Katana - "Making pointy sticks more pointy"
By
Arctic_Princess,
Posted on: 2008-11-14 16:21 in Player Guides
What an excellent guide.
I have a Katana/Dark Scrapper and even at 37, I still find him weak. Something tells me that I'm going to be going down to Woolworths later this evening to do some bidding.
Thanks!
@Dante EU - Union Roleplayer and Altisis Victim
The Militia: Union RP Supergroup - www.themilitia.org.uk
Got a lvl 3 Kat/Inv and lvl 22 Kat/SR...both seem quite weak compared to the the Claws/MA I've played over time. But it seems Katana isn't all doom and gloom...now these "Katana sucks" people are out of their jobs 
Very nice guide Mael 
As a longtime katana user I must add in something too;
Slotting the "PBAoE" attacks with a full scirocco's set is also a good idea. Even though you "only" get one proc it's good
- @DSorrow - alts on Union and Freedom mostly -
Currently playing as Castigation on Freedom
My Katana/Inv Guide
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. -Einstein
And the inf cost of the above is ... ?
Seriously, it looks as if you've made level 50 katana wielders very effective, and grats on that - but I want my builds to start coming good before the late 40s.
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And the inf cost of the above is ... ?
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Less than you'd think.
Following this guide, I logged my Kat/Dark in and went to bid on some Archilles' Heel Procs. Cost? 200,000 inf each and easily built with fairly common salvage. Lady Grey procs were from 500,000 to 2,000,000 last night. As for the full build suggested, ok that could be a little pricey.
Of course, following this guide, I expect the price of some of the Inventions mentioned to go up a little. 
@Dante EU - Union Roleplayer and Altisis Victim
The Militia: Union RP Supergroup - www.themilitia.org.uk
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And the inf cost of the above is ... ?
Seriously, it looks as if you've made level 50 katana wielders very effective, and grats on that - but I want my builds to start coming good before the late 40s.
[/ QUOTE ]
Well as Dante said, the two "main" procs are not that expensive, really... since very few builds can slot many of them they're a bit of a glut on the market. Definately comparable to most other Set IOs.
Concerning levels, the Lady Grey Proc is available from level 21-50, and the Achilles' Heel from 10-20. You'd probably be able to get ahold of them by the time you're looking into slotting SOs/IOs.
Granted, the Purple Procs are very expensive (region of 25,000,000-45,000,000 for the recipe) and only available at level 50, but Mako's Bite is a filler option for the ST Melee attacks from level 30 onwards (and the "Touch of Death" Negative damage one from level 25, though that has a lower chance for activating). For the PBAoE attacks, you'll have Eradication "Chance for Energy Damage" (level 10-30) and Obliteration "Chance for Smashing Damage" (level 30-50) available as cheaper options when Issue 13 goes live.
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Very nice guide Mael
As a longtime katana user I must add in something too;
Slotting the "PBAoE" attacks with a full scirocco's set is also a good idea. Even though you "only" get one proc it's good
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True that. I tend to avoid going down the Scirroco route because it gives more lethal damage (Yuck!). The new Eradication "Chance for Energy Damage" definately looks to be one to watch out for if it's cheapish...
Great guide! Effective use of procs.
You've successfully changed my perception
" (iv) No ranged attacks (OK, so only Claws and Spines get them... they're still handy!) "
Wrong, fire melee has ranged attack.
Other than that, good guide... still a bit skeptic though.
With any other primary the minion / LT will probably be dead before Achilles heel have a chance to go off.
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" (iv) No ranged attacks (OK, so only Claws and Spines get them... they're still handy!) "
Wrong, fire melee has ranged attack.
Other than that, good guide... still a bit skeptic though.
With any other primary the minion / LT will probably be dead before Achilles heel have a chance to go off.
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He's not saying you need the achilles proc to beat a minion / LT. If you can read between the lines you'd get you mostly want it to increase DPS which you need for AVs and EBs. In teams your blasters probably take out minions / LTs quickly and you're there to pick out the tough guys like bosses.
