i wanted to ask for what sa should i go crit. damage or focus?
and sword (1 handed) or dagger with either of the 2 mentioned sa?
i read also in another threat here, sa haste is not bad... what about that?
Crit. Damage is a bad SA, it doesn't stack with SS or other damage increasing buffs. DLEs suck for dps and they feel slow compared to a dagger.
An IM/focus actually gives very slightly better DPS then a BO/focus but really they are the same. A BO/focus is great for reducing singing time and if you tank or solo at all a shield is nice.
i would preffer live experience of swordsingers though...
right now i am trying a common dle vs a common soul separator..
killing speed seems almost the same....
maybe slightly better with the dagger... but against light armor mobs it gets quite difficoult..
thinking a haste sword would give u allround solid weapon for all sutiuations... what u say?
The problem, is that common weps aren't a very good mesure of kill speed when you will be using an SA. Any weapon with a focus SA is going to beet a weapon without one. Thus, you should take a BO or IM.
my experience says that +6 darkscreamer with focus starts becoming worse than +3 sls focus for sws after around lvl 49 (this was during C1 tho... but nothing should've changed since then in this regard), then the sword masteries start to make more of a difference and the difference in crit rate is minimal when you have song of hunter
focus has always been a better SA than crit damage, but if your SwS chose the +con-str path then crit damage SA *may* be alittle better
I used a +4 Dama w/focus till i was about 70, cause it had a much bigger dps than a common IM... now I've got a +3 IM w/focus and it works nice, bit slower for singing when compared with a dagger, but you still do it fast enough when solo or when in party with a bd... your dps will come from the number of times you crit.. i can easily get 3,4 or even 6 crits in a row.. and in average, i'd say 1/3 to 1/4 of all attacks are crits...
I would recommend using a sword, rather than a dagger.
At your level, you get 43 Sword/Blunt Masteries, which help increase your damage using swords. But, you get 0 masteries relevant to dagger use.
In my case, I like using a Dragon Slayer w/ Health. I use a +4 STR/-4 CON and a +4 DEX/-4 CON tattoo to increase my DPS, and enjoy the Health SA to help compensate for the lost max HP due to the -8 CON. (-10 CON when you factor in the Tallum Heavy set I also wear).
I also like Dragon Slayer because, as a 2-handed weapon, it is more economical, from a Soul Shot consumption perspective, compared to daggers and 1-handed swords.
Anyways, to answer your question, I'd recommend Sword over Dagger.
As for SA, if you are concerned about DPS output, I'd suggest (in the following order)
Haste, Focus, Critical Damage
Why?
HASTE: Haste increases your attack rate by 4% to 8% (depending on your weapon) This means that, in the statistical long-term, your non-critical damage DPS is raised by 4-8%, but also your critical damage DPS is raised by 4-8% (with more swings, comes more opportunities for you to critical). (see Note #1 below)
FOCUS: Focus increases your odds of getting a critical, typically increasing your existing critical chance by about 6%. So, your critical damage DPS is raised by about 6%, but there is no change to your non-critical DPS. (see Note #1 below)
CRITICAL DAMAGE: Probably the weakest of the SAs here. It does not increase your non-critical DPS. It does increase your critical DPS, but since this increase is a fixed +p.atk value on critical hits only, the percentage boost to your critical damage DPS can vary. In fact, the higher your normal p.atk value is (say, due to a highly OEd weapon or tattoos/armor set bonus, buffs, etc), the less percentage boost this SA will give to your critical damage DPS.
Be sure to take into account the differing base p.atk values of various weapons also.
A Bloody Orchid w/ Focus may have a better SA than a Soul Separator w/ Critical Damage, but also remember to take into account the Soul Separator has a higher base p.atk. From a mathematical statistics point of view, you might encounter that a crappier SA'd weapon might still give you as good a DPS as a lower p.atk weapon with a better SA.
Anyways, hope this helps!
Note #1:
It is for this reason why I love the Quick Recovery SA for Soul Bows, versus... say... Focus on Shyeed's Bow. Don't get me wrong, Shyeed's with Focus is nice (with about +7% critical hit rate). But, Quick Recovery is about a 15% increase to BOTH your non-critical and critical damage DPS, versus about 7% increase to critical damage DPS from Shyeed.
