Critical Draw LS [good in theory at least]

[Blerrger19]

I did some looking and it seems like the consensus is Crit Draw got nerfed into oblivion with it's changes from World to Rise, but on paper it's not bad...? In a vacuum, that is.

15%/30%/60% for a "short duration" (2.5s) according to the in-game description. Combined with just x2 Weakness Exploit you've got 90% if not 100% affinity assuming your LS has any affinity.

^on draw attacks, or attacks made during the 2.5s after the initial draw attack...?

Seems to be some debate over how often you actually use draw attacks, but in my experience I'm constantly resetting to Special Sheath. It's basically my neutral. So, constantly. But that's just me....

Why I say this looks good on paper: the Sacred Sheath combo takes maybe 3s, and even if the draw attack itself doesn't benefit from this skill--instead triggering it's activation--the subsequent hits do which almost guarantees those big MV hits will crit!

Hear me out...
With x2 level 3 gems (Crit Draw) I can have as much affinity as x6 level 2 gems (Crit Eye), granted only on draw attacks. I don't know where you can find SIX level 2 slots anywhere, but two level 3 slots is way more attainable.

TLDR While I can certainly see why people think of the changes as a nerf, I think it's working as intended for the purposes of popping BEEG NUMBER on Sacred Sheath combo.

EDIT: However, this all goes out the window if you plan on hunting afflicted monsters. Then it's the Dereliction pipeline...and I really don't want to hear about how recovering from Frenzy gives an affinity boost. That's like saying "did you know fire damage resets frostbite?" on the Elden Ring discussions. Show me some original thought, or begone meta-slaves!

EDIT2: Tired of hearing "it's not the best so it's the worst." This means you Zelph. Not the point of this discussion.

[Zelph]

Its not good at all. 80-100% crit is insanely easy to achieve in rise. Its a waste of a skill that doesn't do much of anything. Just go for raw 100%, rather then situational 100%.

[Blerrger19]

I don't understand how you can say Crit Draw doesn't do much of anything when 60% affinity is more than anything else on the market. Care to elaborate? I get it's situational, and I admit I'm biased as I'm constantly abusing special sheath, but I doubt my playstyle is unique =/

[SuperDS64]

80-100% on all attacks is still better than 100% on only sheath attacks.
Even for LS for example, sakura slash, helm-breaker, and serene pose does not benefit from Crit Draw, otherwise you're missing damage if all you do is special sheath counter + spirit combo finish.
It's very easy to achieve 100% anyway since LS can abuse Max Might instead

[Zelph]

Originally posted by Blerrger19:

I don't understand how you can say Crit Draw doesn't do much of anything when 60% affinity is more than anything else on the market. Care to elaborate? I get it's situational, and I admit I'm biased as I'm constantly abusing special sheath, but I doubt my playstyle is unique =/

50% from wex, 20% from blood lust. Another 30% from crit eye(or 40 from crit eye and 10 from your weapon if you choose). You are already at 100%. Why waste slots on something that gives you 60 for 2 seconds on two moves? Its a waste of time.

[Blerrger19]

Originally posted by SuperDS64:

80-100% on all attacks is still better than 100% on only sheath attacks.
Even for LS for example, sakura slash, helm-breaker, and serene pose does not benefit from Crit Draw, otherwise you're missing damage if all you do is special sheath counter + spirit combo finish.
It's very easy to achieve 100% anyway since LS can abuse Max Might instead

Aware.

I'm probably the biggest Magala fanboy there is, but even I'm tired of hearing about that one armor set that everybody and their mom is using. So let's stop talking about meta things because focusing on what's "optimal" to the exclusion of all else is not a discussion. Ok? Ok.

I wasn't aware Max Might was so easy to trigger. I'll have to start using it since it complements Crit Draw so well.

[Blerrger19]

Originally posted by Zelph:

Originally posted by Blerrger19:

I don't understand how you can say Crit Draw doesn't do much of anything when 60% affinity is more than anything else on the market. Care to elaborate? I get it's situational, and I admit I'm biased as I'm constantly abusing special sheath, but I doubt my playstyle is unique =/

50% from wex, 20% from blood lust. Another 30% from crit eye(or 40 from crit eye and 10 from your weapon if you choose). You are already at 100%. Why waste slots on something that gives you 60 for 2 seconds on two moves? Its a waste of time.

It's 2 slots? but ok.
I assume we're getting 2 wex and 6 crit eye from Nephilim. If that's the case, see above. On the road to MR, before you crafted Nephilim, how did you boost affinity? Genuine question.
In case it wasn't clear in my OP I'm really not interested in talking about Bloodlust, Dereliction, Strife, etc. I'm aware the meta exists, thank you.

