Generally, you want an elemental sword for killing all of those undead and constructs. So people choose DA, WRH, or the elemental Brandishes (or Fang of Vog).

In the old days, when DA was the only elemental sword other than Fang of Vog, people used it heavily in FSC. Now people tend to use Brandishes, because they are overpowered. In most rooms of FSC, there is enough room for you to dodge while charging. And the Brandishes let you run at full speed while charging, while DA slows you down about 18%.

Also, in the old days there were "tricks" that let you break certain blocks in FSC prematurely using DA. Then, an update prevented those tricks, and also made the DA charge fail when the user's back is against a wall. Also, the Brandish charge attack was buffed. These changes lessened DA's popularity.

As far as the Brandishes go, all three are desirable. I favor Combuster, because its charge attack does the most damage (because fire doesn't prevent monsters from riding all of the explosions). Some people prefer Voltedge, especially when used in conjunction with vortex bombs. Some people like to freeze things and prefer Glacius.

By the way, this issue has been discussed in countless threads. You might search Google for something like "Brandish FSC site:forums.spiralknights.com". For a general comparison of elemental swords, including how speed vs. damage-per-hit contributes to damage-per-second, you might try my detailed sword guide.

You mentioned that you like to clump enemies before using DA's charge. That is exactly what the Brandish charge is for. Most people prefer the Brandish because you enjoy similar or greater damage output using the faster charge while moving with negligible speed decrease, as Bopp pointed out.

You may also want to try out vortexes, as you mentioned that you like grouping enemies. Vortexes save you the planning and time required for Shiv or Voltaic.

This isn't even a contest. I'm not going to go into a long speech about it, I'm just going to paste my ideals on elemental swords, and I honestly think it works for every area in the game.

It goes a little something like this:

Combuster (with CTR) > Voltedge > Combuster (without CTR) > Warmaster Rocket Hammer > Divine Avenger > Fang of Vog > Glacius

Or organized in a different list:

• Combuster (with Charge Time Reduction)
is better than
• Voltedge
is better than
• Combuster (without Charge Time Reduction)
is better than
• Warmaster Rocket Hammer
is better than
• Divine Avenger
is better than
• Fang of Vog
is better than
• Glacius

---

Combuster is the best elemental sword you could bring into FSC. I used to think Glacius was better for it because you could freeze zombies in place, but I quickly learned that Combuster is ultimately better due to it being easier to predict, doing more overall damage per charge, and the fact that it actually has significantly better crowd-control.

I initially got Voltedge, for a very simple reason: In PvE, Combuster and Voltedge are good while Glacius is bad, and in PvP, Glacius and Voltedge are good, while Combuster is bad. As a PvPer and a PvEer, I went for Voltedge out of laziness.

But to get to the point: I personally think Divine Avenger is a big pile of doo-doo anywhere outside of Roarmulous Twins, and Firestorm Citadel is definitely no exception. Divine Avenger has lower DPS, both with and without charge attacks, Divine Avenger is a lot less safe to use than Brandishes, and to be quite honest, it's just not a good sword in general due to the way enemies weak to elemental work (as opposed to enemies weak to Shadow, wherein Gran Faust excels).

It might just be because I'm inexperienced with Divine Avenger, as I don't use it that often (there's a reason for this), but I would never recommend Divine Avenger to any new player ever for the sake of Firestorm Citadel.

@Dibsville
You must be kidding about FoV, right? It's by all means worse than Glacius. Glacius has higher and more powerful combos in addition to a non-suicidal charge. Yes, the freeze will prevent some wave riding but the initial charge blow+one or two explosions is still a high amount of damage. Just a couple of explosions isn't bad at all, either.

Can someone explain to me how combuster is better than voltedge IN FIRESTORM CITADEL? Is there something I'm missing, or is this just a troll?

Also I don't think you've tried DA's charge attack. I'd tend to agree with you except that it's probably the best sword charge in the entire game.

@parasthesia

Ok then try it on NONMOVING blocks. It's not illusion, it's FACT

This has been explained already in many threads over the years. You've been around these forums for a long time, so you've almost certainly read these threads. The argument is so common that I make sure to include it in my sword guide. But here it is again:

As you know, Combuster, Voltedge, and Glacius are identical except in the status caused by their charge attacks. Shock and freeze can sometimes stop a monster's knockback midway through the charge attack. This has two consequences:

A. The last explosions continue past the stopped monster, so that they don't hit the monster, and some damage is wasted.

B. The total knockback of the monster is not predictable. Sometimes it is very big, and sometimes it is smaller.

In contrast, fire does not stop knockback. So monsters tend to ride the entire Combuster charge attack. They get hit by every explosion, for massive raw damage. And they are knocked back a huge, predictable amount, which is nice for player safety. For these reasons, many players (including me) prefer Combuster's charge to Voltedge's and Glacius'. (By the way, some players prefer Voltedge when used with a vortex bomb.)

Now, in FSC most of the monsters are immune to fire, so Combuster's fire does no damage. That's a disadvantage. You have to weigh it against the two advantages of Combuster described above. For many players (including me) Combuster's advantages outweigh this one disadvantage. For example, when I charge at monsters in FSC, I don't care that they aren't afflicted with a status, because they're already dead from the raw damage.

