Two Swords as One: Pippy's Guide to DB and Combos

This guide is intended to be a repository of information for the Dual Blade sets and the Combo system for scrappers, brutes, and tanks. I won't provide advice as to which powers you should take. Instead, I hope that the information compiled here will enable you to make your own well-informed decisions about which powers are best for your playstyle. I provide as many numbers as possible. I've tried to format it as neatly as possible, so that if numbers aren't your thing, you can skip them easily.

There are 3 sections:

1.) Powers
2.) Combos
3.) Mechanics (of the combo system).

SECTION 1: THE POWERS

Dual Blades has 8 attack powers; all of them are used in at least one combo. Here is a table listing the damage, cast times, recharge times, and endurance costs for each power:

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>Nimble Strike: 0.84 dmg, 1.07 s cast, 3 s rech, 4.37 end
Power Slice: 1.15 dmg, 1.25 s cast, 5 s rech, 6.03 end
Ablating Strike: 1.32 dmg, 1.07 s cast, 6 s rech, 6.86 end, -7.5% def for 10 s
Typhoon's Edge: 1.14 dmg, 2.03 s cast, 12 s rech, 11.9 end, PBAoE
Blinding Feint: 0.80 dmg, 1.33 s cast, 12 s rech, 7.80 end, +10% ToHit, +37.5% dmg for 10 s
Vengeful Slice: 1.64 dmg, 2.50 s cast, 8 s rech, 8.52 end, Knockdown
Sweeping Strike: 1.70 dmg, 1.25 s cast, 11 s rech, 11.1 end, Cone
1000 Cuts: 2.36 dmg, 3.20 s cast, 16 s rech, 15.3 end, Cone, knockup </pre><hr />

The cones both have 90 degree arcs.

The damage numbers are in terms of the damage scaler: to get the actual (unenhanced) damage for each power, you'd multiply these numbers by the appropriate AT modifier, available from City of Data here. A level 50 scrapper, for example, has an AT modifier of 62.562, so his 1k Cuts would do 2.36*62.562 = 147.65 damage unenhanced.

SECTION 2: THE COMBOS

There are four combos: Weaken, Empower, Attack Vitals, and Sweep. The basic effects of each combos are listed in the table below.

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
Weaken: -10% tohit, -10% def for 20 s
Empower: +3.125% ToHit, +8% (all but scrapper) or +10% (scrapper) dmg for 10 s
Attack Vitals: 5x0.2 lethal DoT
Sweep: 0.57 lethal dmg, knockdown
</pre><hr />

Here is a more detailed list of what each combo does, including the power sequence, level of availability, damage output, cast time, and recharge time, as well as damage per activation second. Note that Sweep is the best combo for AoE damage, while Attack Vitals is the best single target damage.

Weaken: Nimble Strike+Ablating Strike+Typhoon's Edge, available at lvl 6

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
Effects: -10% ToHit, -10% Debuff to struck targets for 20 s (PBAoE)
Total Cast time: 4.17 s
Longest Recharge: 12 s (Typhoon's Edge)
Total Damage: 3.3 (1.14 PBAoE)
Total End Use: 23.13
DPA: 0.79 </pre><hr />

Empower: Nimble Strike+Ablating Strike+Blinding Feint, available at lvl 8
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>Effects: +3.125% ToHit, +8% dmg (brutes, tanks, stalkers), +10% dmg (scrappers) to self for 10 s
Total Cast time: 3.47 s
Longest Recharge: 12 s (Blinding Feint)
Total Damage: 2.96
Total End Use: 19.03
DPA: 0.85 (0.27 PBAoE) </pre><hr />

Attack Vitals Ablating Strike+Vengeful Slice+Sweeping Strike, available at lvl 26
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>Effects: 5x0.2 DS lethal DoT over ~5 sec to struck targets
Total Cast time: 4.82 s
Longest Recharge: 11 s (Sweeping Strike)
Total Damage: 5.66 (2.07 cone)
Total End Use: 26.48
DPA: 1.17 (0.43 cone)</pre><hr />

Sweep: 1000 Cuts+Power Slice+Typhoon's Edge, available at lvl 32
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>Effects: 0.57 DS lethal damage, knockdown to struck targets
Total Cast time: 6.48 s
Longest Recharge: 16 s (1000 Cuts)
Total Damage: 5.22 (4.07 cone/PBAoE)
Total End Use: 33.23
DPA: 0.81 (0.63 cone/PBAoE) </pre><hr />

For Stalkers, the combos are a bit different:
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
Weaken: Sweeping Strike -&gt; Power Slice -&gt; One Thousand Cuts
Empower: Build Up -&gt; Assassin's Blades -&gt; Placate
Sweep: Build Up -&gt; Assassin's Blades -&gt; Ablating Strike
Attack Vitals: Ablating Strike -&gt; Nimble Slash -&gt; Vengeful Slice

Stalker Empower is +20% damage, and +13.3% ToHit for 20s (as opposed to 10s).
</pre><hr />

(Thanks to Natsuki for providing the Stalker combo info!)

