Lineage II/Swordsinger

Sword Singers is mainly a buffer class fighter, but it could perform various other tasks as well.

Equipment/Play Style
Equipment: The proper equipment for a SwordSinger is probably any heavy armour. Since this class is nothing like a damage dealer, the player should take his/her time to escape or kill an opponent. Heavy armours offer satisfactory p.defence, and it depends on the set the player chooses for some extra skills, like stun or sleep or hold resistance, extra HP etc. And just like every other class, good jewelry usually makes a lot of difference.

The weapon could be anything, since a SwordSinger can perform the songs without having to hold any specific weapon. As the matter of fact, the player can perform the songs without holding any weapon (while a BladeDancer can dance only with dual swords in hand). A proper SwordSinger carries a good sword, a shield and a good bow (although the adena is never enough). This way, the chances of being killed by other players are smaller. Dual swords may sound like a good choice, and it is. But only when the player has dances from a BladeDancer. If not, a sword with a special ability and a shield, I believe, is the best choice.

Play Style: Sword Singers were not made for PvP. One can tell that easily, since almost none of their skills can be used in PvP. Playing solo trying to grow is also quite hard, since the little SwordSinger greatly suffers from other players and their Pks, because he/she cannot really fight back. With mobs though, a SwS can easily be saved by Ultimate Defence, a skill that greatly increases the players defences. It takes some time to re-use, so it should be used in really hard situations.

Not many people choose to make a SwS, that's why they can quite easily find clans. From then on, things get easier. In a party the SwS should only keep in mind that every 2 minutes he/she must sing. A bad player of this class is the one that forgets the songs. Other things they can do, is assisting the tank of the party or other co-players when they are in trouble, and also picking up the drops. The most important thing is to not leave the party without songs and so the player should try to be at a small distance from all the party members (which is not always easy). In addition, when there's also a BladeDancer in the party, the two of them should agree on the combination and amount of the songs/dances, so that their MP won't run out and that they won't de-buff their co-players.

Key Skills

 * Song of Warding - Increases party members’ mdef for a period of time.
 * Song of Wind - Increases party members speed for a period of time.
 * Song of Hunter - Increases party members’ critical chance for a period of time.
 * Song of Earth - Increases party members’ pdef for a period of time.
 * Song of Vitality - Increases party members maximum HP for a period of time.
 * Song of Meditation - Increases party members MP regeneration speed for a period of time.
 * Song of Renewal - Shortens party members cooldown and MP usage of magical skills for a period of time.
 * Arrest - Puts targets to state of hold for short period of time.
 * Psycho Symphony - Reduces nearby enemies cast speed/att speed for a period of time.

Challenges
Once you manage to do the quests that enable to change your profession from that of a knight to a sword singer, life gets only harder in terms of soloing as well as getting parties. For one thing, a sword singer does not have high defensive points that the counterpart temple knight has, which means that you take more damage from any mob while soloing. Of course the one great thing about a sword singer is that you get a skill called entangle. It is not as good as the dark elven skill hex, (but the dark elves are a super power in l2 anyhow) but what it does allow you to do is to be able to use a bow and then kite the mob till your mana runs out. Entangle is a debuff that decreases the targeted mob's speed by a lot. This is almost completely useless in parties which are also hard to find because at this point you are considered a by product of 3 species rolled into and a bad one at that to boot! You are considered a semi-tank, a semi-damage dealer as well as a semi-buffer, which can be looked upon as being useless 3 times over or as being a hybrid species that adapts very well to any given circumstance.

One other major draw back to the sword singer is that it isn’t the best pvp character in the world, quite frankly it comes close to the worst character. Pvp on the open ground is completely different than that in the arena. In the arena you cannot take out a bladedancer meleeing because of him having two swords to whack you with. Same goes for the gladiator. You cannot take out any types of archers because of their insane amount of damage in relatively short amounts of time. It is next to impossible to take out any type of nukers because once you are slept it is all over. Some people would say that sword singers are the best characters to go up against nukers because of their magic defensive songs, and I say that who ever says such is full of it. Even if you were to use a bow to try and take out a nuker, the nuker would do more damage to you and faster than you would do to him/her. And if you are slept, might as well try to walk out of the arena since you will surely loose. You also cannot fight against any sort of tanks for two reasons... one being the high amount of hp that they have and the other being the stun skill that they have.

I am adding this in addition to the previous statements as because I play a sword singer. At higher levels sword singers have the capability of pvping certain classes more efficiently such as spell howlers and sorcerers because of specific protection songs like flame guard, storm guard, warding and invocation. Some mages go down quick if they are not as of the same level as you. At level 72 with self buffs and a combination of enchanted a/b jewels it is possible to have 1112 mdef and at that point you are able to take out mages quite well if fully buffed and songs up. But once again a sword singer is not known for their pvp capabilities but rather their defensive songs. Sword singers work especially well in archer parties with song of hunter and wind. Pvp songs are usually hunter, wind, and warding, while PvE songs are hunter, and earth. A sword singer has reached most of its usefulness once it has reached earth which is 64 I think. Beyond that unless you are going for sword muse you just have higher focus minds to look for which allows you to keep more songs up.

Uses of Swordsingers
In any case a sword singer is the one party member that is a must in any group. Also there are not to many sword singers for the fact that it is really hard to get into parties from the start till about lvl 49 and it definitely gets easier when you hit lvl 55. The main thing about the sword singer is that he buffs entire parties with songs very similar to the buffs cast by overlords and warcryers. The main song is the song of hunter which increases the rate of critical hits, the other main song is the song of Earth which gives an increased defensive stats for the duration of the song. If ever you do manage to make a sword singer, it is a well known fact that the best type and the smallest type of party consists of a swordsinger, a blade dancer and a shillien oracle. You can hunt anywhere with only those three members and can hunt really fast with the combined swordsinger and blade dancers.