- @DSorrow - alts on Union and Freedom mostly -
Currently playing as Castigation on Freedom
My Katana/Inv Guide
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. -Einstein
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" (iv) No ranged attacks (OK, so only Claws and Spines get them... they're still handy!) "
Wrong, fire melee has ranged attack.
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Where? >.>
The 15 Foot on 'Breath of Fire'?
Well, if you want to get technical in that it's slightly more than standard melee range, then fair enough... But you'd need to call KO Blow, Headsplitter and Golden Dragonfly ranged attacks as well then...
(I'd call it a ranged attack if it had Blaster's "Fire Breath" range of 40 feet on it, but as it stands it's only 15 foot with an arc of 30' and a rooted animation that's nearly 3 seconds long... Frankly if you ever manage to hit anything at range with it that's still at range after the animation finishes, then you deserve a cookie... 
)
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Other than that, good guide... still a bit skeptic though.
With any other primary the minion / LT will probably be dead before Achilles heel have a chance to go off.
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The Achilles' proc is for things that take longer than 1-3 hits to die. Like AVs, EBs, Bosses, or tougher LTs.
Because it's in Gambler's Cut, it should be going off every 1.5 - 2.0 seconds. At 20% chance to kick in, realistically speaking it should be active within 8-10 seconds of beating on something... and at 10.3 secs duration it tends to stay permanently active once it's on (older applications get overwritten by newer ones).
For things that die in 1-3 hits, you'll probably not see much benefit from of the Achilles' Proc: even if it does Proc on the first strike, the mob will STILL die in 1-3 hits... but that's not exactly the sort of enemy you need help to defeat, as Katana doesn't lack the damage needed to 1-3 shot minions in the first place...
The Damage Procs will help much more with one-shotting stuff. Achilles' is for added Damage Over Time versus stuff that resists lethal damage. If you find one isn't enough for you (although AFAIK only one can be active at any one time) you can slot more into different attacks. They're a dirt cheap source of extra DPS.
(As an aside, I keep Gambler's Cut on "Auto" so I don't need to hammer it. It's my joint-2nd-best DPA attack and inflicts -resist, with such a short animation time it should never be recharged and unused during a fight)
If it takes Ranged IOs then it is ranged and all scrappers have a ranged origin power from the get go. 
I liked the guide. I knew about it but I love enthusiasm. I think in doing anything the whole of a build needs to be taken into account.
I prefer the chance for neg dam on broadsword mainly because of the sword and shield you can get to match it to.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
Bah, you and your fancy-schmancy Nictus swords... I'll stick with my Talsorian Katana...
("My pointy stick is faster than yours, so my procs go off more often! Nyah!")
So would this theory also work for Claws?
(and aren't claws faster than Broadsword and Katana? Nyah nyah)
If claws ever got -defence on all their attacks instead of just on "Slash", it sure could...
(And no, surprisingly pointy sticks are if anything a little bit faster now... at least in terms of animation "cast" time on the first three attacks, AoE, and highest-damage attack... Nyah, Nyah, Nyah? )
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If claws ever got -defence on all their attacks instead of just on "Slash", it sure could...
(And no, surprisingly pointy sticks are if anything a little bit faster now... at least in terms of animation "cast" time on the first three attacks, AoE, and highest-damage attack... Nyah, Nyah, Nyah? )
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Bugger! There goes that plan
Ah well, I've enough of an addiction to PROCs without adding to it.
Well I never found Katana to be poor (boring, but not poor) - however with dual builds coming I may be bidding on a few bits to make AP fun in big teams
Oh and respeccing her OUT of Dark Mastery and back into Body Mastery. Sheesh, what was I thinking?
--> "The heck? Why do we need ANOTHER Scrapper guide Mael?"
Well... it's not exactly a Scrapper guide per-say. A guide generally takes a Primary/Secondary combination, then tells you all about the powers, what to pick and how to slot etc...
