[1.1.9.3] The Shieldmaiden's Tale - Targo 1H Blade Arc Blademaster [SR95] [All Celestials]

Re: ABB, I didn’t think so after trying it for a long time. At least not together with Blade Arc, and not with a 1H. It’s possible that there is something I missed from my testing, but I don’t think so. Basically the problem comes down to the fact that at 26/16 points, it’s still doing comparable damage to one single BA autoattack - 230% compared to 205% WD (which doesn’t make a huge difference because our base WD is so very low). It’s pretty bad. And the slightly higher flat damage on paper doesn’t make much of a difference either when you’re hitting with BA multiple times per second and ABB only once every 1.8 seconds, so in the end bonuses to BA will benefit it more just from sheer number spam. Take Ilgor’s Curse medal (which buffs ABB) vs. Balthazar’s Crest medal (which buffs BA). There is an opportunity cost in that choice, and I found Balthazar’s Crest to be much better of the two - not to mention that without Ilgor’s Curse, ABB becomes even less worth using. You can immediately feel the difference on a dummy.

On top of all that ABB gets enormously energy hungry at that high a level, to the point where you’ll be noticeably running out of energy a lot especially without pots, whereas without it, it’s manageable. So, high investment, negative returns lol.

That’s a decent idea about Anatomy of Murder though. Basically I didn’t want to drop the yuge DA shred from Blindside but the cunning gain may be worth more. I’ll test it out.