Chapter 623: Discussions of the Swordsmen

Author's Preface

Think of this as an apology for not being able to write the Christmas special chapter.

There's actually a proper reason why I'm posting this here instead of in Inventoria.

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【Sword Saint】Swordsman Tactics Research BBS【Sword of the Mystery】

11: Peridot

Thanks for the thread.

12: Palpalon

Dragging this over from the previous board, but how viable is the Manual Sword Saint actually? Not in terms of whether it's possible or not, but strictly from a performance standpoint.

13: Last Knight

You mean the Tsuchinoko Style? Honestly, I don't really see the appeal.

14: Autumn River

Well, for starters, there's no sword restriction, so you can pull out a spear or a gun. In terms of versatility and expandability, it's better than a standard Sword Saint.

15: Shor

But you can't control them remotely, right? The whole reason Sword Saint is busted is because you can pull off close-quarters moves from mid-range.

16: Peridot

It has a lot of flashy moves, but Synchronicity is undeniably the most broken skill in its kit.

17: Ramuda

If it could stack with normal attack skills, it'd be the absolute strongest.

18: Last Knight

It already traces the player's STR modifiers and the physical movements of the skill itself. If it copied the damage multipliers on top of that, it would definitely get nerfed... That's kind of why Magic Swords with built-in additional effects exist to compensate.

19: Kemurus

I mean, the whole point of the Tsuchinoko Style is that the player themselves is moving at explosive speeds, so distance doesn't even matter. I know they have a speedster title, but being able to chain steps that fast feels straight-up illegal.

20: Autumn River

The fact that almost none of Psyger-100's attacks hit them even while they were manually maneuvering is what really feels illegal to me.

21: Palpalon

It's hard to complain when they use themselves as a practical example of "if you min-max mobility, you don't get hit."

22: Momo-Inu

The actual reality of the Tsuchinoko Style is just "min-maxing mobility skills and forcing your way through with the bare minimum attack skills and the raw stats of the weapons themselves."

23: Ramuda

No, that's not it at all. Are your eyes painted on? It's the no-look blind-touch menu operation. Even with shortcut features, navigating menus while doing mid-air backflips is absolute madness.

24: Last Knight

That part seriously makes no sense. It's like, how many brains do you have in there?

25: Kemurus

I mean, I get that it's a form of multitasking, but they're literally reading and selecting from an inventory of weapons purely by the feel of their fingers...

26: Sunoboros

Well, your fingers do tend to memorize the movements for items you use frequently.

27: Momo-Inu

Actually, the fact that the person themselves is bouncing around mid-air with movements like a Servant is what makes it so strong.

28: Gade Apostle

"Min-maxing skills for self-buffs" and "relying entirely on external gear for combat power" is honestly the exact playstyle of someone maining a crafting job.

29: Kuraagen

Wait, does the 'Tsuchinoko-san is a crafter' theory actually hold water?

30: Palpalon

I thought the rumor was that they mained Avenger? That anti-Karma value job or whatever.

31: Kemurus

Is Avenger actually a strong job? Literally all I know about it is that the unlock conditions are absolute bullshit.

32: Dedeman

I'm aiming for Avenger myself, but apparently it gives you a pretty solid advantage against monsters that actively hunt humans. It feels more like a flavor-focused job rather than strictly being 'strong' or 'weak.'

33: Sunoboros

Okay, so it's a rare-type job. Got it. So it's basically like the Royal Knight.

34: Shor

What's that? First time hearing that name.

35: Last Knight

It's a hidden job—or rather, you unlock it by becoming a direct subordinate knight of the King of Einwurf and fulfilling various conditions. Simply put, you become a Royal Guard. Performance-wise, it's a downgraded version of the Royal Champion.

36: Ramuda

So it's decently tanky and can hit decently hard? Wait, considering the current state of the Kingdom, isn't taking that job basically stepping on a landmine?

37: Dedeman

No, I just brought it up as an example of a specific job type. Recently, because the King changed and they're beefing with Thirdrema, the unlock conditions for Royal Knight got relaxed, and they even announced they're handing out pardons based on Contribution points. It's hilarious.

38: Momo-Inu

That's only going to attract outlaws and people with shady records...

39: Thunder Nut

So the massive PvP war on the Old Continent is actually happening for real?

40: Hyper Magic Toaster

If it doesn't raise my Karma, I actually want to join in.

41: Gade Apostle

Take that topic to the World Story Board or the General Board. This is the Tactics Research Board for the Swordsman class tree.

42: Autumn River

It's just really hard to properly theorize about the Tsuchinoko Style right now. I mean, the only practical example we have is Tsuchinoko.

43: Hyakutosai

I'm a member of 【Library】, so I went ahead and compiled the data on Sword Saint, Sword of the Mystery, and the Tsuchinoko-Style Sword Saint.

44: Peridot

Competent.

45: Gade Apostle

Competent.

46: Thunder Nut

Competent. Hurry up and post it.

47: Hyakutosai

・Sword Saint

First and foremost is Servant. Because it scales on MP, muscle-brained sword-masters will end up crying, but its performance is solid whether used on auto or manual.

The expandability of Servant itself isn't that vast since it only scales with the number of swords you control, but you can artificially buff it using the inherent stats and effects of the swords themselves.

Even muscle-brains should invest in MP until they can at least control three swords. More swords does not automatically equal more strength.

On auto, it's not actually that great against strong boss monsters. It shines when you manually manage interference and aggro dispersion.

It's flashy, but honestly, the prep work required isn't that much different from Sword of the Mystery.

Actually, it's not even good enough to be called a straight upgrade to Sword of the Mystery.

The biggest differentiating factor from Sword of the Mystery is that, in extreme terms, "you can run it without needing to learn any other magic."

