21 FA and brandish.

What's this supposed to mean? Who cares if you get an extra Brandish when your DPS with Brandish+FA will top it

Until I see a video of someone using it, I'm going to continue to believe it lowers dps.

It would make more sense to skip slash blast instead of power strike. 30def is also completely useless at higher levels. I maxed FA since I think a 3.04% increase in damage is better than an microscopic increase in def that becomes useless after level 30.

In the long run that makes sense but losing SB would cost you more money than gaining IB, because you would be way slower from 20-45 or so, when Soul Blade catches up to SB's dps on max-size mobs.

Until I see a video of someone using it, I'm going to continue to believe it lowers dps.

Perhaps read my post on the last page? You know, the one with a video of a someone using it?

So, with a normal speed weapon with booster (making it 4 attack speed), it'd go like this:
-Brandish: 460% per 750 ms, or 535% per second
-Brandish + Final Attack: 710% per 1170 ms, or 606.8% per second
-Final Attack activating 60% of the time: (.4*535)+(.6*606.8) = 578.1% per second on average

conclusion: if Final Attack takes off the same amount of miliseconds from Brandish as it does Power Strike and Slash Blast, then you'll do an additional 8% more damage over time with a normal speed weapon and booster.

You should note that it's really only useful for bossing. Brandish on 2 or 3 monsters will easily be harmed by Final Attack. 21 Final Attack will probably harm your DPS with Brandish no matter what.


Edit: I just watched the video on the first page and am completely blow away. It seems like FA activates after the first swing of Brandish, resulting in it hitting at nearly the same time as the second hit of Brandish, and therefore causing (almost?) no lag. I'd really recommend that 12 booster, 19 rage, max FA build now.