styles All cycles start with basic equipment for each style (two Short Swords and a Buckler) as well as starting in Two-Handed style by default.
Two-Handed (2H): This is the default style and very well-balanced. It gives equal bonuses to Attack, Hit, and Defend and is also front-loaded with 25% bonus damage. Early in the game, this damage bonus can very easily reduce the number of solid hits necessary to drop your opponent. Note, however, that weapon special bonuses that apply to wielding in the right or left hand do not apply to 2H style.
Fencing: This style gives increased Hit bonus over 2H style, but sacrifices Attack bonus. It is also front-loaded with both +30 Hit and +15% attack speed. Attack speed is an advanced stat and largely negligible early on, but the +30 Hit is very good since it means you can gain instant Hit improvement even before investing points into the Fencing skill. As a rule of thumb, you want to use Fencing in two circumstances: 1) You need more Hit and can afford to lose some Attack, 2) Your damage is high enough that you can one-shot your opponent but that isn’t quite fast enough for you. This is an early-game to mid-game situational style and, while front-loaded Hit is very nice, the front-loaded damage of 2-H is significantly better for your first few runs.
Dual Swords (Dual/DS/DW): This style wields a right-hand and a left-hand weapon and emphasizes Attack at the expense of Defense. Dual style isn’t front-loaded in the same way as 2H (damage) or Fencing (Hit and Speed). Instead, you gain a “versatile” front-load because you gain the stat bonuses from two weapons instead of one. This means you can either min-max by combining weapons that compensate for each other, or you can double-down by equipping weapons that compliment each other. This is the workhorse style of the game and is the best pick for the bulk of the game due to the Attack stat being weighed as more useful and easier to stack in end-game and Defense having sub-par utility value. However, it needs skill points to be useful and, for your first few runs, skill points are in short supply. Furthermore, with two weapons to upgrade, you’ll have to split your money between them, resulting in a pair of lower-leveled weapons and less damage compared to other styles. You will deal the damage of whichever weapon you hit the opponent with (slightly greater chance to hit with right hand over left). If you hit them with both, you’ll deal your right hand weapon’s damage plus 25% of the left hand weapon’s damage. Note: when using Dual Swords style, the stats page will display a “range” of damage. This is not an all-inclusive random value range, but only meant to display the lowest damage you might deal (with the lower level weapon) and the highest damage (double swing). The equip page will display an approximate value using the tilde ‘~’ symbol. This is an average damage based on the chance of using a left-hand, right-hand, or double attack and, again, not a random value on a per-swing basis.
Sword and Shield (SnS/Sword’n’Board/SnB): This style uses a shield and emphasizes Defense at the expense of Attack. Like Dual style, SnS’s front-loading comes from the shield you use but shields are basically all the same; they provide Defense and HP and, beyond the buckler, penalize Attack and Hit. This is the most situational style and typically sees the least action. Early on, this can be used to plow through difficult tournaments to earn early money, but only for a short time until your skills grow to where tournaments become trivial.
Stances
Whereas styles are what weapon(s) and equipment you use, Stances are how you use them. Generally, you’ll first pick a Stance to be your primary focus and then supplement it with a style, either by a min-max approach where your style supplies stats that your stance lacks, or by a double-down approach where you pick both Stance and Style that share the same specialty (and, usually, share the same drawbacks as well).
Attack: This is the basic offensive stance that everyone starts with. No particular strengths and its only drawback is the lack of a focused advantage.
Defense: This is a full defense stance where you forego your normal Attack chance (Attack% drops to 0%) in exchange for a significant boost to Defense% and Damage Reduction, both of which are very front-loaded. You can switch to Defense stance to tank hits causing your opponent to burn through their Stamina quickly and then, when they are suffering from low Stamina penalties, you switch back to an offensive stance to capitalize. Somewhat useful against tougher opponents such as tournament fights and, later, rivals, but not something you’d want to rely on for normal progress due to its active nature.
