FAQ:  Should I become a Fencer?

Before I address this, perhaps you should consider the following:

“Why am I asking this?  What is my objective?”

Once you have come to terms with your answers to these questions you will be better prepared for an answer to the “Is Fencer for me” question.  Below are my responses to this question tailored by the various reasons it might be asked.

Version 1:
“I am brand new to SWG, and I have no clue how anything works.  I haven’t even created my first character yet.  Should I become a Fencer?”

Answer:
You cannot start off being a Fencer.  Fencer is an advanced profession that you can work towards through the One-handed Weapon branch of the Brawler profession.
My advice if you are brand new to the game is to not focus on just one profession right away.  You have 250 skill points to invest.  Any skill points that you have saved up are doing you absolutely no good.  As soon as you can afford it (costs 100credits each), train in Novice Brawler, Medic, Entertainer, Artisan, Marksman, and Scout.  Having the assets from even the Novice level of all these professions will help you a lot in the early stages of development.  You will find that as a newcomer you will have occasion to make good use of all of them.  When the time comes that you run out of available skill points you can always drop your least-used skills or professions and free up those skill points.  By the time you need to drop any of these auxiliary Novice professions you will have a better idea of which profession you wish to follow.  If your choice ends up being Fencer, then we would be glad to have you among our numbers.

Version 2:
“I want a profession that has good Role-Playing potential with plenty of flair and panache.  Should I become a Fencer?”

Answer:
You bet!  The Fencer combat animations are really cool, and the names of our special attacks can be a good role-play device.  I would venture to speculate that most of the original players that selected the Fencer profession (that have stuck with it), did so more for the concept behind being a Fencer than the min-maxing of stats.  Although our weapons may not produce the most damage, many of them have significant history behind them such as the Ryyk Blade and Rantok.  The Rantok even has a quest involved with obtaining it.

Keep in mind that role-playing is what you make it, though.  Every profession has role-playing potential.  It’s just that Fencers are probably the most flamboyant of the various combat professions, and working that into your character’s persona can be a lot of fun.

Version 3:
“I’m a min-maxer (even if I won’t admit it openly), and I want the combat profession with the best overall stats, skills, damage, and abilities so I can be the “best.”  Should I become a Fencer?”

Answer:
If this is what is important to you, then I would not recommend becoming a Fencer.  This is not necessarily because I feel that Fencer is inferior to the other combat professions, as I wouldn’t recommend any of the other combat professions over another.  At this time the game is still experiencing considerable changes that have the various combat professions shifting around in terms of relative ability.  What might be thought of as powerful today could very easily be nerfed into uselessness tomorrow.  Also, that which is considered ineffective this week could be beefed up next week.  This is especially true for Fencers, and will likely be so for some time to come.  It is for this reason that I would hesitate to recommend that someone to invest their time and effort in becoming a Fencer only to discover one day that the profession no longer meets their requirements.

If you truly wish to “win” in combat more, you should probably opt for a ranged profession over a melee profession.  Being a melee profession requires far more caution and attention in the management of your HAM, your exact distance and position relative to your opponent, and balancing the incoming damage with the use of your specials than would a ranged combatant.  Generally as a ranged combatant, as long as you can manage to keep a few steps ahead of a melee combatant then odds are in your favor that you will win.  For a melee combatant to beat a ranged combatant, either the ranged combatant has to make a mistake, or the melee combatant has to be very clever and resourceful in identifying and utilizing situational assets.

I also wish to add that very few combat professions perform superbly as a single unsupported profession.  Everyone is given 250 skill points to allocate, and mastering Fencer takes less than half of them.  A person that has only invested 92 skills points into mastering a single combat profession cannot expect to have the same level of ability of someone that has invested twice that amount.  Even if you become a Master Fencer and have the very best One-handed weapon available, you will be predictably outmatched by a combatant that has invested skills points in a supporting profession outside of their primary combat profession.  Therefore becoming the “best” requires mastery of your primary combat profession PLUS significant support skills.  Some simple suggestions would be a healing profession, and/or another combat profession that has overlapping (stackable) skill modifiers to enhance those of your primary profession.

I will mention that the “current” strength of the Fencer profession rests in their relatively strong defenses; but this is balanced out by their “current” weakness of generating relatively low raw damage output.  In summary, if your primary concern is min-maxing stats and raw overall power, but you are still determined to be melee, then I recommend taking a look at the Teras Kasi profession.  (This is not meant to suggest that anyone following the TK profession is a min-maxer; just that this is currently considered the most all-round effective melee profession.)  However, with any given patch the story may change.

Version 4:
“I’m looking for a profession to compliment/support my current profession as an “X”.  Should I be a Fencer?”

Answer:
My answer to this question is covered mostly by my answer to Version 3.  However, this has a few unique aspects, and merits its own response.

The Fencer profession has many skills and abilities that compliment and support other professions rather well.  Dabbling in some of the Fencer branches can be quite effective, especially if they compliment or stack with the skills of your primary profession.  In fact, there is another thread that discusses the pros and cons of pairing up Fencer with various other professions.  It goes into far more detail than this thread is meant to.  If you’re unable to locate this thread with the forum’s Search feature, you can find a link to it on the main FAQ thread.

Disclaimer:  The above answers are as unbiased as I can make them.  However, they are still just my opinions, and may not reflect the opinions of all Fencers.  I invite any Fencer that feels differently, or has addition information to add to please do so.  All I ask is that the responses be kept professional, on topic, and not be defamatory to any of the other professions.  There is no way to answer this question with anything other than a point of view, and as such there is no single right or wrong answer.  Every answer to this question will be correct from a certain point of view, and in the end the only point of view that matters is that of the person asking the question, “Should I become a Fencer?”