Making a compromise - Weapon Advice
Di, 06/14/2011 - 18:51
'Ello there Knights!
After trying out a bunch of different weapons, I've decided that I like the heavier swords and plan on crafting a Troika along it's upgrade path. I love the feel of the sword - slow, powerful, with a nice & wide swing, but it's a little *too* slow. I'd really like something just a tad faster, but after perusing the wiki it doesn't look like such a sword exists. However, I do have options - attack speed can be boosted in a bunch of ways.
I was thinking about some combination of:
a) Vog Cub armor - I was originally planning on taking the Skolver armor for various* reasons, but it's not too annoying to swap to Vog for the attack speed increase.
b) Swiftstrike Shield - Again, I've currently got a Dark Thorn Shield for the +damage on it, but I could swap to this shield for the large speed bonus.
c) Attack Speed UV - I could just mass craft Troika until I get a decent Attack Speed UV.
My question is, which one (or combination) of these would work out best? I'm not really sure how much attack speed I think I'll need for it to feel right, but I'm sure someone here has some experience, or at least knows how much would be overkill. I'm a little worried about swapping for Vog Cub, as it'll leave me fairly vulnerable to Piercing damage (I'll only have some from a Med Piercing UV on my helm) and I hate getting frozen in place. Likewise, the Swiftstrike doesn't upgrade, I'm not sure how well it'd hold up in late T3 (not to mention I'd need to craft a 4* just to get into T3 in the first place). Mass Crafting is a fairly sure-fire way to get what I need, but it's also the more expensive route of the 3.
Secondly, I was planning on pairing the sword with a Storm Driver. I've read that the Alchemer's work well for the slow swords, but I'm a little worried about their performance, particularily before being upgraded to the 5* versions. Are the 3* Alchemer's worthwhile? Is there a better complement to a slow sword?
Thanks for reading, doubly so for responding with advice.
* I liked the Skolver better due to the Normal/Pierce defense, as well as the Freeze resist. I hate being stuck in place. Plus I like the look a little better.
Di, 06/14/2011 - 21:02
#2
Vog cub is great for
Vog cub is great for Firestrom Citadel, currently the only Tier 3 dungeon. Skolver will get you killed much faster there unless the only thing you get hit by is spikes and non-flaming Oilers. :P
Swiftstrike is great for Tier 1 and 2. In Tier 3, using it is basically trying to defend yourself with a piece of glass, but it's still usable if you're good enough.
IIRC, the Sealed Sword lines (another 2-hit heavy sword) is faster than the Troika line. I've never actually used a Troika line, so I'm not sure about this.
Attack speed UV grinding can be a huge loss of crowns and CE, especially if you can't sell the failed crafts for a decent amount. I'd actually rather try to buy one off someone than make one myself, but that's just me :P
Troika doesn't upgrade to 5* (right now anyway) so keep that in mind too...
As for the Alchemer question, I find that the (elemental) Alchemers are generally useful as a compliment to pretty much every sword. You'll probably be shooting constructs the most (gun puppies and such) and the things that resist it (gremlins, beasts) will dodge your bullets anyway. :P
Di, 06/14/2011 - 21:02
#3
Grabbing a Swiftstrike and
Grabbing a Swiftstrike and checking how that works isn't a bad idea. I just picked up the pattern from Basil earlier, so I'll see how much it'll cost me to make one.
Di, 06/14/2011 - 22:19
#4
As someone who uses solely
As someone who uses solely heavy swords (Troika, Avenger, and Faust lines), when you get a faust/avenger and discover type weaknesses, they'll tend to overshadow your Troika/Khorovod in terms of usefulness, safety, and/or damage.
I actually made a Khorovod with a +gremlin boost - it was about as powerful as my elemental swords' bonus on whatever they were good against.
Not too long ago, I made a thread asking about what the best UV for a Khorovod would be, and most people went for attack speed, and then things like bonus damage. Since I already crafted a gremlin bonus one, I decided to try it out, and with very high/max, it did about/a little more than the kind of damage a type bonus would, except it was still slower.
After testing things out with both swiftstrike and things that focus on bonus damage, I'm feeling like the charge-time reduction stat would have been more beneficial for the Khorovod lol. If you pair it up with something that can buy you time to charge (like hail driver), it might be worth a shot?
Mi, 06/15/2011 - 00:08
#5
That's not a bad idea either.
That's not a bad idea either. I'm not really interested in the Sealed Sword series because I'm not sure how accessible the JK is going to be for me - I primarily play solo. Thus, I don't know how easily I'll be able to get the tokens needed for that sword series.
I've heard Shivermist is a good choice for mass-freezing, but I've also heard the previous versions are kinda lackluster. Does the same hold true for Hail Driver/etc?
Mi, 06/15/2011 - 04:24
#6
Ok, well I've tried the
Ok, well I've tried the Troika/Swiftstrike combo and I'm liking the speed. I may want a tad more, but I'm not sure. Anyone have any other suggestions on where to go from here? Is the Charge attack on Khorovod really worth trying to pickup some CTR, and would a Hail Driver be right way to go for setting it up? Is there any particular UV that'd be useful on the Driver (I'm guessing CTR as well)? Thanks for the help thus far though, =D
GL & enjoy down in the clockworks.
Mi, 06/15/2011 - 04:55
#7
Well, in comparison to the
Well, in comparison to the other two, the charge attack is what makes Khorovod truly unique, with its insane lunging reach, chance to stun, and AOE. As I run around with my sealed sword series, I generally use them for their safer normal hits, and use Khorovod for those special cases when I need to knock things away/want a stun effect or the AOE.
I haven't gotten a CTR Troika yet so it's still mostly theorizing though :{
If you already have a swiftstrike buckler you could use that to figure out the difference in attack speed and maybe figure out if you need more than high, or less. I like the way skolver looks too.