Granted, Shyeed has a higher base p.atk than Soul Bow. But, if you took a comparable p.atk OE'd Soul Bow w/QR versus Shyeed's w/ Focus, I'd use the Soul Bow... at least for PVE. (I realize PVP is a totally different beast).
hey... this is an interesting post, but I think some of your statements are not quite right...
...
HASTE: Haste increases your attack rate by 4% to 8% (depending on your weapon) This means that, in the statistical long-term, your non-critical damage DPS is raised by 4-8%, but also your critical damage DPS is raised by 4-8% (with more swings, comes more opportunities for you to critical). (see Note #1 below)
FOCUS: Focus increases your odds of getting a critical, typically increasing your existing critical chance by about 6%. So, your critical damage DPS is raised by about 6%, but there is no change to your non-critical DPS. (see Note #1 below)
...
in terms of haste, more swings DO NOT increase your chances of hitting a crit. the probability of landing a normal hit or a critical hit remain the same, just the number of hits increases, thus increasing your dps... after 100 hits, you will still hit (for example) 70 normal hits and 30 crits.. but you will go through 100 hits faster.
a focus SA increases your chances of landing a critical hit, but the speed at which you hit remains the same.. so, in this case, after 100 hits, you will hit, for example, 62 normal hits and 38 crits... (if we assume focus gives you an 8% increase).
the big question is whether the dmg you do by hitting faster is more than the dmg you do by hitting more crits.. in my case, I feel focus works better for me
i wanted to ask for what sa should i go crit. damage or focus?
and sword (1 handed) or dagger with either of the 2 mentioned sa?
i read also in another threat here, sa haste is not bad... what about that?
I would recommend using a sword, rather than a dagger.
At your level, you get 43 Sword/Blunt Masteries, which help increase your damage using swords. But, you get 0 masteries relevant to dagger use.
~snip~
Anyways, to answer your question, I'd recommend Sword over Dagger.
As for SA, if you are concerned about DPS output, I'd suggest (in the following order)
Haste, Focus, Critical Damage
This is a good post but some of the advice doesn't really mesh with my experiences - I think the Focus SA is better than Haste for dps, though haste is also very good. Remember that though the change in crit rate is only ~7% more likely to crit (using 70 crit from a focus SA for this example) each crit is ~3x the damage of a non-crit hit. Also 49 is the point when a dagger gets better then a 1h sword - that is when you get song of hunter that makes daggers give 80 more crit. rate than a sword (instead of only 40 more without hunter).
I also went through all the Ag weapons one could think of using as a SwS (no top Ag). An IM focus is better DPS then a Dragon Slayer but not by much, a BO Focus is about the same as a Soul Separator Crit. Dmg and QR on a Soul Bow can shoot fast with a dps similar to IM Focus or dagger but we don't have the mp to sing and shoot a QR bow. A DLE is just bad. A tallum glaive with wide blow can be fun and helpful in an AoE party - it has a dagger like crit rate too. ;)
Remember that a SwS gets the same weapon masteries as the tanks which give less patk then the other weapon masteries (~1/2 the patk of the BD's weapon mastery), only +5% patk for me using a Heaven's Divider. A dagger's attack speed (ie Singing speed) is a bonus to offset the higher ss usage compared to a two handed sword.
All my experience is PvE with good buffs and a BD (dance of fire probably gives the focus SA a boost).
hey... this is an interesting post, but I think some of your statements are not quite right...
in terms of haste, more swings DO NOT increase your chances of hitting a crit. the probability of landing a normal hit or a critical hit remain the same, just the number of hits increases, thus increasing your dps... after 100 hits, you will still hit (for example) 70 normal hits and 30 crits.. but you will go through 100 hits faster.
a focus SA increases your chances of landing a critical hit, but the speed at which you hit remains the same.. so, in this case, after 100 hits, you will hit, for example, 62 normal hits and 38 crits... (if we assume focus gives you an 8% increase).
the big question is whether the dmg you do by hitting faster is more than the dmg you do by hitting more crits.. in my case, I feel focus works better for me
I wanted to point out that I never said that Haste increases your chances of hitting a crit. If you read my post again more carefully, you will see I only said that Haste increases non-critical hit DPS and critical hit DPS...
HASTE: Haste increases your attack rate by 4% to 8% (depending on your weapon) This means that, in the statistical long-term, your non-critical damage DPS is raised by 4-8%, but also your critical damage DPS is raised by 4-8% (with more swings, comes more opportunities for you to critical).
