I am new too Champions online. Been trying a few things from Ice, darkness, single blade, and munitions..so far. Have only gone up to level 14 so far. Created a darkness based character that I love and think I'll keep. But my question is simple:

1. Whats the pros and cons of a single blade and dual blade?

2. Building a character based on an ice/sword idea would dual swords be preferred?

And thank you for reading this thread, Enjoying Champions, just wished my internet was faster to play on high quality.

Single Blade works mainly with bleeds, and rupturing them. It is great for boss fights, however, since you can only target one enemy at a time (with the exception of Reaper's Caress w Cleaving Strikes adv), it isn't that great at taking mobs down quickly.
Dual Blades on the other hand is great for mobs, and almost all the powers are PBAoE. It doesn't work with bleeds either. However, make no mistake, Dual Blades is fantastic at what it does

I saw a build here that combines both, but I'm not too sure how well it works

With regards mixing Blade(s) with Ice, I'm not too much of an expert. I just started enjoying the most of my Ice toon, but this is recent, and I'm not too familiar with how a synergy would work yet

http://forums.champions-online.com/s...d.php?t=110987

Single Blade
Super Stats: DEX/STR or DEX/EGO geared for ~70 STR
Play Style: Heavy Sustained DPS with Extreme Bursts
Preferred Passive: Way of the Enlightened Warrior or Lightning Reflexes paired with Bountiful Chi Resurgence (w/ Resurgent Rieki Adv.)
Preferred Block: Parry (w/ Elusive Monk Adv.) or Energy Shield (w/ Laser Knight Adv.)
Key Powers: Reaper's Caress, Reaper's Embrace (w/ No Mercy Adv.), Form of the Unconquered Swordsman (or Unleahsed Tempest)
Secondary Powers: Scything Blade (w/ Swallowtail Cut Adv.), Dragon's Bite, Thunderbolt Lunge
Out of Framework Powers: Beastial Fury (w/ Rip and Tear Adv.), Bite, Submachine Gun (w/ Aggression Adv.)
Reasoning: Single Blade is the king of Single Target Damage, melding both high sustained damage with incredible bursts, and fairly good energy efficiency. Okay, first thing you're going to be asking is why I didn't recommend the Cleaving Strikes Advantage on Reaper's Caress? It's a personal thing, you can use it if you want, just be warned that it does increase the endurance cost to do so. I prefer to keep it Single Target, since everything else in the set revolves around single target damage. Anyways, the technique involves stacking bleeds, then using Reaper's Embrace to Rupture them. Keep in mind, that both Reaper's Embrace and the Rupture can crit separately. You have a choice in Forms as well. Swordsman Form is more predictable and reliable, but Tempest Form works even if you're using alot of out-of-framework powers.

As far as Stats go, DEX is a MUST, as it increases your crit chance, your damage from WotEW, and the damage you gain from stacking Focus from your Form Toggle. STR is slightly less useful, only increasing melee damage and damage from WotEW; you shouldn't need more than 70. Thoguh STR gives you more reliable damage, I've found that I like EGO as my other Super Stat because the crits on Reaper's Embrace and Ruptures can get insane, fast.

Even though Dragon's Bite isn't necessary, it does extend the duration of your bleeds. If you are in a battle where you are getting knocked around, or are having to move in and out of melee range regularly, use it to keep your bleeds going while you leave melee range then make your way back in. That way, you don't have to go back to work reapplying bleeds and can just return to stacking.

The Out of Framework suggestions are simply ways to stack bleeds faster. SMG only applies bleeds if a target isn't already bleeding, but if used in melee will stack 2 bleeds instead of 1, and Bite is the fastest way I have found to stack bleeds past that. I recommend the No Mercy Advantage, since it gives you 2 bleeds 50% of the time, and when you perform your typical stack-chain, you'll max out at 5 and Rupture more quickly.

