The greatest Swordsman

[Trinityking]

Hiya everybody. In the game i decided to delete my char and restart a new one with all the experience i've gotten to make it better. I decided to change it from Power type to Daring, and this time im only going to upgrade white-ranked weapons. White ranked weapons, which i read in a recent topic, is far mor cheaper and even better weapon than most, so im going with that. As for the stats, im going in all Pow to use swords, odachis, and possibly spears for mob control (might even make a new char just for spears even.) Question is if this is a good way to start off again. Last time i went in blind but now im going in hoping that i dont need a party to get exp and quests done. Is this a good way to start off again?

[SeekerFate]

You have the right idea, but white weapons aren't always necessarily better for their cheap cost, it depends more on what skills you can get for your weapons. (better skills will usually take priority regardless but if you can get those skills on the white weapons then you can save some money if you choose to upgrade to +30-40~) If you're going pow, stick to the power intensive weapons (even better if you can pick one to specialize on because you'll need to choose magatamas solely for that one main weapon type).

[Trinityking]

Alright so the question on my mind is: What skills should i look out for?
I mean i personally like void slash on sword, bc they go after the enemy from away.
I hate leaping strike cuz it's slow animation gets me killed instantly by the mob since i have to be close to do any damage

Are there any other skills i should look out for that are better than my fav skill?
The weapons i like most right now (and are Pow-intensive) are Katanas and Odachis. The axes i dont like much since they're slow and worse off have rly short range.

[SeekerFate]

If there's one single skill I think you should look for that's basically agreed on by everyone then it'd probably be sword of avidya (a roughly 180 degree frontal slash which hits mobs in a powerful aoe can gain fire properties depending on skill rank) but other than that you'd have to ask other people, form opinions of your own base on usage since I'm not a proficient oodachi user. (note this skill is only on oodachi I think, so I can't really give you any advice for sword.)

[Arnekun]

I like Grim Strike IV on the Oodachi. It has a decent AoE in front of you that seems to get larger with higher ranks and has hefty damage. The main advantage is that it's very quick to cast so you can use it in about the span of one second and dodge roll away from mobs immediately after. Sword of Avidya, Leaping Strike, Fierce Slash, and Collapsing Blade (this eats a ton of durability btw) have relatively lengthy cast times where you can get hit, damaged, and interrupted (in which case your skill isn't cast and SP goes to waste), but these skills are still useful if you can time them by gauging distance and enemy chasing speed. And as the other guy mentioned above, Avidya does have an awesome cone AoE. I heard there is at least one oodachi skill with a long cast time that has some kind of super armor to prevent you taking much damage while you cast it, in which case cast time isn't too big of a deal. I think it was the one with the sand/dust particle effect before you slam the ground.

Oodachi and Axe playstyle is mostly running around kiting mobs and gathering them into a tight bunch before using some nuking skill on them. It can feel a bit slow but the amount of damage you can do in one skill strike with the Oodachi and Axe still make them feel impressive, like firing a rocket launcher with one explosive shot as opposed to the Twin Swords which is like a machine gun with a lot of smaller shots. That still helps twin swords a lot since it's a DEX affinity weapon that boosts crit and having more frequent strikes allows players to make more consistent use of crit.

For Oodachi/Axe kiting playstyle, skill affinity % booster magatamas can at times be more useful than magatamas that can boost attack power directly even though skill affinity doesn't improve regular left mouse button attacks because most of the damage will be dealt with one well-placed skill nuke rather than a bunch of regular attacks or quick-cooldown weak-hitting skills. Rather than relying much on their damage, I mostly use regular attacks to help recharge SP since hitting enemies with them gives good chunks of SP back for a couple slow hits. For example, I could equip a magatama that gives me +150 attack or instead equip another magatama that can boost just my skill damage for rank IV skills up by %39 and my oodachi happens to have two rank IV skills on it that deal about 1800 damage each, the second would do me more good, especially with an infrequent kite-to-nuke playstyle. If the playstyle involved more frequent regular attacks though, the first magatama could give more total damage.

People talk a lot about building lots of PWR + DEX to get the most damage and I'm sure that works, especially with rapid-attacking Twin Swords and Bows, but a lot of them are glass cannons. With Oodachi and Axe, you hardly rely on crits and go for raw PWR and devastating single-shot skills with a focus on skill ranks and skill affinity, but it frees up points from DEX to go toward tankiness in VIT and MND. I left DEX at 12 pts and at lvl 30 still lead well in damage from nuking on my Byakko Hell grinds. I wouldn't be able to deal as much damage with Bows or Twin Swords as well as DEX-focused players though.

Keep your long-term primary weapon/weapons of choice in mind as you invest your points since weapon affinity means a lot in the long run since it will become a large source of scaling damage increases from % magatamas. This means that if you want to play primarily with Oodachi/Axe/Katana, you wouldn't build your stat points to maximize damage the same way a Bow/Twin-Sword user or Spear user would. A stat respec option would be nice, but most people can still get by well in the early levels since anybody can make good use of any of the stats.


On a side note, can't we have multiple characters though? If that's the case, you should just hold on to your old one while you test out another character.