Barrage: This is an unlockable stance that emphasizes Attack, Damage, and the Power Attack special, but also penalizes Defense. To unlock it, you first need Power 3 (which, itself, requires Strength 5 + Aggression 3) and Attack Stance 5. This is the workhorse stance of the game as it focuses on nearly everything you need and dumps Defense which is the lowest priority stat. Unlock this as early as possible, ideally on your very first run.
Blitz: This is an unlockable stance that emphasizes Hit, Attack Speed, and the Combo Attack special, provides some Attack, but also penalizes Damage. To unlock it, you first need Speed 5 (which, itself, requires Accuracy 5 + Aggression 3) and Attack Stance 3. This is a great climbing stance for getting a new disciple back to where you were before you promoted. If you have enough damage to reliably one-shot early opponents even with the damage penalty, then Blitz will let you climb far faster than Barrage will. Conversely, if your damage is so low that you can’t significantly damage your opponent even when you do hit, then Blitz combined with a high critical hit rate can deal with these tougher opponents since critical hits add damage based on a percentage of the opponent’s max HP. However, this approach requires a steep investment of skill points and is a poor choice early in the game when those points are in short supply.
Guard: This is an unlockable stance that emphasizes Defense, Damage Reduction, and the Counter Attack special, but also penalizes Attack. To unlock it, you first need Focus 4 (which, itself, requires Concentration 5 and Vigilance 3) and Defense Stance 4. Arguably the stance with least utility in the game since it penalizes Attack and gives no significant benefit to Hit or Damage. Only really used for specific Rival challenges that require you to use this stance specifically.
Barrage is the workhorse stance of the game due to it boosting two of the “big 3” stats (Attack and Damage) and dumping a less useful stat (Defense). It can be paired in a min-max style with Fencing where Barrage brings the Attack and Damage while Fencing brings a lot of Hit and helps soften the loss of Defense a little. Or, you can double down on the Attack advantage using Barrage/Dual Swords. Or you can double down on the Damage advantage using Barrage/2-H. Blitz is the second most useful since it boosts two key stats (Attack and Hit, and Hit strongly so), but it also dumps the third key stat (Damage). Min-max it with Dual Swords for the Attack + Hit combo, or with 2-H for the Damage + Hit combo. Or double down with Fencing/Blitz when you can spare both the Attack and the damage for more Hit and Attack Speed. Lastly, Guard dumps one key stat and boosts two dump stats. It should be used sparingly and either min-max with Guard/Fencing for Defense + Hit or Guard/2-H for Defense + Damage. Or double down on Defense with Guard/SnB and rely on Counter Attacks to simulate having a higher Attack%. But keep in mind that Counter Attacks cannot also be Power or Combo Attacks.
Weapons and Armor
Weapons and armor are generally straightforward, but there is some nuance that must be addressed. Weapons and armor gain +20% of either damage or HP per upgrade and each upgrade costs 2n times its purchase price where n is its current level-1. In other words, the total amount of money you’ve spent on a piece of equipment (purchase price plus all previous upgrades) will be the cost of the next upgrade. Because of this, you can’t just look at the base damage of the gear. At first glance, the Arming Sword and the Rapier have the same damage, until you consider that the Arming Sword costs half as much. This means that, for any amount of money you want to put into your weapon, you can get the Arming Sword one rank higher than the Rapier. Thus, the Arming sword has an adjusted damage that’s always 20% greater than the Rapier. This also means that, while the Claymore has about 4.27x the base damage of a Short Sword, you can get the Short Sword up to level 4 for the price of a Claymore so the adjusted ratio only puts the Claymore at 2.68x the damage of the Short Sword. Also, even though some weapons have bonuses to certain styles doesn’t mean they are necessarily the best option for that style. The Rapier may get +6% crit chance while in Fencing style, but if you are more reliant on raw damage rather than crit, the lower relative damage of the Rapier might be detrimental. The Arming Sword would deal more damage than the Rapier at a difference of 20 Attack and the Longsword deals even more than the Arming Sword with no loss in Attack, though a minor loss in Hit. And this leads to weapon/style synergies as you could start a run in 2-H style with the Longsword and, later, switch to Fencing with that same Longsword for very good results. Additionally, specific to Dual Wield style, what weapons you pair together can lead to powerful synergies to either min-max (typically pairing a Short Sword in the left with any other weapon in the right), or double-down (pairing two of the same weapon). Shields are far more straightforward; they all give Defense and some of them penalize Hit and Attack a little bit. They give some HP when upgraded and are only applicable to the Sword-and-Shield style. There are specific uses for them, but they are niche equipment. Armor is similar, except that all styles have a slot for armor. Unupgraded cloth armor is your best choice about 99.9% of the time as it gives no penalties to stats or attack speed and money is far better spent on upgrading your weapon rather than your armor. Again, the game meta strongly favors the “glass cannon” approach so Defense and HP are very low priorities in nearly all builds.
