I want to upgrade my brandish to an elemental, I am confused on what to upgrade to, Can anyone give me the differences of the iceburst shockburst and fireburst upgrade lines?
3-star brandish confusion
they only differ in status inflicted by charge attack. the regular attacks are equally powerful. iceburst will freeze things in place. useful to slow the pace down but note that once frozen the monster will not 'ride the charge' and hence your dps will be lower. freeze only inflicts damage on thaw, so if your teammates break the ice before that (which they often will) then your doing even less damage. freeze is handy if your still adjusting to the pace of the game and want to slow things down a bit, especially when solo, but if thats why you would want to get this sword you may as well get a shivermist buster instead which does the same job but much better. once your more experienced though, you'll find freeze to be more of a hindrance than a help, with the possible exception of the vanaduke fight.
shockburst deals shock obviously. like freeze, if a monster gets shocked it wont 'ride the charge'. furthermore, shock only really shines in large tightly packed crowds where the shock ticks sync and deal massive damage, single target damage is kinda meh. shock will interrupt enemy attacks but monsters dont spasm often enough for it to be reliable. its also worth noting that the recipes for shockburst are only obtainable with krogmo coins, so expect to be playing lots and lots of pvp if you want this sword.
fireburst inflicts fire. unlike freeze or shock, fire doesn't interrupt enemies or lock them in place, so they will 'ride the charge' and take massive upfront damage plus the reliable damage that fire deals over time which can be quite substantial depending on monster type and the depth your on. don't let the fact that its fire put you off using it in fsc if you intend on running there eventually. as i said before the regular attacks are equal in damage. and its charge will still outdamage the other 2, it just wont inflict status. voltedge might outdamage it in large tightly packed crowds though.
personally i would choose combuster just because its raw damage will be higher if you like to spam charges. if you want them just for their status your better off getting bombs, they inflict it more reliably over a larger area.
Regular Combos: all three are identical.
Charge Attacks: Fireburst has the most damage. Iceburst has the best crowd control. Voltedge is a creative compromise of the other two, but you'll have to grind PVP for hours on end or buy the Battle Pack if you want it.
This question is asked really frequently --- at least every week. Search the forums, for immediate answers to such questions. My own answer is here.
glacius good for fsc cause of frozen enemies, freeze ruins knockback
combuster good for quite everything except for fsc cause of oilers, fire deals dmg
voltedge shock. good for crowd control, shock deals dmg on mobs
i personally own a voltedge and you can clear quite everything with that sword. i´d recommend that one. but i´m going to craft a combuster, too cause of icequeen and quicksilver stratas
hope that helped
@trapzter oilers in fsc are irrelevant. there's only a handful of them, not enough to worry about at least. and the sword only deals status on charge, so if you're setting them on fire with your combuster then quite simply you're an idiot and deserve what you get. they're gonna get set on fire anyway, either by the fire on the floor or the red rovers so it doesn't really matter.
In FSC I charge Combuster at oilers all the time. Yes, they ignite, and while ignited they apparently resist the elemental damage a little bit. But I'm doing huge damage to them, and they die.
Funny, a lot of people tend to underestimate this sword just because its fire can't be used in FSC. However it can actually outdamage Voltedge and Glacius if used right--Combuster is the only elemental Brandish that can consistently force enemies to ride the full blast of the charge attack.
Oilers get set on fire anyway, it's not like Combuster is the only thing that can ignite them.
Use Iceburst, because u can freeze the opponent and kept on attacking it.
Any attack breaks the ice. You *can* just spam charges repeatedly, but that's not really what you said.
i prefer the shockburst brandish because it more useful than the fireburst in FSC and shock can interrupt attacks. also it is good in LD.
Combuster is amazing even in fsc. Monsters ride all the waves, takes damage from each explosion. Voltedge and glacius on the other hand forces monsters to stop riding the waves. Either clarify "usefulness" or read the previous posts.
But if you want the utility of shock, then that's a different story.
I prefer iceburst brandish, it looks cool. However, If you intend to farm a lot in JK Palace, you should craft nightblade or fireburst instead as shadow gives more damage to slime and put JK on fire would stop it from healing itself.
For the shockburst, as long as you are willing to play the blast network to get the recipe, it is also a good choice.