Soulblade optimization

[Goumindong]

Multi-class or not. Weapon Choices and racial choices

So i am looking at this and doing a lot of "hrrm". The first is, that obviously streetfighter pairs "best" in terms of damage because it gets the most damage bonuses. Though other things may be better in general due to ease of getting inspirations/bonuses (fighter for aware/intuitive, maybe tactician or devoted, Barbarian for Carnage for focus gain, brute force for AC when paired with a morningstar,  bloodlust, bloody slaughter, etc), and other defensive options.  The second is that I am not sure soul annihilation is even that good ability. The main problem being its supreme inefficiency.

Soul Annihilation's problem is mainly that, At PL 1 with draining whip, if you do less than 56 dmg/attack and are swinging a greatsword that you might as well swing the greatsword again. At PL 8 this goes down to ~22.5, which is a lot better and more manageable. But still not great in terms of "how much more damage am i getting". Like, lets say you're PL 8, you attack generally for +200% damage from various non-lash bonuses(i.E. x3 mult on attack). Which is 64.5 dmg/swing. Soul Annihilation should do ~99.25 dmg/attack (10+54.5/4 * 1.4 x 3) . So you Attack once and then SA once and do, on average 81.8 dmg/swing. Which is only 26.9% more damage than attacking with the greatsword normally at +200% dmg. Which means that you're awful close to just being worse than a X/monk where X is whatever your priory MC was and adding a 20% lash and +10 int. As your damage bonus goes down this gets worse. Based on this this implies that maxing might is ideal but tanking might still might be better for (DPR +3% dmg from +200% is .4% dmg increase over the full cycle which is just lower than any reasonable action speed bonus or perception bonus throughout the relevant range).  In order to beat "make a lot of focus and disintegrate" then, defense dependent you need to do north of 126*might bonus dmg/3 seconds. (action speed independent. That is, disintegrate does ~252 dmg*might with a 6 second cast time so if your annihilation cycle isn't better than this you're better off just making disintegrates. Lower might makes this easier but Focus costs are irrelevant

Sooo stat ideal is

Min Might

Decent Con (for fortitude)

Max Dex

Max Per

Min Int duration and AoE barely matter except in on the MC side

decent Res (might as well survive)

But racial options are hmmm. Hit to crit for Orlan? Resistance to an affliction type. Or nature +power level?

So breaking down SC/MC options we have

Everyone Potentially: Two Handed Style +15% dmg, Greatsword +30% (-10 acc), One Handed Style (+20% hit to crit[equiv to about +8 ACC],+12 ACC), Rapier 20 ACC (+50% recovery). Borrowed Instinct +20 Acc/+20 defenses. Tactial Meld (aware +5 ACC/50% graze to hit), Draining Whip +20%

Single Class; Time Parasite, Reaping Knives for Focus, 1000 cuts. By far highest damage net due to 1000 cuts and Reaping Knives. But only lategame. +3 PL

Barbarian: Carnage (does this stack focus?). Frenzy (+15% dmg, +25% action speed), Zerker (30% hit to crit + 2 pen). Barbaric Smash (+20% dmg, 30% hit to crit, 50% dmg if crit), lions sprint (+15% action speed, +15 acc for SA), Bloody Slaughter (20% hit to crit, 50% crit dmg if crit vs near death), bloodlust (20% action speed on kill), One stands alone (+20% melee dmg should apply to SA), Bloodthirst (recovery immediately once on a kill). When healthy resistance to physical afflictions

So net we have 35% dmg, 55% if we're killing things with BS. +15 accuracy for SA itself a set number of times per fight. +45% action speed after the first kill. +55% action speed for SA a set number per encounter. 20 to 50 to 80% hit to crit depending on how they sum and enemy health levels and whether or not berzerker is chosen. Questions. Would mage slayer prevent self buffs from cypher?

UPSIDE: not a lot of use for INT if refreshing frenzy chosen. Though that is late. Just loads of hit to crit. Refresh on kill negates a lot of recovery penalties if you can keep it up.

