"As is the case with most of SK's equipment, it's not a matter of Levi being bad, rather other things are better. A lot of things are perfectly viable, but mathematically inferior to other options."

This. Yeah, Leviathan Blade is good, but it's nowhere near the best. Opinions are nice, but facts are better. For example, did you know Acheron on average does ~26% more damage overall than Leviathan Blade despite having the same three-hit combo? And if you want some numbers on the charge, Acheron on average does ~132% more damage on its charge when compared to Leviathan Blade. It literally does more than twice the amount of Leviathan Blade. And that's including that Acheron does reduced damage to Fiends and Undead, as well as assuming that only four hits of the charge connect rather than all five.

If you'd like to know how much stronger Acheron is than Leviathan Blade, take the third hit (the one with increased damage) of your Leviathan Blade. That's how strong Acheron's first and second hits are, and its third hit is even stronger. In fact, the third hit of Leviathan Blade is also about the same damage as the first hit of Sudaruska's and Triglav's two-hit combo. In fact, Leviathan Blade's full combo only does about 50 more damage than Triglav and Sudaruska's combo, but Suda and Trig both complete their combo faster and have a status. And this is comparing two normal weapons.

Actually, if we're comparing normal weapons, Dread Venom Striker does more damage in four hits than Leviathan Blade does in three despite Dread Venom Striker's five-hit combo coming out faster than Leviathan Blade's, and DVS has the poison status to possibly increase that damage further. Additionally, Dread Venom Striker, Sudaruska, and Triglav all benefit much more from Swiftstrike Buckler than Leviathan Blade does.

Now, if we went into elemental damage, Leviathan Blade is put in the dust by all five Brandishes, Gran Faust, Divine Avenger, and Warmaster Rocket Hammer, all of which benefit more from Swiftstrike Buckler more than Leviathan Blade does (Brandishes do because the increased damage gives a more exponential increase in damage when SSB is counted). I'll go get some numbers for this too if you'd like.

Leviathan Blade does nothing near massive damage unless you specifically mean on its charge, which in most cases only hits once (let's say this does 368 damage) while Acheron's does more than double that against Fiends and Undead (746 assuming only four explosions hit, or 378 more than Leviathan Blade), and Acheron does over quadruple the damage to Slimes and Gremlins (1506 damage with four explosions, or 1138 more than Leviathan Blade). If you mean against turrets, then yeah, Leviathan Blade hits a nice solid 1104, while Acheron will only hit about 1023 against Gun Puppies, and only 650 damage against Howlitzers, but I think the 1300 it does against Polyps makes up for it. Of course, you probably wouldn't use Acheron in a shadow area to begin with.

I'm mostly comparing Leviathan Blade to Acheron here because it has the same three-hit combo as Leviathan Blade, but Acheron's charge is arguably much better (better crowd control, safer to use, faster, not as disruptive to your party members, and more consistent). I felt like using numbers today, so uh, were any of my numbers incorrect? Because from what I see, Leviathan Blade is just a worse Acheron, is outclassed by Dread Venom Striker, highly competes with Sudaruska and Triglav, and is made obsolete by any of the elemental weapons.

I'm not trying to argue that your opinion on Leviathan Blade is wrong, I'm just trying to argue that your opinion on why Leviathan Blade is good, is wrong. Yeah, I made a seven-paragraph-long post because you said two sentences. I'm quite bored today.

"Leviathan's combo takes less time than Sudaruska/Triglav's."

Sorry, honestly I thought Suda/Trig were faster. I did some testing and it seems that they're actually the same speed (from initial click to when the final hitbox becomes active), as well as when shield-canceled. However when I put on Swiftstrike Suda/Trig are noticeably faster, but that just might be me. (mind you, I'm going on when the final hitbox becomes active, rather than when you can perform your next action).

"Sudaruska doesn't have any status on the combo."

Yeah, I should have clarified that I meant on the charge-- in a manner similar to Brandishes and Alchemers, or really any weapon class, those with a status tend to be weaker than those without a status, yet Suda/Trig are still very comparable to Levi despite owning a status.

"I don't see how brandishes benefit more than Leviathan from ASI."

Honestly, I don't know what was going through my head for this one. I was doing the math in my head wrong for some reason, no clue why. Although I believe Brandish's charge may benefit more from ASI than Levi's charge does, unless you were going for a breakpoint so you could hit twice on a charge for Levi, but I don't think SSB reaches that alone.

CIV is my main and only 5* sword, and, Dibs - WHAT????????

Charge only hits once?

Only? Hits? Once?

WHAT??

I don't ever try using a charge like that unless I want to fling monsters all over the place, which I rarely do.

I almost always corner them, trap them against a wall before unleashing the charge. It does very little damage if I just charge in (as you mentioned), but if I corner them, I can deal much higher damage.

Honestly I mostly just use three hit combo swords to finish off the occasional enemy that's leftover from the carnage after bombs and guns do all of the heavy lifting. For this, leviathan is great. I also enjoy using the charge along with seraphynx's valkyrie aura to crush less mobile things like trojans, deadnauts and turrets. I wouldn't say that leviathan is winning some sort of award for its massive damage output, but I'd say that it's actually fairly good, sure.

Also, cold iron vanquisher is primarily just bad. There are situations where it is better than normal leviathan, but those situations rely on your fighting many undead alongside a slightly less seen monster resistant to elemental (gremlins) without having more than damage high on your sword and a loadout that greatly benefits from having levi/civ.

I know.

You can still trap them against a wall or corner so that they take no knockback, meaning you deal as much damage as you would to a turret.

