Fencer Archive
Thread: Which vibroblade would you use?
I have a nice Vibroblade and a very nice curved sword. The cs hurts my ham pretty bad if i spam special moves but it does awesome dmg.
The Vibroblade I use if I want to do many special moves, wear armor, and not be slowed down too much by the penalties.
One on one fighting, I pull out my curved and dont even worry about to many special moves. Just experiment to see what works best for you and when.
Just looking at the stats in that format, and not knowing your style of play, or what opponents you fast makes it difficult to give correct advice. The best I can offer, is to pretend I had to make this choice based on my tactics, showing you what I consider and how I do it; then let you determine for yourself what will best suit your needs.
To reconfirm, the 3 options you listed were:
1. 29-122 2.8 16/28/16
2. 28-96 3.4 11/21/11
3. 19-86 3.8 8/18/9
Ok, to begin, let's assume I'm heading out with a group to take out a large single foe, and I'm intended to be the tank. I'm going to suit up in my best armor to take the punishment as long as I can beforedie. I want to at least be doing some damage, but with my armor I'll not be doing any specials to conserve my HAM and extend my survival. In this instance, the HAM costs of the weapon are irrelevant, since normal attacks do not cost HAM. So my only concern is DPS (damage per second). Let's look at each sword's DPS:
1. 26.9 DPS average
2. 18.2 DPS average
3. 13.8 DPS average
(Note: You do know that we have innate modifiers to the damage indicated on the weapon, right? Mynormal attacks with a 200 max damage sword can do upwards of 400 damage. So these numbers will be, in practice, much higher... but they will all be higher by the same percentage, so it doesn't matter for purposes of comparison.)
In this first scenario, sword number 1 would be the clear choice.
However, this is not how I spend most of my fighting time, as CH typically send their brutes in for purposes of being the primary tanks in these types of encounters. Much of the time I will be in a group tackling mob after mob. I need sustained performance to be able to continue. Yes, damage is still an issue to get decent xp, but if you are exhaused, and have to sit and recover, you are getting zero xp during that time. Alternatly the group's healer will be bitching at you that you're a Stim-hog. So your goal is efficiency, tempered with the damage you can do.
In this type of fight, I still do normal sword damage much of the time, but I will typically slap down a few specials depending on the target. Typically, since as a Fencer I will one fo the few group members that can Blind, I'll lead right off with that. Everyone and their pet gerbel can knockdown, so I'm not going to waste my effort with that in a group, esp if we are going against targets with more than 2 legs. After Blind1, I'll land a Health1 and Health2 to get sustained damage during the fight... but that depends on the size of the mob. If it's a big mob that will last over 30 seconds, I will. But if it falls any faster than that I'm wasting my time and HAM on bleeds, as I could have made a bigger impact that time with a couple ofBodyHit2's instead. I'll spit the difference and just say I'll only use Health2. I'll then add in as many BodyHit2's as practical. "As practical"... this is what we are determining with the sword.
In this type of fighting (mob after mob, little downtime as possible) I don't want to spend more than 1/10th of my HAM pool per minute, or I won't be able to keep up. YMMV. Since I have 1000 health (a bit more but I'm keeping it simple), 800 action, and 600 mind, I dont want to use more than 100 health, 80 action, and 60 mind per minute of fighting. Let's see how much HAM I will have already invested with just that Blind1 and Health2 lead-off with each sword:
1. 20/35/30 (For Blind effect, Bleed effect, and 301 average raw damage, and it has taken 9.8 seconds)
2. 13/25/19 (Same effects as above, except only 248 average raw damage, and it has taken 11.9 seconds)
3. 10/22/14 (Same effects as above, but only 209 average raw damage, and it has taken 13.3 seconds)
What am I left with out of my time and HAM allotments for the minute?
1. 80/45/30 and 50.2 seconds (Enought time to spam a max of 8 BodyHit2's with this weapon.)
2. 87/55/41 and 48.1 seconds (Enough time to spam a max of 7 BodyHit2's with this weapon.)
3. 90/58/46 and 46.7 seconds (Enough time to spam a max of 6 BodyHit2's with this weapon.)
Do I have enough HAM to perform my max number of BodyHit2's with each weapon? Let's see:
1. Each BodyHit2 will cost 12/21/20. This allows for only 1 of my 8 BodyHit2's before I reach my limit in the Mind pool, so I'll do 226 average damage with this phase of attacks, and take 5.6 seconds.
2. Each BodyHit2 will cost 8/15/13. This allows for only 3 of my 7 BodyHit2's before I reach my limit in the Mind pool, so I'll do 558 average damage with this phase of attacks, and take 20.4 seconds.
3. Each BodyHit2 will cost 6/13/11. This allows for only 4 of my 6 BodyHit2's before I reach my limit in the Mind pool, so I'll do 630 average damage with this phase of attacks, and take 30.4 seconds.