Let's say normally, with no SA, you normally get 1000 hits in (800 normal and 200 critical) for a measured duration of time.
Haste SA means you might be doing 1080 hits (864 normal and 216 critical). This is what I mean when I said "with more swings, comes more opportunities for you to critical".
With focus SA, you will still be doing 1000 hits (724 normal and 276 critical).
This is a good post but some of the advice doesn't really mesh with my experiences - I think the Focus SA is better than Haste for dps, though haste is also very good. Remember that though the change in crit rate is only ~7% more likely to crit (using 70 crit from a focus SA for this example) each crit is ~3x the damage of a non-crit hit. Also 49 is the point when a dagger gets better then a 1h sword - that is when you get song of hunter that makes daggers give 80 more crit. rate than a sword (instead of only 40 more without hunter).
I also went through all the Ag weapons one could think of using as a SwS (no top Ag). An IM focus is better DPS then a Dragon Slayer but not by much, a BO Focus is about the same as a Soul Separator Crit. Dmg and QR on a Soul Bow can shoot fast with a dps similar to IM Focus or dagger but we don't have the mp to sing and shoot a QR bow. A DLE is just bad. A tallum glaive with wide blow can be fun and helpful in an AoE party - it has a dagger like crit rate too. ;)
Remember that a SwS gets the same weapon masteries as the tanks which give less patk then the other weapon masteries (~1/2 the patk of the BD's weapon mastery), only +5% patk for me using a Heaven's Divider. A dagger's attack speed (ie Singing speed) is a bonus to offset the higher ss usage compared to a two handed sword.
All my experience is PvE with good buffs and a BD (dance of fire probably gives the focus SA a boost).
In my experience, I found that criticals tended to do more like 2x normal damage, rather than 3x. SWS don't get any skills that increase critical damage (I think various dagger/archer classes do though).
The problem I had with using daggers was the accuracy penalty. Everyone knows that daggers are faster and have higher crit range than swords, but admittedly lower damage per blow.... but some don't realize that daggers are -5 Accuracy compared to swords too. (and swords are -5 Accuracy compared to blunts)
For me, fighting orange and red mobs, I just missed too much for my liking. (sure, I could go after greens, light blues and whites... but I feel sorry for the little buggas)
interesting values from l2calc... specially when looking at the dps you get from a DLE (which is so far the one wpn everyones seems to put at last)...
I usually have bufs on me, so that would explain why, for me, focus seem to be a better choice on my IM compared to haste.. (and if i remember correctly, i got passive increase crit. rate from augmentation too)...
Wow, who knew BD dances made such a difference between different weapons. I'll have to take back what I said about the DLE too, l2calc really likes them - I didn't like mine is all I can say :o. Focus is still the best SA, but doesn't trump a higher grade weapon. ;)
My advice is for those who hunt very well buffed I guess, I always have PP+SE or WC buffs and a BD (Fire, Fury, Warrior, Vamp). I love SwS(Me) + BD + WC parties. ^^
BTW it is only -4 Acc on dagger, bow, or polearm but yes vs. red mobs a dagger misses more, but fighting reds is usually bad xp/time.
i wanted to ask for what sa should i go crit. damage or focus?
and sword (1 handed) or dagger with either of the 2 mentioned sa?
i read also in another threat here, sa haste is not bad... what about that?
tx for the feedback in advanced
Ignore what l2calc is telling you... its one of those things that looks nice on paper but doesn't hold up in practice. The results you'll get with different weapons and SA choices varry so much that its not a hard science.
There are realy only two things that matter here, and they are;
1. Do you party or solo more frequently?
2. When you play are you well buffed? (well meaning buffed by some one other than an EE/BP).
From experience with my SwS, at 62 (end of newbie buffs) I just needed focus and Death whisper and I could compeletly own with Maj Heavy set and a Dragon Slayer with no SA.
When my newbie buffs ran out, I switched to NM light, and got traded the Dragon Slayer for an Infernal Master [focus]. with prophet buffs I managed with just the passive VR from the NM light set and actually went up in damage... I kept that settup until 70, when I stopped playing my SwS.
With +4 STR -4 CON, an IM Focus, and a NM light set I was rockin' the exp solo in WoA with no buffs at all... I never had to heal myself, and used only Hunter/Earth/Life to keep things moving along. unbuffed I was critting for about 2k consistantly and had zero trouble.
I havn't revisited that SwS sinse I made my PP but I imagine that she would do much better buffed....