Cutters most certainly do not do as much damage as a Brandish or a Flourish. Cutters are rather meh overall.

The real problem is that Cutters just push everything around. It's really hard to get all the ghost strikes to hit the target. Brandishes on the other hand can reliably hit their target multiple times, and has a good AOE clearing charge that is very safe to use. Flourishes also have their great first swing to quickly hit multiple enemies in one swing.

Just to unbind the Fang of Vog is 4000 energy, which is over 300,000 crowns.

If you want an item to help you deal with Firestorm Citadel, there are so many weapons that would work leagues better than a Cold Iron Vanquisher. Off the top of my head...

- Combuster / Glacius / Voltedge
- Divine Avenger
- Warmaster Rocket Hammer
- Blitz Needle
- Nova Driver / Storm Driver / Hail Driver / Magma Driver

First and foremost- don't vendor any of your stuff to get either of these weapons. They're good but not earth shatteringly so.

Cutters are incredible when pulled off correctly, but there is no place for them to be incredible and they're relatively lackluster when it comes to the typical meta of damage types. Dread venom striker has better DPS than brandishes vs effective targets if you give it enough damage boost, but giving it enough damage boost is often impossible and never matters. It's better to have a little bit less DPS in the extreme condition require and an area charge + superior 3 hit combo. If cutters get buffed they'll become worth it for sure.

Flourishes are very mobile and have a very quick first strike. You don't use them for their DPS because there are better items for that, but rather for their speed and attack pattern. This makes them a good early-game counter for devilites and a good late-game utility sword for fighting things like grievers.

For actually getting better at the game, you should pick up a flourish of some sort at some point. Most people like final flourish because that has better damage and doesn't mess around. They're not wrong and they're especially right for earlier levels where they'll be relying on their flourish. I like rigadoon because the enemies I use it on are typically weak to stun, and being able to get off a stun can give you enough time to charge a handgun for the kill or focus on a different enemy and come back. The stun is rather underwhelming if you aren't planning around it or don't need it.

As in max damage for swords + maskeraith's deadly shadow cloak + an attack boosting orb. It has to go through a ton of resistance to deal damage, since it deals 2 hits of normal damage and hits faster than that to boot. As you increase damage, resistances start to look smaller and smaller.

Basically-

(damage prior to resistance/buffs) * (damage boost) - (resistances that don't change) = damage done

As the damage boost goes higher and higher towards infinity, the non-changing resistances start to become more and more negligible. Eventually, what things are weak to doesn't matter at all and the damage prior to resistance/buffs starts to become much more meaningful. Dread venom striker has a lot of that damage prior to resistance/buffs, but even more resistances that don't change. Hypothetically, dread venom striker does its job when buffed to the extremes better than the brandishes do its job but in practice this is never actually useful. So don't bother with it until after you've bothered with other gear and are established.

At some point we'll probably end up with an area that really benefits from having dread venom striker. This would likely require a huge variety of monster types, respawning gremlin menders, many shielded enemies (trojans/deadnauts but we'd need more than just those) from different families that somehow have a ton of health, and some large reason not to just use blitz needle + grim repeater; i.e. the area would have to REALLY encourage the use of other kinds of damage rather than just damage types. I would not however, worry about such an area in the meantime.

Didn't I hear that the Acheron does more damage to undead than the CIV? Makes the uselessness of the CIV show even more...

Oh yes, I should have mentioned the Furious Flamberge. That's a trap weapon-- there aren't any enemies that are weak to both fire and piercing, and the bulk of enemies that are even effected by piercing resist it as well. Zombies are the exception, but they don't benefit from the fire so much due to their high health and the presence of ash of agni, combuster and even fang of vog.

Flamberge is only worth crafting for the sake of collecting weapons or future proofing yourself; if it gets changed in some way (my suggestions have been to make the charge switch it over to being elemental for a while, or just make it shadow damage to begin with) then it could become much more worthwhile. The other out for it would be a new set of common piercing + fire weak monsters, which is also a stretch.

But don't vendor your flamberge. Just because it's bad now doesn't mean that it'll be bad tomorrow, and it still works for the bulk of levels, just worse than it could be working. Instead, craft something else that is new- then you'll have a flourish that functions and a new weapon that functions.

It's true that DVS does almost as much DPS as Combuster against neutral targets, depending on the depth and damage bonus. But Combuster also has vulnerable targets, where it does much more DPS. But doesn't Combuster also have resistant targets, where it does less DPS? Not really, because you use your other weapon on those targets. And Combuster has an insanely powerful charge attack, whereas DVS' charge is nearly useless.

It's true that DVS does about the same or more DPS than Gran Faust, even against vulnerable targets. But Gran Faust has a much better chance of hitting multiple targets, which dramatically increases its damage output. Also, Gran Faust can knock those targets away from you, keeping you safe. It's best in those situations --- not situations where you're trying to kill one monster quickly.

These are all important considerations in planning a sword loadout. That's why they're all covered in my sword guide.

So is DVS' damage output okay? Certainly. Is it "INSANE", as you claimed in the original post? Certainly not.

I'm not sure what you're saying about a UVed Combuster. You mean getting damage+6 and the damage type bonus? Yes, I do that every day. Do you want to know the DPS produced by such a setup? Then look at the last table in the wiki article that I linked in post #1.

Than why does Bopp say its so bad when you say its lucrative?