I still deal very little damage with a CIV without doing that, and I deal much higher damage with it when I do it.

While touching an enemy, aim past them to the right. The goal is to move with the charge such that the enemy is at your 7 or 8 o'clock.

Bam. 2 hits on the charge. No need for obstructions.

Leviathan blade is obviously not for DPS since brandishes and other swords excel at it. It definitely does work well worth ASI like everything.
But I think the point of leviathan blade is to just deal consistent damage with no factors except damage increase or poison. The normal attacks is 3 hit normal. The charge, I'd think is not for damage, but defense to knock everything away from yourself. You can also use this to effectively damage immobile monsters too, but overall,

Leviathan blade is used to deal consistent damage with defensive charge to knock everything back, for regular use, not DPS

I learnt that if you are stunned when you unleash the Leviathan Blade charge, all of your hits land before knockback is dealt. It's amazing.

Plus, if you are not good with cash, the Levi can help, you don't need multiple weapons for multiple missions.

Correct. If you're at the Elite Orb wall that a lot of people get stuck on, saving up another three orbs to craft a second weapon up to 4 star is painful. A 4 star normal damage weapon will get you through most of tier 3 with some luck.

I'm currently running Elemental hood in the hopes of Chaos,3* Owlite Shield, Silver Six, 4* Freeze mist, and 3* Pathfinder armor because someone needs to take advantage of all of that armor

Since it's the point of your post, I have to object: You've chosen your armor pretty well, but not your weapons. Consider switching to more interesting gun that does more damage. If you want a haze-style bomb, consider trying a status that isn't so disruptive to play.

For the beginning it sounds like a good loadout that you have been acually planning and that will grant you a good time in IMF and is also solid for vana-runs in a Group. It is not the Loadout with the highest dps (the reason why Bopp objected), but it grants you 1. easy use, 2. the Chance to Keep your distance to enemies by the Combo of that freeze bomb and an Antigua style weapon and 3. ofc the crowd controll effect fo frost that gives you some seconds to spectate and/or rethink in a new situation.

But your loadout does still have at least one flaw in puncto damage varity: You mentioned only elemental weapons. This means, that you will deal horrible low damage vs gremlins and vs beasts. What weapons have you planned to use to deal with them?

Against Fiends and jellies, your elemental weapons are still okay if you do not want to throw out money in each direction. Not superb, but it get things done.

Back to the opening:
I can agree that the Calibur is a perfect sword for beginners who Play on a distance and use mainly a Charge to get enemieson distance, but who prefer to use a gun to Keep their own health as healthy as possible. If I would create a new account again, I would probably get calibur as my first 4* sword. However, I can strongly warn you not to upgrade it into 5 stars since ist damage will be less with 5 stars compared to its 4* Version with max heat. The 5* Version only gets stronger after 5* heat Level 7 - a heat Level that your Leviathan probably will never see in the current heat System.

TLDR:
@Ego:
Your loadout not bad, but you will have Trouble with gremlins and wolvers, so what other weapons do you have planned to get?

@Opening:
The calibur-line is an awesome sword for beginners, but never ever upgrade it to 5* unless you do it for collection purpose.

Edit:
@Bopp: '...get interesting weapons instead...'
Walz through the world with Tortostyle :3

We should have a contest to see who can make the best troll-Bopp thread! I'm thinking-

Best gun to pair with combuster, and should I switch brandishes?

Hello my name is Six and I have the 4* combuster doo dad. I'm wondering what other gun I should get to go with my combuster and whether I should switch to glacius, since the fire doesn't work in FSC and I want to farm there. I just crafted silversix and am wondering if it's worth upgrading to argent peacemaker since I already have the 4* and it feels like a waste to start over.

I used FSC because it's common and repetitive and awful, but also because the level needs something like blitz needle in spite of being so elemental friendly.

@Six-From-Syrup
You can get those two points back by making a thread with the exact same question, while implying that the game is dead and we should all stop playing.

The game is so dead that I'm considering a new gun

My gun, silversix, was chosen because of its 5* description-

"An ancient handgun forged from sun silver. Its bullets serve as ushers for those that refuse to leave this world."

In this case implying the game itself.. but I recently found that it's 4* description is just as fruitful-

"A mysterious antique with a brilliant silver finish, these handguns are said to have been wielded by 'gunslinger priests' during a now forgotten time."

Since the servers are recently closing I was thinking of crafting a second silversix, so as to combine both descriptions for the perfect "endgame loadout". Alternatively, I could stop short of the last couple missions and go for black hawk-

"A shadow-aligned handgun of incredible power, it's said to contain the soul of a knight who was only two days from retirement."

What should I do?

but in the end I can out DPS and Tank him because I put in the extra effort to get actual weapons armor and shields

Yes, "in the end", but in the beginning you're spending twice as long at 3 star still collecting Elite Alchemy Orbs, while he's already 30,000 crowns ahead of you because of recipe costs, (ignoring the costs saved for the cobalt armor because it's "meh" and shouldn't really be bothered with) as well as being cleared for Tier 3, earning higher crown payouts, Shinings, and Radiants.

The cobalt armor should be dropped as early as possible, but the Calibur or Troika(and possibly the Cutter too) alone will get you far enough into Tier 3 if you're careful and learn your weapon. Additionally, the Defender upgrades into the Heater Shield, which is a decent elemental shield with higher normal defense than the Owlite, and Freeze resist for helping with those pesky Silversaps that everyone loves to complain about.

"the cutter line doesn't even go to 4* so I don't know why your including it."

What?
Are you sure?

"...then get actual armor through LD..."

Are you sure about this?