Fighter:  Tactician Possible(brilliant is OK for soul blade but not great). Disciplined Strikes (Intuitive! 25% hit to crit), Knockdown (+10 Acc interrupt on graze... tactician infinite) Mob Stance(bonus attacks on kill -recovery per threatened enemy), conqueror stance +5/10 ACC, Refershing defense(+20 defenses), Clear Out(AoE for focus generation), Confident Aim (30% graze to hit), determination(+20 def vs affliction attacks!), resistance to might,dex, resolve afflictions. Weapon spec/mastery +15% dmg, armored grace (+armor with same recovery penalty)

Net +25% hit to crit +15% dmg, bonus attacks on kill so long as the kill isn't with SA. +5/10 ACC with SU. 30% graze to hit. Bonus attacks...

downsides: Needs int to keep intuitive up for a decent duration. This seems defensively much better than barbarian but MUCH worse offensively.

Monk: Transcendent Suffering. Option for good crush dmg fists. Unsure of exact dmg/PL but its good. Competes a little bit with legendary/mythic weapons so lets say +2 AC,+15% dmg. Iron Wheel +3 armor (i know int tends to be viewed as better but the lash doesn't apply to SA so survival seems better, though int does help with stats due to monk needing int). Swift Strikes (30% action speed), 33% crits trigger another attack, Enduring Dance, maaybe 3-12 AC. Hearbeat Drumming 25% crits trigger new attack. Loads of active attacks that should generate focus

Subclasses, +crush dmg vs fort makes single weapon easier for enemies immune to dmg types. (not great wound generation). +1 might/wound but take far more damage, 5 wound limit, but wounds on dealing damage. Would lean to Forgotten Fist here. But the main value seems to be in Swift Strikes + hearbeat drumming and i am not sure barbarian is just better than this

Net +58%? crit to new attack. +stats, 30% action speed. potential  crush dmg attacks without changing weapons

downsides Needs Int

Rogue: Sneak Attack +25% +5% per PL (or 15% for illusionist), Mirror Image and Displaced Image(illusionist), Or heating up(loads of dmg but complicated not always available), Gouging Strike (attack vs reflex), Crippling strike(attack vs fortitude), Finishing Blow (huge bonus damage), (backstab +100% if you can cheaply get invisible, and guile is limited), dirty fighting(10% hit to crit), Deathblows(+50% dmg) , Slippery Mind(immunity to mental afflictions when blow 50% HP, combines with food for full affliction immunity below 50% HP), persistant distraction (free flanking)

net: + 55% to 165% dmg, -50% recovery maybe, Finishing Blow to smash enemy HP. Like, the potential spike for a 1/2 HP invisible streetfighter is +265% dmg. That makes a 10 might character do 108 SA damage with 50 focus.

Cons: Not much really. Illusionist specifically. Streetfighter may have trouble triggering heating up depending on how you're playing.

Paladin: Goldpact is the only real option. +40% damage and +4 armor from sworn rival. But aside from that you don't get a lot. It may be better to be a straight paladin given the low damage bonuses achieved here. Wodica is OK for healing and +1 PL from start conditions if you really want that but armor seems better. Can regen zeal. Can gain loads of armor.

Pros: not a lot of active abilities focused on making SA better besides being able to use eternal devotion to kill things/generate focus.

Wizard (conjurer). Conjurer is the only real option for +3 to a stat, +another ancillary bonus and +1 power level. But spells besides spirit lance are kinda eh. At least in terms of enabling SA

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So defensive the answer is probably fighter. Offensive i think its barbarian or streetfighter. Streetfighter is harder to get going since you don't have a way to get yourself bloodied or flanked easily. (you can use blunderbuss but you don't want to swing with it and its a lot of weapon switching so if you are int light you can very easily lose your buff. ) Rapier Barbarian which is reliably killing gets +37 AC and +huge hit to crit with no downside.

So really... Am i missing anything. (important itemization that changes the calculations?). And... is it still just worse than a "not a cipher" (Like Streetfighter/Zerker seems hilarious with a way to track their HP (if they're heating up and not flanked!) and huge bonuses to damage and up to 45% action speed with 225% bonus damage and 150% extra crit damage and very large hit to crit) and just... probably kinda better than trying to use SA

edit: and before you say "ahh but other cipher MC's" yes, i know. I don't want to cure cancer i want to be a soul blade.

Edited July 22 by Goumindong
Adding spiderman meme joke, clarified disintegrate value

[Boeroer]

Soul Annihilation does raw damage. This can be a gamechanger in certain situations (for example a fight with a very high AR foe who's accompanied by weaker foes). You collect focus from the weaker foes and then unload AS on the tough one.

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Am i missing anything.

