Dual Blades / Fiery brute on SO's - should I bother doing the DB combos or just use the highest-DPA attacks?

[Icono04]

I am a pretty experienced CoX veteran, but Brute is one of those AT's which for some reason have never clicked with me. And combo-builder powersets in general are outside my comfort zone, too. But I signed up to play a DB/fire brute on a themed team where set-IO's are not allowed unless the pieces happen to drop from killed arrested mobs, which means I have to "build" with no set bonuses in mind. So in order to suck a little less than I already do, the question to this forum is whether I should chase DB's various combos (Empower, Weaken etc.) or just string together my highest-DPA attacks and not worry about combos?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

 

PS: I have tried to search this forum to see if this has been answered before, but did not find anything. If I missed a post about DB combos, perhaps someone can just point me to it - thanks.

[Without_Pause]

Combos will be your wheelhouse using SOs. You have to get rather high in recharge in order to validate skipping them. Attack Vitals I believe the the main one to use and sub in others as needed. 

[Icono04]

On 8/20/2024 at 5:52 PM, Without_Pause said:

Attack Vitals I believe the the main one to use and sub in others as needed. 

Is that the general consensus - that Attack Vitals is the best combo in most situations? Good thing you said that, I had in my head that Sweep was more useful; maybe because I am just stuck in the old "Must Have Moar AoE!" mindset. 

 

I am trying not to have too many different attack powers, since each one takes up enhancement slots. So need to focus on only 2-3 different combos. If Attack Vitals is one of them, I expect that either Empower or Weaken will be the other, since they both use Nimble Slash and I am forced to take a t1/t2 whether I like it or not.

[Icono04]

Looking in Mids I see that Ablating Strike and Sweeping Slice have a higher DPA than the rest of DB's attacks. So getting to use those two as two of the three attacks in Attack Vitals makes that combo good because one does not sacrifice DPA to get the combo benefits - right?

[UltraAlt]

On 8/20/2024 at 11:28 AM, Icono04 said:

the question to this forum is whether I should chase DB's various combos (Empower, Weaken etc.) or just string together my highest-DPA attacks and not worry about combos?

 

The first question - that it seem I always have to ask - is are you only playing at level 50 and end-gaming or are you playing the actual game and leveling up the character?

 

And, yes, this makes a huge difference in people's responsible.

And , no, not everyone only plays level 50's. I avoid playing level 50s, and I'm not going level up any more characters to level 50 (well, maybe one more to so I can slot a contagious confusion - so that will make 4 total)

[Icono04]

45 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

The first question - that it seem I always have to ask - is are you only playing at level 50 and end-gaming or are you playing the actual game and leveling up the character?

 

Playing the actual game, and pretty slowly at that. The char is lvl 20 and is part of a fixed RP-light team where we don't allow ourselves to buy IO's from the AH, hence my expectation of building with only SO's and generic IO's. If a good set-IO drop, I will slot it, but can't realistically expect that to happen. 

[Without_Pause]

On 8/24/2024 at 3:40 AM, Icono04 said:

Looking in Mids I see that Ablating Strike and Sweeping Slice have a higher DPA than the rest of DB's attacks. So getting to use those two as two of the three attacks in Attack Vitals makes that combo good because one does not sacrifice DPA to get the combo benefits - right?

 

I haven't played DB to high end, and less so without IO sets. I feel like the answer to your question is correct* with me not being 100% certain what the * entails. 

 

Not knowing the full rules, I would at least look into seeing what uncommon sets are available. I know one SG has various restrictions, but converters are available, so you can play around converting things to fill out as needed. Still not easy, but it can help. 

Edited September 3 by Without_Pause

[UltraAlt]

20 hours ago, Icono04 said:

Playing the actual game, and pretty slowly at that. The char is lvl 20 and is part of a fixed RP-light team where we don't allow ourselves to buy IO's from the AH, hence my expectation of building with only SO's and generic IO's. If a good set-IO drop, I will slot it, but can't realistically expect that to happen. 

 

Then I would definitely use combos.

 

I think the gain you get from using the combos makes it well worth using them.

I generally have very little down time as I run through the different combos. If a power slows down a combo, I throw in a recharge reducer.

[twozerofoxtrot]

On 8/24/2024 at 4:31 PM, Icono04 said:

Is that the general consensus - that Attack Vitals is the best combo in most situations? Good thing you said that, I had in my head that Sweep was more useful; maybe because I am just stuck in the old "Must Have Moar AoE!" mindset. 

 

Attack Vitals should be the highest single target DPS combo, and to address your point about more AoE, it uses Sweeping Strike as the final piece of the combo, incorporating a reasonably generous cone into the mix.

 

But of you're play with Fire (Aura), then more AoE shouldn't be a concern. Burn into Typhoon's Edge in a big mob, plus your damage aura running, should blend away the weaker enemies nicely. Then you can focus the big targets with your Attack Vitals chain.

 

The only issue I can see is finding ways to keep Blinding Feint stacked up. I would probably go Blinding Feint into Attack Vitals for most big targets (bosses and up) and ignore the optimal attack chain for more consistent damage performance. 

 

If you're looking for skips, One Thousand Cuts can be safely dropped.

[Icono04]

Great info, thanks for all those details, guys 🙂