48: Momo-Inu

That Library-quality prestige never disappoints.

49: Sunoboros

Summarizing it in comparison to Sword of the Mystery is hugely appreciated. There are way too few practical examples out there.

50: Dedeman

People misunderstand this a lot, but Psyger-100 has explicitly stated that she leaves five or more swords on auto because manual control becomes too difficult.

51: Shor

Wait, she can manually control up to five!? That's the only valid response to that.

52: Hyakutosai

・Sword of the Mystery

A surprisingly rare type of job where the core class performance fluctuates based on the stats of the Ritus.

First and foremost, its biggest bottleneck is the absurdly high difficulty of crafting a Ritus, but its burst firepower actually surpasses Sword Saint.

Honestly, Sword Saint only looks tanky because a certain someone with the Champion modifier uses it; normally, it's a glass cannon class specialized purely in offense. Mystery, on the other hand, allows you to invest in durability.

A lot of people are put off by the fact that the magic you memorize is strictly single-use, but to put it simply, it's essentially a Scroll Warrior build with all the tedious setup streamlined to the absolute limit.

Its greatest strength is the ability to maintain the mobility of a swordsman while outputting the same volume of attacks as a specialized mage.

Its weakness is that magic enhancement buffs like Add Spell don't apply to it, but surprisingly, Add Spell itself can actually be used through the Ritus.

If you equip a mage-type sub-job, your number of attacks increases exponentially, making it a class where your accumulated prep work heavily dictates your success.

It's a versatile class that can handle pretty much anything other than pure Tanking. Don't call it a Jack-of-All-Trades, Master of None.

53: Kemurus

When you lay it out like that, it actually sounds really strong...

54: Autumn River

Learn magic, gather materials, gather specialized forging materials, gather magical catalysts, buy up scrolls...

55: Last Knight

The grinding process is just so mind-numbingly tedious that doing it solo breaks your spirit...

56: Ochuckme

It requires the mental toughness to mindlessly grind alongside multiple people.

57: Kuraagen

I've partied with random Sword of the Mystery players twice, and it really is a binary coin flip between 'Jack-of-All-Trades, Master of None' and 'Omnipotent God.' A truly skilled Rätsel-man can easily do the work of three people by themselves.

58: Palpalon

Because it requires so much tedious grinding and the expenses pile up, randoms usually tend to be stingy with their spells. Sure, they pull their weight in major battles, but at that point, you might as well just use a specialized job.

59: Sunoboros

Basically, it's a class meant for solo players, since you can cover almost everything yourself to a certain extent.

60: Peridot

Now for the main event.

61: Thunder Nut

I definitely want to hear a hardcore analyst's breakdown of the Tsuchinoko Style.

62: Ramuda

Wait, if 【Library】 actually has the video of Sword Saint vs. Tsuchinoko-Style Sword Saint, share it already...

63: Momo-Inu

Who even leaked that video in the first place? The guy who uploaded it said he was specifically asked to spread it.

64: Hyakutosai

Even if someone from our clan leaked it, it'd be almost impossible to pinpoint them. Dubbing video items is pretty easy, after all.

65: Hyakutosai

・Tsuchinoko-Style Sword Saint

First of all, it's not a job. It's more like a collection of techniques, or rather, it relies entirely on raw player skill.

The general consensus is that the truly crucial element isn't their physical acceleration skills, but rather their cognitive acceleration skills—specifically, derivations of perception/evasion skills.

No-look menu operation + mobility capable of adapting to both offense and defense + perfectly reading the timing to swap weapons = Tsuchinoko-Style Sword Saint.

Because their style revolves around enduring hits with weapons that possess effects affecting durability, and then closing the distance with other weapons, it's actually highly defense-oriented.

They use a ton of different weapons, but all they're really doing is constantly applying self-buffs while swapping gear.

Based on our measurements of their skill recast timers, it's almost guaranteed that they have the "Fool" Arcanum equipped as a sub-job.

Surprisingly, there's a strong suspicion that the truly broken aspect of their build isn't their weapons, but their accessories.

In other words, they haven't just abandoned defense; they've abandoned the reliability of healing entirely, funneling everything into pure speed and attack volume.

66: Kuraagen

.........Are they driving a drag racer down a public highway or something?

67: Peridot

Calling it 'peaky' feels like an understatement.

68: Momo-Inu

So even though their attack volume was highly varied, what they were actually doing was really simple?

69: Dedeman

The "Fool" Arcanum... that's the one that halves recast timers but turns item effect activations into an RNG percentage chance, right?

No wonder even Psyger-100 was pushed into a corner. So they're the type that literally dies if they stop moving.

70: Last Knight

Their primary goal is probably narrowing the recast gap on their perception/evasion skills, isn't it? When they enter that lightning-clad state, they're moving at speeds that are basically a joke. Normal vision wouldn't even be able to register anything at that point.

71: Hyakutosai

Apparently, they themselves said that if they fail to control the accessory that generates that black lightning, they get forcibly flipped through the air and slammed headfirst into the ground.

72: Autumn River

.........? (A face that says "I have no idea what that means")

73: Hyakutosai

It apparently drastically exaggerates and accelerates the player's movements. So basically, just taking a slight step forward turns into a massive, bounding stride, and pushing off the ground generates significantly more acceleration than normal.

74: Shor

What kind of broken accessory is that?

75: Kemurus

No, wait, what's broken isn't the performance, it's the safety rating! If you tried to do a full swing with that, you'd dislocate your shoulder!

76: Momo-Inu

In other words, you have to unleash your full power with utmost humility.

77: Gade Apostle

That might just be the most nonsensical phrase I've heard all week...

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Author's Afterword

Just whose—Who-eep Who-ter's—doing could this possibly be...