Maybe check out Soulblade + Wizard (preferably Blood Mage) with Citzal's Spirit Lance. The weird workings of Soul Annihilation + AoE makes using Soul Annihilation on all foes worthwhile then. All enemies will receive at lest some raw damage while focus is generated internally during the process of hitting several enemies. It will all be spend in the end (after the attack) - but the combined raw dmg you dealt is more than your initial focus would have done.
At the same time it's easy to load focus up with an AoE weapon as soon as you face multiple enemies. You want maxed AoE size - so max INT + maybe AoE size items (see also Loki pet). Wizard's Wall of Draining also opens up a lot of great potential with some of the Soulblades and of course Wizard's buffs, but also buffs from items - for example the Soulblade's +max focus on kill, the Escape Cape's +50 deflection (stacks with Wizard's deflection buffs and Borrowed Instincts) and so on.
It's such a good combo that it has sucessfully completed the Ultimate challange.
 

If Wizard doesn't sound good: this also works with Whispers of the Endless Paths + Soul Annihilation - in this case I would argue that taking Helwalker/Soulblade with Turning Wheel is one of the best options (up to +10 INT for max cone AoE and +15 MIG for good additional SA damage bonus, Stunning Surge is aweome with dual flail heads).
But Fighter (with Tactical Barrage instead of Disciplined Strikes for biger AoE size) is also nice. Solid sized cone AoE of the weapon + Clear Out AoE (results in AoE*AoE attacks because every hit roll in the cone leads to a new cone attack) is just a ridiculous action that sends lots of enemies flying, hit my a multitude of attack rolls and producing a ton of focus.   

Another way to make great use of SA is to pick Sun and Moon + Tuotilo's Palm: The first flail head will spend the focus for raw dmg, the second flail head will already regenerate focus for you. It's not much but with enough dmg bonuses you can spam SA without pause. It's a "free" raw dmg addition and profits from using an attack ability with PL scaling all the time instead of auto-atacks. The low dmg bash of the shield will not see much use since SA can be spammed and is a primary attack. Yet the shield will contribute to dps bc. dual wielding will be active (+30% action speed) and you can use two weapon fighting for even more speed, too. And of course it's added defense. This is good with Rogue bc. of the added dmg bonuses that allow to spam SA earlier (pref. Trickster to stack more defense on top of the shield which makes for a very balanced def/off char) or Monk (profit from the great defensive enchantment of Tuotilo's Palm and the great interaction of Swift Flurry+Heartbeat Drumming + the two flail heads which increases the occurance of crit chains significantly - this doesn't generate focus though but just kills enemies on the spot). Turning Wheel lash generates focus though. Lightning Strikes also does - but when using Sun & Moon I would prefer Swift Flurry.

4 hours ago, Goumindong said:

Barbarian for Carnage for focus gain [...]
Barbarian: Carnage (does this stack focus?)

Nope. Carnage doesn't generate focus. 

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Questions. Would mage slayer prevent self buffs from cypher?

Yes, unfortunately it would. I think Mage Salyer is a bad choice.
Since the cipher doesn't have summons I would say that Furyshaper is a good pick. Either more speed fom the speed ward or free focus from disengaging enemies due to the terrifying ward. The Barb can get +3 engagement from his shouts plus shake the enemies which makes it more likely to terrify them with the ward and get more disengament attacks.
Bererker's Tenacious and crit conversion is great if you (or your party) can deal with the substancial self damage. But it can also be used to reliably trigger Blooded (+25% dmg) and Fighting Spirit (human rac. ability).

Single class Soulblade can make use of high INT plus Shared Nightmares (the AoE bonuses stack for the weapon's AoE, too): with Whispers of the Endless Paths the cone AoE can become very large with the help of Shared Nightmares. Especially if you can manage to keep up the +max focus buff from killing enemies. But in general SC Soulblade is just weaker on the SA side. But Reaping Knives on party members can help you to farm a lot of additional focus for more SA attacks (and spells). Reaping Knives give +5 focus per attack (not what the description says). So you want to cast this on party members who attack very fast and do not miss a lot. Something like a Barb/Streetfighter with maxed attack speed would be perfect. Unfortunately a Wizard's Phantom will clone the Reaping Knives from the Wizard but they won't give the Soulblade any focus. Boo... If this would work a Barb/Wizard or Streetfigher/Wizard + a Phantom would be so great as a wielder of Reaping Knives for the Soulblade.    

