Added alliteration aside, how do the different Flourish lines perform against our tubby little friends in the furthest depths of the clockworks? I know the procs are worthless, I'm just asking because I'd rather prefer to pick my blades based on vanity if I can get away with it. Alas, two hits versus three makes a world of difference.
Is the charge attack on those things worth anything? If not, I guess I'll go with ASI. Medium shouldn't be too hard to find, right?
It is not the same topic but discusses enough info imho.
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/35376
Yes, there have been gobs of threads on the question of "which piercing sword?" So use Google to search the Spiral Knights forums, if you want to read some of them.
Fehzor tested the status flourishes at GTH on a training bag. Every other charge attack set stuff on fire with Flamberge, which means each hit in the charge has about a 20% chance of infliction.
It'd mostly see use in the prestige missions. Could some Vanguard try it out whether it matters? Maxed out damage bonuses in the second part of Heart of Ice or whatever it's called.
Mmm, basically, wear kit that maxes out your damage and whack a couple of Devilites with fully heated 5 star Flourish variants in the second level of Heart of Ice danger mission to see if Final Flourish takes less hits to kill one. With one player. Bonus points if you could be bothered to test it out with both Overtimers and regular ones. Vanguards should have the lowest depth variant of the mission.
A tall order I suppose but it'd be practical to know if the Flamberge or the other one is outright inferior in practical terms for high-end solo play.
This happens to mesh well with another project I'm working on. I don't have data for Heart of Ice in particular, but here's some data from depth 24, with damage+6.
* Blarful (poison devilite): FF takes two strokes, FR takes two strokes.
* Silkwing: FF takes three, FR takes three.
* Shankle (drone): FF takes three, FR takes three.
I discuss the four piercing swords in my detailed sword guide, here. I have all of them, and I agree with the conventional wisdom that the statuses aren't worth the lower damage.
You are right that 2 vs. 3 strokes is a big difference. But the number of hits required to bring a monster down depends on the depth, your damage bonus, the size of the party, whether the monsters are hurt yet, etc. So it's hard to optimize the strokes-per-kill.
Against devilites and greavers, I use the first swing, then shield, and repeat. This is highly effective. It was even better before the length of the piercing swords was stealth-nerfed sometime last year. :(
Against trojans, silkwings, and all beasts, I frequently use the charge attack. The BTB charge is safer against a crowd, but the FF charge can do massive damage to multiple monsters, if they're closely grouped. On one occasion, I took out three wolvers and two gremlin menders with a single charge. So, no, the charge attack is not worthless, but focusing on ASI is not a bad idea.