Dual Blades - Shaolinwind
Super Stats: DEX/EGO geared for ~70 STR
Play Style: Extreme AoE Critical Spike Damage
Preferred Passive: Way of the Enlightened Warrior or Lightning Reflexes paired with Bountiful Chi Resurgence (w/ Resurgent Rieki Adv.)
Preferred Block: Parry (w/ Elusive Monk Adv.) or Energy Shield (w/ Laser Knight Adv.)
Key Powers: Sword Cyclone, Dragons Wrath, Inexorable Tides, Focus of the Unleashed Tempest
Secondary Powers: Eye of the Storm, Thunderbolt Lunge
Out of Framework Powers: Bionic Shield, Energy Shield (w/ Laser Knight Adv.), Active Offense
Reasoning:: A good Dual Blades user is one of the most feared damage dealers in both PvE and PvP right now. To get max efficiency out of this set, you will be focusing on Brawler Role and an offensive passive. Dual blades has two main functions. Dispatching huge numbers of foes at once with sword cyclone in PvE. And completely devastating other players with charged and tapped Dragons Wraths in PvP. 90% of the time, your combo will look like, sheath, thunderbolt lunge, Dragons Wrath (full charge), sword cyclone - heal when needed. The trick is rounding up mobs with thunderbolt lunge, fully charge dragons wrath on one mob for rush energy, then sword cyclone everything to death while tapping Bountiful Chi Resurgence to heal through incoming masses of attacks. The crits add up so fast in a DEX build, with Form of the Unleashed Tempest running, you are hitting over 1k per cyclone tick in no time. You will rarely need masterful dodge unless you over pull, but with the massive AoE damage output you should be fine with just basic healing. This technique can be practiced, tested and works great in the Battle Station Hard/5 mode.

As an alternate style, Eye of the Storm can replace Sword Cyclone. The damage isn't as great, however, the survivability is much higher. While maintianing Eye of the Storm, it acts somewhere bewteen Invuln and a Force Field. It can absorb a flat amount of damage, however, every second this amount increases for as long as you maintain Eye of the Storm. Blade Beyond the Veil helps by reflecting damage back at enemies that are attacking you. This works extremely well against Munitions-based opponents that will be throwing alot of small but fast attacks.

As for Boss Fights or PvP, you'll mainly be focusing on single target damage, so Dragons Wrath taps will take the place of Sword Cyclone in the combo. A bonus to this technique is Dragons Wrath bypasses blocking mitigation and so makes this combo especially deadly on a heavy blocker or Defiance-using enemy.
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cheers

BTW There are this power replaces (adding effects to attacks like ice to blades etc) is there a reason why there are no builds based on them?

Well since I am so new how about I try just a sword style, something basic.

Do you have any advice on a sword style that is dual/single. Personally I prefer going one by one, but on a number of occasions that has screwed me by getting too close to a hoard and....well lets just say some of those walking zombies in canada were me at one time.


Is there a way to make a character balanced between a single individual attack and a crowd attack?

I have a single blade toon that is a ton of fun to play. The only dual blade power I took was sword cyclone. No other AoE necessary, really. I can pop two/three bleeds on a single target in seconds, and rupture em right away - good times.

Sure, If you wouldn't mind sharing I'll test it out. Like before I wanted an ice blade, but a full on swordsmen might be better.

I've seen some swordies use ice wall (I think that's the name)/frozen footsteps and/or snowstorm to great effect in PvP. I dunno how much ice you'd need to make your concept happy, but those powers can help up your contact time with your opponent and boost your ability to sustain dps on a target. (Espeically helpful if you're not going for the one hit, one kill lifestyle of a dex/ego dragon's wrath killing machine.) In PvE...less useful by far, I should think, since mobs pretty much never run from you.

I use this method in making characters (for attacks):

• 2 ST's (single target)
• 1 AoE(or)Cone (PBAoE, or ranged) (Player based Area of Effect)
• 1 Ranged (if not already in previous attacks)

This assures me i'm not wasting too many powers on attacks, and gives me a good attack chain.

GL

SD is more interesting to me. For some reason I find Dual blade boring. Mix Ice in with SB and you have yoursef a nasty little killing machine. Doesn't have the AOE killing power of the DB, but then I like to savor my kills, and play around with the poor wretches a bit. Did I say Kills?? I meant 'arrests'.