I say it's better than combuster. The self-fire isn't really a big issue because, like GF, it can still cause the status without charge, and if you have good fire resistance it only does a pip or 2 of burn damage regardless.

So does Combuster. It's about as slow as DA and does ~60 less than DA's first swing on the first 2 hits and its last hit does 100 damage less than DA's 2nd hit, without knockback. Combuster, also inflicts fire, is faster, does 30+ more damage with every respective hit, and has a generally more useful and less suicidal charge attack.
http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Divine_Avenger#Damage
http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Fang_of_vog#Damage
http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Combuster#Damage
Literally, the only reason to use it over Combuster, or any other elemental sword, outside of aesthetics is the charge attack (and it has a damn good charge attack).

It's a crying shame that the 360-degree slash charge isn't on higher-utility weapons because (imho) it's just about the best attack pattern in SK.

Whoops, my bad. My lack of swordy-ness is showing. Still, if we're talking FSC, which we are, that fire is irrelevant and combuster out damages it every time.
For the record, my current FSC loadout goes something along the lines of Polaris, AP, Blitz, and the hammer. AP is pretty much interchangeable with shiver/a driver/a hipster gun/whatever I'm heating, it depends on the circumstances. I like to bring the hammer because I *really* like the playstyle and I've gotten quite good with it. The hammer is also my only sword above 2*, so there's that.

Dukeplatypus: "Whoops, my bad. My lack of swordy-ness is showing. Still, if we're talking FSC, which we are, that fire is irrelevant and combuster out damages it every time."

Batabii: "Every time? I doubt it. Try using the charge attack against slags, trojans, or even vana himself when you can."

Batabii, that's exactly our point. The charge attack on FoV is awesome. The regular attacks are mediocre. Apparently you agree?

fov is a nuke, and that's its main use, to realize its full potential you need something that nullifies knockback on the enemies. I pair it with Shivermist for that. But you can synergize with other weapons or your teammates too.

Being a nuke its main use is to remove danger quickly. As such its great for big guys and masses of enemies. Again it synergizes with Shivermist which primary target is the same type of enemies although more defensively oriented. You don't care about losing hp because you are saving hp for the team by removing these threats as soon as possible. But you still look for fire protection on tier 3 because the fire hurts badly otherwise.

fov is less appealing when you aren't facing these type of situations (eg fighting weak monsters, one at a time, fov will not be as good as other swords).

vs slag guards if your team doesnt need you back soon then blitz should be enough, but if you are in a team where you must defeat the guard and also help your teammates on whatever else then you'll enjoy having fov so you can do that earlier. Also the deed feels extremely natural with fov, you can't possibly screw it up, and need very little room (you only need the water corner). Blitz is easy but still has bigger chance for error.

Sure, if by "mediocre" you mean "average". Its combo is only marginally weaker than combuster on enemies you can't ignite.

Fehzor what do you mean 40k crowns? Why would you pay crowns for it when you can just just beat vanaduke a dozen times and reap the rewards of the FSC?

And yes, I own FoV. It's my favorite Elemental sword.

Clearly you are unable to accept that FoV's normal attack is almost as good as combuster's, even without the Strong Fire.

Bopp is right with the regular attacks and Batabii is wrong. I always carry FoV in FSC and from experience I know that the regular attack is so slow it is painful. If it was the same speed as a brandish I'd actually use the regular attacks for more than finishing off a trojan/slag guard. It isn't even the DPS that Bopp points out that is the real problem. It is that monsters can hit you before you finish your combo. With a brandish I can finish my 3-swing combo and push the monster away or interrupt him so I don't get hit. So I can land 6 consecutive hits on a zombie and finish him off no problem with a brandish, but I can't do that with a FoV. Also, the fire doesn't make up for the lack of DPS because fire doesn't do 140 DPS. (note, I use ASI Med, DMG Max most of the time) So, if you have a FoV it must be a 2nd weapon, not a primary weapon because it poor for regular attacks.

