Brandish and Final Attack

For Soul Masters, would the DPM be higher by just spamming Brandish or Brandish + FA?

Also, does FA's damage go down after each hit if activated by Slash Blast, like it does for normal warriors?

FA would pretty much be their main DPS/DPM source, like normal Warriors in 2nd job.

But once they get their goodies (Brandish, Adv. Combo) at level 100 and level 110 respectively, FA is kinda not useful anymore since Brandish 1) doesn't work with FA; and 2) Brandish will beat it in DPS/DPM overall, combined with Adv Combo.

One great example: Go to the Boss Battles Thread and see that one Soul Master soloing Penus w/o FA. Only Brandish and Adv. Combo in sight.

FA would pretty much be their main DPS/DPM source, like normal Warriors in 2nd job.

But once they get their goodies (Brandish, Adv. Combo) at level 100 and level 110 respectively, FA is kinda not useful anymore since Brandish 1) doesn't work with FA; and 2) Brandish will beat it in DPS/DPM overall, combined with Adv Combo.

One great example: Go to the Boss Battles Thread and see that one Soul Master soloing Penus w/o FA. Only Brandish and Adv. Combo in sight.

Brandish does work with FA for Soul Masters -refers to Description in Knight of Cygnus Skill Table thread-. Did the guy actually max it though? I'm going to max it, but I'm wondering whether I should be using it once I get brandish.

As a general rule, a non-spammable attack (FA, or a cooldown attack like BStep) is not worth using if an active and spammable version of itself would be out-DPSed by whatever other thing you're using.

Brandish out-DPSes active/spammable FA, so FA-less Brandish is better (except possibly to charge orbs (though only marginally, so to simplify matters I personally would just go FA-less throughout anyway)).

Second question, I would assume it does. Either way, Soul Blade seems to cover training needs, so there's virtually no need to Slash Blast anyway.

Umm, to me it SEEMs that my DPS/DPM is higher without FA. I maxed FA, too. It delays, and works very strange. It is an annoyance during training, too. Sadly, I have no numbers but just a hunch. I hope this is somewhat insightful. But now that I think harder about it, I should be right. FA has a small noticeable delay with brandish. This delay starts to add up where it ultimately hinders many possible brandish uses over time because FA makes brandish unspammable, pretty much. They only time I would suggest FA is when it is the difference between a 1hko/2hko/etc (like it was at goby houses for me).

Also Russt, by the time you get brandish, soul blade is obsolete. If you are mobbing then you are using soul driver. Soul blade is just a good way to collect a mob at a distance fast.

(Sorry if I have bad wording. It's late at night and I've been grinding all day.)

Oh, and for his second question, I never have really noticed. It's hard to say since I haven't used FA in many, many days. I'll try to remember to check soon, though.

The damage of FA on multiple targets (3, in this case) is HORRIBLE, as most of us know.
On single target, Brandish would still win, since in the time you did a FA you could've done about 3/4 of a Brandish...

Also Russt, by the time you get brandish, soul blade is obsolete. If you are mobbing then you are using soul driver. Soul blade is just a good way to collect a mob at a distance fast.

Oh, I meant in 2nd job, compared to Slash Blast.

Even if Brandish does more damage alone than with Final Attack, I'm going to use Final Attack just to have a different feel to it, since I've been using Heroes since fourth job was first released last January. For bossing and stuff, I'd use Brandish alone, though.

Well, i was looking around on SM videos on YouTube today and i found this:

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpgIboK3bcg[/YOUTUBE]

I really don't know what to say. Now i'm pretty sure i wont touch FA, i can see that you can pull off at least two brandish's by the time you do brandish+FA.

incase some on has problems with the link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpgIboK3bcg

er... after watching that video, final attack looks like it may improve single target bossing. its almost instantaneous, it takes less than 1/2 the time for a brandish.

however, you sit there just long enough to get hit and annoyed at being knocked back, and without stance that sucks.

dont think i would use it.

It doesn't look like much of a difference either way, so it's really a question of do you like having FA or not. Personally I've always hated any type of FA on any character because it reduces the amount of control you have over your character. You can't decide exactly when to stop attacking one monster and move onto the other. It's really annoying and if the benefit to having it isn't large enough I wouldn't bother getting it at all.

Even if it is a buff, it still is a useful skill. So yeah, I'm gonna max FA, because when using Brandish (FA is in effect) You can charge up to 3 orbs, which makes it even faster to charge up orbs. It even saves you MP a tad much, because if maxed, 12 MP is consumed when used.

So yeah, I'm gonna be maxing 5 out of 6 2nd Job skills, then use my remaining 2nd Job SP on Soul Sprite to max it, then Iron Body, because Rage is definitely useless (Not in KMS, since KMS doesn't have World Tour anymore.)

