I'm surprised that this question hasn't been answered (at least not that I can find in the forums) by this late date: You spend a strain to activate Saber Swarm, then miss or not gain enough advantage. Do you just waste the strain and that's it? Again, I'm surprised that my GM and I haven't found an answer for this.

The answer is very simple and straightforward: If you don't generate enough advantage to activate the Linked quality, then you effectively wasted the strain and the maneuver spent to activate the talent.

And this is balanced, given how powerful of an effect the Linked quality is, especially when paired with a lightsaber.

Wow. Thanks. Guess I didn't want to believe it. Won't be chancing Saber Swarm until I get Hawkbat Swoop.

I also seriously recommend maxing out your Lightsaber skill as well sometimes Hawkbat swoop fails you...

Linked is a hugely powerful ability, so gambling in makes sense. I roll 4Y, 1G, frequently 1 or more boost dice and Hawk Bat Swoop. No one is as devastating in terms of sheer damage potential in a duel as a Ataru striker fully kitted out and ready to throw down; well, provided their stamina holds out. The only other tree that has the sheer capacity for havok is probably the Juyo tree; and that is the conflict rich tree that specialises in brutally critting/dealing a staggering amount of damage in a singular blow.

As a 2000 xp character in a 4 year campaign; a large chunk of my build focused on being an artisan. Yeah. It might cost you a fair bit, but the cost is most definitely worth it. HAWK Bat swoop is really the exceptional ability of the set; the ability to engage from short ranged is one of the most powerful abilities in the game for a duelling based character; in combination with enhance, no one has the sheer movement ecomany as a striker.

Kaiden,
Honestly, unless you're completely skipping out on boosting up your skills in favor of buying talents (which you really shouldn't be doing), by the time you'd be able to purchase Saber Swarm you should be rocking at least 3 ranks in Lightsaber with a minimum Agility of 3, so against all but the most capable of foes (Adversary 3), you're going to have a very solid chance of hitting your opponent and getting the two advantage you need for Linked. Buy your Lightsaber skill up to 4 ranks, and you're almost guaranteed to both hit and roll sufficient advantage against most opponents.

I'd also recommend the Custom Grip attachment from Special Modifications, since at its base it removes one setback die from your combat checks (handy to deal with any pesky melee defense the target might have), and can be modded to provide a rank of Accurate, giving you a boost die and thus better chances of getting the necessary advantage to trigger Linked.

54 minutes ago, LordBritish said:

Linked is a hugely powerful ability, so gambling in makes sense. I roll 4Y, 1G, frequently 1 or more boost dice and Hawk Bat Swoop. No one is as devastating in terms of sheer damage potential in a duel as a Ataru striker fully kitted out and ready to throw down; well, provided their stamina holds out.

As far as Ataru Striker's stamina woes go, the Ebb/Flow power out of Disciples of Harmony can go a long way towards helping with that, even with just the basic power and the first Strength upgrade, since it gives you a decent chance of recouping a couple points of strain with every Lightsaber check you make. It does mean that you'd need to choose between attacking with Hawk Bat Swoop or using Ebb/Flow, but it's an option to consider for those times when Hawk Bat Swoop is simply gravy as you're already engaged with your intended target or that you desperately need to recoup some strain.

Or you could just spend Hawkbat Swoops pool of advantages on strain recovery....

Honestly since Hawkbat Swoop is an action you can spend a maneuver to disengage a maneuver to Saber Swarm and an Action to Hawkbat Swoop if the poor bastard survived the first 30+ Unsoakable damage you dumped on the target.

On a completely different side note I finally combined Juyo, Ataru and Unmatched Ferocity in a hallway fight. Sadly he is no longer a Lightside Paragon, but he did not hit darkside and the rest of the group was extremely happy he dropped from overspending strain as he did a rampage through a small army...

Thanks for the advice. I'll eventually get there.

On 11/24/2018 at 8:13 PM, LordBritish said:

Linked is a hugely powerful ability, so gambling in makes sense. I roll 4Y, 1G, frequently 1 or more boost dice and Hawk Bat Swoop. No one is as devastating in terms of sheer damage potential in a duel as a Ataru striker fully kitted out and ready to throw down; well, provided their stamina holds out. The only other tree that has the sheer capacity for havok is probably the Juyo tree; and that is the conflict rich tree that specialises in brutally critting/dealing a staggering amount of damage in a singular blow.

As a 2000 xp character in a 4 year campaign; a large chunk of my build focused on being an artisan. Yeah. It might cost you a fair bit, but the cost is most definitely worth it. HAWK Bat swoop is really the exceptional ability of the set; the ability to engage from short ranged is one of the most powerful abilities in the game for a duelling based character; in combination with enhance, no one has the sheer movement ecomany as a striker.

A warrior steel hand adept, niman disciple, ascetic gets you that as well (unmatched ferocity for the damage spike), improved dodge for movement economy, and draw closer to move opponents to you with 3 dedications, fr 4 and a free light and darkside pip on force power checks, 5 ranks of parry, 3 of reflect, put ebb flow in the mix for strain recovery and to make empty soul talent to apply to every roll

6 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

A warrior steel hand adept, niman disciple, ascetic gets you that as well (unmatched ferocity for the damage spike), improved dodge for movement economy, and draw closer to move opponents to you with 3 dedications, fr 4 and a free light and darkside pip on force power checks, 5 ranks of parry, 3 of reflect, put ebb flow in the mix for strain recovery and to make empty soul talent to apply to every roll

Funny you should say that, my GM asked me to create an low inquisitor class NPC that I roleplayed while my character was stranded on the planet Gand for two weeks (which, funnily enough, is a factory world in our campaign. Put simply, they were turning Gand into weapons and was one of the few worlds in the Outer rim that the empire decided to build a proper shield bunker on.) whom had Ascetic/Steel Fist. Improved dodge is the most fun I've ever had in just whaling on people. Her main speciality was in enhance and suppress, so she could throw hard punches and effectively just shut down anyone stronger in the force then her, forcing them to fight on her rudimentary level.

Kinda appropriate really, given she was a clone of one of the main PC's and was literally two years old upon failing to kill the party.

In any case, yeah that sounds pretty sweet. If I were to pick a saber tree I would probably go about the same way; going for the thematic self balance route and becoming a powerful all round powerhouse. I wasn't aware Nimen had a second dedication; I thought the force rating was instead of that.

The alternative idea would have been to eventually pick up sage to make a use of her int (she is educated enough in Lore so that she can recognise force artefacts, likely to use them as bait to capture members of a particular culture.) and also has the nice perk on being able to break away from disadvantous engagements. Ultimately though, picking up a lightsabre and being a close quarters jugganaught probably is the way to go! XD

Niman has 1 dedication and 1 fr talent, so does steel hand adept and ascetic, The fr 4 comes from career plus 3 fr talents. But ascetic and ataru striker are cool tool.