Swordmaster gem tags: Smash 93%, and line two moved
✍️ Alice・愛麗沙
Line one is Smash, and there is nothing to discuss: a class mechanic adds the Smash tag to every skill triggered by the secret-blade state, which puts it on most of the kit at roughly 93% coverage. The line worth talking about is the second, because it changed from Combo to Support — not because anyone revised an opinion, but because the mainstream build moved. The old build revolved around a Combo-tagged strike; the current one is a short loop on skill 1 and skill 4, both Smash·Support. So the order today is Smash, then Support, then Movement, all three damage lines. Two warnings: Survival is this class’s most expensive trap — a single skill carries it, and the meta rune deletes it — and never spend a Gem Skill Engraver on a crude-tier gem, because promotion re-randomises the tag set.
Coverage: why Smash needs no argument
A tag line pays out only on skills carrying that tag, so the real value of a line is its printed number multiplied by the share of your damage that carries the tag.
| Tag | Rotation skills carrying it | Share of output | One damage line, on total output | One cooldown line, best case |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Smash | 5 / 6 | 93% | +1.86% | −0.60% |
| Support | 3 / 6 | 65% | +1.30% | −0.42% |
| Movement | 2 / 6 | 30% | +0.60% | −0.20% |
| Combo | 2 / 6 | 15% | +0.30% | −0.10% |
| Disrupt | 1 / 6 | 5% | +0.10% | −0.03% |
| Survival | 1 / 6 | 2% | +0.04% | −0.01% |
Coverage is compiled from Korean skill-tag listings and rotation shares, not an official disclosure. The two right-hand columns scale one Elite Star Prism line (+2.0% damage / −0.65% cooldown) by that share; the cooldown column assumes the seconds saved convert fully into extra casts, which they do not — read it as a ceiling, not an expectation.
Smash converts almost losslessly: one +2.0% line is worth +1.86% of your total output. The reason is structural rather than incidental. It isn’t that one particular skill is enormous — it is that every skill your secret-blade state triggers picks up Smash on top of whatever it already had. Smash isn’t a property of a few buttons. It is a property of your rotation.
Support follows at 65% coverage and +1.30%, which is a real second line rather than a consolation. Everything below that is in single or low double digits.
Why line two moved from Combo to Support
This section is worth your attention because it demonstrates that a tag priority is not a permanent answer.
The previous mainstream build ran the secret-blade version of the sweeping strike — a Smash·Combo skill that, in the layouts of the time, carried something like forty percent of class output. Combo took second place on its own merits.
The current mainstream build is a short loop on skill 1 and skill 4, closing on the ultimate. Both of those are Smash·Support; the ultimate is Smash·Movement·Support. Combo fell from nearly half your damage to two or three buttons you rarely press, and Support went from bench to second string.
So the Korean shorthand you encounter differs depending on when it was written. Both versions are correct about their own build, and there is exactly one way to settle it for yourself: open the skill panel and read the tags on the three or four buttons you actually press.
A lesson comes free with this. Scattering your skill modifications across many tags is the worst thing you can do — one Korean write-up dismissed a hybrid build simply by listing its top damage contributors as Smash·Combo, Smash·Disrupt, Smash·Combo and Smash·Support. Tag concentration is itself a measure of whether a build is any good.
Survival is the expensive trap
Only one Swordmaster skill carries Survival — skill 5 — and the mainstream rune deletes that tag from it. The failure mode is precise and painful: you spend scarce engravers rolling a Survival line, then slot the rune you were always going to slot, and find the line covers nothing at all.
The secondary trap is Disrupt, on the skill-2 line, which the current loop frequently skips. Coverage is around 5% and +0.10% per line — nearly twenty times worse than Smash for the identical slot.
Your gem plan is downstream of your rune plan. Settle runes and modifications first, then choose your three tags. And keep one separation clean: the “smash enhancement” printed on runes reads the judgement result of each individual hit, while a gem tag reads the word stamped on the skill — same vocabulary, unrelated systems.
