Best 1v1 Dueler class in 1v1 ("Melee only")

Depends. How much is it worth if you have a 20% chance to parry each of someone's Master Strike/Ravage hits, and if that fails, still have a 20% chance to cut down each of the hits' damage by 20~30%?

Besides, if you remember the Defense tree before the max level increase, your real "business" in that tree was:

(1) the temporary shield granted through Blade Storm
(2) 6% increase in defense with Riposte (yes, it was 6% back then)
(3) the 2nd active defense power for 40% flat damage reduction
(4) Hilt Strike, the 2nd hard stun

IIRC, when you went upto Hilt Strike, that gave you just enough points left for you to go upto Singularity in the Focus tree, so investment in shield-related skills just happened along the way.


Mm.. more like "situation-heavy", if that makes sense, I guess.

It was sort of like the Smashers nowadays, except if you cutdown on about 20~30% damage from Smash, and move all that potential into defensive capacity, so its sort of a "perfect balance" between offense and defense, that's what it was like. In today's terms, it'd be sort of like a Smasher that hits for upto 6~7k damage at most, but can use two stuns, infinite spamming of slows, two defensive CDs, has Soresu level damage reduction, and has considerably higher shield/parry chance.

But I don't think I need to comment anything more about this.. since, like mentioned, it is history.





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Always felt that Soresu was just not worth it if you're not tanking, or messing up the enemy front line on purpose (and I'm generally a more defensive-minded player, mind you). With the awful Focus generation penalties it imposed on you, its only purpose was delaying the inevitable. At a certain point, I did run a somewhat similar hybrid, but I ran in Shii-Cho, used a generator, and used stuns, interrupts, cooldowns aggressively to mitigate incoming damage and open the enemy up for guaranteed damage spikes. Worked like a charm.

IMO best 1v1 dueler class is Veng Jugg/Vigil Guardian. Againts Deception Sins, I'm taking Vigil Guardian any day, any night.

You would do well to beware good snipers and lightning sorcs. Aside Vigilance, I play MM and Lightning (got a TK sage levelling, too, just because I love Lightning dynamics), and their mechanics permit to push the Vigilance Guard to his hard limit.

And don't tell me that "you eat them for breakfast". I also do - but the ones that I do usually don't count because they're pretty damn horrible. Same with Deception Sins. Bad ones fall quickly, good ones bleed me of all of my cooldowns for a relatively even footing.

Vigilance Guardians might do well against Sins, but they would easily lose to a lot of other classes. Facing a Vigilance Guardian in a 1v1 tourney would be any Sniper's wet dream.

This.

1. Op Healer
2. Tank Sin
3. Deception Sin
4. Annihi Mara
5. Conc. Operative
6. Veng. Jugg

Those are the best. Some are better against some classes, some worse.

*Note* This is at EQUAL skill level. A bad Mara/Sin/Op can easily be beaten by a Jugg/PT/MErc/Sorc w/e

The best support healer class and spec is also coincidentally the best 1v1 duelest? That's not broken at all.

I honestly feel that the deception assassin when played at top level is a better 1v1 class than the Op/scoundrel healer.

Its also the only class capable of beating a good op/scoundrel healer in a 1v1. But it does rely on crits or the fight could just stretch on too long and become attrition, which the OP healer build is best at.

That fight is also the most entertaining duel to watch.

that post was missing *in my opinion*
note he placed tank sin as 2? and veng jugg as 6?

aside, this was MELE list, mercenary and sorcs are hardly MELE.