Revision 11

The Swordsman is a versatile melee class that balances offense and defense. It occupies a middle ground between the Berserker's pure offensive focus and the Paladin's support capabilities, making it suitable for players who want flexibility in their combat role.

The class was playable in the first Closed Beta Test from June 20 to 22, 2025.

Class characteristics

Rage system

Rage is the Swordsman's core resource. It builds when landing attacks and during sustained combat, then drains when out of combat. This mechanic rewards aggressive play and extended engagements.

As Rage accumulates, abilities become more potent. The Swordsman grows stronger the longer a fight continues, making the class effective against bosses with large health pools.

Perfect parries instantly fill a portion of the Rage meter, creating a skill-based shortcut for experienced players.

Weapons

Sword and Shield

The defensive option. Hold block to reduce incoming damage. A timed block functions as a parry, knocking enemies down and opening counterattack windows.

Features threat generation for tanking, stamina management, and temporary invulnerability on certain skills. The safest weapon for learning combat mechanics.

Greatsword

The burst damage option. Slow but powerful swings break enemy armor and deal area damage. Charged right-click attacks generate Rage efficiently.

Bleed effects stack on enemies while high-damage cooldown skills deliver finishing blows. Best used to build debuffs before swapping weapons to capitalize on the setup.

Dual Blades

The sustained damage option. Fast attack speed with short cooldowns enables consistent DPS. Strong synergy with critical hits and counter-parries.

Threat generation can be increased or reduced through skills, allowing both tank and DPS roles. The block lacks a parry follow-up but still reduces damage and grants Rage.

Skills Recorded in the June 2025 Closed Beta

Full per-weapon skill tables exist from the closed beta that ran from June 20 to 22, 2025, with named skills, damage figures, Rage costs and cooldowns. They are reproduced on the three weapon pages. Chrono Studio has said every class will be rebalanced around the Matrix System, so treat the numbers as a record of that build rather than as current values. As of 2026-09-11 no revised skill numbers have been published for any class.

In that build each weapon held four skill slots at a time, sitting alongside a set of class-common skills shared across the whole class, which came to roughly ten usable skills in a fight. The Greatsword listed five active skill lines for those four slots, so one always had to be left out; the other two weapons listed four each. Drawing a weapon also fired a passive tied to that weapon, which is why a Swordsman who alternates keeps more of the loadout working than one who parks on a single weapon.

Class Mastery

Alongside the per-weapon trees, the Swordsman picked class-wide mastery nodes at character levels 10, 15 and 20. Unlike some classes, the Swordsman picks were not uniform across its three weapons: Guardian's Shield is the tank-leaning option and sat on Sword and Shield loadouts, while Decimate was the common level 10 pick on the Greatsword and Dual Blades.

Threat and the Tank Role

Both the Sword and Shield and the Dual Blades carried taunt and an aggro-generation increase in that build, which is the mechanical reason a Swordsman can tank without changing class. The two weapons approach it from opposite ends. Sword and Shield stacks threat upward on its main combo and taunts directly with a gap-closer, so it holds attention. Dual Blades stack a threat modifier that can run down as well as up, so the same weapon can shed attention when the group needs damage instead of a tank. The defensive answers differ too: Sword and Shield parries on a timed block, while the Dual Blades use a separate counter and riposte.

Parry Mechanics

Parrying is a timing-based mechanic that negates attacks and enables counterattacks. Successfully parried attacks trigger the Counter-Strike System, allowing powerful riposte abilities.

The system draws comparisons to Dark Souls combat. The first boss in the beta, the Thousandfold Piercer, taught players to master parrying through repeated challenges.

Matrix Progression

Like every class, the Swordsman plugs into the Matrix System, the node-based progression layer Chrono Studio announced after the June 2025 closed beta. Each of the Swordsman's three weapons (Greatsword, Dual Blades, and Sword and Shield) can evolve down one of four distinct paths, so two players on the same loadout can end up with different casting speeds, skill effects, and combat rhythm. The difference comes from the stats allocated through the Matrix, the passive skills unlocked along a path, and the attributes on equipped gear. The node layout is still under development, so treat specific path details as subject to change before launch.

Recommended Builds

As of 2026-09-11 Chrono Studio has published no mapping of Swordsman weapon pairs to group roles. The pairings below are common closed-beta practice rather than stated design, and the Matrix rework may change which combinations make sense.

Tank and Survival

Sword and Shield paired with Greatsword. Use Sword and Shield for crowd control and defense, swap to Greatsword for burst damage.

DPS Focused

Dual Blades paired with Greatsword. Use Dual Blades as the primary damage source, swap to Greatsword for Rage generation and area attacks.

Combat tips

• Use weapon swapping strategically. Greatsword generates Rage efficiently but attacks slowly. Dual Blades spend Rage on fast attacks.

• Chain skills together into custom combos. Dodge, parry, or interrupt enemy attacks to create openings.

• Time dodge rolls against boss attacks for perfect counters.

• The Chronotector synergizes with Swordsman gameplay. Stop enemies during charge attacks, rewind after taking damage, or freeze time to set up combos.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

• Flexibility across tank and DPS roles

• Forgiving defensive options for beginners

• Strong in prolonged fights due to Rage scaling

• Responsive parry-based combat

Weaknesses

• Less specialized than dedicated classes

• Lower damage ceiling than pure DPS

• Lower tankiness than dedicated tanks

• Requires weapon management to maximize potential