With that said, I LOVE it for the charge attack. People are amazed at how fast I can clear a room with FoV. Group a bunch of zombies together, then watch them explode while you run around on fire!! In the room with the wolvers I can clear the entire first wave with a single FoV charge in a party of 4. I drop a VT, a teammate drops a electron vortex, and then I unleash 1 FoV charge. As noted earlier, the charge works best with something to hold the monsters in place or group them together. VT, Shiv, and vortexes work well (in order from worst to best).

batabii also doesn't know what he is talking about with FoV and self damage. You do much more than 1-2 pips of damage with 2x max fire protection in T3 (maybe only 1-2 pips of damage at D19). But considering you'll have a 12 vita, you'll have plenty of health to use FoV multiple times without having to worry. To further counter all of batabii's posts, I commonly FoV vana to death while other teamates blitz. Not hard to pull off if you know what you are doing. You only need 2 inside fire orbs removed and just rotate with the other 2 on the opposite side of vana. I've done other sword runs with people using Dread Venom Striker on vana for every phase and using no shiv at all. Swords are extremely effective against vana, but not for people in-experienced with vana.

For your original 2 questions... 1) with max damage you should be able to charge + combo them and then they will be dead. With max damage, you can 1-shot trojans up to D25 in a 3-man party but you have to let the fire finish off the trojan. However, that doesn't stop you from killing trojans before they do anything at all. It is fairly easy to unleash a charge then one 3-swing combo and finish them off before they can move.

2) absolutely. I use Vog cap + snarbolax coat UV Fire High and that is more than enough fire protection all the way to the core.

Resistances aren't like weapon bonuses. A max UV just fills the bar as far as Vog's innate fire resist. AFAIK, useful status resistance caps at Max + Max + High.

"Are you joking? Have you EVER used faust, divine avenger, or troika? FoV is nowhere near the slowest sword in the game."

Quite true. But let's just clarify that a bit. DA/GF combos faster than FoV (32 combos per minute vs. 28, at ASI Medium). Of course, those combos have only two swings, so the individual swings are slower, as you say. And DA's single-enemy DPS is not any higher than FoV's (412 vs. 409).

However, DA's swings are wide and long, so that they can achieve big multi-enemy DPS. And the swings knock back enough to make fighting multiple enemies safe. The same goes for GF and WRH, and Sudaruska and Triglav, and maybe even the first swing of a piercing sword. These wide and long swords simply have a different tactical niche, than do the narrow swords (Brandishes, Cutters, Caliburs, FoV).

Sadly, FoV's regular attacks have the low damage of a wide sword, without the width and knockback. They make up for this somewhat with fire, but fire kills slowly, so it works in some situations (e.g., kiting a crowd of constructs) better than in others (e.g., kats that must be killed as fast as possible).

I don't know that any of us is learning anything or convincing anyone, so maybe this thread has run its course? Cheers.

"I've explained why FoV is a great sword. However, I won't explain silly things like "DPS comparisons" because I'm not a raging elitist. Have a nice day, and enjoy the knowledge."

I understand. You value your opinion highly, so you expect others to adopt your opinion, even without supporting evidence.

So, is FoV a "great and powerful" sword (post #26), or is it more of a "viable sword" that "could use a slight buff" because it's "outclassed" (post #28)?

This is exactly why we keep having these threads about FoV. On first glance, many people assume that FoV is unequivocally awesome. But then, when they think more about how it actually works, they realize that it has advantages (charge, fire) and disadvantages (low raw DPS, narrow swing) relative to other swords. As far as I can tell, you and I totally agree on FoV's merits.

No, your post #26 contains no lies. It contains some facts ("slowest light sword", "inflict fire on all three swings", "fire damage utility is [almost] void there", "dish out multiple swings in quick succession") but these had already been thoroughly discussed in this thread. It also contains some semi-facts ("charge attack which happens to deal a lot of damage", "the fire damage is decent damage compensation"), which could be turned into facts with supporting damage data. That's why I was taken aback by your apparent contempt for DPS data. They are simply an imperfect, incomplete attempt to quantify damage. I don't see why anyone would want to NOT know them.