 

 

 

Edited July 22 by Boeroer

[Boeroer]

Sorry, had a bad formatting-/tag-error so I had to edit the post right away.

[ekt0]

I just come by to check on this forum once in a while, and I am so glad that Boeroer is still helping others here.

[yorname]

Maybe I misunderstood OP, but it's worth pointing out that SA consists of an primary attack, what you're calculating was only the bonus raw damage. SA is strictly better than a weapon attack, the problem is just how much.

I personally found it too much of an luxury to use a soulblade if they're the only cipher in a party. Ideally you don't need to use Borrowed Instinct or Ancestor's Memory on this character, while also already having Disintegration on every enemy you want, only then it's ideal to use SA.

I didn't try many builds with it TBH, the one that I felt okay was trickster. Passively generates focus with Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage, and has a decent amount of additional multiplier. Playing without blunderbuss modal I found the streetfighter passives too hard to trigger.

[Goumindong]

From testing i am coming to the same opinion (and i had missed that it also gave a primary attack because i had just like... not noticed two damage numbers when testing because i was killing things with one application of damage). Which means that SA is indeed a huge damage bonus even on a single target. This definitely clears the damage issues.

However i noticed some interesting things.

1) On-crit effects that grant extra attacks trigger before the soul annihilation focus clear. So it may be better to try to get extra attacks with a fighters if that triggers AFTER the focus clear? Second head from sun and moon fixes this but it would be nice to have it in the build. Monks can't do this.

Tactician is also possible here because Clear Out interrupts on hit and so has a high probability of restoring its discipline.

Alternately the barbarian attack reset makes a lot more sense.

2) Pure SA isn't quite so bad. You lose a LOT but knives -> SA every attack -> 50% dmg bonus if you're not dual wielding.

3) Dual wielding dmg becomes weird. You get the recovery advantage for the main attack but not for the SA attack. This gets you to the stronger SA attack faster but only gets you half the recovery advantage effectively.

HOWEVER this can also be used potentially strategically to cycle the pen type maybe. From testing it looks like SA always triggers on the main attack AND also always applies the position of the main hand cycle. That is. If you regular attack main hand, regular attack off hand, SA, then you regular attack off hand. And if you regular attack main hand, SA, then you regular attack main hand.

What this means is that if you're dual wielding two weapons with different pen qualities you can CHOOSE which attack to make by when you SA (provided you hit the primary attack). Such, you could dual wield the soulbound cipher blade AND the animancers blade but only attack with the animancers blade for your "non-SA" attack if an enemy was resistant to piercing. I am unsure how to use this well. But its an option.

4) DMG Maths for weapons: So lets say you use a greatsword 18-24 dmg and a 4.7 second attack cycle. Vs a dagger 10-14 dmg and a 3.5 second attack cycle (ignore pen for a second). Because you will have, roughly the same damage bonuses and attack speed is linear the margin here is the toggles.  So 21 avg/4.7 = 4.4 dmg/second. vs dagger 10-12 3.42 dmg/second. Vs animancers blade 3.24 dmg/second vs sabre 3.4 dmg/second. But the SA DPS is ((dmg-10)/4 * +10 ) / 2* Attack Cycle time. So for a greatsword the damage of two attacks is [42 + (11*dmg bonus-5)/4] / 4.7 = 4.4 + 2.2*dmg bonus - .265 Multiplied by accuracy. And for a dagger its 3.42 + 1.71 * dmg bonus - .35. multiplied by accuracy. Greatswords can get +.3 on dmg bonus which is pretty big, but take a 27 point accuracy penalty for this compared to a accurate one hander. Probably worth having both honestly. But +27 accuracy assuming a 100% graze rate already is effectively 100% graze to crit. And this effects the damage bonus portion of the SA attack cycle. Then again, so does main attack penetration.

