Fixing Vengeful Slice on dual blades

[WindDemon21]

This power has been absolutely terrible and really needs an update. It's literally the worst single target dpa in a melee set besides parry and DA, that is mainly damage only, no extra special effect besides knockdown which would just mean it's not top tier damage, but should still be good damage as it's really the "big" single target attack in the set and should reflect that, especially for how key it is in this set being part of a combo.

 

It's been well known that it actively decreases your dps by using it even in the combo which is just plain wrong.

 

For starters, it mainly needs the first two hits to be removed since they're basically exactly the same as the tier 1 and adds no special flare, taking it's activation time from 2.43 (sheesh) to about 1.5s (first two hits are very sightly faster than the tier 1's). The power would be much cooler and faster if it was only the last two hits.

 

Then, bring it's damage/recharge up to 10 seconds to give it a little boost in damage but still have it's recharge short enough to flow in the combos, taking it's dpa up to 85.5 on scrapper value, which is still the 3rd largest single target attack in the set so it's not a crazy boost. Ablating strike for what it is also is way over dpa'd, so if needed to compensate the single target dpa that could be lowered to transfer some dpa to this power if needed.

 

This is two fold, in order to make the power actually worth using, but also very largely to give the set some single target mitigation that doesn't absolutely destroy your damage. In its current form, to even equal the same dpa as the tier 1, it would have to be 179.77 damage at 50 with its current animation. Even frozen fists is better dpa than it is and we all know how absolutely terrible that is!

 

The only ST melees that are actually worse than it on a melee AT are divine avalanche and parry but at least those also have the defense bonus added on them as well (those powers also should be sped up some as well, for example make divine avalanche the .83s quick bop on the head like when brawl is used)

 

While at it, shaving some time off 1k cuts would also be greatly appreciated.

[Shin Magmus]

     Vengeful Slice being this terrible is the single defining reason why intentionally avoiding the entire central mechanic of the set and not doing any Combos yields higher DPS than repeating the Attack Vitals Combo.  An attack chain of Blinding Feint -> Ablating Strike -> Sweeping Strike -> Ablating Strike is the most DPS you can do within the set.  This attack chain is simply spamming all of the "good" Dual Blades attacks, at like 210% global Recharge bonus with Hecatomb slotted in AS, while ignoring all of the "bad" Dual Blades attacks.  Every Combo requires you to use a "bad" attack, for no reason other than the purely arbitrary requirement to be used in the combo.

 

     Vengeful Slice is a "bad" attack, and the attack chain of Blinding Feint -> Ablating Strike -> Vengeful Slice -> Sweeping Strike loses entirely because Vengeful Slice is hot garbage.  I agree that this is the sort of thing that should be adjusted if only because it's common sense from a good game design perspective: when players are actively avoiding a set's mechanics in terms of optimization: you fucked up.