This is more of a perception-shifting exercise. I'm assuming you know about all the powers in Katana. I'm not going to tell you what they do (much). I'm hardly even going to touch on secondaries, except to say that this will likely work best with something that doesn't run out of endurance very easily. Like /Regen, /Fire or /Willpower.
And on that note: My Katana/ is /Regen, and even with good attack slotting, Stamina, Quick Recovery and both +Recovery uniques, his blue bar still creeps very gradually downwards when he's attacking full-tilt with the chain that I will tell you about later on here. However it takes a long time to actually run dry... and the drain is completely offset by a single +recovery buff, or by not attacking during the few seconds it takes to reach the next group of foes, or by using MoG when I get too low.
--> "Perception-shifting WHAT?"
Look Einstein... the traditional idea behind Katana is that it is a medium damage but fast recharge set, right?
It's essentially a carbon-copy of Broadsword, which has virtually identical attacks with higher damage but longer recharge times.
The major downsides to Katana are:
(i) Very resisted damage type (Lethal)
(ii) Little burst damage (can be tricky to kill dangerous mobs like sappers quickly)
(iii) Not much mez to speak of- just two Knockdowns (Soaring Dragon and Golden Dragonfly).
(iv) No ranged attacks (OK, so only Claws and Spines get them... they're still handy!)
It DOES have decent AoE capability (Golden Dragonfly, Flashing Steel, Lotus Drops), Decent ST damage over time and a good survivability self-buff in Divine Avalanche.
Naturally, you know all this already... and if you didn't before then you do now!
--> "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah... Perception-shifting WHAT?"
I'm getting to that dammit!!
Because of the above 'downsides', traditionally Katana is viewed as one of the weaker Scrapper powersets.
The perception people have is that whilst Katana's damage output over time may be comparable to Broadsword's, Broadsword is better at spike damage (one-shotting or two-shotting a foe)... Spines is better at AoE... Claws and Dark Melee (and to a lesser extent, Martial Arts) are better at damage over time... Martial Arts has more mez.
When Firey Melee was introduced, it got even worse: beating Katana in all three categories... Spike Damage, Damage over time and AoE damage.
Essentially, Katana is percieved as having no "niche". It's not a "top set" at anything... the best thing it has going for it is Divine Avalanche, and Broadsword has that too, along with better burst damage. So why pick it for anything other than "concept"?
However, ([u]and here is where this "Katana is rubbish" perception hopefully begins to shift a bit![u]) this all changed with the recent animation tweaks, and the introduction of Debuff Set IOs.
Currently Katana's attacks are much faster-activating than they were previously... meaning that provided that a Katana user has a fair bit of +recharge, they'll now comfortably beat a Broadsword user in Damage-over-time. In fact, they'll also beat Martial Arts. They still won't beat a well-built "permafocus" Claws build or 'machinegun' Dark Melee build when slotted like-for-like, but they're roughly on-par with Firey Melee.
However there is another major source of damage output for a Katana user, and it's what puts Katana in the lead over the other high-damage-output primaries ("Permafocus" Claws and "Machinegun" Dark Melee builds included)... Damage Procs.
Namely, two of them:
1. Touch of Lady Grey - Negative Damage Proc
2. Achilles' Heel - Chance for 20% resistance debuff.
--> "Claws and Dark Melee can slot Procs too, you steaming nutter!"
Sure. But Katana has something they don't have...
Katana's secondary effect lowers Defense on every attack.
Every attack in the set (apart from Divine Avalanche) can be slotted with a damage proc.
It isn't a % chance to inflict that -defence, it's 100% activation... meaning that on EVERY attack, Katana gets a "chance roll" for any slotted Defense Debuff set procs to activate.