First Run Strategy
Here, I will outline a very strong strategy for your very first cycle through the game. I will also explain why the choices I suggest are stronger than the available alternatives. Some mechanics and menus are locked until you reach certain benchmarks in the game. If you see a game element in the guide, you’ll either have it available to start or it will unlock in short order.
Stick with 2-H style and Attack stance. You’ll need the front-loaded damage as you invest your skill points into other skills. Use your starting Short Sword and don’t upgrade it past level 4; don’t bother upgrading or buying armor. Also, make sure you keep your Concentration meter charged up by clicking the field every now and then; it provides a solid bonus to Attack, Hit, and Defend to help your progress. This guide won’t invest in your Concentration skill on the first run, but you still get some bonus and a free benefit is still a free benefit. Click it full to 5 minutes and then replenish it as needed.
Your first priority is to get Power and Barrage skills unlocked. As a side priority, you’ll also be unlocking a few awards that give income bonuses. Level Strength and Attack Stance both to 5 first, then get Aggression to 3 to unlock Power. Then get Power up to 3 to get Barrage. If you can almost, but not quite, beat a tournament, try using Defend stance to press through the last few fights to complete it as it will give a solid chunk of cash as well as bonuses to stats and gold/exp rates. Also, be sure you save before attempting a tournament so, if you fail, you can reload and try again without the tournament cooldown.
While getting your starting skills set and working through tournaments, save 5,000 gold; enough to buy 10 Short Swords. Buy them, then immediately sell them at half price. Now you’ve earned the Trader award which lets you sell equipment at-cost. You’ll have enough money from selling the swords to buy 5 more so buy and sell 5 Short Swords at a time to earn the Merchant (25 total sold items) and Arms Dealer (50 total sold items) awards which each give a compounding +25% gold from fights (net +56.25% bonus money). Now you can upgrade your Short Sword up to level 6.
After earning those three awards, save 3000 gold after upgrading your Short Sword to level 6 to buy one of each piece of equipment in the shop (except for Short Sword, buckler, and cloth which you started with). Having all 12 equipment types in your inventory at once earns you the Collector award which gives a 10% discount on purchases as well as upgrades. First, buy a Longsword and equip it across all weapon styles (make sure you’re putting it in your right hand for Dual Sword style). Then sell your upgraded Short Sword to recoup the 16,000 you’ve put into it by this point bringing your money up to 17,000; you’ll still be left with your second starting Short Sword. After this, buy one each of the remaining weapons, shields, and armors (don’t buy Short Sword, Cloth, or Buckler as you already started with those). You’ll earn the award and now get a discount on purchases and upgrades, but that also lowers the resale value (that’s why you sold your Short Sword first to get back its full value instead of 90% of its value). At this point, you should keep the Longsword, Short Sword, Buckler, and either the Cloth or Leather armor (your choice), and sell all the rest. Upgrade your weapon freely now and bump your armor up to 4 or 5 to help you reliably win the Provost tournament when you get to it.
Sometime along the way, you’ll have reached Provost rank and unlocked the Lineage tab. Buy Nobility lineage at first opportunity and immediately use your Secret Training to get a decent jump in both experience and gold. Military lineage can go second and Religious lineage should be delayed until you start getting into the mid-game and are dealing with Scrolls.