One damage line against one cooldown line
Each tag line forces a choice. On an Elite Star Prism it is +2.0% damage or −0.65% cooldown. The ladder: Crude S 1.7/0.55, Elite 2.0/0.65, S 2.1/0.7, Whole 2.2/0.75, Triple Quartz 2.1/0.7 across two lines.
Assume the best case for cooldown — every saved second becomes an extra cast. That is about +0.65% more casts against +2.0% more damage in the same slot: damage wins threefold, before reality intrudes. Actual conversion is far under one, because pre- and post-cast delays eat the fractions you saved, and this rotation is driven by secret-blade and calm stacks rather than cooldown bars.
So: all three lines damage. A stray Smash cooldown roll can be a stopgap; do not spend an engraver defending it.
Reading the “separate multiplier” properly
Gem tags do form their own multiplicative bucket, distinct from attack power, damage-increase and crit. But inside that bucket the lines are additive. All your Smash damage lines sum into one figure and multiply in once. “Each 2% line compounds” is wrong; “1% of Smash damage is about 1% of total damage, scaled by coverage” is right. Twenty-two sockets, three lines each, all one tag, ceilings at +132% by addition.
Keep skill-use speed in its own box too: it acts on the preparation phase — casting, charging — and the use phase — animation, channelling, and neither formula contains a cooldown term. For a class that lives on animation linking, speed feels transformative. That feeling does not transfer to cooldown bars. The mechanics.
Crude gems are a trap, and not because they’re weak
The mechanism: promotion re-randomises the tag set. Fusing three gems into one rolls fresh tags on the result — unless you spend an extra 5 Gem Skill Engravers at promotion to carry the first-slotted gem’s tags across. So any engraver spent on a gem that is not your endpoint is wiped at the next promotion. Leave crude and Crude S alone, fill all twenty-two sockets by volume, and reserve engravers for tag carry-over only. Taiwan’s supply is the adventurer pass at ranks 23 and 24 — five per rank free, ten paid.
Cheaper still: fresh Star Prisms roll random tags anyway, so fuse several and socket the best roll rather than forcing one stubborn gem into shape. Officially a re-roll is just “random”, and no odds distribution has ever been published — we checked namu wiki, Inven, arca, dcinside and the Korean gem simulators.
Korean-server lookahead: the tag swap, stated correctly
Korea added a tag swap on 2026-04-23, and most versions of it in circulation are wrong. It is not two gems trading tags. You pick two tag types, and every gem on your account — stored and socketed alike — has those two exchanged. Pairs compose into a single permutation within one operation, so three-way cycles are reachable, though the primitive is still a pair. 1,000,000 gold per permutation; different permutations for damage and cooldown lines means two operations and 2,000,000 gold. Hard limit: damage lines swap only with damage lines, cooldown only with cooldown.
Unlocked by a one-time quest from a bank NPC in one Korean-server town, then usable at any town bank. Korean-server only; not shipped on Taiwan, and no Taiwanese announcement has promised it. It matters unusually much here, because line two on this class already moved once: a full set carved for the old Smash·Combo·Movement build could later be converted wholesale to Smash·Support·Movement. So hold your awkward gems rather than breaking them down.
What to do now, what to ignore, what would change this
Keep, in order: any Smash line — the secret-blade mechanic covers roughly nine tenths of your damage. Support second, assuming you run the current short loop. Movement third, since skill 5 and the ultimate both carry it. Combo only if you are still on the old build. Ignore Disrupt at single-digit coverage, and actively avoid Survival.
Tune against your real rotation: if your modification slots differ from the mainstream, count your own tags first.
Three things would invalidate this page. If Taiwan’s modification and rune combinations differ from Korea’s mainstream, line two reverts to Combo — the most fragile claim here, resting largely on a single season guide. If the secret-blade Smash mechanic does not hold on Taiwan, the coverage table needs recomputing. And if Taiwan opens a steady engraver supply or ships the tag swap early, hoarding for promotion stops paying.