(Note: For these weapons I would consider upping my Mind pool. The weapons I use have less mind cost.)
Ok, for the rest of the minute, I am are limited to normal attacks. We already know the DPS of each weapon, so let's apply that to the remaining time:
1. 26.9 DPS x 44.6 seconds = 1199 average damage
2. 18.2 DPS x 27.7 seconds = 504 average damage
3. 13.8 DPS x 16.3 seconds = 224 average damage
Ok, now my minute is up, and I've used my allotted 1/10 max HAM consumption. What did I do outside of my Blind and Bleed effects:
1. 1726 average damage, with 68/24/10in HAM allotment left-overs (Enough Mind to get in one extra BodyHit2 every other minute)
2. 1310 average damage, with 63/10/2 in HAM allotment left-overs
3. 1063 average damage, with 66/6/2 in HAM allotment left-overs
Again, weapon 1 comes across as the clear choice for this scenario.
There is also the Me vs. Opponent, 1-on-1, all or nothing scenario. However, this depends on two many factors to list here. Can I dizzy-lunge it? Will I only do regular damage and hope my armor saves me? Am I going to spam specials until one of usdrops? It all depends on the situation. However, by looking at the previous results, I can get a pretty good idea of what I'd do in each situation.
All in all... I'd go with weapon 1. It seems to be the clear winner in most situations.
In conclusion, I know this seemed like a lot of math... but you really only have to do it once per weapon, and even then you get to the opint where you have a pretty good grasp of how the numbers will effect you. This was just a very detailed, in not **edit**, analysis of the weapons you posted. It's my hope that somehow this will help, and that the typos aren't too severe. =)
(Note: If you want to know the multipliers inherant to each of your specials, find a friend (that doesn't mind getting repeated beat on), go off somewhere quiet, turn on the time indicators for chat, initial a duel, and jot down the numbers as you discover them. You'll both want to have your stat boxes up, so you can accurately trackthe numbers. It is pretty revealing. This is where I get my numbers... YMMV. Most will never want that much detail... but I'm a details person, and when I am forced to wait for someone or soem event,it's a way to pass the time.)
~Lyahpar~
La Femme Fencer
"Thrust if you love Fencers!"
Wow Raphayl.
Nothing to add here... so I guess I'll just ...
/pharm.
- Washu
Wow Raph. you seriously busted the math out on that.
Your basic assumption (which weapon would *I* use for *my* style of play) were spot on. Course, you could have just said #1, all the extra calculus was just a bonus 
Raphayl wrote:
1. 29-122 2.8 16/28/16
2. 28-96 3.4 11/21/11
3. 19-86 3.8 8/18/9
Ok, for the rest of the minute, I am are limited to normal attacks. We already know the DPS of each weapon, so let's apply that to the remaining time:
1. 26.9 DPS x 44.6 seconds = 1199 average damage
2. 18.2 DPS x 27.7 seconds = 504 average damage
3. 13.8 DPS x 16.3 seconds = 224 average damage
Ok, now my minute is up, and I've used my allotted 1/10 max HAM consumption. What did I do outside of my Blind and Bleed effects:
1. 1726 average damage, with 68/24/10in HAM allotment left-overs (Enough Mind to get in one extra BodyHit2 every other minute)
2. 1310 average damage, with 63/10/2 in HAM allotment left-overs
3. 1063 average damage, with 66/6/2 in HAM allotment left-overs
Again, weapon 1 comes across as the clear choice for this scenario.
Greets ...
Question .... why would you not use the "low ham" on your specials (#3) then switch to your "hi dam" for your non-specials?
Hero out
That's a very logical question. The answer is even pretty simple... I would. I'dbe foolishnot to if that were an option.
But... the original poster of this thread asked which one of the weapons I wouldpick if I didn't have wads of cash to spend.At least that's how I interpreted it. So I replied based on that premise, assuming that I was in a financial position of having to select one and onlyone. I may have interpreted his question incorrectly though.
If I had the money available to spend on all three of those vibroblades, I would have just bought a single better one from a Master Weaponsmith that all the stats the way I wanted them. =)
~Lyahpar~
La Femme Fencer
"Thrust if you love Fencers!"
Sorry Raphayl, I meant to saythat you are allowed to own another (decent quality) weapon as well. So if you were looking for a vibroblade to use to complement a curved sword or stun baton or whatever, that would be fine.
However, you are NOT allowed to go buy a vibroblade from a Master WS.
In theory yeah this is the way to go but not necessary. I dont have any math equations to back it up but the difference in ham costs is not gonna be much.. In a group just knockdown every mob you see and use your regular attack on them.. or knockdown then bleed. If you are doin the tanking and want to stay alive get master brawler for 1hand lunge2.. if not that then use warcry2 oh wait thats master brawler too... just intimidate everything you see.