Fiona's Smashes - Best and Worst?

• ZandarEagle wrote on 2010-11-19 08:02
  My main is a Level 33 Fiona, and recently I've been alternating between sword and hammer to find out what are the best (and worst) smashes for each.
  
  My testing is by no means conclusive, but so far, I've discovered that :
  
  1. When fully ranked, Blossom Blow seems to beat Amaranth Kick and Ivy Sweep since you can do more of them in a shorter space of time, and it has more chances to knock down besides.
  
  2. Same deal for Butterfly Swing versus Stigma Hammer. I am finding a fully charged Stigma Hammer very underwhelming in terms of damage...does it have greater knockdown chance or something? You could do 2 whole Stigma Hammers in the time it takes to do 1 fully charged one.
  
  3. The normal smash (Right-Click) for hammer really sucks, whereas the sword one is decent. The hammer one barely does more damage than 2 normal swings, and takes stamina to boot!
  
  4. You may not have time to land a LLR on a boss (either sword or hammer-wise) but a LR seems to be very safe most of the time. Sometimes you can even do Stigma/Amaranth and squeeze in an extra LR.
  
  What does everything else think about Fiona's Smashes? I can't see why the developers would put in the higher tier smashes if they were consistently outperformed by the lower ones. Am I missing out something here?
• Invertex wrote on 2010-11-19 08:27
  (I don't use hammers, so I'm only going to comment on the sword smashes)
  
  Ignoring Combo 0 and 1 (those I tend to reserve for weak mobs). Comparing my experiences with Blossom r9, Ivy Sweep r9, and Amaranth rD.
  Blossom has great damage, and the stun if you do critical is pretty good. My main problem with this is that doing double or triple Blossoms takes up about 30-50 stam, which is quite a lot when you Blossom x2, HSGC, Blossom x2.
  Ivy Sweep has good damage, nothing I'd use practically over Amaranth, the major strength here is that the 3rd hit hits all around you, making it great for weak mobs that swarm you (sort of a sword version of Butterfly Swing).
  Amaranth I use as it's stamina usage is rather low and therefore it's easy to manage. You use 18 or 19 stamina per kick, which is very efficient compared to how much you burn for a Blossom, HSGC, Blossom combo. The damage is the lowest of all of them and it requires an openning, but I still like it more. That and you can always mix and match by doing a Amaranth, HSGC, Blossom x2 (on Vampires).
• heretic304 wrote on 2010-11-19 10:52
  Of all of the smashes I'd have to rank Blade Rose (Sword 0) the worst, since it's quite slow and deals negligible damage. Sprint Smash beats it IMO. Bamboo Splitter (Sword 1) is a nice quick combo that can be used to connect certain combos or in spaces between counters.
  Comparing Ivy Sweep r9, Blossom Blow r8, and Amaranth rA
  
  I'd put Ivy Sweep at the bottom of the stack because its uses are limited mostly to mobs. Against a boss, it's the worst of the 3 to use simply because it has really long animations and terrible cancel times. Blossom Blow at r8 deals a nice amount of damage, but the stamina cost is quite punishing if you do double (28) or triple (44). I tend to stick to the boss with only around half my stamina in reserve, so doing the triple blossom is not exactly a good idea. If I'm at full stamina, I tend to do Triple Blossom more often. Otherwise I will use Amaranth kick due to its low stamina cost (18) for a relatively good amount of damage and high knockdown.
  
  The way I usually do things is Blossoms to knock down, and when the boss is down, depending on its knockdown duration, I'll use a combination of Amaranth and Blossom Blow. If it's an ultra short time, I usually aim for a double blossom at the very least, though so far most bosses allow for at least an Amaranth. Sometimes I'll try to delay the Amaranth so that it hits as soon as the boss stands up, since it provides the greatest knockdown in a single attack, giving me a chance to knock the boss down again. Otherwise I'll usually do Amaranth => Blossom or Amaranth => Double Blossom. If it's something with a ridiculous down time like Dethrone's White Tyrant, I'll miss the normal hits and try to tack on 2 amaranths.
• Cucurbita wrote on 2010-11-19 15:59
  I do the Sprint Smash + Heavy Stander Cancel to get about 5 of them off before the boss can even react.
  
  Then move away or block the boss attack.
  
  Repeat.
  
  Spring Smash does less damage than my normal attack now that I have rank 8 combat mastery.
  
  But its still got excellent stun, object breaking power, and because I'm constantly canceling into heavy stander, I'm actually very safe.
  
  After the boss is stunned I can either:
  
  1. Butterfly Swing for bosses that stay down a short time
  2. Single charge Stigma for bosses that have low stun resistance (as they will usually put them right back down)
  3. Full charge Stigma for bosses that stay down a long time (vampire bosses, for example)
• ZandarEagle wrote on 2010-11-20 04:51
  Hmm, I guess that the real purpose of having so many smashes is to give us more options. When I play, I tend to go all-out for damage whether I'm in a party or solo setting - I don't care how much Stamina I use as long as I don't exceed my maximum (which would render me unable to actually do my combos) I may have to take Stamina into consideration in the future.
  
  I also see not many Fionas use Hammers :)
  
  > 3. Full charge Stigma for bosses that stay down a long time (vampire bosses, for example)
  
  Up against vampire bosses I find that if I am quick, I can actually do Stigma Hammer and then a Butterfly Swing...but yeah, it's not what you would call safe, the Butterfly Swing connects just as the boss is getting up, so I'm still stuck in recovery. I can get the hit in, though!
• Gotejjeken wrote on 2010-11-20 20:29
  Just wondering, did everyone forget Guard r9? Amaranth is a whole lot more viable then, as are the first two hits of Ivy. I've found Triple Blossom to be kind of useless...the animation for it is too long and canceling out of the second and repeating seems to do more damage. I'd say all the smashes are useful of course, it just depends on situation.
• Andy-Buddy wrote on 2010-11-20 20:36

  Quote from Gotejjeken;222875:

  Just wondering, did everyone forget Guard r9? Amaranth is a whole lot more viable then, as are the first two hits of Ivy. I've found Triple Blossom to be kind of useless...the animation for it is too long and canceling out of the second and repeating seems to do more damage. I'd say all the smashes are useful of course, it just depends on situation.

  
  
  Thing about Guard r9 is that:
  1. If you're in a mob, guarding doesn't stop more oncoming attacks, meaning your combo can be stopped midway.
  2. If you're against a boss, the boss doesn't stop/keeps moving meaning its harder for you to make contact.
  
  If its a slow boss, or a few mobs, these problems go away.
• Valedrel wrote on 2010-11-20 22:58
  I use both hammer and sword. I like sword for its speed and i use it to mainly kill mobs, but it takes a couple hits to kill lone enemies. I prefer using a hammer because the animations let me hit enemies behind me and in front of me, like when using a normal hammer 4 smash. I dont use a fully charged stigma hammer because it takes so long to charge and i'm able to do hammer 3 smashes 2X which seem to do more damage, and on the second swing i can possibly stun the enemy. People keep saying ivy kick is for trash mobs but it does do some significant damage to bosses, but blossom blow is always a better choice.