I've tried both SB and DB and liked them both.

I'm beginning to try claws.

I liked SB's bleed.

I've noticed that claws' shred doesn't stack. I'm not sure if shred is good or not.

I rarely see anyone use claws, but I don't see SB much either.

Does anyone think that either SB or claws is good?

Single Blade is pretty good it just requires a lot of skill to utilize properly. As for claws the only thing worth getting is Dragon Claw.

Single Blade is good but (and this is why you don't see it much) you only need maybe 2 or 3 powers from it to deal with 95% of the game. Basically anything from a Supervillain down will die in about 5 seconds to a Single Blade toon.

It's "thing" is rupturing bleeds which lots of people focus on but from my experience the only time this is actually useful is when you're fighting Legendary or Cosmic villains where you will have enough time to actually stack your 5 bleeds and rupture them repeatedly. Everything else can be taken down in no time at all using Scything Blade (with Swallow tail cut advantage - it's still good) with a follow up of Reapers Caress. the majority of enemies will be dead by the time the third hit of RC hits and most henchmen will be dead on the first hit.

It has no AoE powers and most players like to AoE stuff but I just take Dragon Kick for that.

I've been looking at Claws and as soon as I come up with a concept I like for it I'll give it a serious try but I have to admit I thought the shredded buff stacked so if it doesn't I'm not sure what to make of it.

OK since Hollowpoint is currently in the power house doing a full retcon I figured I'd try out Claws and see what it's all about.

OK so first things first Hollowpoint has no STR at all so if you built for Claws you could do better. She is however all Dex/Ego and a bit of Int so there isn't a huge amount of difference.

Right I started out trying to use it like Single Blades refreshing the Shredded buff with Rend and Tear. This turns out to be completely useless as you can refresh it with Viper's Fangs nearly as quickly.

Aside from the slight knockup on Rend and Tear it feels like a useless power once you get to the tier 2 powers.

Dragon Claws is nothing special. It's a dragon attack so if you fully charge it you get Rush. It has nothing interesting going on at all and the Vertebreak advantage I can only imagine being useful for PvP.

However you want to use the Rush buff to power Tiger's Bite which consumes Shredded (no big deal it's very quick to reapply and you don't have to build up 5 of them like SB bleeds) and hits for a large chunk of damage. I was getting crits of about 7k against a level 40 Dummy.

Big problem? Dragon Claws also was critting for nearly the same amount and doesn't consume Shredded. There's no cooldown with this so you can keep using it and getting the Rush buff pretty much forever meaning you have to reapply Shredded less often.

The Form of the Untamed Warrior wasn't stacking as much focus as Unleashed Tempest but even that didn't stack as quick as normal due to the reliance on charged attacks (IE less small hits to crit with). It does however give you an energy boost right when you need it - after a big charge attack.

The set is very energy efficient since you can probably time your moves so that you always get energy back from a Dragon Claws attack and with the Rush buff it goes even further. Maybe toss in Inexorable Tides to pad out the combo a bit so your next Dragon Claws is guaranteed to net you energy.

The shredded debuff didn't seem to make alot of difference to my damage so I don't think it's a big percentage and seems to mostly exist so you can consume it with Tiger's Bite. However as I said even a Tiger's bite that consumes Shredded didn't seem to be much better than a Dragon Claws.

I would consider tossing some claws attacks into a Martial Arts build if I wanted some better damage (since MA seems a bit below the other MA sets) but playing a pure Fighting Claws toon doesn't really seem all that interesting to me.

Both sets are really fun. I like to combine each with ranged, since they lack AoE.

One of my favorite toons to play is Archery/Claws - I use Archery AoE attacks to take care of the henchmen and build up stacks of focus (dual swords form), then go after the boss with Dragon's Claws. Both sets work well with the block Retaliation.

Single Blade combines well with a few sets, including Munitions, Bestial and Dual Swords. I like it with Munitions because you can get a bleed from Muni (SMG) and you can do a lot from both with little energy.

Claws is infinitely more powerwful than single blade in terms of single target dps.

Dragons claws on a critical adds 50% or something critical severity. So on my End/Rec claws toon I hit for 80% severity if I crit. Then add in imbue and it bumps my crit severity over 120%. Then add in ice sheath with adv.....

Thats not including the damage buff from wotew, brawler and focus stacks. On pts without imbue and ice sheath I was critting every 3 hits more or less, for about 7.5k damage, and 3.5k damage on full charged non crits.

Running Rec/End on claws may sound silly, but its super fun :D