TWF with Bastard swords and get Strikethrough? Silly Idea?

[saekee]

Hey just one of those wandering monsters in my head.

Wondering if I could get strikethrough on a TWF build using strikethrough weapons like bastard swords or faux bastard swords (Sun sword/star of day line) outside of Dance of Death. The Bastard swords would be more interesting because of flexibility.

Can it be feasible? Maybe take 12 ranger where TWF line is autogranted and throw in THF feats, take some enhancements? Swap to better weapons on boss fight or one-on-one. I know ranger tempests get crazy strikethrough on Dance of Death, just looking at other options and possibilities, also for a non-ranger class, or a ranger that takes a different Tier 5 like Dark Hunter.

And no, this is not endgame.

 

[Titus Ovid]

Bastard Swords or Dwarven Axe (hand-and-a-half sword) only get striketrough with a shield, orb, rune arm or nothing in your offhand.
I guess it is the same with faux bastard swords.

Cheers,
Titus

 

[Rugar]

Saekee, I haven't tried dual Bswords but I do know that you can get strikethrough with SWF and Bswords. I did it by using the SWF line while leveling and then taking Perfect THF at 22 for the 30% strikethrough and TH Specialty at 31 for another 120%. This combo plus Offhand Versatility made a melee Artificer significantly better for me.

 

[unbongwah]

Wondering if I could get strikethrough on a TWF build using strikethrough weapons like bastard swords or faux bastard swords (Sun sword/star of day line) outside of Dance of Death.

No: "while wielding a Bastard Sword or Dwarven Axe in your main hand and a Shield, Orb, Rune Arm, or nothing in your offhand, your attacks can Strikethrough."

https://ddowiki.com/page/Strikethrough

But flip that around, there is a way to use Dance of Death to enhance other combat styles.

You need to be dual-wielding to activate Dance of Death, but the Strikethrough bonus from DoD will persist if you switch to a 2H weapon or single-wielded hand-and-a-half weapon. So you can dual-wield -> activate Dance of Death -> swap to 2H weapon -> continue melee with +200% Strikethrough for 10 seconds (minus however long it takes to swap weapons). Naturally I'm presuming you've taken all the THF feats as well for +150% Strikethrough; and you start with 20% base Strikethrough. So now you just need another +30% ST to hit the effective cap (400%): e.g., Great Weapon Aptitude + Hail of Blows.

Obviously, this locks you out of other tier-5 Enhancements. And the crit multiplier bonus from Tempest only applies to dual-wielded weapons. But if you do e.g. ranger 5 / paladin 15 for Zeal + Holy Sword, now you've got an universal +1 crit range & multiplier bonus (and +10% doublestrike).

BTW it is possible to take the SWF feat chain on a ranger so long as you take the first SWF feat before ranger 2 (at which point TWF would block SWF). So you could make, say, a dwarf rgr 5 / pal 15 who SWF with dwarven axes and boosts Strikethrough via dwarven Axe Training, Improved Second Strikes, Dance of Death, and (if you get that far) THF Specialty feat. You also get dwarven axes as Favored weapons from racial enhancements and battleaxes as Favored weapons from KotC's Adept Combatant. [EDIT: weapon-swapping will be easier with an orb in your offhand SWF gear set.]

Is there any good reason to go through all this extra effort rather than sticking with dual-wielding? I dunno: if you try it out, let us know how it goes.

 

[unbongwah]

You need to be dual-wielding to activate Dance of Death, but the Strikethrough bonus from DoD will persist if you switch to a 2H weapon or single-wielded hand-and-a-half weapon. So you can dual-wield -> activate Dance of Death -> swap to 2H weapon -> continue melee with +200% Strikethrough for 10 seconds (minus however long it takes to swap weapons).

Demonstrating this with Scourge ranger 5 / paladin 10 and a Barovian maul:

Strikethrough: 200% Dance of Death + 120% THF x3 + 20% Improved Second Strikes (KotC) + 20% base = 360%.

 

[unbongwah]

BTW it is possible to take the SWF feat chain on a ranger so long as you take the first SWF feat before ranger 2 (at which point TWF would block SWF). So you could make, say, a dwarf rgr 5 / pal 15 who SWF with dwarven axes and boosts Strikethrough via dwarven Axe Training, Improved Second Strikes, Dance of Death, and (if you get that far) THF Specialty feat. You also get dwarven axes as Favored weapons from racial enhancements and battleaxes as Favored weapons from KotC's Adept Combatant. [EDIT: weapon-swapping will be easier with an orb in your offhand SWF gear set.]

Used Lamannia to test this on a level 20 dwarf (TWF battleaxes -> Dance of Death -> SWF dwarven axe):

Strikethrough: 200% Dance of Death + 20% Improved Second Strikes (KotC) + 15% dwarven axe training + 20% base + 10% Hail of Blows = 265%

 

[saekee]

Used Lamannia to test this on a level 20 dwarf (TWF battleaxes -> Dance of Death -> SWF dwarven axe):



Strikethrough: 200% Dance of Death + 20% Improved Second Strikes (KotC) + 15% dwarven axe training + 20% base + 10% Hail of Blows = 265%

Thanks for going through so much trouble! Devs will get some weird idea in their heads and nerf this as if it needs nerfing!

I was hoping to find some crazy way to play around with assassinate and TWF strikethrough in order to give assassins some other kind of AoE outside of chains or some other epic destiny/feat that could be fun, especially for leveling. Outside of using Sword and Board and taking the THF line, there does not seem to be much of an option. Sword and Board would have far too slow an attack speed to be worth the trouble and if one takes the THF line, might as well use a Qstaff.

 

[unbongwah]

I was hoping to find some crazy way to play around with assassinate and TWF strikethrough in order to give assassins some other kind of AoE outside of chains or some other epic destiny/feat that could be fun, especially for leveling.

Maybe you could try SWF rogue / bard using one of those short-sword-but-actually-a-bastard-sword weapons?

 

[saekee]

Maybe you could try SWF rogue / bard using one of those short-sword-but-actually-a-bastard-sword weapons?

I did do this! It is what got my brain rolling. The problem is how to get strikethrough high enough in heroics without the THF line. There is a bit in TA.

 

[saekee]

If I can SWF with a Sun Blade (nice d10 base damage, crummy crit profile), swash it with the SWF line (crit profile now decent) I can go tier 5 Frenzied Berzerker (+1 crit profile more as well) which will net me 40 strikethrough (lower tiers), add 20 base plus 50 on vorpals. That is 60-110 strikethrough on fast-hitting SWF with a buckler. So we are looking at 3 Swash/5 barb base here.

Note that we get Supreme Cleave out of barb tree too

The next challenge will be to buff the base damage. We get some boosts from barbarian but I was thinking of what procs for more damage on strikethrough. Do imbues work on strikethrough? A good imbue class to help out would be EK; that would net some spellcasting, defenses and another cleave along with 4 imbue dice if we go 12. Another option is Rogue and get venom imbue plus 3 bonus dice in assassin tree; we could burn AP to get Strikethrough out of TA but not sure it is worth it. Rogue gets sneak damage too, perhaps coupled with a strong bluff and improved feint attack. Or maybe cleric Dark Apostate? That could be fun. Really a wide range of level 12 in another class for buffs.

I like guardbreaking for swashing but I could see an artificer rune arm imbue build here too


I can swap out the Sun Blade on single strong enemies like an end boss.

 

[unbongwah]

Berserker Strikethrough bonuses require THF feats which you can't take with SWF feats as well.