After you’ve unlocked Barrage, compare your damage to your opponents’ HP. Since it’s at rank 0, Barrage will lower your overall stats a bit compared to rank 5 Attack Stance, but the extra damage will more than make up for that if you don’t already overkill on the damage. Now you can work on unlocking Speed since you already have Aggression at 3 and the bonus Hit is going to be necessary anyway. Get Accuracy 5 to get Speed (you already have Aggression at 3), then pump Barrage up to 4 as you work your way to lvl 75. You’ll also be completing the Provost tournament at some point in this process, after which you’ll fight Master rank opponents. This is a significant jump in difficulty and you might find you aren’t winning fights are reliably anymore, maybe dropping from an 80% win-rate to a 50% win-rate or even less. When you see this is starting to happen, you can try the “micro-load” strategy. First, take a look at your Stats/Duels tab. This lists your top duels in terms of exp/sec and gold/sec. The averages of these lists are used to determine your offline exp and gold earnings. When most or all of this list consists of wins against Master rank opponents, save your game in a local file and wait about 3-5 fights (or 1-3 fights if you’re really having trouble). If you win a fight and it gets logged on your duels list, save again and wait another 3-5 fights. If no new fights get logged after 3-5 fights, load the save. You’ll earn offline experience for the time since you saved and this will likely be a significant amount, enough to progress levels at a good clip and keep your weapon and stats up to par to continue pushing training level and locking in better and better fights on your duels list.
Once you reach level 75, you’re ready to promote your fighter to become a Master. When becoming a master, you gain Mastery Points equal to the disciple’s level/5 so you want to promote when your level is divisible by 5. You also want to make sure you’ve spent all your fighting skill points, or at least as many as you can. Sometimes this means pushing 1 level past a multiple of 5 or having 1 fighting skill point left unused, but always avoid being one level or skill point short of your next benchmark.
First Master Strategy
Masters provide training discounts to your disciple as well as mastery skills that can provide several specific benefits. Training discount means that, for any skill ranks your Master(s) have, your disciple can train those ranks for 2 skill points instead of 3. If you’ve followed the guide up through now, this master will have the following skills:
Accuracy 5
Attack Stance 5
Strength 5
Barrage 4
Power 3
Aggression 3
This means it will only take 50 skill points for the new disciple to get back to those same ranks, instead of the 75 it took for the first one. The Master should also be level 75 and have 15 Mastery Points to distribute to his Mastery Skills. Keep in mind that, unlike Fighting Skills, Mastery Skills increase in cost as you level them up in the pattern of 2/3/4/5/… Plan your builds carefully so you don’t have unusable points left dangling. Spreading points rather evenly is usually best, but there are a few which you don’t really have need of yet. With 15 skill points, I recommend leaving Leadership and Diligence at 0, getting Advocate up to 2, and all the rest up to 1. If you have more than 15 points due to a higher level master, figure out a spread that will distribute them fairly evenly; I suggest working it out on paper first before actually allocating the points. Remember, a rank 1 skill costs 2 points, but getting up to rank 2 costs a total of 5 points (2+3) and rank 3 costs 9 points (2+3+4). You don’t need Innovation higher than rank 1 for now as you won’t have enough skill points to fully utilize a super-high cap, but you should have the one rank regardless because having 3 masters, each with Innovation 1 or higher, unlocks the important Brainstorm award so you want to set yourself to get that as soon as you have your third master. You should only buy a rank of Leadership if its cost is less than or equal to the number of Masters you have. Since it costs 2 to start and you have only one Master, leave Leadership at 0. With those specific quotas in mind, prioritize the remaining skills in order of Advocate>Form=Mentor=Discipline=Prowess>Diligence while leaving Innovation at 1 and Leadership at 0.
Second Run Strategy
You have a good number of advantages in this run over your first. You start out earning over 7.8x the gold per fight this cycle with Advocate 2 and the Merchant/Arms Dealer bonuses. This will let you push deeper with better weapon upgrades and also buy your school this run. You’ll get your starting skills online quicker since you have training discounts and Prowess bonus. Furthermore, you’ll have a growing stat bonus from Form as well as from faster leveling due to experience bonuses.