This is important to note, since other Damage Procs such as those from the Knockback sets are often slotted into an attack that has a % chance to inflict the effect that triggers them. Procs only get a "chance roll" for their extra damage to activate whenever that effect is inflicted (which can be as low as 10% of the time depending on the attack... so 10% of the time that attack will activate a Proc which then has a 25% chance to actually be inflicted).
The First of the Procs that Katana users should be considering is of obvious use. The Lady Grey Proc does Negative Damage, which is unresisted by a lot of stuff... and (aside from certain "Ghost" mobs) the only things that tend to resist it tend to also be weak to lethal damage.
The Second Proc is also fairly straightforward: The only real weakness of Katana these days is that it does Lethal damage, which is probably the most resisted type in the game. The Achilles' Heel Proc can help out here, reducing foes resistance by 20%. This is naturally most effective against foes with high resistance to lethal damage, but even against foes with [u]no resistance[u] to lethal it'll still effectively multiply all your damage output by a straight 20% across the board. The value also scales against foe level... so against +2s there'll be less -resist inflicted, against -2s there'll be more, etc.
Katana can also slot two categories of damage set IOs: Single Target Melee (Sting of the Wasp, Gambler's Cut, Divine Avalanche and Soaring Dragon) and PBAoE sets (in Flashing Steel, The Lotus Drops and Golden Dragonfly). Mako's Bite from the standard Melee set has a decent Damage Proc, and the Purple sets for PBAoE and Melee both have VERY nice Damage Procs.
Now for the clincher: because Katana's attacks are so fast recharging and fast-activating, it's not uncommon to have the Achilles' Heel Proc up constantly, AND have several different damage procs activate in the space of, say, ten seconds. The top three "Damage per activation time" attacks in Katana are Golden Dragonfly, Soaring Dragon and Gambler's Cut... in that order ('Sting of the Wasp' comes in 4th). Gambler's Cut has one of the shortest activation times for any attack in the game, and a very low recharge time and endurance cost.
--> "Soooo what you're saying is that 'Procs are good and Katana is fast'.....?"
Oh c'mon, you can't see where I'm going with this?
With Hasten and decent attack slotting, it doesn't take a Katana user very much extra global recharge to get an attack chain of Golden Dragonfly --> Gambler's Cut --> Soaring Dragon --> Gambler's Cut. There'll be a split-second gap until you get very high levels of recharge, so if needed you can use 'Sting of the Wasp' in place of GD/SD whilst they are recharging.
Gambler's Cut is dirt cheap and doesn't need much extra slotting to get the cost down, it just needs decent accuracy and capped damage... so it'll have 2-3 slots free for Procs. Soaring Dragon can take the Melee Purple ST set Proc. Golden Dragonfly can take the PBAoE Purple set Proc. They can [u]ALL[u] take the Lady Grey Negative damage Proc, and Gambler's Cut's low recharge and fast cast time is just [u]begging[u] for the Achilles' Heel Proc.
Let's compare DPA ([u]D[u]amage [u]P[u]er [u]A[u]ctivation time), before and after Procs:
+ [u]Normal Slotting[u]:
Gambler's Cut - 108 (0.67 Secs cast time) = 161 Dam/Sec
Soaring Dragon - 233 (1.33 Secs cast time) = 175 Dam/Sec
Golden Dragonfly - 323 (1.83 Secs cast time) = 177 Dam/Sec
+ [u]Normal Slotting + Average Proc damage[u]:
(two procs in each: Purple + LG for SD/GD, Makos and LG for GC)
Gambler's Cut - 137 (0.67 Secs cast time) = 204 Dam/Sec
Soaring Dragon - 283 (1.33 Secs cast time) = 213 Dam/Sec
Golden Dragonfly - 373 (1.83 Secs cast time) = 204 Dam/Sec
+ [u]Factoring in the Achilles' Heel -resist Proc as +20% Damage[u]:
(usually kept permanently activated via just one IO in Gambler's Cut)
Gambler's Cut - 164 (0.67 Secs cast time) = 245 Dam/Sec
Soaring Dragon - 340 (1.33 Secs cast time) = 256 Dam/Sec
Golden Dragonfly - 448 (1.83 Secs cast time) = 245 Dam/Sec
You're looking at some insane damage numbers, comfortably beating the likes of Claws even before you start thinking about using 'Build Up'.
