Braver Class Talk

[Shiyo]

That's also significant. I really felt like sakura not bouncing while kanran did was a lazy balancing point, like they were working on it and at the last minute said "but kanran is now the best for most AOE needs...how about we give sakura something else?"

Even if kanran doesn't KD with shield strikes the ability to repeatedly use it around shielded enemies alone will be invaluable.

edit: Modified my intended tree: http://ryuhiroshi.funpic.de/pso2/ski...nfsNJ2HnIb0006
It previously had rapid shoot mastery 10 and rapid shoot up 1, but now with weak stance charge the damage I gain full time more than offsets that 15% & 50 atk for 60 seconds.

I was thinking of doing this or the average stance one, but losing 15% dmg on weak trash for 10% more dmg on two attacks is pretty meh, especially when auto-attack and katana combat hit so hard.

[Zipzo]

Weird, anyways, Katana combat does more damage than Sakura on bosses, auto-attack exists, and Sakura and Kanran don't consist of 100% of your damage output making that more like a 23% damage increase overall, much less than 20%/40% or 15%/40%.

Oh my god, is it that you like colorfully displaying your lack of being able to read? Those sentences do not contradict one another at all.

Sakura does more damage than Kanran. Kanran is good for mobbing and AOE flinch. Do you really want to start this up again and go 10 pages trying to act like you know what I said better than I do? Grow up or something.

You can use Katana Combat whether you take either stance so I don't know why you're bringing it up.

[gigawuts]

Yeah, average stance being worth >30% is tempting me now. 21% vs. situational 43% is a no brainer, but 33% vs. situational 57% is a bit different.

The main deciding factor for me is our bad katanas. I won't set up a tree to offset the low atk of katanas when I'm playing semi-hybrid and using bows on enemies that are problematic for katanas (I generally start one/two-shotting irritating enemies like shark dogs with bows instead of dancing with them using katanas), since bows benefit so much more from the weak stance skills, and katanas still benefit so much from weak stance (especially now).

This tree is both better for my pre-existing playstyle, but also a longer term investment. It'll almost certainly be a more viable build for katanas when we get stronger weapons, so since more alltree resets aren't a certainty that's what I'll go with. I mean, I've already locked myself out of getting it completely, but I can do it partially until the next wave of resets.

Also! It looks like the JP wiki is saying Combat JA Bonus does affect Combat Finish. So for 5 SP you can buff up your combat damage plus your finish damage, maybe. It's hard to tell based on google translate. Invest at your own discretion.

[Cyclon]

Woah woah, kanran and sakura will benefit from charge?

This changes things quite a bit, I may go for weak stance charge now. It not only benefits all bow PAs but the two main ground combat katana PAs. This would mostly offset the non-weak penalty, too, bringing you from 1x damage to .99x damage. This is a big deal for kanran/sakura weak stance users.

If I'm not misunderstanding what you're saying(I'm having trouble following you guys on these last few posts) and if the skill's description on the skill simulator is to be trusted, weak stance charge's bonus only applies on weak spots. As such it doesn't offset the penalty at all.

[gigawuts]

Hm, that may be true. I hadn't looked into that. It's the exact same description used for WSU though, so I'm not sure the skill sim is entirely accurate on this.

[Zipzo]

If I'm not misunderstanding what you're saying(I'm having trouble following you guys on these last few posts) and if the skill's description on the skill simulator is to be trusted, weak stance charge's bonus only applies on weak spots. As such it doesn't offset the penalty at all.

Precisely. Everything about the Weak Stance tree is conditional, just like the Ranger tree. That's really the point. They expected bow mains would run Weak, as bow is an often very accurate weapon that can take advantage of it.

For Weak Stance charge to even work, you need to be fulfilling the condition for Weak Stance in the first place.

[Rob2003ert]

You can use Katana Combat whether you take either stance so I don't know why you're bringing it up.

The point is you're using KC wrong if you're using Sakura during it (exceptional circumstances aside). You're not getting an unconditional 10% damage buff like you claim when such a significant portion of your damage comes from KC and the finish. It's not a cut and dry 10% boost, making a 2 stance build just as viable as it was before. It's an undeniable buff to one stance builds, but I don't think it makes up for giving up the other stance just yet. Hopefully they'll improve one stance build further in future, because stance dancing sucks.

[Shiyo]

Why does my kamikaze arrow do such horrible damage compared to Katana? I'm using a +10 6 star bow too, with org soul x3 on units, but I have org/power3 on them ;/ My katana is +10 6 star too, Bow seems horribly weak compared to my katana without a RATTK mag and more RATTK gear or I'm doing something completely wrong. I'm sure bow is fantastic if I geared purely for bow, but since I'm mainly Katana it seems to be completely useless.

[Zipzo]

The point is you're using KC wrong if you're using Sakura during it (exceptional circumstances aside). You're not getting an unconditional 10% damage buff like you claim when such a significant portion of your damage comes from KC and the finish. It's not a cut and dry 10% boost, making a 2 stance build just as viable as it was before. It's an undeniable buff to one stance builds, but I don't think it makes up for giving up the other stance just yet. Hopefully they'll improve one stance build further in future, because stance dancing sucks.

Ya, you're looking at 20% consistent damage increase vs conditional 50% (0% if not meeting those conditions) on your auto-attacks for 20 seconds every 1 minute and 30 seconds in the circumstance you're describing.

Not exactly a great argument. Double stance builds are dead.

Why does my kamikaze arrow do such horrible damage compared to Katana? I'm using a +10 6 star bow too, with org soul x3 on units, but I have org/power3 on them ;/ My katana is +10 6 star too, Bow seems horribly weak compared to my katana without a RATTK mag and more RATTK gear or I'm doing something completely wrong. I'm sure bow is fantastic if I geared purely for bow, but since I'm mainly Katana it seems to be completely useless.

Yes, you must be doing something horridly wrong because Kamikaze is literally the strongest ability Bravers have period. It hits for as much damage as the Katana finisher in one use, kills anything without even charging it if you JA it, and you can spam it.

[Cyclon]

Hm, that may be true. I hadn't looked into that. It's the exact same description used for WSU though, so I'm not sure the skill sim is entirely accurate on this.

Oh, yes, you're right. Funny.

Cirnopedia's description does seem to corroborate this though:
http://cirnopedia.frostsabre.com/class_7.php#nav