A quick word on the "mitigation" combos: Sweep and Weaken. Since both finish with Typhoon's Edge, it can be difficult to use both of them. Therefore, it might be useful to know which offers better damage mitigation. I won't go into the work behind this here, but the answer is a definite "It depends."

Weaken is affected by the purple patch. Therefore, it is comparatively more effective against lower levels than higher levels. It also stacks very nicely with defense.

Sweep doesn't suffer from the purple patch. Additionally, it tends to provide more mitigation the higher the chance your enemies have to hit you -- if everyone is missing you, knocking them over and causing them to lose an attack isn't preventing much damage from getting through, whereas if they all would be wailing on you if they weren't picking themselves back up, they do.

Therefore, Weaken offers more mitigation for defensive powersets (until you get to the magic 45% def, in which case it's sort of wasted), whereas Sweep tends to pull ahead for resist- or regen-based sets.

SECTION 3: THE MECHANICS

Here I discuss the mechanics behind the new combo system. These won't as a general rule have much, if any, affect on gameplay, but it might be interesting for those of you who are curious about the inner workings. Also, if you have any creative ideas for how to improve the combo system, it would be good to keep these mechanics in mind.

I've run this by Castle and he said that it was essentially correct. However, any errors or omissions are mine and mine alone.

1.) The combo system is implemented as conditional effects within the actual powers themselves. This is maybe sort of an obvious point, but it's important to realize that the combos are implemented as part of the powers in DB themselves: there doesn't seem to be a separate "combo system."

2.) A power which begins a combo or continues a combo in progress causes a buff to be cast on the player. This is the same mechanic as is used for other buffs that require a tohit check (Twilight Grasp, Kinetics, etc.) -- upon a successful ToHit check, it summons a pet which applies the buff to the caster.

3.) A power which does not begin a combo or continue a combo in progress causes all of these "combo buffs" to be terminated.

4.) If the first two buffs are present and the third power in a combo is activated, then the effects of that combo are added
to the finishing power. The effects are affected by the slotting in that power -- i.e. Sweep and Attack Vitals benefit from damage slotting, Empower benefits from ToHit slotting. Since Typhoon's Edge doesn't accept Def DeBuff or ToHit DeBuff enhancements, Weaken cannot be enhanced.

I hope that this guide is informative and sufficiently well-organized to be useful. If anyone has any corrections, comments, or suggestions, I would love to hear them.

It looks to me this is a guide to Dual Blades for everyone except Stalkers?

I noticed you didn't list the Stalker combos, nor did you list the new numbers for Stalker Empower. I can give you the values for the Stalker Empower as well as the current moves to complete the combos.

[ QUOTE ]
It looks to me this is a guide to Dual Blades for everyone except Stalkers?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep, that was my original intention. DB for stalkers I just felt was too different to make it into this draft. Also, I wouldn't be too surprised to see some changes to Stalker DB over the next couple patches.

With that said, if you have any of the numbers for Stalkers, and wouldn't mind doing the legwork as far as figuring out cast times and such, I'll update this with a Stalker section.

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>For Stalkers they are as follows:
Weaken: Sweeping Strike -&gt; Power Slice -&gt; One Thousand Cuts
Empower: Build Up -&gt; Assassin's Blades -&gt; Placate
Sweep: Build Up -&gt; Assassin's Blades -&gt; Ablating Strike
Attack Vitals: Ablating Strike -&gt; Nimble Slash -&gt; Vengeful Slice
</pre><hr />

Stalker Empower is +20% damage, and +13.3% ToHit for 20s (as opposed to 10s).

Placate has the same cast time across all of the power sets at 1.5s

Assassin's Blades, since it doesn't factor in draw time, should be 1s Anim and 2s Interrupt (Like all of the other A-Strikes. Only Katana's A-Strike is different due to the draw time, which is 1.33s and 2s)

Build Up, is either 0.73 or 1.17s.. not sure which. I honestly didn't test out Stalkers that much, but the combos above and the Empower stats I'm positive are spot on.

Thanks, I'll try to add that stuff in sometime tomorrow.

Also, as I think about it, my explanation of combo mechanics is off in a couple of the details, so I'll try to sort that out and pester Castle about it a little more.