Importantly the dmg bonus portion is really big here. Those numbers aren't modified by final damage bonus. That is. If your dmg bonus is 0% then you get 4.4+2.2 - .265 dmg/attack modified by accuracy/missing. But if your dmg bonus is 100% you get 4.4+4.4 - .265 dmg/attack. I.E. a 100% increase in damage. And if your damage bonus is 200% you get 4.4+6.6 -.265 dmg/attack I.E. a ~150% damage bonus over attacking normally. Single target this kinda makes rogue or barbarian the only reasonable path. Barbarian gets +dmg via hit to crit and bonus crit damage. Rogue gets between .30 and  1.15 bonus dmg on sneak. And due to the dmg multipier being on the SU this is magnified by power level.

edit: Pure Cipher at PL 10 is doing 4.4+2.2*dmg bonus * 1.5 where a barb is doing 4.4+(2.2*dmg bonus * 1.35). Barb can get a much higher damage bonus obviously. Cipher is limited to might + 1.1 (mythic + two handed style + soul whip) and barbarian can get another 40% on top of that (blooded/one stands alone) plus easy access to +15% from might (not to mention the 1-2 punch of SA and then Barbaric Smash to finish an enemy off). Plus attacking fort and the morningstar modal....

edit: LOL, because barbaric blows damage bonus is NOT a function of the ability it is suppressed by the savage attacks modal... Bloodthirst is amazing but i am not sure its that amazing

Edit: So mob stance sometimes triggers on SA and sometimes doesn't... I can proc it if both damages portions are required but not if only the first damage portion is requried to kill a target. it seems like SA does the raw damage first, and then the primary attack (and so the raw damage does not benefit from the primary attacks focus gen) and THEN clears focus. So if you kill an enemy with the primary attack portion of SA then you cleave and can SA again

And also tactician is not getting discipline from interrupting things that aren't spells or abilities that take up a resource, unfortunate.

 

edit: preliminary i am getting that two handed is about 20% better than 1 handed. But this isn't accounting for misses (a miss means you cannot SA the very next attack, which is very bad). So i am thinking Barbarian or Rogue and having the Animancers blade as a backup. I am a bit unsure precisely how much penalty missing applies to total damage since if you miss you can not efficiently cycle SA.

Edited July 25 by Goumindong
Loads of edits

[Goumindong]

OMG this will teach me to do math when i am tired

Two Attack DPS = (2* Base Damage + (Base Damage * (1+dmg bonus) - 10) /4 +10 ) * 1+dmg bonus / twice Attack Speed

So for a greatsword this is (2* 21 + (21 * (1+dmg bonus) - 10) /4 +10 ) * 1+dmg bonus / 2*4.7 -> 4.468 + .558 * (1+dmg bonus) -.265 + 1.063 * (1+dmg bonus)= (5.266 + .588 * (1* dmg bonus)) * (1+dmg bonus)

And for Rapier this is : (2* 12 + (12 * (1+dmg bonus) - 10) /4 +10 ) *( 1+dmg bonus) / 2*3.5 -> 3.428 + .428 * (1+dmg bonus) - .3571 +1.42 *(1+dmg bonus) = (4.4909 + .428* (1*dmg bonus)) *(1+dmg bonus)

Accuracy and penetration independent this is between a 19% damage increase at zero damage bonus to a 22.6% damage increase at a 200% damage bonus. This represents between a 30% (at zero damage bonus) and 63% dps increase(at 200% damage bonus) over auto attacking for two handed and a 43% to 74% increase for a one handed weapon. This might actually make one handed superior in net, penetration and modals depending

edit: Slow two handed is 26 to 28% behind the two handers with a 35 to 67% increase. Given the value of accuracy this makes a pretty strong case for rapiers/clubs/daggers/flails

edit: Sun and Moon Gets a bit of a bonus because it hits twice but they're reduced damage hits so the main advantage is in sliding some of the damage from the dmg-10/4 to the 10 portion. Which, to be fair, does help one handers a good deal. But It may not be enough to overcome other advantages.

Edit: Xoti's Sickle may be an interesting option. You're gonna get a lot of kills. Both Finality and Urgent Harvest are very good. Finality because you don't want to be attacking near death enemies since you don't generate as much focus. Urgent Harvest because its a big action speed bonus (up to 10 dex equivalent with 20 religion). And the bonus sickle damage should be nice too (This should apply to SA but i don't think i can easily check). Its a pretty big bonus at 5%+.5%/religion. So max bonus at 20 religion =60%. Just a mythic xoti's sickle with soul whip would provide a 1.55 dmg bonus

edit: On testing the sickle damage does apply to SA. So focus generation/damage isn't as good here as an AoE weapon. But it nets a pretty nice damage bonus (58% for a class that doesn't start with religion)

 

edit: And I want to add that even if my ramblings didn't go in the direction of your support. I definitely did pay attention and learn from your posts and appreciate it Boeroer/Yorname

Edited July 25 by Goumindong
tested some stuff