[Trinityking]

well thats the thing. Thats fine if you were making a different class for a new player, in which case of course i would just kept the old one. But the thing is it's the same class, and the old one is too ruined to continue. I'm at the spot in kyoto where i have to complete every single quest before Benkei for stat reset, and to the point where i cant sell my stuff anymore bc Miroku is away on his stupid main quest in the 5 wells. It was right then and there where i decided to just delete it instead of going through the trouble of finding a decent party and try to pass through the quest (barely i mean.)

[Arnekun]

If I'm thinking of the same 5 wells quest, the one where you run the Hashihime dungeon once, then Miroku is back in the city, it wasn't that bad?

I think it's worth it to try find a party to help with the necessary quests rather than delete if there's a respec option after that. If it's an issue that your stats are too squishy, I don't think your party will mind if you play cautiously with ranged weapon like a bow or something even if you aren't specced for it. If it's an issue with stats dealing too little damage, then with a party you'll be fine, people are hardly gonna keep track of how much damage you're really doing and again they probably wouldn't mind much. In my Byakko Hell runs, as long as we have a few people who can deal a bunch of damage, we don't really mind low levels hanging on and playing cautiously from the back for exp. Some might think they're being leeches but hardly anyone cares since the damage dealers get more bonus exp for more people just being there. In your case, it wouldn't even have to be a full party, could just be 2 people for each dungeon and the dungeon will scale up mob numbers just a bit. I saw a video from the beta test where a guy got carried through an entire dungeon by some higher level player and the other player beat the boss while the recording player was still watching the pre-boss cutscene lol.

[Trinityking]

I like Grim Strike IV on the Oodachi. It has a decent AoE in front of you that seems to get larger with higher ranks and has hefty damage. The main advantage is that it's very quick to cast so you can use it in about the span of one second and dodge roll away from mobs immediately after. Sword of Avidya, Leaping Strike, Fierce Slash, and Collapsing Blade (this eats a ton of durability btw) have relatively lengthy cast times where you can get hit, damaged, and interrupted (in which case your skill isn't cast and SP goes to waste), but these skills are still useful if you can time them by gauging distance and enemy chasing speed. And as the other guy mentioned above, Avidya does have an awesome cone AoE. I heard there is at least one oodachi skill with a long cast time that has some kind of super armor to prevent you taking much damage while you cast it, in which case cast time isn't too big of a deal. I think it was the one with the sand/dust particle effect before you slam the ground.

Oodachi and Axe playstyle is mostly running around kiting mobs and gathering them into a tight bunch before using some nuking skill on them. It can feel a bit slow but the amount of damage you can do in one skill strike with the Oodachi and Axe still make them feel impressive, like firing a rocket launcher with one explosive shot as opposed to the Twin Swords which is like a machine gun with a lot of smaller shots. That still helps twin swords a lot since it's a DEX affinity weapon that boosts crit and having more frequent strikes allows players to make more consistent use of crit.

For Oodachi/Axe kiting playstyle, skill affinity % booster magatamas can at times be more useful than magatamas that can boost attack power directly even though skill affinity doesn't improve regular left mouse button attacks because most of the damage will be dealt with one well-placed skill nuke rather than a bunch of regular attacks or quick-cooldown weak-hitting skills. Rather than relying much on their damage, I mostly use regular attacks to help recharge SP since hitting enemies with them gives good chunks of SP back for a couple slow hits. For example, I could equip a magatama that gives me +150 attack or instead equip another magatama that can boost just my skill damage for rank IV skills up by %39 and my oodachi happens to have two rank IV skills on it that deal about 1800 damage each, the second would do me more good, especially with an infrequent kite-to-nuke playstyle. If the playstyle involved more frequent regular attacks though, the first magatama could give more total damage.

People talk a lot about building lots of PWR + DEX to get the most damage and I'm sure that works, especially with rapid-attacking Twin Swords and Bows, but a lot of them are glass cannons. With Oodachi and Axe, you hardly rely on crits and go for raw PWR and devastating single-shot skills with a focus on skill ranks and skill affinity, but it frees up points from DEX to go toward tankiness in VIT and MND. I left DEX at 12 pts and at lvl 30 still lead well in damage from nuking on my Byakko Hell grinds. I wouldn't be able to deal as much damage with Bows or Twin Swords as well as DEX-focused players though.

Keep your long-term primary weapon/weapons of choice in mind as you invest your points since weapon affinity means a lot in the long run since it will become a large source of scaling damage increases from % magatamas. This means that if you want to play primarily with Oodachi/Axe/Katana, you wouldn't build your stat points to maximize damage the same way a Bow/Twin-Sword user or Spear user would. A stat respec option would be nice, but most people can still get by well in the early levels since anybody can make good use of any of the stats.


On a side note, can't we have multiple characters though? If that's the case, you should just hold on to your old one while you test out another character.

This. Holy crap that is nice xD
Anyways i get what u mean, but the problem was that in kyoto where i was doing the miroku quest, there were hardly any players around, unless they were in gedoumaru's hideout where its more popular. I would take more time searching for good parties than actually just deleting my old char for a new one

[Arnekun]

It's true that there aren't many people in Kyoto lol. Usually if I need to search for parties I just keep hopping channels with alt>sytem>channel-select and asking crowded areas. Hopefully a lot more people make it to Kyoto soon. A plus side to deleting a char might be that you get more chances from free gacha tickets to get better stuff. In any case, just weigh your options carefully before you make a permanent choice. Good luck to ya!