Use 2-H/Barrage to start. With the Attack bonus from Barrage stance, you should have a high enough Attack% to overwhelm the opponent to the point where you rarely ever even get attacked and maintain the advantage for well into the run. You’ll see some of your fighting skills are shown in silver rather than bronze. These are skill ranks that are discounted due to your master’s level in them. Level up Strength, Accuracy, Aggression, and Barrage for their silver ranks; ignore Power for now and ignore Attack Stance altogether this run. You should end up with Strength 5, Accuracy 5, Barrage 4, and Aggression 3 at level 29, putting you in a good position to thrash the Journeyman tournament. Also, buy a Longsword and start upgrading it as soon as you can afford it.
Now, you’ll want to start bumping up skills towards their new caps. Since your Master has Strength and Accuracy at 5 (and Attack Stance, but it doesn’t really matter), his one rank of Innovation boosts those skills’ caps up to 7 while Barrage goes up to 6. So first, get Strength up to 7 and Barrage up to 6. After that, start working on Concentration and 2-H, getting first Concentration up to 5, then 2-H to 5, since these give more benefit per stat point compared to Aggression and Accuracy. Concentration not only boosts the bonus you gain from the concentration meter, but it also boosts the total time you can store and the number of seconds you store per click. This lets you charge up a lot of meter and it gives the best stat bonus per skill point invested. After that, bump Aggression to 5 and Accuracy up to 7, followed by Power up to 5, and you have all your most necessary skills where they need to be right at level 95. You’ll also be able to afford your School at some point in this process. Buy it as soon as you are able.
At some point by now, you will have completed the Provost tournament, thus reaching Master rank. You should be able to wrap up this cycle by the time you’re lvl 95; you could hold out and push higher levels if you want, but I wouldn’t recommend it as you have used all your skill points and are right at a level multiple of 5. You’d need to gain 10 or 15 more levels for it to be worthwhile and that would just be a slog. You’ll also likely have earned a Reputation point for your school if you’ve been upgrading some buildings (I suggest focusing on platinum income first by upgrading sleeping quarters and school). Go ahead and put that point, and all future points, into Research as there is an award for having Research 10 ranks ahead of any other job and you’ll need at least 2 points in order to catch up and pass Training which starts with one Records point: you’ll learn more about the Founders system as you progress in the game, but it’s only of marginal use at the very start.
Second Master Strategy
Having multiple masters can be confusing for some players. Some benefits stack while others overlap. All Mastery Skills that apply directly to the disciple will stack additively across masters. For example, two Masters each with Mentor rank 2 are giving a total of +400% bonus exp (+100% per rank * 2 ranks * 2 masters) which nets you a 5x exp multiplier. Other benefits only apply to that master specifically such as Innovation and Wisdom; these don’t stack with one another simply due to their mechanics. Others affect either all masters (such as Leadership) or global values such as Platinum earnings and these will stack. However, skill discount from the Masters’ fighting skills and their higher skill caps from Innovation do not stack; they overlap. For example, if one master has Strength 3 and another master has Strength 5, you just get discounted training up through Strength 5 because that’s the best available across all your masters. But then, if the first master has both Strength 5 and Aggression 3 while the second master has Aggression 5 and Strength 3, the disciple will get the training discount for both Aggression 5 and Strength 5; Strength from the first master and Aggression from the second. Similarly, each master grants his own new skill cap based on their Innovation rank. A master with Strength 5 and Innovation 1 grants a new Strength cap of 7 (5 base + 2x Innovation ranks). So if one master has Strength 5 and Innovation 1 while the second has Innovation 5 and Strength 1, the first master gives a new cap of 7 (5 + 2*1) while the second master gives a new cap of 11 (1 + 2*5) and the highest cap is used; you are given a cap of 11. Lastly, if there is a cap to Innovation’s bonus, that is applied. The Innovation cap starts at 10 so, in this case, the cap of 11 is cut down to 10 until you earn an award that lets you reach a higher cap.
