Surprise Attack vs Bloodthirst

Stx

Hi all,

I am trying to figure out the dps difference between using surprise attack or bloodthirst as my main spammable on my stamblade. This is in a solo situation. I like bloodthirst for a lot of reasons, mainly the healing, but also the animation I think is cooler than SA.

So I do know that SA is one of the better spammables in the game because its instant, and also procs sundered on every hit. Weaving light attacks is easier with it too.

But bloodthirst does have a higher tooltip for me, its at 14800 while SA is at 12000. Bloodthirst can also proc hemorrhage which is a nice dot. The channel seems to be the main issue with it as far as keeping up dps wise.

Morvan

I had the same question when I started playing, and I also found Bloodthirst cooler for the animation and all, but yeah, being an instant cast makes a huge difference here, Surprise Attack is better in general, not to mention it makes enemies Off-Balance, which works well with the new CP Exploiter and the Ruffian passive from Dual Wield.

The only worth advantage Bloodthirst has over SA would be the healing, but you can get that from other sources and still be able to use SA instead.

As for hemorrhage, the Bloodcraze skill from Dual Wield can proc it as well and give you a bunch of healing, you could use it on pair with SA and I can guarantee you won't miss Bloodthirst much. Although Barbed Trap would be a better option if the healing is not needed.

I recommend testing your dps dummy parsing and experiment what is better for you, builds are all subjective and you can always adjust it depending on your situation.

Zodiarkslayer

Once upon a time I chose Surpise Attack for the passive armor buff proc.

But now with the Oakensoul Ring, it is better to go Bloodthirst. Bosses do not interrupt nearly as much as PvP Players.

MindOfTheSwarm

Depends on build and your CP passives. Blood craze is DoT and thus gains different bonuses.

Kahnak

Surprise Attack applies Sundered (Minor Breach)

There are a lot of sources of Minor Breach, but there will be times that you're going to be attacking something that does not have it applied and it will be a DPS increase. I would personally stick with Surprise Attack, especially considering it's much easier to weave LA's.