He's saying that in some theoretical situations DVS will outdamage Combuster. These theoretical situations go way beyond damage+6. He's talking about damage+6 and having multiple sprite skills giving you boosts at the same time. (Those boosts let you go over +6.) So it can probably happen, but it's hard to arrange, you can't sustain it, and you certainly shouldn't be planning your loadout around it happening consistently.

Doesn't that mean the damage Max! on the DVS is ALOT better than it on the Combuster? Or is it?

No. This has already been answered for you repeatedly. Just go to the link I gave in post #1 above. Scroll down to the bottom. Look at the table, which is damage+6 at depth 24. The numbers for Combuster are bigger than the numbers for DVS.

DAWG-

Combuster/acheron will do better than DVS at what DVS is doing almost all of the time, and has a significantly better charge to boot.

There is ONE SCENARIO where this isn't the case, and it's the one I and now Bopp told you about regarding attack orbs and sprite skills that is never applicable unless you're derping around in the end game experimenting with normal damage loadouts. That's why I told you not to immediately go for it or anything.. the only reason I brought it up is because it's basically DVS's big claim to fame.

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@Jenovasforumchar

Yes. The monsters in question (except for the wolvers, which aren't weak or resistant) are all resistant to fire, and with the exception of devilites and trojans weak to stun.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FGf7OsZNetwQIe2MDkc947EWRPEzqBhd...

So basicallly DVS sucks and I shouldn't get it.

No, DVS does not suck. It's *okay* for damage, and *poor* for tactics (e.g. attacking one monster while avoiding another monster).

And its claim to fame is a thing thats not possible.

It's possible, but not very likely or common.

But Bopp said to try it. Should I?

Other posters should give you their answers, but let me just clarify mine: Much of the fun of Spiral Knights is trying different weapon styles. Therefore you should try *every* weapon style, including catalyzers, blast bombs, troikas, and cutters. Therefore you should try cutters.

In chawkthree's demo video (or someones or the wiki or something) they said that getting damage bonus on a striker is beastly.

It's not clear what "beastly" means, but I've given you actual damage numbers, which (almost) objectively show that DVS with big damage bonuses doesn't inflict remarkable damage.

And can you please awnser my "hould I get a grand flourish? Or should I keep using my Flamberge?" question?

Probably you should not get another piercing sword for a while. Probably you should try some other weapon styles. I keep saying "probably" because I don't really know which weapon styles you've tried.

Once you've tried all of the weapon styles, and if you've decided that piercing swords are useful, then you should get a better piercing sword.

One last thing: Is Fang of Vog good or is Combsuter better?

Like most of your other questions, this is handled in my sword guide. See the section on elemental swords.

Quoting Fehzor from this very thread:

"I like rigadoon because the enemies I use it on are typically weak to stun, and being able to get off a stun can give you enough time to charge a handgun for the kill or focus on a different enemy and come back. The stun is rather underwhelming if you aren't planning around it or don't need it."

Quoting Bopp's Sword Guide:

"These swords [Flourishes and Snarble Barb] kill piercing-vulnerable monsters so quickly that there is usually not much point in also inducing a status; you would rather just have as much damage as possible."

As for my own opinion:

No. Just kill them with the sharper stick. No need to add anything fancy.

The rigadoon has a much higher chance of improved stun when used against targets that are weak to its stun.

See: http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/93505

My argument is that I don't bring flourishes for damage, but for the utility of having a wide arcing swing and jabbing motion. I can either have a better version of that, or I can have stun. If I plan to use my sword against those enemies that are weak to it, then I'd often much rather have the added stun utility than the extra damage. When I go to smack a griever, it doesn't matter how much damage I'm about to pull off, just that I hit.. but if I can get off the stun, then I've REALLY messed up that griever, not just canceled one of its attacks.

I think it's worth getting eventually, but only when you know exactly how it operates and are building higher level loadouts that could make use of it.

@Holy-Nightmare

Even if it did, a Final Flourish charge kills most pierce-weak enemies outright (except maybe Trojans who are resistant to stun to begin with). If you're looking for a weapon to cause an AOE stun on neutral targets, then I'd point you to the Sudaruska.

Suda is a bad weapon but a great utility.

You can pair it with other weapons or players that rely on enemies being in a certain place to deal more damage.

It works with Tortofists since it can position the enemies under the incoming spikes of the charge.
It can help Vortex Bombs by either helping them collect more enemies or by throwing in a charge attack.
Leviathan and FOV users can get more hits on their charge against enemies stuck in a corner.

Suda doesn't get status on its regular combo this means you have more control over enemies movement from any angle.

Trig gives status on charge (like suda) and the combo end (unlike Suda). This can be a problem since enemies get harder to flinch at deeper depths, you could end up with an attacking enemy frozen dangerously close to you. To counter this use Trig combos from behind so that if you do freeze them they can't hit you. If you freeze them you can get a free charge attack on them (or someone else can).

That depends on how you intend to use the weapon lol. If you're just pushing and doing damage like you usually are, sudaruska is better. If you're spamming charges in a party that's set up to cope with ice, then triglav is going to be better.

Basically-
Sudaruska = Normal hits are nicer in general
Triglav = Charge hits are nicer in general

Though that isn't to say that Triglav's normal hits are bad or that sudaruska's charge is way worse. They're still very similar weapons most of the time. So either get whichever one you think is more awesome, or whichever one fits the normal/charge difference above. If you are getting it, that is.