Dual Blade Builds

From what I've heard, Dual Blades do damage based on their actual displayed range in Chaos, instead of one Dagger hit and one Blade it, so Katara are glorified attack shields. There may be a changed modifier with it, but if there isn't, there is an exceptional boost to a lot of skills. For example, Flying Assaulter currently does 420% Dagger and Blade; since the Blade's multiplier is lower than the Dagger, you are effectively doing less than 420% (525% with Final Cut maxed)of your damage range, which is calculated as if the Blade were an attack shield. This effectiveness is further decreased by the off-weapon attack being split between Blades and Daggers. After Chaos, Flying Assaulter will do 280% of your damage range, per hit, thus a total of 560%. If the multiplier were decreased, there should still be some marginal increase in damage, especially for pre-4th job Dual Blades.

Also, Advanced Dark Sight adds damage too. If you're in Dark Sight while attacking with maxed ADS, you do 50% more damage, and have a 20% chance of entering Dark Sight after each attack if you're not in Dark Sight, a bonus in damage that Big Bang Dual Blades do not have.

Given that, I believe every skill has their overall damage output increased in Chaos, despite their %s lowered. I could be wrong, however, about this assumption, but from the Chaos Dual Blade videos I have seen, there does not appear to be a difference between alternating hits.

That actually makes a lot of sense. I remember seeing that formulas and things changed in the Chaos update for Dual Blades. That's extremely reassuring though. I was under the impression that Dual Blades we're going to get nerfed to high heaven, but with this new way of actually calculating damage, it turns out we might get a little stronger. It also makes thing much more easy to comprehend. I'm not the type of guy that understands all the little mechanics of skills, but this is pretty simple.