Cutting Dive vs. Rapid Strikes (Warden)

merpins · May 2022

Assuming you're using dual wield and everything else is the same on both parses, and you are LA waving and keeping up with your rotation, which is better? I find them to be pretty comparable, but Rapid Strikes almost always pulls ahead of Cutting Dive by 2-4k dps. Thoughts?

Mr_Stach · May 2022

Cutting dive has a 15s CD on it's bleed stuff due to it being tied to Off-balance, making it fall behind Rapid Strikes.

If they removed the hoop to jump through, it would be much better.

ALSO FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SPEED UP THE ANIMATION

merpins · May 2022

Mr_Stach wrote: »

Cutting dive has a 15s CD on it's bleed stuff due to it being tied to Off-balance, making it fall behind Rapid Strikes.

If they removed the hoop to jump through, it would be much better.

ALSO FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SPEED UP THE ANIMATION

Good point. And I 100% agree.

Mr_Stach · May 2022

Also there's the ranged aspect, you wanna be 7+ Meters back to proc Off-balance but you need to be close for weaving. Just kinda makes positioning a mess.

And sure in group content, Off-balance will typically be applied by healers, because they're cool like that, but it's still a stupid hoop to jump through

BloodyStigmata · May 2022

I'll gladly choose less damage with cutting dive because rapid strikes looks stupid.

MudcrabAttack · May 2022

If it’s just purely a dps comparison between spammables, one of the two is ranged, so it kind of makes sense that the melee version would pull ahead slightly. But rapid strikes is just physical damage whereas cutting dive applies the hemorrhage DOT in addition to the bleed. It’s stronger than it appears on the surface just because of the hemorrhage, and you might have better damage results from bloodthirst over rapid strikes since you get some hemorrhage out of it

However the bear will be sticking hemorrhage on things constantly in the next chapter, and overwriting the hemorrhage you get from both cutting dive and bloodthirst. Next chapter you may as well go back to rapid strikes. Sundered status is nice to have, especially when solo. But if you’re solo, and it’s all about dps and nothing more, you may as well run the toilet noise simulator crushing weapon for the major breach in addition to minor breach from sundered.

Grandchamp1989 · May 2022

I want to like the Warden spammable, I really want to..

I just.... Don't.

Mr_Stach · May 2022

It doesn't matter how good an ability is by the numbers, if it feels bad to use (like chucking birds) you'll be less inclined to use it.

I stick to Hidden Blade on my Stamden and Frost Reach on my Magden because Birds feel bad

merpins · May 2022

Mr_Stach wrote: »

It doesn't matter how good an ability is by the numbers, if it feels bad to use (like chucking birds) you'll be less inclined to use it.

I stick to Hidden Blade on my Stamden and Frost Reach on my Magden because Birds feel bad

Y'know. There's an animation that existed before warden. It was in the Crown Store, in a loot box i believe during the first or second halloween event. I have it. It lets you select a PC, your character points at them, and a few seconds later a crow appears, flies down and hits them splattering into a bloody mess. The animation is suspiciously similar to the Warden skill, if not exactly the same but with a different bird.

What I'm trying to say is, the warden skill feels terrible to use.

merpins · May 2022

Grandchamp1989 wrote: »

I want to like the Warden spammable, I really want to..

I just.... Don't.

Same. It definitely does some damage. But it feels terrible to use. Takes me back to my maplestory days where if a class had skills that weren't fun to use, I just wouldn't play that class. I'm just glad it's one skill, but I'd be so happy if ZoS gave it a brand new animation.