Dual Blades on Tankers in Issue 28.

[SableShrike]

Was messing with my Will/DB as I’m on vacation for a bit and did a respec for the hell of it.

 

I love DB on Tankers, but the damage has always felt a bit anemic.  Mainly this is due to it having the slow Vengeful Slice as its “big hit” for singletarget.  (Stalkers get AS to get around this problem).

 

I know you can do crazy Pylon damage proc builds that avoid any combos, but I wanted a team Tanker who would actually use the set.  I went straight for maximum AoE to leverage the Tanker target bonuses (this is what sets Tanks apart from other melee boys and girls.)

 

I wound up with: Blinding Feint > Sweeping Strike  > Sweep Combo: (1k Cuts + Power Slice + Typhoon’s Edge) > repeat.  It is way more effective than I was expecting, even not fully built.  Sweep has proven to be the most-damaging combo against max targets.

 

Very easy to get the Recharge needed to make this seamless with even Uncommon IOs.  90% native on powers with about 50% Global is more than enough.  This lets you chase other set bonuses like MaxHP, +Defense, and +Resist.

 

Absolute blender on S/L farm maps; you’re pretty much constantly throwing out AoE.  It’s not as bursty as other attack sets, but the sustained AoE dps is hard to beat.  There is no DPS bell-curve, just sustained attacks.  The less-clicky armor sets are nice for this as they don’t get in the way.

Edited September 23 by SableShrike

[Warshades]

6 hours ago, SableShrike said:

I wound up with: Blinding Feint > Sweeping Strike  > Sweep Combo: (1k Cuts + Power Slice + Typhoon’s Edge) > repeat.  It is way more effective than I was expecting, even not fully built.  Sweep has proven to be the most-damaging combo against max targets.

 

Interesting, it's been a long time since I played DB so may have to give this rotation a try. My bigger complaint is less about Vengeful Slice and more that 1k Cuts takes 3.3 seconds to animate, really wish this would get reduced by a bit.

[ninja surprise]

On 9/23/2025 at 10:00 AM, Warshades said:

Interesting, it's been a long time since I played DB so may have to give this rotation a try. My bigger complaint is less about Vengeful Slice and more that 1k Cuts takes 3.3 seconds to animate, really wish this would get reduced by a bit.

 

But that gives you time to type witty banter into chat without breaking your attack chain.

[Curveball]

How long do combos last after you trigger them? This thread got me interested in the set again and I've been trying it out - the first combo you can get while leveling is weaken but there's no information on how long that debuff lasts once you apply it. I figure it can't be too long because Tankers aren't Defenders, but it has to last at least as long as one attack otherwise why would you debuff a target's to hit?

[BlackSpectre]

Good question. My guess is that each hit from a combo power afflicts a 5 second debuff for Weaken.  https://cod.cohcb.com/html/powerset.html?pset=tanker_melee.dual_blades

 

So to activate the Weaken combo... Nible Slash --> Ablating Strike--> Typhoon's Edge. So 5s+5s+5s=15secs. But factoring in activation and animation times, it's might be more like 10.6 seconds if the game considers the debuff from each attack to stack. 

 

Alternately, I suppose the combo debuff could last only 5 seconds once the last power in the combo hits. It's hard to tell using only City of Data. We'd have to actually time it to see which is the correct way to calculate it. 

 

[Curveball]

If I remember correctly there was a change in one of the last updates that allowed a combo to occur even if one of the chained attacks missed - that would imply that the combo triggers after all three attacks complete, rather than being partially applied by each.

[tidge]

Dual Blades is (now) one of those sets that I now only consider if there is a very specific costume/character concept I want to implement. The combo mechanic is fine, but I get bored always executing the same patterns of attacks. The all Lethal damage becomes a mood-killer for me after fighting large numbers of certain enemies.

[Psyonico]

7 hours ago, Curveball said:

weaken but there's no information on how long that debuff lasts once you apply it.

CoD says the debuffs from weaken last 20 seconds.  Check inside the Typhoon's Edge power to see that. 

[Curveball]

Geez, it's right there. I'd been looking at it the whole time and it just wasn't registering... 😄

[Psyonico]

Probably because it doesn't say anything about weaken, just 

 

"if Source.Mode?(kDD_DebuffMode_2)"