[del_bosque_dol]

Critical draw affinity bonus does cover the full sacred sheath 4 attacks including the final spirit roundlash. But the reasons I am not even bothered to equip critical draw is the same reasons Zelph described.

Maximum might skill is what I consider also wasteful, because basically scared sheath is all about moving before launching a devastating combo aiming for monster's weak spots. So what I understand Super D564 comment is more for a special sheath setup.

[Blerrger19]

So my takeaway is Weakness Exploit + Maximum Might before Bloodlust, is that right? EDIT: no wait you said Maximum Might is also a waste. I'll just use Crit Draw and Wex if it makes no difference to you all. I didn't think it would be this hard for someone to say anything other than "Bloodlust 5head" but the juice ain't worth the squeeze at this rate

[Zelph]

Originally posted by Blerrger19:

Originally posted by Zelph:

50% from wex, 20% from blood lust. Another 30% from crit eye(or 40 from crit eye and 10 from your weapon if you choose). You are already at 100%. Why waste slots on something that gives you 60 for 2 seconds on two moves? Its a waste of time.

It's 2 slots? but ok.
I assume we're getting 2 wex and 6 crit eye from Nephilim. If that's the case, see above. On the road to MR, before you crafted Nephilim, how did you boost affinity? Genuine question.
In case it wasn't clear in my OP I'm really not interested in talking about Bloodlust, Dereliction, Strife, etc. I'm aware the meta exists, thank you.

2 slots that you DON'T NEED. You could easily put that towards attack boost, evade extender, evade window, crit element, crit boost, etc etc etc.

Armor set doesn't matter, end game sets are extremely easy to get pretty much whatever you want on. As for progression, wex and crit eye. Its not at all hard to get max crit eye and wex even in base game. Then you can also have maximum might, which as pointed out, is actually decent on longsword. So its question of, do you want something that ALWAYS has 100%, or something that only sometimes has it?

Use what you like its your game after all, but realize that one is better in nearly every scenario.

[SuperDS64]

Originally posted by del_bosque_dol:

Maximum might skill is what I consider also wasteful, because basically scared sheath is all about moving before launching a devastating combo aiming for monster's weak spots. So what I understand Super D564 comment is more for a special sheath setup.

You get full value max might if you SS full charge after already being positioned, most applicable on downed monsters. Other than that, I sometimes let it rip for the super armor to take the hit.
That said, if I'm already Expert 40% + WEX 50% on a 0% weapon, I think more about increasing base attack. (using MM to supplement like if I'm using -25% Amatsu weapon for a specific build)

[Mrs Slitherss]

Its a little odd to call it better in nearly every scenario when with wex you have to be hitting the weak spot to get it to even work. Every player will learn how to fight a monster their own way and SHOULD be aiming for the weak spots but realistically you are not hitting weak spots 100% of the time, especially when its your first time fighting a monster. Same can be said for Maximum might's consistency although to a lesser extent, If I'm out of wire bugs and need to close the distance I'm either rolling over there with my weapon out or running with it sheathed, both of which use stamina and can get rid of the buff if you spend 2 seconds without stamina and then need to wait another 3 seconds for it to proc again. Now is the buff something that can be easily maintained with LS? Yes especially with other skills like stamina surge and constitution it will help you maintain it, but you'll see both skills shine most in the situations when the monster is already down or doing a big windup move like a rawr.

If your goal is to get high crit rate on LS its not a bad option to use crit draw from the fact a lot of the moves LS has is already begging you to use quick sheathe anyways. End your spirit combo? it sheathes your weapon, use sakura slash? it sheathes your weapon, use either Iai slash or sacred sheathe? you need to sheathe your weapon before even attacking. ofc its not going to be "optimal" to run it long term since some of the high damage moves can't be done in 2.5 seconds of drawing but it not as bad as you make it out to be when the rest of your basic attacks are seeing a big crit buff for basically just using the LS kit

As I listed before Maximum Might and wex work best when the monster is down, but same can be said for crit draw too since you can reset a spirit combo really easily with Iai slash letting you do some respectable damage +regen to the spirit gauge.

Tldr: crit draw is good on LS because it help with getting big number but there still are other ways of getting big number if you know the monster well

[Zelph]

Originally posted by Mrs Slitherss:

Its a little odd to call it better in nearly every scenario when with wex you have to be hitting the weak spot to get it to even work. Every player will learn how to fight a monster their own way and SHOULD be aiming for the weak spots but realistically you are not hitting weak spots 100% of the time, especially when its your first time fighting a monster. Same can be said for Maximum might's consistency although to a lesser extent, If I'm out of wire bugs and need to close the distance I'm either rolling over there with my weapon out or running with it sheathed, both of which use stamina and can get rid of the buff if you spend 2 seconds without stamina and then need to wait another 3 seconds for it to proc again. Now is the buff something that can be easily maintained with LS? Yes especially with other skills like stamina surge and constitution it will help you maintain it, but you'll see both skills shine most in the situations when the monster is already down or doing a big windup move like a rawr.