Edit: Thanks for trying, Krakob, but I'm a sucker for Batabii these days.

You are right that shock spasms are brief and not continuous. Apparently this doesn't matter. Just a tiny shock spasm is enough to stop the monster and let the Voltedge charge explosions past it. You can see this if you play with Voltedge users. You can see it in their FSC videos.

You are right that shock has an area of effect, so that it can do massive damage to tightly clumped monsters. (This is a frequently used argument for Voltaic Tempest over Ash of Agni.) By using Combuster instead of Voltedge on fire-resistant monsters, you are potentially giving up a lot of shock damage over time. On the other hand, as I explained above, Combuster gives you a lot of immediate damage --- often enough to simply kill the monster. A shocked monster is nice, but a dead monster is even better.

In FSC, I charge Combuster at oilers even. It doesn't matter whether they catch on fire, because they are dead.

In the end, Combuster and Voltedge are both crazily powerful. So people should use whichever one they want, and not bother getting the other one.

"Also I don't think you've tried DA's charge attack. I'd tend to agree with you except that it's probably the best sword charge in the entire game."

I am well aware of Divine Avenger's charge attack, and I absolutely love it for Roarmulous Twins because you can not only 1-shot a head once it's down, but you can stun them mid-laser attack as well.
It is a great weapon, but it's not that great, and honestly it's too slow to get the job done when we have other choices. The charge is really the only thing it has going for it, and even then, when compared to 5* Brandish charges it just doesn't compare at all. It's so slow to pull off unless you throw ASI on it, but if you're doing that then you're probably missing the CTR to even exploit its newfound spamability. But I'm basing this off of the average Vanguard's arsenal, not someone who has the money to throw on any UV they'd like into it. If you have access to said UV's, then I'd definitely say it's an amazing sword, but again, you could also do the same with a Brandish and it'd still outclass it. I've already mentioned that I don't use Divine Avenger often, so I just may not be using it to its full potential, but that's only because I quite honestly have no reason to because no matter how good a Divine Avenger user you are, a Brandish will almost always be safer, faster, and easier to use.

As someone who doesn't like exerting too much effort into what I'm doing, I'll be sticking with my Voltedge. My CTR Low UV'd Divine Avenger sends its regards.

"You must be kidding about FoV, right? It's by all means worse than Glacius."

I honestly didn't even want to put these two on the list, and going back I've said Glacius is better from time-to-time, and I've also said FoV is better. Truly, I'd just take them out of the list, but I was throwing them on there for completion's sake so someone wouldn't yell "you forgot these two weapons!"

I can certainly see Glacius being better, but Fang of Vog has its advantages.... sometimes.

A lot of people that complain about Combuster don't seem to realize the true purpose of the charge attack's insane damage, even in Fire stratums.

Just saying.

Glacius may not have as much brute force in its charge as combuster, no. But on the other hand, it's great for divide and conquer. Use a charge attack to freeze one group of enemies, then while they're counting down, attack a different group. Strong Freeze is basically equivalent to Hexing Haze, with two caveats:

1. Attacking the enemies cancels the status
2. The enemies CANNOT MOVE while statused.

I'm not saying Glacius is BETTER than every other brandish, I'm just saying people aren't giving its playstyle due credit. Strong Freeze does massive damage, if you let it. It's great for places where you have lots of mobs following you and you need some breathing room to pick off one enemy at a time. It's actually more like Shivermist except you're trading AoE and re-freeze for raw damage.

Glacius is pretty damn powerful indeed, but it's just not as good as the other ones. One might argue it's underpowered but it really is overpowered, just not as overpowered as the other Brandishes.

I would argue that Combuster is better than them all when the enemies aren't in tight clusters.

I don't loathe Glacius. I just say that the Combuster is just plain better in sheer terms of damage. This does, however, make it boring, and Freeze is an interesting playstyle, so Glacius has its advantage there. But in terms of damage, Combuster is plainly better.

Brandish is definitely better.

I've solo'd FSC with and Acheron but not a Gran Faust because if you miss the second hit on a heavy sword, you're screwed. Anyway, Electron+Voltedge is the best way for FSC.

@qwez I 'll have to check, but I'm pretty sure FOV's charge has more range than lev too...

@weliux
" because of shock spasms keeping groups clumped nicely after a Vortex"

Uhhh the only elemental Vortex does shock anyway (why would you use shadow followed by elemental? No enemy is neutral to both)

And I find glacius works better SOLO where you don't have to worry about teammates negating the freeze damage (which is, again, the whole point of getting glacius to begin with)

But yeah for the sake of FSC, I'd say combuster and voltedge are fairly even; I would expect the shock ticks to make up for the small chance of charge "wave" blocking. Glacius has the benefit of putting out oilers too, but I guess people don't like the freeze status unless it's shivermist.

If you want crowd controlling freeze, use shivermist.

And yeah I don't usually like shiv because it's crutchy and I can do better when I can properly kite and group my enemies.