1. Does MSI make a striker dash have a faster speed? (or more distance)
2. Does MSI make a hammer dash go a further distance?
3. Does dmg boost matter much in lockdown? eg. ASI max w/ no dmg boost vs no asi w/ max dmg (or something more in between)
4. Is it better to have lower dmg and higher asi than lower asi and higher dmg? Because I'd like to know if it's worth sacrificing dmg for other resistances/hp/utility.
1. -
2. No. The dash is an attack animation, so it's affected by ASI.
3. A little? I forgot the thread now, but someone counted how many hits it would take for certain weapons to kill a geared striker with different damage boosts. It basically went down to every 2 levels of damage boost requiring one less sword hit (ex: 4 hits for ultra/max, 5 hits for high/vh, 6 hits for low/med)
4. ASI means you can attack AND shield earlier (cloak, boost, shield, depending on class), which means more mobility and survivability.
If you're trying to get 'skilled up', then go for ASI - it opens up your attack options a little bit more.
Personally, I put survivability above taking less hits to kill someone: If you have less damage boost, you might need an extra hit to kill, but if you have consistent moves, then getting that extra hit won't be too hard. You sometimes see people equip dusker or wolver/proto but keep their 5* weapons and still get 15k+ damage. Essentially, they keep the ASI from their weapons (so they don't lose any of their existing movement 'abilities') and only lose the damage bonus from Skolver set and play consistently enough with it to do well.
But on the other side, if you don't think you'll live long but just want to deal as much as you can before you die, then damage is better for you (ex: max damage sword recon double-swinging GF or DA on a group and dying, while a teammate finishes them off). Damage can change how long a fight lasts, but doesn't really affect your gameplay as much as ASI can.
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Kind of a TL;DR and also a response to bluencool:
- ASI affects your gameplay options, but damage/hp trinkets only affects how long fights last.
If MSI doesn't affect hammer dash, why can I keep up with someone walking while I dual hammer switch with ASI max MSI low, but not with no MSI?
1- MSI makes striker boost faster yet doesn't use more fuel, thus letting you travel faster and further. It makes a difference at dodging and catching others, but it is not much of a gamebreaker.
2- As far as I know, MSI doesn't affect the hammer dash, and if it does, it would have the exact same function as ASI, letting you finalize the dash faster.
3- Maximum damage will reduce the required number of hits to kill by at least one, while higher ASI will give you an upper hand in 1v1 duels. ASI is also better at making slow swords and brandishes more viable. Rich people get maximum ASI Acherons and make poor people cry. On the other hand, most of the LD community use double penta heart pendants, which makes damage bonus necessary for survival.
Since striker boost already has enough ASI and you need more than 14% damage bonus, I would prioritize damage over ASI.
4- That's the same question as the third. Although status resistances are nice to have, mist bombers and alchemer switchers are not the worst of your problems, instead of being strong against a specific class, you should go for other bonuses which help you against everything- higher damage bonus means that if that mist bomber is going down, it is going to go down faster. Higher ASI means you can dive in and land a hit or two on that gunner who flies like a butterfly and shoots bees.
HP is a little more tricky... Having HP trinkets means you can eliminate the one casualty for strikers which is having significantly less health. Save your trinkets for HP and get damage bonus from your armor.