Input on a scoundrel Dlord VKF Swash

[Zaszgul]

Primary goal: Scoundrel pl.

I also originally thought I'd pick up a standard bard pl and set myself on majority bard levels and swashbuckling. After a bunch of theorycrafting I finally checked what the standard bard pl was and realized why I'd done Stormsinger for bard pls in the past

So instead I'm going for a Dragonlord pl to pair with the Scoundrel pl.
It's probably more optimal to rework as a THF, but it has been roughly a decade since I did a swash so I'm going to stick with it. Will TR out of it after earning 42 seeds regardless.

Summary of the build so far:
12 Fighter, 8 Bard
STR based
Swashing with no offhand
heroic feats (7 standard + 7 ftr): tactics aura, damage aura, dodge, mobility, whirlwind, precision, imp crit, swfx3, offhand versatility, stunning blow, spring attack?, weapon focus?
epic feats: OC, weapon spec?, greater weapon focus? greater weapon spec?

Dlord: 35 points (t5 except wings)
VKF: 25 points (t4: 20 melee power, 5 ds, 2 dam)
Swash: 13 points (10 ds for no offhand, runspeed and 3/3 in en pointe - assuming it still has that good animation)
Warchanter: 7 points (skaldic rage, core2 + sprint)

which would leave me 2 rap and 1 general ap to spend.

I'll CC a level 15 dual augment dagger for heroics, switch to drow dagger at 21 which will crit at 13 x4.

Any thoughts? I expect someone to say "haxes" but there aren't any good sentient haxes; drow dagger will be roughly equal to a haxe and rapid slash + deep vkf is strong.

 

[Asterphen]

I am only on my second swashbuckler life right now, so I haven't had much experinece. I opted for buckler sacrificing the 10ds for the ability to use bucklers. I find the benefit of guardbreaking to be exceptional from the bucklers. Additionally gear sets give such a bonus, I appreciate one more slot to fill a set because of the buckler. Maybe one day when I am bored I might swtich swashbuckling style to buckler vs emptyhanded and run a few quests trying to notice the difference. Maybe someone already has and will share their experience. Until then, I will keep using bucklers and wishing I had more dps.

 

[Purr]

1) I find guardbreaker really, really good.
2) Totally agree that epic haxes aren't great, but epic ethereal worked fine to grind out a few lives. Recommend picking something that you'll use on other lives, maybe a kukri?

 

[Asterphen]

I do feel very similar about the handaxe situation. I ran a swashbuckler build up to cap, eTR'd, and I am almost back at cap. I would say for about 99% of the time, I have used kukris and daggers: moonslice, epic midnight greetings, and then goldcursed dagger. At cap, the coldcursed dagger works great at crowd control, but I would switch to the midnight greetings for red name and boss dps (With IC slash and more filigrees, the numbers on the epic midnight greetings just panned out a little better sometimes). The character had/has no raid handaxes in his name. I did try using the firesplitter from Trouble with Tar Pits, but I was very underwhelmed with the dps of the firesplitter despite the crit profile and range. I did purchase a dino handaxe and filled two slots with debuff properties. I was pleasantly surprised with the increase in boss/red name dps which is what I will use at cap for the meantime. I am planning on leaving the character/build at cap for a while so the plan is to purchase the handaxe from fire over morgrave with runes and upgrade to the lightning paralyzation. I feel that will be a great combo of dps and crowd control. So I agree that the lack of handaxes is an issue, I feel it matters how long you plan to play at cap. Since your expected goal is only for scoundrel pl, it does not make sense to farm handaxes. I do not have the weapon master drow dagger, so I did not have that option.

 

[Zaszgul]

Guardbreaking is definitely nice, but with a DLord split I expect to have stuff pretty well locked down between roar and (maybe) stunning blow such that any other cc would offer poor opportunity cost.

Other good weapons for combining with +2 mult from Dlord or barb:
Epic Cutthroat's Smallblade (shortsword): +2 threat
Epic Mirage (scimitar) +2 threat; if you splash 3+ ranger levels the 2nd tempest core allows swashing with scimitars.

both of which will have equivalent crit profiles to either of the L20 sentient haxes that currently exist (13x4 vs 15x5), and are easy to get.

These have the advantage of being L20 instead of drow dagger's L21, but likely lower overall dps due to lack of VKF.

Mirage is easily the stronger of the two if you can complete the set bonus (and want to splash ranger, in which case I'd go at 4+ for Ram's Might). Definitely stronger than either haxe, except with adrenaline (I hate using adrenaline).

 

[Zaszgul]

Just an update for anyone curious: now at level 28 and this has proven to be quite strong, much moreso than I expected. Soloing R4 it has more than enough aoe dps to cut through just about everything like it's not even there. Survivability is great, as you'd expect from reliable aoe cc + dps (max dodge, uncanny dodge and bard cures don't hurt either). Red names go down fast too.

Originally I thought THF would be better, but now I think this might be stronger overall -- once you hit the point of "enough aoe" you don't really need more, and single target dps is stronger as SWF.