Swordsman Archive

Here are a few principles I go by when selecting powerups:

Speed is more important than damage until you reach the cap. If you put a speed powerup on your weapon, you do not change the average damage of the weapon, but you will be hitting for the average damage more often; thus, from a DPS (damage per second) perspective, putting a 33% speed powerup gives you the same change in DPS a 33% damage slice would. Since you cannot boost both max and min damage by the same amount with powerups, even a 16% minimum damage/33% maximum damage powerup will not increase the DPS as much as a 33% speed powerup will.

On a side note here: If you are not at the speed cap, do not worry if you get a speed slice. Unless the speed slice causes you to exceed the speed cap (1 hit per second), the increase in your DPS for a speed slice will be exactly the same as your increase in DPS for a damage slice of the same percentage. Once you pass the speed cap, any increase in speed will be lost, so damage becomes more important. The same will be true here of PUs. Once your speed PU pushes you over the cap, you will want to swtich to a damage powerup.

Next, HAM costs are critical. Thus, you should get a HAM cost reduction/Speed or HAM cost reduction/Damage powerup based on the weapon's HAM costs. The Powerhammer has high health costs. All of our other weapons have high action costs. Therefore, get health cost PUs for the Powerhammer and Action cost PUs for the other weapons.

I usually like to get 33% Speed/16% Health cost Powerups for my Powerhammers and 33% Speed/16% Action cost PUs for my other weapons. If my 2H Curved or my Scythe is near cap, then I will get 33% max damage/16% Action cost powerups instead. If I cannot find these, I will reverse those numbers (i.e., 33% Health cost/16% Speed, etc.), or I will substitute damage instead of speed.