Again, distribute your mastery points in such a way that you can use them all; work it out on paper first before allocating any points because you can’t go back if you make a mistake (unless you have a backup save from before you did so… hint hint, wink wink). I suggest, again, going with 1 rank in Innovation, but this time you don’t need to focus so much on Advocate since you’ve already bought the school which is the only real big-ticket item. You can also take rank in Leadership for now since you have 2 Masters and the first rank of Leadership costs 2. This will be beneficial once you get your third master. Don’t go overboard on the Discipline skill. It may look nice, but it shuts off after you pass that master’s level and your goal is to daisy chain higher and higher masters, for which Mentor is better. But don’t ignore it either because, while different masters’ Mentor bonuses add together and their Discipline bonuses add together, their total Discipline bonus compounds their total Mentor bonus. If you add up your Mentor bonus and get +600%, and your Discipline bonus comes to 1200%, that nets you +9000% experience (91x exp multiplier), at least until the Discipline bonuses start shutting off in sequence as your level passes your masters’ levels. So distribute skill points fairly evenly between a master’s Mentor and Discipline bonuses, maybe favoring Mentor a little bit more. With that in mind, leave Innovation and Leadership at 1 and spread the remaining skill points fairly evenly to get the most bang for your buck. If you promoted at level 95 according to the guide, you’ll have 19 points. After Leadership 1 and Innovation 1, you’ll have 15 points remaining which is enough to get one skill up to rank 2 and the remaining 5 up to rank 1. So go ahead and take one level in each of the 8 mastery skills, and pick one to boost up to rank 2 (Not Innovation or Leadership). I suggest Mentor, but there’s a bit more leeway for personal preference on this second master so if you feel better with a different skill, go for it; though I’d say Diligence is the lowest priority compared to all the rest.
Strategies for moving forward
Beyond this, your progress will mainly depend on you reading the needs of your build and picking the best tool for the job. Here are a few rules of thumb to go by.
Look for damage thresholds. If a damage boosting tool like Barrage or 2-H doesn’t give you enough damage to reduce the number of solid hits to drop your opponent, then that damage boost isn’t a consideration currently on the table.
Maximize the product of your Attack% * Hit%. A 40% chance to Attack with a 40% chance to hit is a little bit better than a 95% chance to Attack with a 15% chance to hit (16% solid hit rate vs 14.25%).
Short fights (especially first-round wins) are way better than long, drawn out wins. You get the same total exp whether you win in 3 seconds or 30. Also, your top duels determine your offline gains so having a 3 second fight contributes 10x as much exp/sec as the 30s fight (if the latter even makes it onto the list).
Never get stuck on a single build and think it will always be best. Be willing to change your setup when you need to, even if you don’t need to 90% of the time.
After establishing your foundation, start working on early-game cleanup by earning any awards you can. If there are awards that require skills you don’t normally focus on, you can train a disciple specifically for those awards and then retire him instead of promoting. That way, you get to keep the award(s) but you don’t replace a master with a less capable one.
Start working on Scroll research as soon as you have the Library available. They tend to take a long time and there are a few that are more useful and you’ll want to focus on them early (Prestige, Leadership, Wisdom, Form, and the fighting skills you commonly use).
Final Word
Have your own fun with the game. I, personally, enjoy analysing the math and optimizing my build; I find that fun. Not everyone finds that fun so I won’t hold it against you if you just want to throw strategies against the wall and see what sticks. But also recognize that leaderboard competition goes hand-in-hand with optimizing; if you want to do the former, you’ve got to do the latter as well. Just don’t be a casual-core gamer. Casual-core gamers are a cross between Casual and Hardcore gamers; they put forth the effort of the former and then complain when they don’t see the results of the latter. Also, this guide was written with version 0.14.5 in mind. New updates may render parts of this guide obsolete so take that into consideration and double-check any advice given with the actual values in the game.
Appendix and Update Log
Sword Fight @ Kongregate.com is developed by Tovrick
Sword Fight Wiki @ Fandom
Sword Fight Beginners Guide by Midknight (using family account Shyshaeia @ Kongregate)
This guide is released with open license.
Anyone may freely use, distribute, or build upon this work.
23MAY2018: First edition release, valid for Sword Fight 0.15.0.3
16SEP2018: Guide version 1.01, updated for Sword Fight 0.15.3
Posted because google link was abused.
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