Even if it is a buff, it still is a useful skill. So yeah, I'm gonna max FA, because when using Brandish (FA is in effect) You can charge up to 3 orbs, which makes it even faster to charge up orbs. It even saves you MP a tad much, because if maxed, 12 MP is consumed when used.

So yeah, I'm gonna be maxing 5 out of 6 2nd Job skills, then use my remaining 2nd Job SP on Soul Sprite to max it, then Iron Body, because Rage is definitely useless (Not in KMS, since KMS doesn't have World Tour anymore.)

You get one charge chance with Brandish, not one per hit. FA sucks either way. You're sacrificing a lot of damage to charge up orbs that won't help.

Even if it is a buff, it still is a useful skill. So yeah, I'm gonna max FA, because when using Brandish (FA is in effect) You can charge up to 3 orbs, which makes it even faster to charge up orbs. It even saves you MP a tad much, because if maxed, 12 MP is consumed when used.

So yeah, I'm gonna be maxing 5 out of 6 2nd Job skills, then use my remaining 2nd Job SP on Soul Sprite to max it, then Iron Body, because Rage is definitely useless (Not in KMS, since KMS doesn't have World Tour anymore.)

i think you have a badly warped worldview of ms :/
w/ ac, you will have 1 chance per attack to charge 1-2 orbs. so a brandish+fa can charge 2-4 orbs. w/ regular combo, a brandish+fa will charge only 2. it isnt a per hit thing, its a per attack thing.

i think youll find with soul masters that finishers arent worth it. it isnt a crusader. you have better skills than coma. charging orbs faster wont be necessary because the 140% combo provides is just a good damage boost and not the lifesaver it is for crusaders.

Even if it is a buff, it still is a useful skill. So yeah, I'm gonna max FA, because when using Brandish (FA is in effect) You can charge up to 3 orbs, which makes it even faster to charge up orbs. It even saves you MP a tad much, because if maxed, 12 MP is consumed when used.

So yeah, I'm gonna be maxing 5 out of 6 2nd Job skills, then use my remaining 2nd Job SP on Soul Sprite to max it, then Iron Body, because Rage is definitely useless (Not in KMS, since KMS doesn't have World Tour anymore.)

Soul Sprite does awful damage (like, three-digit damage even in late 3rd job), and the defense from Iron Body is too low to really make much of a difference (LOL -40 DMG SO PRO).

Having Rage can save you money on NLC pots and can also give you a nice party buff when you're not bossing (LMPQ, MPQ, PPQ, training parties, etc).

Also, Combo Attack and Adv Combo are only for damage purposes with Soul Driver and Brandish; Panic and Coma are wastes of SP.

But Ciders give 20 Weapon Attack, which gives 8 ATT more than Rage, and it lasts 2 minutes longer. That means it isn't worth adding any points into Rage in my opinion.

Edit: However, having Rage can save you some Use Inventory slot for some HP/MP pots, because Ciders can take away 1 slot if bought or collected. Ciders are difficult to stock up earlier on, but once you have even more Use inventory slots (especially if it's maxed out), you can have up to 60+ Ciders.

Lol. In JMS, I'm not going to get Rage at all, since Takoyakis in JMS give 20 attack and only cost 5k each. Therefore, I'm going to max Final Attack and dump my points in either Soul Sprite or Iron Body (both useless as stated above). lol

But Ciders give 20 Weapon Attack, which gives 8 ATT more than Rage, and it lasts 2 minutes longer. That means it isn't worth adding any points into Rage in my opinion.

Edit: However, having Rage can save you some Use Inventory slot for some HP/MP pots, because Ciders can take away 1 slot if bought or collected. Ciders are difficult to stock up earlier on, but once you have even more Use inventory slots (especially if it's maxed out), you can have up to 60+ Ciders.

12 att for minimal MP and no use slots
vs.
12 att for 5k mesos every 8 minutes (1 Use Slot for 4 hours)
vs.
20 att for 1k mesos every 5 minutes (48 Use Slots for 4 hours)

Ciders are an impossibility to train with for anyone who doesn't expand their Use inventory. Rage is better than other pots in just about every way except that it's dispellable. So use Ciders for killing bosses and Rage for everything else. But wait, Cygnus are too nub to get past 120, so they won't be doing much bossing anyway.

According to the video FA comes out at the same time of brandish's 2nd hit, or very close to that. Plus the delay after using it.

Looks like it does help DPS. Anyone know if the FA is power strike type or slash blast type? If it's slast blast what damage does it do? I forget xD.

Notedly, I'll be maxing out FA solely for the purposely of the good looking swings I saw when I first saw crusaders using it. The best part is that it's a buff, so I wont be using it when my DPS is essential, but I'll mostly use it while using powerstrike when I'm just screwing around with monsters.