The best thing is that Katana keeps its versatility - you still have the ability to change your attack chain at a moment's notice.
The above GD>GC>SD>GC chain pretty much inflicts perma-knockdown and is obviously the best option for single target damage... but if you find yourself fighting something that is Knockback resistant and tough enough to kill you, you can switch to using Divine Avalanche instead of Gambler's Cut- mixing very respectable damage with soft-capped melee/lethal defense. Or if you find yourself fighting a lot of foes, you can mix in Flashing Steel and Lotus Drops along with Golden Dragonfly to unleash some nasty AoE carnage.
Please note though that this does not make up for [u]ALL[u] Katana's shortcomings. It is still "balanced" in that it still lacks major spike damage (Whilst Golden Dragonfly becomes a fairly heavy-hitter at 373 average damage and 502 max, Greater Fire Sword still wins with similar slotting at 443 average and 572 max - at least until you factor in animation time!) and it's still fairly well resisted (the -20% is certainly very nice, but it won't floor the Lethal Resistance of some tougher mobs like Elite Bosses or AVs, especially since they actually tend to have resistance to Resistance debuffs). And, naturally, unlike Spines and Claws it still doesn't have any ranged attacks...
(And no, it doesn't magically gain any mez beyond the Perma Knockdown chain. Or any extra AoE damage beyond the moderately decent increase from damage procs. So Spines' "AoE damage-dealer" crown is safe.)
--> "Wow! Katana is nice - SLOTTING ADVICE PLEASE!!"
The below is how [u]I[u] would have [u]my[u] attacks slotted Pre-i13. It's quite expensive, and YMMV!
(Currently i have all these attacks slotted up this way in my Katana/Regen except for 'Lotus Drops', which I'll be taking instead of Focussed Accuracy in I13)
If you're on a budget, the Procs are definately the main concern... and the purple 'Hecatomb' Proc can be replaced by a 'Mako's Bite' Proc if your wallet is still hurting and you don't mind a slight damage decrease.
+ [u]Gambler's Cut[u] +
Nucleous, Nucleous, Common Damage IO,
Mako's Bite - Lethal Damage Proc
Touch of Lady Grey - Negative Damage Proc
Achilles' Heel chance for -resist debuff
+ [u]Sting of the Wasp[u] +
Crushing Impact Set (not the Dam/End one)
Touch of Lady Grey - Negative Damage Proc
+ [u]Divine Avalanche[u] +
Nucleous, Nucleous, Common Damage IO,
LOTG +Rech, LOTG +Defense, Membrane.
66.7% Acc
109% Damage
61% Defense
33% Recharge
(23.4 Defense buff, Perma-Double-Stackable)
+ [u]Flashing Steel[u] +
Scirocco's Dervish Acc/Dam/End and Acc/Dam
Cleaving Blow Acc/Rech and Dam/Rech
Armageddon Dam/Rech
Touch of Lady Grey - Negative Damage Proc
+ [u]Soaring Dragon[u] +
Hecatomb Set (not Dam/Rech)
Touch of Lady Grey - Negative Damage Proc
+ [u]Golden Dragonfly[u] +
Armageddon Set (not Dam/Rech)
Touch of Lady Grey - Negative Damage Proc
+ [u]Lotus Drops[u] +
Scirocco's Dervish Acc/Dam/End and Acc/Rech and Dam/Rech
Multi Strike Dam/End/Rech
Nucleous
Touch of Lady Grey - Negative Damage Proc
...note though that there are new PBAoE sets due to be released in Issue 13, so my slotting for 'Lotus Drops' and 'Flashing Steel' will probably change whenever I get my grubby mitts on them...