any talk of fixing Dual Blades (empower and weaken)?

I love the look of the set, but the combos just don't really work. Getting 3 attacks to hit just fails too often. The biggest problem was the Empower which I needed precisely when my attacks were not hitting to get a +to hit. The combo seemed almost to be taunting me - you can't hit your foes, you can fix that if you can just hit 3 times in a row.

I know that the later combos make empower and weaken superfluous, but trying to level with DB it was just sad.

Is the set considered good enough because post 32 it is fine?
Or is there any talk of tweaking it so that it isn't just 3 powers cycled and the rest ignored?

Meh- I don't really see a problem with the combos in dual blades. I have two DB characters, and it is unlikely that I miss while building combos with either one. If you are missing your opportunities to build combos that much, you might want to review your slotting to make sure you aren't underperforming for accuracy. Aren't all weapons sets endowed with slightly higher accuracy to start?

What's more is that I only use two combos on my brute. Sweep and attack vitals are, in my opinion more valuable than the other two you mention. I don't think anyone should really try to fit in every single DB attack, as it would require getting nearly every power in the set.

To answer one more question, no- I don't think that because one attack misses that the set needs help. The DB attacks are somewhat decent individually, so I don't think they really need any buffing.

If you're socketing for your needs, you have a 95% to hit. That means your chance to have one of three attacks fail is a whopping 15%. Now look at powersets like Archery (bonus is meaningless after level 12 or so now) or Radiation (ditto) orrrr the % to Knockback on Dual Pistols.

85% to Get Something Special is pretty neat by comparison.

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

The only thing that I never understand/use is the Sweep combo.

Most of the time when I set it up, One Thousand Cuts will knock down the target and by the time I get to the 'SWEEP' portion of the combo, the target is still under KB surpression from just being knocked down.

My wife's DB scrapper is a monster, that's all I have to say. I'm pretty sure she uses 3 combos - the build up one, the sweep, and the heavy hitter.

I will try my best not to do any bashing to the OP.

But there is not enough detail to back up what you want. What secondary are you playing with? What level are you playing at? What other powers do you have?

Honestly at lower levels CoT is rough for a lot of sets and ATs, usually up until you get SOs.

I have one Dual Blader and he has /SR secondary, this made it easier to avoid to hit debuffs. Since it is not something shared across all secondaries, I don't think it is broken.

Here are some quick suggestions...

I will start with the easiest.

1. Avoid missions with CoT.

2. Purple and Yellow Insperations, Defense helps you avoid the to hit debuff altogether and the yellows keep you afloat when a couple get through. Unless you are fighting the Earth Casters then there aren't many defense debuffs you have to worry about.

3. Tactics from the power pool, Maneuvers is a good pre req for any Scrapper and if you are worried about your to hit, Tactics would be the way to go for you.

4. I take it since you can post on the forums you are a VIP, so go the IO route, it is a good permanent solution. The Kismet unique gives you a 6% to hit boost and is cheap and easily slottable, also building for accuarcy is cheap altogether. Or you can frankenslot for damage and accuracy.

If all else fails, form a team, or at minimun team up with a buff/debuff AT, Corrs, Defenders and Controllers like the help in the early levels, MMs, you might not have to do any work.

Also there were some good tips given out, off the top of my head, someone mentioned starting off with Blinding Feint, in the TO and DO levels that's what I did, I would start with that power, go into the Weaken Combo then the Empower combo.

But just because you have a Kryptonite doesn't mean the set is broken, combo system is an Acc focused system so enemies with -tohit and high defense aren't going to be your friend. Honestly it's like saying you want a buff for Invul because you can't take on a group of Seers lol.

In a group some targets are harder to hit than others. This maybe sometimes just subjective but I did notice a better success rate with Blinding Feint on certain targets before going onto attack harder to hit targets.

A dualbladers experience does change with different armour sets. Invulns being one of the safer bets with +Tohit coming from Invincible.

My Dual Blade scrapper being Willpower, is min/maxxed with full leaderships, one of them obviously being tactics. QR does help in endurance so why not.

On the subject though, I'd love to see it buffed. Attacks that have to hit to give +tohit have always been limited so any buff is good and seriously I don't see a reason why not. Dual Blades is good but not that good that it couldnt do with a buff.

My only real gripe with the OP's stance is that he seems to be under the impression that you MUST go through the entire Empower combo to receive a +tohit buff, which is completely false.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Smiling_Joe ::looks at RaikenX's signature:: Something funny.

I do think we're missing the original point of the OP:

The Empower and Weaken combos both have a primary benefit: Making the enemies easier to hit. However, you need to land a series of hits in a row to pull them off, thus showing you won't really benefit from the combos. (Empower does provide a +dmg, which will help, but the foe -Def and the Self +to-hit is a bit redundant if you were able to land the series).

If they were Foe -Res, Slow, -Recharge, -Regen, etc, there'd be some logical sense, but "I need to hit you three times to make you easier to hit" doesn't sound like you need the benefit.

(We can also argue about whether the benefits are too small to matter, but I wanted to restate the OP and not get lost in Spectral land)

Weaken gives -7.5% def for brutes/stalkers/scrappers, -7% for tanks. But that's after 3 attacks, while Broadsword and Katana do -7.5% on each hit.

Personally, I don't find Weaken useful for the def debuff anyway, the tohit debuff is the more important part.

IMHO, the best thing about dual blades (statwise) is sweeping strikes. It's a 90 degree cone and does very good DPA. Using it as often as possible while fueled by blinding feint's buffs can turn you into a slaughter machine, competing very well with any other set. (fill in the gaps witih your other attack of choice)

However, I really don't think the dev's intended us to ignore combo's completely. I think it was just by accident that the set ended up this way.

Don't use combo's then.