Yo! I don’t know this yet, I haven’t checked it, but this is my current presumption based on how casting other buffs works with weapon swap. I’m keen to try it - There are a couple of items that give damage conversions to Word of Renewal (100% pierce to Chaos or 100% Aether to Elemental), so that might provide for some interesting opportunities.
Not usually, because it definitely can’t happen fluidly mid-fight, but there are circumstances where I absolutely do. There is an item (Brawler’s Distinction) that significantly reduces an enemy’s ability to heal itself. This is integral for deep SR when fighting Kubacabra, and it’s carried by some of the DPS builds and tanks in the Knights of the Eternal Realm SR team who swap out to it if required.
It depends on what you’re looking to achieve, right? Very rarely am I trying to make “the best build” in terms of tankiness or damage output. If I wanted a build stronger than this one I’d just make a pet build. Or a ret tank or something. There are other people here working diligently towards the goal of super-powered solo build, like yourself, and I do find such minmaxed builds inspiring. However, the few times I go looking for such specialty in a build is usually when building for super deep SR, support builds or team synergy. Instead, my goals with building are usually to explore things like diversity in gameplay, build concept (meme or theme builds), and the over all ‘play style experience’. The playstyle experience of “owning everything on screen as quickly and comfortably as possible” is the obvious one that most people are building toward, and one I enjoy from time to time, but is by no means the only one I care about.
The build above is the first attempt I’ve made at a weapon switch build, and for a first attempt I think it shows potential. Even if this particular build isn’t as strong as a well built melee build could be, I think it shows that weapon switch as a concept is functional.
I could argue that the build above is simply a “ranged build with the option of tankiness when needed”. You could counter argue “why not just build a tanky ranged build with less piano playing?”
So instead, I’ll argue - “I find it fun and interesting to be able to dart in and out of melee and ranged combat. For me it brings a freshness of playstyle that I haven’t spent much time doing in this game”.
Even if the build above doesn’t meet your standards of what you feel a ‘good build’ should be, I still think that it shows mechanically that good builds MAY be viable with more exploration of the concept.