If your goal is to get high crit rate on LS its not a bad option to use crit draw from the fact a lot of the moves LS has is already begging you to use quick sheathe anyways. End your spirit combo? it sheathes your weapon, use sakura slash? it sheathes your weapon, use either Iai slash or sacred sheathe? you need to sheathe your weapon before even attacking. ofc its not going to be "optimal" to run it long term since some of the high damage moves can't be done in 2.5 seconds of drawing but it not as bad as you make it out to be when the rest of your basic attacks are seeing a big crit buff for basically just using the LS kit

As I listed before Maximum Might and wex work best when the monster is down, but same can be said for crit draw too since you can reset a spirit combo really easily with Iai slash letting you do some respectable damage +regen to the spirit gauge.

Tldr: crit draw is good on LS because it help with getting big number but there still are other ways of getting big number if you know the monster well

But you should be aiming for weak spots, nearly, all the time. Why waste time boosting damage of an area that is already bad?

Sheathing your weapon often doesn't make it good. Also, its better to cancel the sheathing animation when you can most of the time, because that means more up time in damage. Regardless if its terrible or not, would you rather 100% crit nearly all the time, or only for 2 or 3 seconds half the time? Its really a no brainer.

None of what you said really makes crit draw any better. There is a reason why you never seen someone with actual experience with longsword use it. I'm usually a comfort over damage guy, but in this case, consistency of damage matters more then a possible slight increase in up time.

[Blerrger19]

Can y'all plz argue the definition of "conditional" somewhere else plz?

[Blerrger19]

Originally posted by SuperDS64:

Originally posted by del_bosque_dol:

Maximum might skill is what I consider also wasteful, because basically scared sheath is all about moving before launching a devastating combo aiming for monster's weak spots. So what I understand Super D564 comment is more for a special sheath setup.

You get full value max might if you SS full charge after already being positioned, most applicable on downed monsters. Other than that, I sometimes let it rip for the super armor to take the hit.
That said, if I'm already Expert 40% + WEX 50% on a 0% weapon, I think more about increasing base attack. (using MM to supplement like if I'm using -25% Amatsu weapon for a specific build)

SS = Sacred Sheath? I did not think of that. It takes about 3s for the full charge, so yeah. Yeah! I like the way you explained that.

[del_bosque_dol]

Originally posted by Zelph:

Originally posted by Mrs Slitherss:

Its a little odd to call it better in nearly every scenario when with wex you have to be hitting the weak spot to get it to even work. Every player will learn how to fight a monster their own way and SHOULD be aiming for the weak spots but realistically you are not hitting weak spots 100% of the time, especially when its your first time fighting a monster. Same can be said for Maximum might's consistency although to a lesser extent, If I'm out of wire bugs and need to close the distance I'm either rolling over there with my weapon out or running with it sheathed, both of which use stamina and can get rid of the buff if you spend 2 seconds without stamina and then need to wait another 3 seconds for it to proc again. Now is the buff something that can be easily maintained with LS? Yes especially with other skills like stamina surge and constitution it will help you maintain it, but you'll see both skills shine most in the situations when the monster is already down or doing a big windup move like a rawr.

If your goal is to get high crit rate on LS its not a bad option to use crit draw from the fact a lot of the moves LS has is already begging you to use quick sheathe anyways. End your spirit combo? it sheathes your weapon, use sakura slash? it sheathes your weapon, use either Iai slash or sacred sheathe? you need to sheathe your weapon before even attacking. ofc its not going to be "optimal" to run it long term since some of the high damage moves can't be done in 2.5 seconds of drawing but it not as bad as you make it out to be when the rest of your basic attacks are seeing a big crit buff for basically just using the LS kit

As I listed before Maximum Might and wex work best when the monster is down, but same can be said for crit draw too since you can reset a spirit combo really easily with Iai slash letting you do some respectable damage +regen to the spirit gauge.

Tldr: crit draw is good on LS because it help with getting big number but there still are other ways of getting big number if you know the monster well

But you should be aiming for weak spots, nearly, all the time. Why waste time boosting damage of an area that is already bad?

Sheathing your weapon often doesn't make it good. Also, its better to cancel the sheathing animation when you can most of the time, because that means more up time in damage. Regardless if its terrible or not, would you rather 100% crit nearly all the time, or only for 2 or 3 seconds half the time? Its really a no brainer.

None of what you said really makes crit draw any better. There is a reason why you never seen someone with actual experience with longsword use it. I'm usually a comfort over damage guy, but in this case, consistency of damage matters more then a possible slight increase in up time.

I think vs Rakna-Kadaki critical draw may be more effective than WEX.